From Center to Margins: The Importance of Self-Definition in Research

From Center to Margins The Importance of Self-Definition in Research Edited by Diane S. Pollard and Olga M. Welch Forew...

Author: Christine E. Sleeter | Diane S. Pollard | Olga M. Welch

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From Center to Margins The Importance of Self-Definition in Research Edited by

Diane S. Pollard and Olga M. Welch Foreword by Christine E. Sleeter

From Center to Margins

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From Center to Margins The Importance of Self-Definition in Research

Edited by Diane S. Pollard and Olga M. Welch Foreword by Christine E. Sleeter

State University of New York Press

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2006 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, address State University of New York Press, 194 Washington Avenue, Suite 305, Albany, NY 12210-2384 Production by Judith Block Marketing by Michael Campochiaro Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data From center to margins : the importance of self-definition in research / edited by Diane S. Pollard and Olga M. Welch ; foreword by Christine E. Sleeter p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–7914–6771–6 (hardcover : alk. paper)—ISBN 0–7914–6772–4 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. African American women—Education (Higher). 2. African American college teachers—United States. 3. Minority women—Education (Higher)—United States. 4. Discrimination in higher education—United States. 5. Marginality, Social—United States. I. Pollard, Diane. II. Welch, Olga M. LC2781.F76 2006 370⬘.7⬘2—dc22 2005018668 ISBN–13 978–0–7914–6771–8 (hardcover: alk. paper) ISBN–13 978–0–7914–6772–5 (pbk.: alk. paper) 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Foreword CHRISTINE E. SLEETER

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Introduction. Women Researchers of Color: Have We Come a Long Way? OLGA M. WELCH AND DIANE S. POLLARD

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1. Women of Color and Research: A Historical and Contemporary Context DIANE S. POLLARD

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2. Making Intellectual Space: Self-determination and Indigenous Research FRANCES V. RAINS

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3. Reflections on the Process of Becoming an Academician BARBARA K. CURRY

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4. Language, Literacy, and Culture: Intersections and Implications SONIA NIETO

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5. The Outsider within Multicultural Education: Understanding the Field from a Marginalized Viewpoint VALERIE OOKA PANG

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6. Seeing with the Cultural Eye: Different Perspectives of African American Teachers and Researchers JACQUELINE JORDAN IRVINE

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7. Response to Papers on From Center to Margin: The Importance of Self-Definition in Research MAXINE GREENE

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Contents

8. Making the Familiar Strange: Inclusion, Exclusion, and Erasure: Summarizing the Philosophies of Women Researchers of Color OLGA M. WELCH

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Contributors

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Index

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Foreword CHRISTINE E. SLEETER

The authors of the essays in this volume were asked to address two questions in preparation for a panel at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Their responses led to this thought-provoking book: From Center to Margins: The Importance of Self-Definition in Research. The questions were: • How have you come to know what you know about research? • What are some of the factors, issues, and concerns that have guided you as a researcher? The authors’ responses to these questions consider a multiplicity of issues concerning power, privilege, knowledge, and identity in academe. The papers prompted such a rich discussion at AERA that the editors were encouraged to publish them. I will not recap the main themes of the chapters of this powerful book because they are stated clearly and eloquently in the chapters themselves. Instead, I comment on the significance of this book for people like me: a White scholar who, having taken advantage of privileges accorded by her race and social class background, finds herself part of the Center of Educational Research. As one who has supported equity and social justice issues for decades, admitting to be at the Center is not comfortable. Why should I read this book? What significance does it have for people like me? I illustrate its significance with a story. Recently one of my classes had an opportunity to visit a museum of folk art from around the world that was designed for use in schools. As the course instructor, using my power to shape the curriculum, I decided to include this visit in the course syllabus because the museum appeared to me to be a useful resource for teachers. During the class session following the visit, we discussed our vii

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Foreword

experience there. Some of the students’ comments focused on the usefulness of teachers having access to such a collection, and the value of learning geography through its continent-by-continent organization. Other students offered more cautious comments, and some were quite critical. An African American woman class member, for example, expressed deep concern that, through its emphasis on folk art objects grouped by continent, the collection inadvertently reinforced a stereotypic view of Africa as primitive. Two Arab class members pointed out that, by lacking art from the Middle East, the museum missed an opportunity to address ignorance that people in the United States have about Arab peoples. I and other class members could have chosen to ignore voices of criticism, and emphasize what is useful and good about the art collection. After all, as instructor, I had chosen to visit the museum because it offers varied resources for teachers. Or, we could have listened politely but bracketed the criticisms, for example, to considerations about teaching African art when African American students are present. In this way, we could have maintained the usefulness theme, adding some buts as qualifiers. Instead, after listening to the various viewpoints, we decided to collaborate on writing a letter of constructive feedback to the organization that houses the collection in order to suggest how to make it more inclusive, sensitive, and nuanced. Voices from the margins had thrown the collection into sharp relief and highlighted limitations that were not obvious when it was viewed from the center. Through dialog, our discussion had shifted from how to use the collection, to who gets to decide what is presented in schools, in what way, in what instructional context, and how we might collectively address concerns that initially we did not all see. As course instructor, I had to decide to listen, allow my own agenda to shift, and facilitate engagement across perspectives that were not only different, but initially in conflict. As a White researcher, I occupy a similar place to the one I hold as course instructor: I have power and authority to shape which perspectives count as legitimate, to support some perspectives and ignore or marginalize others, and to position my work in a way that will ensure my continued power and authority. The authors of this volume ask for something more inclusive: honest dialog, engagement, willingness to listen, and willingness to collaborate on interrupting the competition for power that permeates academic life. For White researchers, who find this request threatening, it is important to realize that the authors are not asking us to disappear or stop working. Indeed, when Whites engage in “White flight,” we end up recreating the same old patterns of hierarchy, exclusion, and power some-

