"Power Never Really Agrees to Disagree": Challenging Systemic Racism With Intertextuality in School Board Meetings

• In Event: Exploring Students' Sense of Belonging and the Home-School Connection

Abstract

In this paper, we examine community advocates’ discursive strategies toward anti-racist policies during school board meetings in a suburban school district in the U.S. Southwest. Specifically, we focus on instances of intertextuality in which community members used board members’ own words against them. The community’s efforts resulted in a district-wide equity resolution. We address the following question: How did Black community members use intertextuality to intervene in systemic racism within the context of school board meetings? With this focus, we align with the AERA 2020 theme by elucidating the discursive strategies of advocacy as mechanisms of change at the organizational level—specifically the school district level. Our proposal helps to broaden the definition of “organizational stakeholders” to include community advocates.

Authors

• Melanie Bertrand, The University of Arizona

• Carrie Sampson, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College Arizona State University