Disrupting Antiblackness in the Pursuit of Educational Equity, Truth, and Justice

Session Type: Invited Speaker Session

Abstract

The educational outcomes for Black students in P-20 systems in the US have been studied for over a century, with a plethora of voices contributing to the discussion on root causes and potential solutions to disrupt unequal schooling opportunities. More recently, scholars have moved to a different theoretical framework that examines and explains age-old structural racism, low-expectations, unequal funding, and non-relevant curriculum, and have framed it around anti-Blackness. ross (2020) asks us to reimagine an analysis for Black students’ experiences in schools and states:

anti-Blackness in education then, is about conceptualizing the experiences of Black students in schools through a different lens. Rather than dismissing work that, for example, interrogates the ways Black children are disproportionately referred out of the classroom, suspended, expelled, assaulted, arrested and so forth, we might ask ourselves what changes when we explore these racialized realities through the lens of anti-Blackness in education? (p.9)

It is the lens of anti-Blackness that this group of scholars come together to offer manifestations of how it plays out in schools, and offer analysis and empirical data on how to dismantle anti-Blackness. These scholars do not try to make the case that anti-Blackness exists, much in the way that critical race scholars have contended that racism is normal (Ladson-Billings, 2021), anti-Blackness scholars contend that the educational policies, practices, and procedures render Black youth as invisible and “beyond love” (Duncan, 2005). Hence, as this year’s conference theme lifts up the salience of consequential truths in research, it is important to identify the practices policies, and procedures that humanize Black life in schools. AERA President Rich Milner has asked scholars to engage research that is in the pursuit of truth, and to engage in research that informs public policy, practice and, concurrently, interrogate to ensure equitable processes and results. Arguably, no other group of students are in need for more equitable educational opportunities and outcomes than Black youth. The proposed sessions offer an analysis where issues around care, Black literacy and curriculum, emancipatory frameworks, and agentive counter spaces for Black youth are not just theorized, but identified, analyzed, and discussed through a lens of how the narratives, works and language of Black youth anchor our understanding. Critical to the work of anti-Blackness is reimagining spaces for Black youth, and here ross (2020) reminds us again that fugitivity is vital and must be part of our rethinking and reframing the educational experience, by contending that “Black educational fugitive space is a necessary weapon Black students may wield against their anti-Black experiences in schools.” (p.10). These collections of papers offer cogent examples of Black fugitivity and provide what Jarvis Givens (2021) says is a “framework for learning that contests ideas of black inferiority” (p.29). Furthermore, anti-Blackness as a conceptual frame provides a new insight into what scholars for over a century have contended happens to Black students in US schools in their pursuit of freedom, and the pressing need to resist and fight in order to create something different, whether it be in the context of current schools, or outside of them. Anti-Blackness lifts up and illuminates important truths that have important implications for educational research, practice, and policy.
Session Significance
The education of Black youth continues to be an area of inquiry. The challenges that Black students face remain the same in the face of racism, dehumanization, and structured policies and ingrained policies that create obstacles for their success. The need to name race, racism, and specifically anti-Black racism is important in this moment of truth, dare we say consequential truth. Our research, science, and evidence must move to identify methods, theories, curriculum, instruction, evaluation, and evidence that exemplifies where and how anti-Blackness occurs, and how it is disrupted. In this ongoing pandemic era with over a million deaths, a national youth mental health crisi, growing educator and staff shortages and calls for a racial reckoning are just a few of the characteristics that influence the current state of education This session has great relevance for education systems, racial justice advocates, and researchers looking to explore truths, methods and frameworks that seek to capture the complexities of what Solórzano & Perez Huber (2020) refer to as every day racism for Black students at P-20 education levels. Even more importantly, there is a new sense of urgency around research partnerships that center on solutions, guided by how to best serve Black youth, educators, communities, and school systems to highlight the consequential truths in pursuit of racial justice.

Sub Unit

• AERA Presidential Session

Chair

• Tyrone C. Howard, University of California - Los Angeles

Papers

• Don't Just Tell Me, Show Me: Exploring Culturally Congruent Care for Black Students in Pre-K–20 Institutions - Jaleel R. Howard, University of California - Los Angeles; Brianna Marche' Harvey, California State University - Fullerton

• Black Studies as the Study of the World: Taking Antiblackness to SCALE in New York City Public Schools - Sonya Douglass, Teachers College, Columbia University

• "Young, Literate, and Black ... and That's a Fact!" Black Teen Literacy as Agentive Acts Toward Justice and Thrival - Jevon D. Hunter, Buffalo State University - SUNY

• Third Spaces to Increase Black Student Outcomes - Keara L. Williams, University of California - Los Angeles; Gene F McAdoo, University of California - Los Angeles

Discussant

• Kihana Miraya Ross, Northwestern University