Abul Pitre - Multicultural Education for Educational Leaders: Critical Race Theory and Antiracist Perspectives

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD

Lanham Boulder New York London

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ISBN 978-1-4758-1400-2 (cloth : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-4758-1401-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-4758-1402-6 (electronic)

TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. John 8:32

The truth in American society with regard to diversity and race relations remains elusive. As I write this foreword, protesters are marching in Ferguson, MO because of the shooting death of an unarmed African American teenager by a White police officer. This death comes on the heels of another, in New York City, of an African American male who was placed in a choke hold by a police officer. Unfortunately, these kinds of deaths are not new or shocking; among others, memories of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed African American high-school student shot to death by a neighborhood watch coordinator, still resonate.

The truth is that far too many African Americans have horror stories about their interactions with the police. Too often African Americans are stereotypically viewed as criminals, suspects, troublemakers, drug dealers, and any number of other things. But the problem doesnt stop there. If American law enforcement on the street can act on preconceived notions about people of color, how can Americas public schools be safe for American children of color?

The United States of today is an obviously racially and ethnically diverse nation. Demographic projections indicate that by 2040, Hispanic, African American, and Asian populations will increase to the point that Whites will comprise 50.1% of the total population (Brooks, 2012). This shift will have profound implications for K-12 education. Currently, most of the countrys increasingly diverse student population is being taught and led by teachers and administrators who are predominantly White (Tillman, 2003). This is not to imply that we must exclusively have educators of color working with students of color. More important is the attitude and expectations of teachers and school leaders (McCray & Beachum, 2014, p. 92).

In the United States, the truth is that most Americans have been born into homogeneous communities (majority White, majority African American, majority Hispanic, etc.). As we mature, we are molded and shaped by our experiences in our particular community (Harro, 2000); we absorb and internalize its values, beliefs, stereotypes, and practices (Tatum, 1997; 2007). Although many educators claim that they are neutral and unbiased, all human beings have biases: complete neutrality is extremely difficult if not impossible. To complicate matters, the overarching message that gets repeated situates people of color as inferior to Whites (Zamudio, Russell, Rios, & Bridgeman, 2011). In schools, this attitude seems to lead to overaggressive discipline applied to students of color, lowered expectations of these students, and/or a deficit perspective overall. Villegas and Lucas (2002) wrote:

Teachers [and school leaders] looking through the deficit lens believe that the dominant culture is inherently superior to the cultures of marginalized groups in society. Within this framework, such perceived superiority makes the cultural norms of the dominant group the legitimate standard for the United States and its institutions. Cultures that are different from the dominant norm are believed to be inferior... Such perceptions inevitably lead teachers to emphasize what students who are poor and of color cannot do rather than what they already do well. (p. 37)

Such perceptions are particularly problematic for fields such as educational leadership, which has traditionally not utilized or valued critical frames of analysis.

Educational leadership largely deals with school administration, direction, and/or management. It has largely been informed by business, management approaches, and organizational behavior/theory (English, 2008; McCray & Beachum, 2014). Dantley (2002) indicated that educational leadership has borrowed idioms and syntax from economics and the business world all in an effort to legitimate itself as a valid field (p. 94). Although there are some obvious lessons to be learned from fields such as business, economics, and organizational behavior, the way these fields presents material that can be applied to education naturally positions the school leader as authoritarian yet also neutral, apolitical, and/or unresponsive about issues of race. Villegas and Lucas (2002) asserted that this duality causes educators to be technicians more than agents of change.

This orientation has left teachers and administrators unprepared for school realities in the twenty-first century. As student diversity increases, so does the need to connect to many types of communities and the need to expand the traditional school mission to treat students from all communities as equally valuable within the educational process. New, inclusive frameworks are needed to help school leaders clarify and make meaning of complex social situations.

Critical race theory (CRT), an academic discipline that examines society and culture at the juncture of race, law, and power, can be a useful and insightful tool for educational leadership. CRT is a framework that attempts to provide unique ways to examine, analyze, and explain the roles, rules, and recognition of race and racism in society. It has its origins in law as a response to critical legal studies (CLS). Critical race theory views racism as a natural aspect of everyday life in the United States, thus permeating everything from academic disciplines to legal decisions to the modern workplace (Beachum, 2012, p. 907). Some of the major ideas and tenets of CRT include: