The Intersections of Ideology, Identity, and Learning in an Alternative Space for African American Male Students

• In Event: The Critical Importance of Race and Racialization When Considering How People Learn, What Should Be Taught and By Whom, and to What Ends

Abstract

Recent waves of scholarship have begun to attend to the intersections of race, identity and learning, with a focus on how these intersections overlap with the schooling experiences and learning opportunities afforded marginalized youth of color (Bell, Tzou, Bricker, & Darrow-Baines, in press; Lee, 2007; Gutierrez & Vossoughi, 2010). These studies tend to be rooted in sociocultural approaches to the study of identity and learning (Rogoff, 2003; Wenger, 1998), and have highlighted the structures and interactions in learning practices that support (and those that fail to support) the learning of marginalized students. The unit of analysis of these studies are often finite learning settings or interactions that are not explicitly examined in relation to the ideologies of race, racism, and racialization that structure and inform learning spaces, interactions, opportunities, and experiences.

In this paper we take a multi-level approach and both theorize about the connections between racial ideology, identity, and learning and analyze how these connections play out in learning settings and the interactions that occur there. Specifically, we analyze empirical data from Manhood Development Program classes being taught at 3 schools in the Oakland Unified School District that are geared towards improving African American male student achievement outcomes. These classes are all-male, all-Black spaces, and are taught as a regular part of the school day, with instructors who are themselves African American males. The content focuses on developing students’ critical racial consciousness, supporting racial and academic identities, and providing supportive relationships for Black male youth within the school walls.

We draw upon Althusser’s (1971) theories about how institutions function through ideology to hail or position subjects, and Leonardo’s (2005) framing of these theories to consider the racialized nature of ideology, in order analyze the year-long video data (collected in the MDP classes at the 3 schools), and from observational and interview data from the instructors (n=3). Preliminary findings indicate that 1) the instructors enact their own organic theories about the connections between racial ideology, racial identities and learning; 2) The instructors attempt to develop their classrooms as safe, productive learning spaces that racially reframe and rehail students; and 3) that instructors see this rehailing/reframing as integral to the creation of opportunities to learn and the opening up of learning spaces to be inclusive to African American male students. Findings show that instructors create a hybridized school space based upon their developing theories about the relation between racial ideology, student identities and their opportunities to learn; and that these theories inform their practice and create new opportunities for Black male students to develop identities as learners and to learn.

Authors

• Nailah Suad Nasir, University of California - Berkeley

• Maxine Ramona McKinney de Royston, University of California - Berkeley

• Kihana Miraya Ross, University of California - Berkeley

• Jarvis Ray Givens, University of California - Berkeley

• Sepehr Vakil, University of California - Berkeley