Foreword

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where else. Instead, the authors of this book are asking us to work with, rather than on or without, colleagues who bring life experiences that broaden the range of ideas on the table, ways of investigating and evaluating those ideas, and actions we might take as a result. We resist doing so to the detriment of all of us. For example, one cannot talk about schooling today without discussing the achievement gap. Very often, those who are trying to figure out how to close it are baffled about what to do, and somewhat frantic to find solutions. I have talked with many educators who persistently seek solutions from the same sources that created problems of inequity in the first place. As Noguera and Akom (2000) point out, “More often than not, explanations for the achievement gap focus on deficiencies among parents and students. Dysfunctional families, lazy and unmotivated students, and the ‘culture of poverty’ in inner-city neighborhoods are all frequently cited as causes of the gap.” There are alternatives which the authors of this book implore us to consider. Recently I had an opportunity to visit a New Zealand school reform project, Te Kotahitanga (Bishop, et al, 2004), that is premised on the idea that the people who know best how to address the achievement gap are students and families who have been least well-served by schools. By conducting interviews with Maori students and their parents, the Maori-led project team constructed an action plan to reform classroom teaching for everyone, with a primary emphasis on improving Maori student achievement using insights from Maori epistemology. As it turns out, while Maori students are the primary beneficiaries, all students are benefiting from the better teaching. Further, the answers are not external to the process of dialog and engagement, but rather this process of engagement is the answer. In, From Center to Margins, Pollard, Welch, and the other contributors invite dialog and engagement, particularly around the structures, processes, and belief systems that maintain unequal power relations in academe and educational research. Ultimately, answers to pressing problems about how to improve schools and build more equitable and intellectually vigorous educational institutions, reside in dialogue.

References Bishop, R., Berryman, M., Tiakiwai, S., & Richardson, C. (2004) Te Kotahintanga. Maori Educational Research Institute (MERI) School of Education, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. Retrieved April 3, 2005 at http://www.minedu.govt.nz/index.

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Noguera, P. A. & Akom, A. (2000) Disparities demystified, Nation, 270 (22). California State University Monterey Bay.

Introduction Women Researchers of Color: Have We Come a Long Way? OLGA M. WELCH AND DIANE S. POLLARD

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ne of the most vivid memories of Olga Welch’s childhood is standing in line at the World’s Fair in Montreal, Canada waiting to see Michelangelo’s Pieta. As she and her family proceeded to the rear of the line, she was overwhelmed with the sheer number of people awaiting their opportunity to view this masterpiece. The estimated wait time posted was three hours. Finally, reaching the rear of the line, she remembered thinking that they would NEVER reach the exhibit. She expressed this feeling to her father who used the moment to teach her, what he called “the line principle.” After waiting approximately 15 minutes, her father asked her to look behind her. Where they had once stood, there were at least 60 people. Her father turned to her and said, “Once you were there and now you are here. Never measure your progress by how far you have to go but always by how far you have come.” Although not a new concept, this line principle seemed especially apropos as we prepared this volume. In a real sense, as women researchers of color, we have come a long way. And yet, as we reflect on that journey, we are forced to ask ourselves at what cost have our epistemological stances evolved? This question represents the central focus of this book. In it, women researchers of color examine their place in the line of research dialogues in their own disciplines and through the lenses of their particular epistemological and ontological perspectives. They engage in this activity from a circumscribed position—the margins they intentionally represent as a place of resistance and reclamation. 1

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As hooks (1990) states: I am located in the margin. I make a definite distinction between that marginality which is imposed by oppressive structures and that marginality one chooses as site or resistance—as location of radical openness and possibility (p. 53). The radical openness and possibility of which hooks speaks is what this book explores—not just for women of color, but also for the White woman researcher, who uses her position in the center to propose an alternative and inclusive research epistemology that promotes the agency of the margins for the knowledge construction of women of color. What makes this discourse so important is its timeliness, as the primary role of research in academe remains uncontested. Indeed, institutions of higher education earn their rankings based on research reputations that are grounded in the scholarship of their faculty. Given the primacy of these research endeavors, it is not surprising that tensions have emerged. A major source of tension comes from the entry into academe of researchers who bring new and different experiences and worldviews. Moreover, when the newcomers are those who represent the Other (i.e. those who are not part of the White male group who have traditionally dominated educational research), another source of tension concerns equity. In educational research, particularly, issues of equity are not only issues of practical application within institutions of higher education, such as obtaining and retaining diverse and representative faculty, but also are questions concerning the nature of research both within and outside of these institutions. The examination of questions of equity often becomes contested ground as differences emerge among the various stakeholders who are involved Thus, for many years, the preponderance of research focusing on people of color has been done by White, middle class investigators, with the result that much of the research focusing on populations defined as marginal takes a deficit approach to its subjects: it raises questions that focus on the pathologies and problems presumed to reside within those under study. Consigned by these interpretations to the margins, researchers from disenfranchised populations find themselves silenced, or only listened to if they frame their ideas in language that is familiar and comfortable for those in the center (Turner, 2002; Winkler, 1986). Research on women by feminist researchers addresses issues of marginality, however, women researchers of color frequently have not been included in these discussions. Indeed, it has been noted that the emphasis on interpersonal competition among researchers, along with the racist ori-

Introduction

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entation of the academic environment has meant that some feminist researchers, in pursuit of their own professional development, have adopted mainstream approaches that marginalize women of color (Houston, 1991). Although active, productive researchers, who are members of marginalized groups, exist, they are rarely consulted or their work acknowledged. Moreover, when the work is acknowledged, it is frequently characterized as worthwhile only to the degree to which the research moves both the researcher and the population studied from the margins to the center. Yet, the work of marginalized researchers is unique precisely because it is embedded with the cultural and social perspectives of those researchers. These standpoints, often not easily accessible to researchers from the center, are notable because they provide information about alternative ways to ask questions, define issues, organize research agendas and interpret research findings (Allen, 1995; Essed, 1996; Ropers-Huilman & Costner, 1998). Similarly, women of color who are researchers provide a particular perspective emanating from the intersections of race or ethnicity and gender that have ramifications for their work. Such viewpoints can be useful to all researchers seeking to conduct investigations about diverse populations. At a time when multiple lenses and perspectives are needed to develop more effective policies and practices in educational institutions that serve diverse populations, it is critical to find common ground between Center and Margin research discourse. The purpose of this book is to examine perspectives from a diverse group of women of color who are educational researchers. We have chosen to examine these perspectives by centering the discussion within the Margin rather than from the Center. In other words, we have deliberately chosen the Margin as the site of discourse in order to provide an opportunity for readers to understand the various perspectives taken by women of color when they implement their investigations. In addition, we provide an opportunity for a researcher from the Center to discuss the impact of the perspectives of women of color who are researchers on her work. We believe, that by situating the perspective of the book within the margins, we are providing an alternative to the dominant perspective in educational research, which uses its power to determine who shall be centered and who marginalized. We see these margins not as deficient areas from which we need to escape, but rather as legitimate sites where useful knowledge has been and will continue to be generated. In 1999, we organized a symposium for the American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual meeting entitled, “From Center to

