Race in education, anti-racist activism and the role of white colleagues: listening to the voices of African American educators

This dissertation interprets the stories of five African American educators and the ways in which they view and experience manifestations of race and racism in schools. Guided by a critical race methodology that frames race as an analytical lens for research conducted on the work and lives of people of color, the researcher conducted in-depth, phenomenological interviews as well as a focus group with the educators to investigate their day-to-day experiences as they attempt to navigate the processes and discourses in schools through which racism often emerges. The study also examines the extent to which the educators acknowledge, and are critical of, structures that impede the academic progress of students of color. Finally, it explores their perspectives on the role of white colleagues in anti-racist work in schools. Whereas other traditional research epistemologies, paradigms, and theories have explained the experiences of people of color in ways that have silenced and distorted their experiences with racism, these educators' racialized experiences are viewed as sources of resistance and strength. Consequently, in the tradition of Critical Race Theory, those experiences are presented as counter-narratives: narratives that speak against the dominant stories told about the impact and effects of racism. Those experiences also serve as the basis for a critical analysis of the daily functioning of schools that centers the role played by race. While the counternarratives reveal the diversity of microaggressions that influence the work and lives of these educators, the critical analysis exposes the ways in which racism and racist views are embedded into school structures, processes, and discourses. Working symbiotically, those structures, processes, and discourses serve as the instruments through which boundaries and barriers are created and maintained. Consequently, race-based inequities and exclusionary practices become institutionalize. Concluding with a call to action, the study suggests that if we desire to address the issues illuminated by the educators' experiences in concrete ways that result in tangible, material benefits for both educators and students of color, it will be the responsibility of those most directly positioned to bring about such change - school administrators and schools and colleges of education