Recognizing Politics of Affect and Constructions of Racialized Deviance in Science and Mathematics Classrooms

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 1:30 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3
  In Roundtable Session: Racialized Feeling in Mathematics and Science Classrooms (Table 9)

Abstract

There are ongoing discourses in education that portray students of color as deficient and in need of correction. Such constructions essentially resemble patterns of racialization. This study focuses on a particular aspect of racialized deviance—correcting and adjusting student affect—through examining ethnographic data collected in a fourth-grade classroom. Building on theorizations of racialized affect and racialized deviance, the author argues that scholarly and educational tendencies to attribute lack of emotional, attitudinal, motivational, psychological, and developmental qualities to certain students can actively reinscribe racialized deviance. This study joins the increasing scholarly discourses that call into question naturalized assumptions and practices that locate problems as within students.

Author

• Wan-Yue Zhan, National Taiwan Normal University