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Margins: The Importance of Self-Definition in Research.” The impetus for this symposium came from conversations between ourselves and other women of color who are educational researchers in the academy. A consistent theme of these conversations concerns our continuing quest to integrate our skills as researchers (trained in dominant and mainstream traditions), with our experiences as women of color in understanding and interpreting the experiences of those (including ourselves) who are marginalized by these very traditions. We felt this symposium would contribute to an understanding of the quest of researchers of color for constructed knowledge, one that moves outside the frames and systems offered in dominant interpretations to provide and create our own analyses of experiences on the margins. Furthermore, we argue that knowledge construction such as this can become a prime location for resisting objectification as the Other even as it becomes the catalyst for evolving more authentic and inclusive paradigms. To organize the symposium, we asked three women of color researchers to provide their own perspectives on their work as researchers in their respective communities. The researchers include an African American, a Latina, and a First Nation member. In addition, we asked a researcher who represents the center to respond. To frame the symposium, we asked the researchers of color to focus on the question, “How do we come to know what we know about our research?” In responding to this broad question, the researchers told some of their stories as scholars situated in the margins. From these perspectives, they described some of the factors, issues, and concerns that guided them as they moved from the initial steps of framing research questions, through designing and implementing studies, and to interpreting results and deciding how and where to disseminate results. Following these presentations, our respondent discusses how she had to move away from the Center to understand the perspectives of researchers who have been marginalized. The presentations at this symposium, and the positive and enthusiastic responses from the large and diverse audience, indicate a strong interest in the perspectives presented, and in particular, the concept of situating the dialogue in the margins where researchers of color reside. The participants and audience reacted positively to the integration of race, gender, and, in some instances, class inherent in these presentations. Based on this experience, we decided to expand the symposium into the present volume.

Overview of the Book Chapter 1 provides a historical and contemporary context for the work of women of color educational researchers. Pollard reviews the litera-

Introduction

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ture to reveal the pioneering work of women in these communities whose research is often ignored or dismissed. In addition, she analyzes the perspectives others have taken on women of color as researchers and the responses these women have had to these views from the Center. In chapters 2, 3 and 4, Rains, Curry, and Nieto tell their own unique stories of attempts to conduct their research and how they came to their particular epistemological stances. In chapters 5 and 6, Pang and Irvine discuss how they put their own epistemological stances into practice in both their research and their work with students and teachers. In chapter 7, Maxine Green, a distinguished White woman researcher, discusses how her own research perspective has been affected by her attempts to move away from the Center and understand the perspectives of researchers who have been marginalized. Finally, in chapter 8, Welch summarizes the perspectives of the contributors and integrates their perspectives with the historical information provided earlier in the book. She uses this summary to provide an alternative context for considering the margins of educational research. In particular, rather than seeing the margins as providing information that can only be either assimilated to the center or discarded, the margins are seen as viable epistemological sites that are essential and necessary, not only for the researchers, but also the communities from which they come. Furthermore, the margins represent spaces that cannot and should not be appropriated or contested by the hegemonic center. We end with suggestions for promoting a climate in the general research community that recognizes and appreciates the valuable roles women of color play in informing researchers, policy makers, and practitioners about supporting equity in education.

References Allen, B. J. (1995, November) Twice blessed, doubly oppressed: Women of color in academe. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Speech Communication Association, San Antonio, TX. Essed, Philomena. (1996). Diversity: Gender, color, and culture. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press. hooks, b. (1990). Yearning: Race, gender, and cultural politics. Boston: South End Press. Houston, M. (1991, April). Follow us into our world: Feminist scholarship on the communication of women of color. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Southern Speech Communication Association. Tampa, FL. Ropers-Huilman, B., & Costner, S. (1998, April). Participation and progress: Improving the climate for women of color in college. Paper presented at the

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From Center to Margins annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. San Diego, CA.

Turner, C. S. V. (2002). Women of color in academe: Living with multiple marginality, Journal of Higher Education, 73, 1, 74–93. Winkler, K. J. (1986). Scholars reproached for ignoring “Women of Color” in U.S. History, Chronicle of Higher Education, 32, 6–7.8.10.

Chapter 1

Women of Color and Research A Historical and Contemporary Context DIANE S. POLLARD . . . I was admitted but not accepted. I had been welcomed into the socalled mainstream even as I was reminded that I was not part of its flow. My presence was conditioned on my silence. I was present. But I was without a voice. —Guinier, cited in Dance, 1998, p. 551

A

lthough Lani Guinier was describing her experience as an African American woman when she was a student at Yale Law School in the 1970s, her words still resonate with women researchers of color in academe some 30 years later. Although these researchers are often admitted and even welcomed as she was, their unique voices are often silenced. For women of color who are educational researchers, this situation seems to be, in part, inherent in the discipline. Educational research on people of color has often taken a problem focused, noncontextual orientation (Zambrana, 1994). Research on women, on the other hand has frequently ignored issues of race and ethnicity. When considered as research subjects, women of color are routinely marginalized when their behavior, attitudes, and emotions are analyzed solely from the perspectives of White middle class researchers. Many times this results in interpretations that describe women of color as deviant or exotic. Such analyses ignore the importance of “exploring the connections among race, class and gender oppressions . . . and the creative tension between the specificity needed to study the working of race, class and gender . . . and generalizations about these systems created in cross-cultural and trans-historical research” (Collins, 1990, p. 224). Such discussions allow researchers to move beyond monolithic discussions of people of color to interrogate not only what has already been said about these 7

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groups, but the credibility and intentions of those possessing the power to define them. In addition, the dialogue can be used as a foundation for all researchers who are seriously attempting to understand cultural diversity and work for equitable educational structures in a pluralistic society. In this chapter, I review and assess literature by and on women of color who are researchers in education and closely related disciplines. This review includes perspectives on women of color as they regard the center as well as their views from the margins of academe. Prior to the 1970s, women of color were hardly recognized as educational researchers. One reason is that the research of these women was not accessible unless it fit criteria defined by the Center. In addition, the small numbers of women of color in academe made it difficult for them to create critical mass. As a result, the roles and activities of women of color who are educational researchers in academe have often been overlooked. Discussions about women researchers tend to assume a homogeneity that does not exist; as a result work about women has generally meant work about and by White women. Similarly, discussions about minority researchers have tended to overlook gender (as well as cultural) distinctions within that group. As a result of these two trends, women of color, as a distinct group of educational researchers, have often been erased from both formal and informal discussions. Fortunately, these very women do not often acquiesce quietly to this situation. Women of color continue to conduct and produce research findings despite attempts by those in the mainstream to ignore or marginalize them. Researchers such as Faustine Jones-Wilson, Betty Morrison, Beatrice Medicine, Alice Chiang, Cecelia Burciaga, Gwendolyn Baker, and many others laid the groundwork that contemporary women of color have been able to build upon as they enter and progress through academe. As succeeding generations of women of color became researchers in higher education, several trends began to emerge in the literature. One trend is the body of research produced by women of color that reflects centrist thinking. Another trend indicates a body of literature about women of color written, often but not always, by White women. A considerable amount of this literature describes the plight of women of color in academe. At other times, this work chastises White women for their tendency to ignore and marginalize women of color. Finally, there is a more recent body of literature by women of color that reflects their own standpoint and critiques the attempts by researchers in the mainstream to categorize and judge their contributions. In this chapter, selected literature by and about women of color is reviewed and critiqued. This review includes articles about women of

