Racial Literacy for All: Fostering a Less Separate and More Equal Educational System

• In Event: Reconceptualizing "Diversity" for Socially Just Education: Research Themes From Early Childhood to Higher Education

Abstract

A desired outcome of racial literacy in an outwardly racist, heteronormative society like America is for teachers to do the honest, deep self-work that is required to practice critical love— a profound commitment to demonstrating care for all members of the community in which they are working (Sealey-Ruiz, 2021). It is also necessary for members of the dominant racial category (as are about 80% of the nation’s teachers) to adopt an antiracist stance and for persons of color to resist a victim stance. Racial literacy in classrooms is the ability to read, discuss, and write about situations that involve race or racism, and apply this understanding to everyday living situations. This chapter puts forward the notion that racial literacy facilitates and enhances learning about all aspects of identity, inclusive of sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression, as necessary components for teaching in racially and ethnically diverse classrooms because it empowers students to understand how race and identity affect our lives, relationships, and experiences. This chapter articulates a vision for using the racial literacy development model to queer the secondary English classroom.
Most teacher education graduates, however, complete their programs without having experienced deep and sustaining conversations about race, sexual orientation, gender, and gender identity, and their impact on the teaching and learning process. In many school districts, teaching and learning that are inclusive of identity are even contested. When these teachers enter their schools and classrooms, they are not prepared to work with a diverse student body. Conversely, teachers who develop racial literacy are able to enact humanizing pedagogy and engage in creating curricula that honor and celebrate identity and students, in part, by engaging students in sophisticated critiques of literature, media, and the society in which they live.
Drawing on research from the first author’s qualitative practitioner study of her ninth grade English class and a queer-themed young adult (YA) book club curriculum, this chapter explores the challenges and opportunities of engaging in identity work that supports racial literacy development, as theorized by the second author, in the service of improved relationships and academic outcomes for students, especially queer, transgender, non-binary BIPOC. This work is even more important in racially and ethnically diverse classrooms as it invites students to critically analyze normative constructions of race, gender, and sexual orientation; connect their lived experiences to reading and writing and claiming their space in society; engage in humanizing discourse that supports queer, transgender, non-binary youth of color—who are currently the most marginalized group in our society.

Authors

• Jennifer McLaughlin Cahill, University of Pennsylvania
  Presenting Author

• Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, Teachers College, Columbia University
  Presenting Author