Show Me Your Smile: BIPOC Students Navigating Predominately White Rural Educational Institutions

• In Event: Sunday Roundtable Session 11:25 am
  In Roundtable Session: Turning Whiteness Against Whiteness (Table 24)

Abstract

Rural cities and towns are seeing increases in diverse families and students, which is not what many teachers and students have grown accustomed to experiencing. The changes are welcomed in some aspects of rural society, but in many spaces BIPOC students find themselves amidst racial tensions and histories that created toxic academic environments. Noticing this, we created a yearlong mentor program for BIPOC students at a rural high school, and the artistic ways they captured their lived experiences in a mural. This ethnographic study explores the ways participants came to create their multimodal mural piece and how critical multimodal literacies helped us center on students’ stories and the role of overt and covert racism that emerged in their art.

Authors

• Dorian Harrison, The Ohio State University

• Cory T. Brown, The Ohio State University - Newark

• LaToya Tingle, The Ohio State University