Women of Color and Research

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color written by them as well as by White authors. I have focused on literature that concerns the role and status of women of color as researchers rather than on the actual research produced by them. The rationale for this focus is that the literature on role and status provides a more accurate perspective on the issue of marginalization and the contested debates about whether women of color need to move toward the dominant center of educational research or take researchers to the margins within which they exist; thus demonstrating the reality and validity of life in these spaces. With respect to these debates, I have organized the research and writing about women of color as educational researchers into four general themes. Each theme is described and analyzed in terms of its contribution to the issue of contested spaces in academic research. It should be noted that these themes are not ordered chronologically. One can find evidence of all of them interspersed in writings by and about women of color researchers over the past 30 or so years.

Theme 1. Countering Invisibility This theme addresses two issues. First, women of color who are educational researchers are frequently erased; in other words, their work is ignored in the literature. Second, considerable work, often by women of color, attempts to oppose these efforts to render them invisible. One of the simplest ways in which women of color are made invisible is through the use of the categories “minorities” and “women” as mutually exclusive entities. While it could be assumed that women of color might be subsumed within both of the categories, it is difficult to ascertain if this is the case. In fact, the failure to name the various groups of women of color specifically, contributes to their erasure. A number of writers, usually women of color, have refused to accept this invisibility in academe. On the contrary they have conducted research that calls attention to the contributions these groups have made to knowledge in their respective fields. This form of resistance has been evident for decades. For example, in her unpublished dissertation, Contributions of Black American Academic Women to American Higher Education, Robinson (1978) focused on African American women in higher education in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Robinson used autobiographical material, letters and writings of the nineteenth century women and surveyed a sample of women born in the twentieth century to understand the contexts within which they worked, the challenges they faced and the standpoints from which they operated.

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A number of other researchers have produced work aimed at countering the invisibility of African American women in academe. For example, Tobin (1980) surveyed doctoral level African American women who were employed by historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in the early 1970s. Tobin’s work emphasized the career development of these women and the obstacles they faced in their attempts to meet professional and personal commitments. Taking a slightly different tack, Smith (1982) wrote specifically about the accomplishments of African American women in academe. Limiting her sample to those who had been “successful,” Smith interviewed 12 women who had achieved administrative positions in higher education. Although Smith’s focus was on understanding what steps these women had taken to achieve their goals (to be administrators) the author noted that many of them had been productive researchers as well. All three of these writers specifically named African American women, thus increasing their visibility in higher education. Furthermore, they were intent on noting that African American women made constructive contributions to their institutions and fields as teachers, administrators, and scholars. However, even in this most basic of endeavors;—calling attention to the existence of this group of women—the authors also revealed tensions between center and margins. All of these articles demonstrated that African American women scholars were marginalized, even in the HBCUs. Questions were implied regarding their value; resources were not available for teaching and research. Despite their marginalization, some of these women were categorized as successful. However, success seemed to be defined in terms of their ability to move toward the center, not so much as researchers, but as valuable contributors to their institutions in teaching and administration. This perception of invisibility is not limited to African American women. It has been experienced by other women of color relatively frequently also (Thomas & Hollenshead, 2002, Turner, 2002). Even when named, rendering women of color invisible can take several forms in academe. In some cases this can be a fairly passive process in which their work is made inaccessible. The research of women of color has, on occasion, been deemed unworthy of publication or presentation in professional venues controlled by those at the center. Some of these women counter this by disseminating their work in publications and settings more hospitable to their concerns and interests. However, in some cases, these venues are devalued and relegated to the margins. Another process that makes women researchers of color invisible involves disre-


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specting them and their work by subtly, or sometimes not so subtly, pressuring them to eschew research on and in their communities in favor of more mainstream topics (Thomas & Hollenshead, 2002). There is, however, a more venomous method of making these women invisible and this involves not recognizing their work while simultaneously appropriating it. In my own experience, formal interviews and informal conversations with women researchers of color, I have learned of situations where research ideas that were generated by these women have been used by men or White women as if they had originated with the latter groups. In other words, the work of women of color has been cited without acknowledgement of its sources. While these efforts are ongoing, there is increasing evidence that many women of color simply refused to accept invisibility. As the contributors to this volume attest, many women of color bravely proclaim their visibility and pursue their research, undaunted.

Theme 2. Meeting Challenges and Overcoming Obstacles Writings related to this theme clearly move beyond calls to recognize that women of color exist in higher education. Here, women are writing about their own experiences and protesting efforts by others to objectify them. They are scholars, teachers, and administrators and their numbers have increased. However, they are firmly ensconced on the margins. The writings included in this theme explore the marginalization of women of color in depth by analyzing the processes that exploit them. However, some of the writers who explore this theme remind us that many women of color do not simply sit passively in the margins. Instead they actively contest attempts by institutions and individuals to denigrate them and their work. The literature related to this theme can be categorized into two areas. The first focuses on the under-representation of women of color in higher education. The second emphasizes the experiences of these women in academe. One issue that women of color contend with in academe is the recurring myth that they are, in fact, a favored or privileged group. This notion has been perpetuated at various times by White men, White women, and men of color. Several researchers have tried to thwart this type of thinking. For example, an article entitled “Minority women and higher education” (Association of American Colleges, n.d.) found evidence that women of color had to cope with both race and sex discrimination. Hayes (1990), surveying

