Critical Race Praxis and the Troubled Road: Justice, Self-Determination, and Protracted Struggle in Education

• In Event: Expanding the Possibilities for Critical Race Praxis in Education Across Multiple Contexts

Abstract

Research with students and families in school and community spaces are important to engage from the perspective of co-constructor or co-collaborator. Encapsulated in this approach is the understanding that any work towards the larger justice project in education will sometimes require making tough, uncomfortable decisions that often have the potential to isolate scholars from the groups they work with (Tuhiwai Smith, 2012). From Critical Race Praxis (CRP) in legal studies I incorporate the tenets of Yamamoto’s working definition of race praxis from the Interracial Justice text.

• Conceptual: Examining the racialization of a controversy and the interconnecting influences of heterosexism, patriarchy, and class while locating that examination in a critique of the political economy (Yamamoto 1999, p. 130).
• Performative: Answering the question as to what practical steps are responsive to the specific claim and who should act on that claim (p. 131).
• Material: Inquiring into changes, both socio-structural and the remaking of the democratic structure of public institutions, in the material conditions of racial oppression. Examples would include access to fair housing, health care, quality education, employment, etc. (p. 132).
• Reflexive: Commitment to the continual rebuilding of theory in light of the practical experiences of racial groups engaged in particular antiracist struggles (ibid).

From these tenets, the presentation is an attempt to discuss how they operate on the ground in the attempt to remain responsible to a community-driven initiative. In the scope of this particular research, CRP locates the stories of people of color in the US and the larger world as historically relevant and valid. With this in mind, the remainder of the presentation seeks to explore, grapple with and reflect on three impressions.

• The utilization of CRP to inform the process of creating an urban high school across political, social, economic, and racial boundaries.
• The responsibility of critical race scholars in education to community-driven efforts.
• Critical analysis of the tacit and explicit challenges, tensions, moments of clarity and small victories imbued in the process of community members, students, teachers, families, and researchers in negotiating strife between hegemonic educational systems and community self-determination to create an urban high school.

In addition to the aforementioned impressions, one question the presentation grapples with is: How can CRP make real its connection to the material conditions of people’s lives (Yamamoto & Su 2006, pp. 390-391). As method, Yamamoto suggests that race praxis is characterized by reflective action (ibid.) Such reflection is based on the application of theoretical concepts to the work done in solidarity with communities, and the recasting of said concepts in relation to our on-the-ground experiences. By using this process, I frame communication between myself, members of the design team, community organizations, Chicago Public Schools (CPS), and the respective Latino/a and African-American communities of two Chicago communities as work within the nexus of engaged community scholarship, CRP.

Author

• David O. Stovall, University of Illinois at Chicago