Critical Race Perspectives on Narrative Research in Education: Centering Intersectionality

• In Event: 34.043 - "Powerful, Empirically Driven, and Multimodal Narratives...and Statistics": Expanding the Reach of Critical Race Theory

Abstract

Critical race scholars have engaged in narrative research as a methodological approach for the last 20 years to critique curriculum, policy, and school and teacher practices in formal learning environments (Duncan, 2005; Ladson-Billings, 2009; Parker & Lynn, 2002; Solórzano & Yosso, 2001).  However, there is no singular work that specifically unites narrative research in education with intersectionality through the deployment of counter-storytelling in Critical Race Theory (CRT).  The authors focus on the ways in which centrality of intersectionality can prove to be important for critical race scholarship that utilizes narrative research as a methodological approach.
Using examples from research projects focused on Black teacher educators at a predominantly White institution, the authors explain how a narrative approach, combined with centralizing intersectionality can prove to be important for critical race scholarship that documents interlocking markers of oppression and subjugation in K-12 schools and university settings. Women of color possess a double-bind narrative; we must be able to understand and operate the general master narrative as well as the master narrative of White women while living the counterstory of Black/Latino people and, specifically, Black/Latina women. Counter-storytelling from this perspective highlights the nuances of the lived experiences that are designed to debunk myths and challenge misconceptions of oppressed peoples. Counter-storytelling for intersectional identities is a cure for the silencing and/or marginalization for women of color as it challenges essentialization as women and moves to thwart the normalness and ordinariness of racism  For example, when a Black woman faculty member at a university files an EEOC complaint against her White female department chair on the grounds of sexism because the department chair makes decisions and provides opportunities that benefit White male faculty members and the EEOC office finds no evidence of discrimination simply because the department chair is a woman. The authors address the ways in which narratives can be positioned, from a CRT perspective, to serve as documentations of curricular outcomes, teacher practices, and student experiences. Narrative research for intersectionality (1) focuses on multiple inequalities embedded in identities and intersecting forms of oppression, (2) avoid hierarchies of oppression, (3) articulate experiences at least one of the three forms of intersectionality, (4) center the voice(s) of the multiply burdened, and (5) use counter-storytelling to provide alternative realities to debunk the master narrative(s).
As a critical race scholar, it is imperative to engage in this work from the space of identity central to the experiences expressed, focusing on the notion of intersectionality as method. Valuing experiences as knowledge is significant to narrative research positioned for intersectionality. As a critical race scholar engaging with intersectionality, narrative exists at the crossroads of these experiences. An intersectional praxis of narrative research considers the whole-ness of narrative, as both phenomenon and inquiry, positioned with the lived experiences.

Authors

• Theodorea Regina Berry, San José State University

• Elizabeth Bowers Cook, Our Lady of the Lake University