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the status of women of color in California, argues that even though the numbers of doctoral level African American and Hispanic women students have increased, relatively few plan careers in higher education because of perceived barriers. Similarly Montez (n.d.) notes small numbers of Asian/Pacific women in educational research. Chu (1980) states that Asian/Pacific American women also contend with the “model minority” myth that assumes Asian American success, especially in higher education. All of these authors call for greater efforts to recruit and retain women of color in academe. Several writings by women of color describe their experiences in academe, focusing on challenges and obstacles to their progress. All of the writings cited here concern women of color faculty at predominantly White colleges and universities. Common threads across these writings involve contending with the related issues of marginalization and isolation (Aguirre, 2000; Chu, 1980; Kulis & Miller, 1988; Ortiz, 1983; Williams, 1985). These issues were operationalized in a variety of ways: women of color were expected to work only with students of color; were excluded from important committee assignments; were excluded from networks that might have aided their career advancement; and were denied opportunities to participate in decision making within their academic communities. As Ortiz (1983) describes, women of color are often on the periphery of their departments, schools, and institutions. Although these writers describe similar experiences, there are some variations in their analyses. At the broadest level, these experiences are seen as the result of double jeopardy, a combination of racism and sexism (Williams, 1985). Others point to a lack of role models, mentors, and professional contacts (Chu, 1980). Still others argue that institutions of higher education replicate the patterns of racial/ethnic and sexual inequity of the larger society, thus supporting processes that work against women researchers of color. These include devaluing their research (Hayes, 1990); lack of support when contending with racist students (Vargas, 1999); and questioning of their academic integrity and merit early in their careers (Allen, 1996; Heward, 1995). The literature illustrating this theme suggests a few steps beyond theme one. Here, women of color are more proactive in defining their status in academe and identifying and analyzing the forces working against them. However, the recognition and analysis of marginality did not deter these women from carrying out their research. On the contrary, in addition to investigating, the forces that create and maintain marginalization, many of these women position their own research perspectives within the


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margins rather than from the center. For example, many of these women focus on issues of concern to their communities. This, in turn, furthered their marginalization.

Theme 3. Identifying and Providing Support At the same time some literature by and about women researchers of color in academe focused on identifying barriers, other writings investigated ways to cope with these challenges. An important process involved finding support both from the center and in the margins. Some examples illustrate this theme. The National Council for Research on Women implemented the Mainstreaming Minority Women’s Study Program in 1988. This program included thirteen institutions of higher education and one of its goals was “moving the concerns of women of color to the center of curriculum reform” (Mainstreaming Minority Women’s Project, p.1) in these institutions. Two additional goals of this program were “forcing women’s studies to address existing exclusions” and “addressing the necessity of bringing racial ethnic analyses to women’s studies and gender analyses to racial-ethnic studies” (Mainstreaming Minority Women’s Project, p. 1). What is noteworthy about this program is that, rather than requiring women of color to eschew their interests, there is a recognition of the inherent value of their priorities and that these issues may be valuable for both the margins and the center. An alternative means of finding support is also evident in the literature. This involved identifying support that could be helpful within the margins. For example, the report, Minority women in research in education: A report of the Dallas conference on expanding the role of minority women in educational research (Horsford, 1977) emphasizes helping women of color gain research skills and providing them with technical assistance and mentoring in conducting research. Similarly, Wilkerson (1983) argues for the importance of women of color to establish networks to support their research and affect institutional policies. This literature suggests some interesting shifts in the conversations by and about women of color in educational research. In addition to describing barriers and challenges faced as researchers, these writings describe how these women proactively identify ways to implement their research while simultaneously maintaining an often tenuous foothold in academe. To accomplish these tasks, women of color need support that will help them interact with those at the center without relinquishing the

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advantages of being situated in the margins where, paradoxically, they have greater freedom to challenge the status quo. These examples focus on the need for women of color to identify supportive persons within academe who help them both cope with barriers and obstacles and pursue their own research agendas. However, another important aspect of this theme involves these women as sources of support for others. Women of color in academe are relied upon to serve as advocates for students of color, communities of color, and their colleagues. Requests for support may come from students and communities of color. They may also come from academics in the center, who are unwilling or unable to provide support to these particular students and communities. In some cases, women of color are placed in the position of serving as buffers, ostensibly supporting these particular students and communities, while also protecting members of the dominant group from having to interact with anyone in the margins. Traditionally, women of color respond affirmatively to requests for support from their students and communities, sometimes to the detriment of their own career advancement (Gregory, 2002; Turner, 2002). However, an important aspect of coping involves the ability to recognize when one is being used to support questionable agendas and resisting this urge. On the other hand, many women researchers of color provide support to students and communities of color on their own terms rather than simply to meet institutional demands. This is often done through their own work, particularly when their research is overtly aimed at benefiting their communities. Furthermore, these women have often served as models and mentors to students of color and newly minted faculty of color. These efforts are evident not only in university settings, but also in professional organizations. As mentors, women researchers of color have a twofold task. First, to help students, colleagues, and communities understand the often arcane structures and processes of academe (i.e., they provide knowledge about the center). Second, to educate marginalized students, communities, and colleagues about the advantages of speaking from the margins.

Theme 4. Alternative Perspectives/Redefining the Margins Traditionally, the terms “center” and “margins” suggest a clear status inequity and assume that the center is to be preferred to the margins. However, a number of women of color argue this is not inevitably the case.


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Instead, these women write that their experiences in the margins are rich, and provide significant grounding for their roles as researchers. Furthermore, some of these women argue, those closer to and even in the center could benefit greatly by opening themselves to the wisdom in the margins. Hurtado (1996) writes that it is a mistake to assume that women of color are not active contributors to knowledge because they are often not found in the dominant literature. She argues that “theorizing by feminists of color” (p. 37) has always happened in the margins. Furthermore, such efforts focus not only on the nature of oppression but also on ways to “deconstruct the structures of oppression” (p. 38). Gutierrez & Nagata (1996) provide rich examples of such theorizing in their research on intraethnic diversity. While research conducted from the center tends to focus on interethnic differences—most often with an orientation that presents whites as superior to most groups of color—these researchers’ alternative perspective studied variations in identity, acculturation and world views within Mexican American and Japanese American communities, respectively. Immersed in their communities, these researchers are able to understand the particularistic roles gender played in each. In their writings, they clearly define themselves as part of their communities rather than detached observers. The decision to conduct research in our own communities in ways that deviate from the center’s conceptualizations is often met with skepticism. Much of my own work on academic achievement in African American children focuses on variations within this particular cultural group (Pollard, 1993, 2002). When presenting this work to audiences unfamiliar with the margins, I am invariably asked why I have not included a “control” (read White) group of children in my studies. In a similar vein, the coeditor of this volume spent many years investigating the development of a “scholar identity” (Pollard & Welch, 2003, p. 377) in educationally disadvantaged youth. In carrying out this work, Welch and Hodges (1997) reconceptualized perspectives on marginalized youth and challenged popular notions about academic disengagement in these students. Frequently, their efforts were viewed with puzzlement or criticism from individuals in the center. In resisting these attempts to define our research in their terms, we have attempted to educate colleagues about the value of our marginalized perspectives. Several researchers have adapted Harding’s (1991) ideas of feminist standpoint epistemology as a foundation for supporting their own work as well as critiquing efforts from the center to define, conduct, analyze, and control research on communities of color. Valdez (2001) writes that

