Behind Closed Doors: Biracial Students' Experiences in Educational Spaces

• In Event: 72.020 - Education Expanded: Youth Learning Places and Youthspaces

Abstract

In “Behind closed doors,” the first panelist analyzes data from a case study on Black/white biracial youth. In this paper, the author considers how biracial youth navigate race in educational spaces? And how partnerships can be created to reimagine equity and educational opportunities for biracial youth based on their descriptions of youth learning places? Biracial student populations are growing rapidly (Fryer et al., 2012) and there is a growing interest in the topic of mixed race children (Chang, 2015). Yet, the experiences of biracial students in schools are largely under-theorized (Williams; 2009; Winn-Tutwiler, 2016). This gap in research is important since the population of biracial/multiracial students is doubling every ten years. Various factors such as the census, law, and social norms (Chang, 2015), contribute to public erasure of this group. To interrupt this erasure, the author uses a theoretical framework informed by critical race theory (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 2006) to contextualize the permanence of racism and the legalized rejection of multiracial people. More specifically, Multicrit, in which Harris (2016) introduces a framework which includes (1) monoracism, (2) colorism, (3) differential microracialiation, (4) Intersections of multiple racial identities- to explore the racisms faced by multiracial people.  
Case studies (Marshall & Rossman, 2006) with five families in Midwest City were conducted in 2016. Case studies include interviews with educators, family members, and biracial (Black-white) students (ages 11-21) about their perspectives on biracial students’ experiences with education. Biracial students’ intersectional identities varied greatly (i.e., phenotype, socioeconomics, family dynamics), and attended schools in various contexts. The author, as a white motherscholar (Matias & DePouw, 2016) of three biracial sons, leverages her lived experiences in the analysis of data. In this process, the author conducted focused coding (Saldaña, 2009) of the entire data set looking for issues related to navigating racialized spaces. Two themes emerged regarding how youth navigate spaces: Floating, the ability to move freely between racialized spaces; and Fighting, where biracial youth were caught between the social construction of monoracism and colorism, which had adverse impacts on their educational experiences.
The title generates from a scenario involving one family’s neighbor who they suspected to be racist, but who sent conflicting messages through her actions. The white mother in this family described, “It’s always different, what you see or what you hear, than what goes on behind people’s closed doors.” Using the notion of closed doors to represent contemporary realities faced by biracial youth, and conflicting messages that they receive about race, the author analyzes ways in which educators and parents make sense of the realities of race for these youth, and the ways in which youth analyze differential microracialization, monoracism, and colorism. The impact of what happens behind closed doors at individual, institutional, and systemic levels are discussed in regard to the educational spaces available to these students. Based on recommendations and continued engagement with these families and educators, creative partnerships with the educators, families, and youth themselves are discussed as a way to reimagine cross-racial and multiracial learning opportunities.

Author

• Joy Howard, University of Southern Indiana