Reimagining Black children’s educational realities in a White-dominant digital society

• In Event: Roundtable Session 1
  In Refereed Roundtable Session: Decoloniality and inclusive education

Proposal

The COVID-19 pandemic brought havoc to the world as individuals were forced to modify their daily lives and adapt to confinement and uncertainties regardless of their socioeconomic, educational and ethnic backgrounds. For teachers across the globe, it meant shifting from in-person to an online platform, teaching their students from a distance with little to no training (Klapproth et al., 2020; MacDonald & Hill, 2022; Robinson et al., 2023; Tarkar, 2020; Van Nuland et al., 2020). Similarly, during the transitioning and uncertainty of teaching methodology, Black children experienced more hardships compared to their white counterparts; they experienced microaggressions and discrimination as their white teachers gave them less time and attention, barred them from engagement, and overlooked, dismissed and discouraged their engagement (Essien & Wood, 2024; James, 2021; Sefa Dei & Lewis, 2021; Wright et al., 2023). Moreover, added to the educational inequities that exist in the West education system where Black students have low achievement rates, high expulsion rates and harsher forms of discipline than their white counterparts (Bernstein, 2017; Crenshaw et al., 2015; Eddo-Lodge, 2020; Nxumalo, 2021), COVID-19 pandemic continues to exacerbates these inequalities. Therefore, this submission for a roundtable presentation intends to reimage Black children's educational realities by foregrounding their experiences during COVID-19. The presentation draws on the counter-storytelling framework adopted from critical race theory (Delgado & Stefancic, 2017; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995) to expose, resist and challenge the dominant narratives and welcome experiences and perspectives of marginalized Black children (Ladson-Billings, 1998). Counter-storytelling offers guidance not only in understanding the social situations of Black children but also in questioning the racial hierarchies in schooling and transforming schooling for the better (Ladson-Billings, 1998). There is an urgent need to address the challenges Black children experience in the post-COVID era to ensure that education is inclusive and that the contribution of Black children to digital learning is valued. The presentation invites discussions that could inform, educate, provoke and critically challenge our thinking to envision the future of Black children’s education in white-dominant spaces within a digital context.

Author

• Kamogelo Amanda Matebekwane, University of Regina