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feminist standpoint epistemology works well for women researchers of color because it accepts and legitimates views that “knowledge is socially situated and is influenced by . . . factors . . . such as [one’s] gender, cultural perspective, and socioeconomic status.” (p. 70). According to Valdez, this perspective recognizes the intersections of the multiple statuses as well as the multiple forms of oppression women researchers of color face. B. J. Allen (1995) demonstrates this perspective, writing that feminist standpoint epistemology is a useful tool to analyze her experiences as an African American women faculty member at a predominantly White research university. Valdez (2001) notes that feminist standpoint epistemology can be used to challenge the center’s conceptualizations of knowledge, particularly knowledge about those in the margins. In addition, it can be used to educate the center about the thoughts and actions of those in the margins. Houston (1991) echoes this perspective when she challenges White feminist researchers to “Follow us into our world.” Only by taking this journey, she argues, will these scholars learn to recognize and ultimately reject ethnocentric and exploitative research conducted on women and communities of color.

Summary and Conclusion Women of color occupy unique and sometimes precarious positions in academe; especially in their roles as educational researchers. From some perspectives of the center, it is preferred that they are neither seen nor heard. In order to insure this position is maintained, these women are ignored and disrespected. Their work, when acknowledged is often devalued or, more insidiously, unethically appropriated. This relegation to the margins can have deleterious effects on these women’s energy and work (Thomas & Hollenshead, 2002). Despite the negative effects of being relegated to the margins, however, many women researchers of color have refused to accept this situation. Instead, they actively resist attempts by individuals and institutions at the center to stifle them and their work. Much of this resistance emanates from and remains in the margins. Only recently has this perspective been recognized. All too often it is viewed as an exotic and entertaining fad, rather than an ongoing intellectual process. The contributors to this volume represent the increasing number of women who clearly demonstrate that their work in and from the margins provides important knowledge. In responding to the question, “How have you come to know what you know


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about research?” each tells a unique story. These stories have the power to enrich both the margins and the center.

References Aguirre, A., Jr. et.al (2000). Women and minority faculty in the academic workplace: Recruitment, retention, and academic culture. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Allen, B. A. (1996). Staying within the academy. In K. F. Wyche & F. J. Crosby (Eds.), Women’s ethnicities: Journeys through psychology (pp. 9–26). Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Allen, B. J. (1995, November). Twice blessed, double oppressed: Women of color in academe. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Speech Communication Association, San Antonio, TX. Association of American Colleges (n.d.) Minority Women and higher education No. 1 Washington, DC: Project on the Status and Education of Women. Chu, L. (1980). Asian American women in educational research. Integrated Education, 18 (5–6), 55–60. Collins, P. H. (1990). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness and the politics of empowerment. Boston: Unwin Hyman. Gregory, S. T. (2002). Black faculty women in the academy: History, status, future. Journal of Negro Education, 70 (3), 124–138. Guinier, L. (1998). Female gentlemen. In D. C. Dance (Ed.), Honey hush: An anthology of African American women’s humor (p. 551). New York: W. W. Norton. Gutierrez, G., & Nagaka, D. K. (1996). Intraethnic and interethnic diversity: Researching the Japanese American and Mexican American communities. In K. F. Wyche & F. J. Crosby (Eds.), Women’s ethnicities: Journeys through psychology (pp.167–181). Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Harding, S. (1991). Whose science? Whose knowledge: Thinking from women’s lives. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Hayes, M. E. (1990, March). Minority women in higher education: Status and challenges. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Comparative and International Education Society, Anaheim, CA. Heward, C. et al. (1995). What is behind Saturn’s rings? Methodological problems in the investigation of gender and race in the academic profession. British Educational Research Journal 21 (2), 149–63. Horsford, P. L. (Ed.). (1977). Minority women in research in education: A report of the Dallas conference on expanding the role of minority women in education research.

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From Center to Margins Las Cruces, NM: New Mexico State University. (ERIC Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools, ED148521).

Houston, M. (1991, April). Follow us into our world: Feminist scholarship on the communication of women of color. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Southern Speech Communication Association, Tampa, FL. Hurtado, A. (1996). The color of privilege: Three blasphemies on race and feminism. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Kulis, S., & Miller, K. A. (1988). Are minority women sociologists in double jeopardy? American Sociologist, 19 (4), 323–339. Mainstreaming Minority Women’s Project (1988). National Council for Research on Women. New York: Sara Delano Roosevelt Memorial House. 47–49 E. 65th Street, 10021. Minority women and Higher Education. No. 1. ED098852. Montez, J. M. (n.d.). Asian/Pacific American women in higher education administration: Doubly bound, doubly scarce. Issues in Policy, No. 9. Pullman, WA: College of Education, Washington State University. (ED430423). Ortiz, F. I. (1983, April). Restraining and liberating perceptions regarding minority women’s institutional participation. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Resarch Association. Montreal, Canada. Pollard, D. S. (1993). Gender, achievement and African American students’ perceptions of their school experiences. Educational psychologist, 28 (4), 342–356. Pollard, D. S. (2002). Who will socialize African American students in contemporary public schools? In W. A. Allen, M. B. Spence, & C. O’Conner (Eds.). African American education: Race, community, inequality and achievement. A tribute to Edgar G. Epps (pp. 3–21). Oxford, England: JAI. Pollard, D. S., & Welch, O. M. (2003). One size does not fit all. In C. C. Yeakey, & R. D. Henderson (Eds.). Surmounting all odds: Education, opportunity and society in the new millennium (pp.369–388). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing. Robinson, O. T. (1978). Contributions of Black American academic women to American higher education. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI. University Microfilms International, 1982 Thesis (Ph.D.) Wayne State University, 1978. Smith, C. H. (1982) Black female achievers in academe. Journal of Negro Education, 51 (3), 318–341. Thomas, G. D., & Hollenshead, C. (2002). Resisting from the margins: The coping strategies of black women and other women of color faculty members at a research university. Journal of Negro Education, 70 (3), 166–175.


