Educational Policy and the Cultural Politics of Race

• In Event: Educational Policy and the Cultural Politics of Race

Abstract

Traditional educational policy research engages the concept of race primarily in analyses of inequitable access to resources, and studies of racially disproportionate school outcomes. While important, few scholars who engage these frames attend to the cultural politics of race—that is, the discursive processes through which the “common sense” about race, racisms, and racialized bodies is produced. Thus, the theme for the 2016 Politics of Education Association Yearbook is “Educational Policy and the Cultural Politics of Race.” In this session, the editors and some of the contributors will share insights based on the questions which motivated our work on this project: Thus, we organize this issue of Educational Policy or the Peabody Journal of Education around a set of interrelated questions: 1)How are racial representations and racial ideologies implicated in educational policy formation, implementation, and/or in the development of reforms?; 2)How does the hegemonic cultural politics of race serve to maintain white material dominance in access to educational resources even after decades of education reforms intended to “level the playing field” and provide greater educational equity?; 3) How do we theorize and make sense of how the state is situated and/or situates itself in relation to racial equity discourse, especially as the state puts forth specific educational policy initiatives?; and 4) How do we theorize and make sense of radical disruptions of policies and policy processes by people from across educational sectors (e.g., communities, youth, educators, education leaders, policy makers), and advance alternative imaginations of educational policy reform?

Authors

• Nelson Flores, University of Pennsylvania

• Sherick A. Hughes, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill