520 - Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Paper Session. Toward a Sociological Critical Race Theory

Session Submission Type: Paper Session 100min

Description

Critical race theory is an intellectual tradition that grew out of an intellectual and demographic moment in the law school academy. In the early post-civil rights era, African American students and faculty found that despite having new access to what had been exclusively white law schools, they were confronted with embedded white norms and logic in legal institutions and the law. Moreover, as the 1970s progressed into the 1980s, these legal intellectuals found that the hard won legal victories resulting from the Civil Rights Movement were being stalled by a legal rhetoric concerning racism and discrimination that limited the definitions of these concepts to only the actions of hostile individuals. Critical race theoretical perspectives sought to challenge this post-civil rights rhetorical frame by explicating the relevance of the legal structure, with its systemically embedded an relatively permanent elements of white privilege, power, and wealth. As well, critical race scholars called for the inclusion of the experiences, histories, and perspectives of people of color as a central component of knowledge production. Since its origins in the legal academy, critical race theory has proliferated in a broad range of disciplines, from education, to the social sciences, to kinesiology. Yet specifically because the origins of critical race theory engaged investigation into both the racialized institutions and structure (though this was often limited to legal institutions and structure) as well as the relationship between institutions, structures and individuals (in sociological terms, agents), critical race theory can be a particularly useful theoretical lens for sociologists of race and racism. This session seeks papers that utilize a critical race theory approach and/or engage the tenets of critical race theory in sociological analyses, or consider race theory in connection to other race critical sociological paradigms including Black sociology, racialized social systems, systemic racism, etc. International/global perspectives are welcome!

Sub Unit

• Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities / Toward a Sociological Critical Race Theory

Individual Presentations

• But Those Students Need Discipline! Race, Safety, and Discipline in Texas Public Schools - Kay Sarai Varela, Texas A&M University

• From Discovery to Cobell: Critical Race Theory and the Construction of the American Indian - James V. Fenelon, California State University, San Bernardino

• Holding Our Institutions Accountable for Latina/o Educational Attainment - Kimberly A. Mahaffy, Millersville University

• Rethinking Racial Progress: Racism as a Fundamental Cause - Victor E. Ray, The University of Tennessee--Knoxville; Louise Seamster, University of Tennessee-Knoxville

• Black Faces at the Front of the Classroom: How Race Still Matters - Barbara Harris Combs, Clark Atlanta University

Discussant

• Wendy Leo Moore, Texas A&M University