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Tobin, M. (1980). The black female Ph.D.: Education and career development. Washington, DC: University Press of America. Turner, C. S. V. (2002). Women of color in academe: Living with multiple marginality. Journal of Higher Education, 73 (1), 74–93. Valdez, J. (2001). Standpoint epistemology and women of color. In D. L. Hoeveler & J. D. Boles, (Eds.). Women of color: Defining the issues, hearing the voices (pp.69–79). Westport, CT: Greenwood. Vargas, L. (1999). When the “other” is the teacher. Implications of teacher diversity in higher education. Urban Review, 31 (4), 359–383. Welch, O. M., & Hodges, C. (1997). Standing outside on the inside. Albany: State University of New York Press. Wilkerson, M. B. (1983). Lifting as we climb: Networks for minority women. New Directions for Higher Education, 45 (12), 1, 59–66. Williams, S. S. (1985, April). Surviving double jeopardy in academe: Minority female administrators at predominantly white universities. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Women Deans, Administrators and Counselors, Milwaukee, WI. Zambrana, R. E. (1994). Toward understanding the educational trajectory and socialization of Latina women. In L. Stone, (Ed.). The education feminist reader (pp.135–145). New York: Routledge.


Chapter 2

Making Intellectual Space Self-determination and Indigenous Research FRANCES V. RAINS Often what we do not know is not a mere gap in knowledge, the accidental result of an epistemological oversight. Especially in the case of oppression, a lack of knowledge or an unlearning of something previously known often is actively produced for purposes of domination and exploitation. Sometimes this takes the form of those in the center refusing to allow the marginalized to know. . . . Other times it can take the form of the center’s own ignorance of injustice, cruelty, and suffering, such as white people’s obliviousness to racism and white domination. Sometimes these “unknowledges” are consciously produced, while other times they are unconsciously generated and supported. —Rock Ethics Institute, March, 2004

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n 1998, when I was invited to be on a panel at the American Educational Research Association, in Montreal in 1999, the coeditors asked each panelist to address two questions: “How have you come to know what you know about research?” and “What are some of the factors, issues, and concerns that have guided you as a researcher?” The intent was to investigate the importance of self-definition in research. As a Native1 scholar and researcher, the questions were intriguing. Five years after that panel presentation, and a few years into the new millennia, my answers have deepened, broadened, and become more urgent. The opportunity I have had to work more directly with sovereign Native Nations, by teaching, with Coast Salish college students on their Homelands, has been a powerful reminder of the ways in which domination and exploitation have worked to perpetuate the unlearning of indigenous knowledge. Often this has been done in the name of educational mainstreaming, otherwise known as assimilation. As I reflect on the questions posed in 1998, I am struck by the Center’s maintenance of “epistemologies of ignorance” (Rock Ethics 21

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Institute, 2004). I posit that it is time for the academy to make the intellectual space for Indigenous scholars who, instead of reifying the status quo, are engaged in decolonizing research for self-determination and Native sovereignty. Such Native researchers may, as other scholars, utilize their research to inform not only their scholarship, but their teaching practices as well. Making intellectual space offers the academy the opportunity to pull back its heavy curtains on the broader landscape of epistemologies, adding vibrancy to the intellectual enterprise and the quest for knowledge. The purpose of this chapter is to respond to the original questions asked. It is also to offer a different way of understanding research, and its implications for not only those involved, but for academe as well. It is an opportunity to glimpse through the obscured windows, onto the epistemological landscape upon which the hallowed ivory tower of academe does figuratively, and literally sit—the landscape of Indian Country.

How Have You Come to Know What You Know About Research? The invasion of North America by European peoples has been portrayed in history and literature as a benign movement directed by God, a movement of moral courage and physical endurance, a victory for all humanity. As the face of Europe (as well as Asia and Africa) changes at the close of the twentieth century, this portrayal of colonialism and its impact on the unfortunate Indians who possessed the continent for thousands of years before the birth of America, seems to go unchallenged either in politics or letters by most mainstream thinkers. It arrives in academia unscathed, to be spoonfed to future generations. —Cook-Lynn, 1996, p. 29

“Research” is not a new concept to the over 550 Sovereign Native Nations of this land, who have had up to 512 years of experience with the epistemologies, paradigms, methodologies, and units of analysis that constitute Western2 concepts of research. Long before formal research was conducted by the never-ending army of anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, engineers, historians, religious scholars, and educational researchers, Native peoples were held under the microscope of White curiosity, scrutiny, definition, analysis, and judgement—from Columbus to expeditions like that of Lewis and Clark. Most Native Nations have been intimately aware of research and its impact on our children, our adults, our languages, our cultures, our ethnic identities, our spiritual practices, our life ways, our lands, our natural

Making Intellectual Space

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resources, and our health. Western research has filtered into every aspect of our personal lives as Native peoples. No element of our lives [or deaths] goes untouched, whether it’s about our right to claim our dead from museums, to how we may educate our children. Informal and, later, formal research has drawn upon Western colonizing epistemologies. Historically, these forms of research have bolstered or enhanced theories of perceived superiority over Indigenous Peoples. Such research has influenced the policies that legalize land thefts, perpetuate the rape of our natural resources, and successfully manage to recast history, wherein Native peoples have simply been the speed bumps on the road to progress (e.g., Churchill, 1999; Cook-Lynn, 2001; Deloria, 1998; Deloria & Wildcat, 2001; Fixico, 1998; Gedicks, 1993; LaDuke, 1999; Macedo & Bartolome, 1999; Mihesua, 1998a; Rains, 2003). My first personal awareness of the power of Western colonial research occurred in third grade, when, grounded in long discussions with my Choctaw/Cherokee father about the history of our Native Nations in the Southeast and Oklahoma, I lost my first argument of protest with my teacher, Mrs. Hortense Hawkins. She insisted that research indicated that all Indians were “really from Asia.” As evidence, she kept citing the Bering Strait theory as fact. Meanwhile, at home, my father discussed the improbabilities of the Bering Strait theory3 (See Deloria, 1997, chapter 4 for further explanation on this theory). In public school, my exposure to Native people as the object of White research continued. What I learned then, but hadn’t the language to express, was how research was and is often used. I received clear messages about this; it cut across my body; slashed my identity, worked to destroy in subtle ways, the power of Indigenous knowledge and my sense of self. I witnessed how research and theories were used to erase, marginalize, objectify, and ignore Native Peoples and our histories and relationships with the lands. I felt the power of the Western colonizing knowledge production enterprise, as I was the “only one,” the only American Indian in most of the schools I attended. Surrounded by non-Indians, who often felt glorified, while I felt vilified, made me keenly aware of its force. Given the messages, I felt a sense of betrayal by the educational process my parents put so much hopes in, for the betterment of my future. It wasn’t until graduate school and beyond, that I acquired the language and confidence to articulate how the system of narrowly constructed Western knowledge production, grounded in domination and subordination, became institutionalized in the matter of a few hundred years. As Little Bear (2000) notes (regarding the power of colonialism), “ . . . it tries

