Confronting Racism for the Purpose of Conducting Anti-racist PDS Research

• In Event: Advancing School-University Partnerships and Professional Development Schools Through National Research

Abstract

If PDS research is to accept responsibility for an increasingly diverse student population, particularly students whose cultural and racial backgrounds are positioned as subordinate castes relative to the dominant group, theoretical perspectives within this unique field will need to be adjusted in order to align to produce critical research agendas that disrupt the status quo of racism in our PDS contexts. To address the research question; Why should PDS research establish a critical race orientation, and what are the barriers, challenges, and possibilities of critical theories in our scholarship? this chapter draws primarily from critical race theory as a theoretical framework. Narrative inquiry is also used as a method and tool to explore the racial and cultural milieu embedded in the storied experiences of the author.
Findings reveal themes of chronic racial micro-aggressions and distorting go-to everday approach of whiteness in PDS spaces, which suggests that a critical race analysis may be useful to uncovering the problematic consequences of silence about race and racism within PDS research. This chapter concludes with a discussion of relevant implications for PDS praxis and research.

Author

• Morgan Faison, University of Georgia