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to maintain a singular social order . . . suppressing the diversity of human worldviews” (p. 77). Institutionalization worked to advantage Western epistemology and knowledge while dis-advantaging Indigenous knowledges 4 and epistemologies developed over ten thousand plus years of relationships with the land, and its natural resources, indigenous species of plants and animals, and metaphysical and natural forces (e.g., Battiste & Youngblood Henderson, 2000; Cajete, 2000; Deloria & Wildcat, 2001; Little Bear, 2000). Research has played an instrumental role in devaluing Indigenous knowledge in this privileging process. An irony, to be sure, given that research is the pursuit of knowledge. Nevertheless, graduate school afforded me the opportunity to learn how research is designed and constructed. It was in graduate school that I learned what “doing” research means, and how there needs to be a close fit between the design of the research endeavor and its relationship to the nature of the problem being investigated. It is where I learned about the need to use tools and methods that fit the nature of the design. It is also where I became aware of how data is collected and analyzed and what that means from an institutional Western perspective. At the same time, graduate school opened the door to the mostly Western world of theories. In most of my graduate classes, the theories and research reflected Western epistemologies of assumed superiority over the subaltern. I learned, too, ways to talk about what I felt: Other. Such a simple word, but it explained so much. I recognized myself, as well as where Indigenous knowledges and epistemologies had been placed. We had been “Other-ed.” As if through a back door, though, I found Others who wrote theories, conducted research, and wrote papers. These theorists, mostly White feminists and theorists of color, engendered a more articulate and critical perspective. They offered language and theories generated from the inside out; from inside the Center but outside the narrow, Western construction of knowledge. Their research and scholarship offered tools with which to analyze and rethink the Center’s privileging of Western knowledge and research as dominant. During this time, I was also exposed to researchers of color; in particular, Indigenous researchers, whose work reflected a decolonizing lens and the means of rethinking the purposes, values, and possibilities of research. This was research that not only asked different questions, but asked questions differently. As Hurtado (1996) states, it “taps sources of


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knowledge not used by scholars steeped in mainstream positivist ideology” (p. ix).

What Are Some of the Factors, Issues, and Concerns That Have Guided You as a Researcher? Since the 1990s, senior Native scholars have been calling for junior Native scholars to carry the mantle of Indigenous research and scholarship (e.g., Cook-Lynn, 2001; Deloria, 1997; Parker, 2003; Swisher, 1998). This is no small responsibility. Besides the incredible body of academic work these respected elders have already produced, they forge paths where there were none. They expect us to walk the path they created, and they rightly expect us to break new ground, to further the path for the next generation of scholars. For me, as a Choctaw, Cherokee, and Japanese researcher, this raises guiding questions for the Academy regarding intellectual space. Also, in light of Indigenous academic publications during this decade (e.g., Battiste, 2000; Battiste & Youngblood Henderson, 2000; Benham & Stein, 2003; Cajete, 2000; Cook-Lynn, 2001; Deloria, 1997; Deloria & Wildcat, 2001; Mihesuah, 1998a; L. Smith, 1999), several important factors and issues are raised for researchers like myself that deserve consideration.

IS ASSIMILATION ALL THERE IS? [E]ven if the ideological fog has not been deliberately constructed and programmed by the dominant class, its power to obfuscate reality undeniably serves the interests of the dominant class. The dominant ideology veils reality; it makes us myopic and prevents us from seeing reality clearly. The power of the dominant ideology is always domesticating. —Freire, 1998, p. 6 In most colleges and universities, an assimilationist model is at work. It is subtle, and perhaps by some standards, even benign (Rains, 1998b). Assimilation however, is not without baggage. As a biracial American Indian woman, I bring a different worldview, a different lens, and a different set of experiences to what assimilation represents and means. The assimilationist nature of current practices in academe for untenured faculty limits new knowledge production in favor of conformity,

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expediency, and in some cases, redundancy. It permits a narrow, closely monitored construction of knowledge that works to maintain the status quo of the dominant paradigms. On the surface, this is about a collegial “fit,” and there is no question that on some level it is all about that. However, I posit that what is really at stake is one’s political and epistemological fit. Academic freedom, a hallmark of the academy, vanishes in the process of the pretenure fit. In this assimilation process, there are typically three expectations that must be met successfully for consideration into the tenured club. They are: • Conformity to dominant, Western paradigms and epistemology; • A narrowly focused research agenda, preferably in an already validated area of research; • Publications in the premiere journals of the field. The underlying assumption is that the responses to these expectations determines whether an untenured faculty member will measure up or not, in the name of a good fit. But isn’t the purpose of the good fit, in some way, more about whether the untenured faculty will be obedient? Is this really the mission of research institutions, in particular, and of teaching institutions, in general?

CONFORMITY TO DOMINANT, WESTERN PARADIGMS AND EPISTEMOLOGY

For many, conformity to the dominant paradigms may not even seem like an expectation. Many untenured researchers and scholars may already be in sync with Western ways of knowing. Many may not even “see: the paradigms as representing a particular worldview at all. The centricity of western dominating paradigms is that it “hides [Whites] in the light of reflexive exposure . . . while obscuring their own structural locations, ethical responsibilities and epistemic standpoints” (Roman, 1993, p.75). As bastions of western elitism, research institutions form the proverbial Center. Those researchers in sync with the Western worldview, are located at this Center. From this epistemic standpoint, privilege and power avert awareness away from how knowledge, research, questions, and even the nature of inquiry are socially constructed. As a Native researcher, coming from the Margins I bring a different way of thinking about knowledge,


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about questions, about research, and the nature of inquiry. To assimilate these differences is antithetical to the potential they raise, which is to inform and contribute to how we all understand the world. As well, the concept of assimilation, especially in relation to educational institutions, evokes painful intergenerational memories of the cost to sovereign Native Nations. Colonizing models of boarding schools were used to subordinate Indians through educational subjugation, thereby tearing at the fabric of Native cultural integrity, and disrupting the future. That is, by taking the children away. Conveniently cast as “benign” efforts to “civilize” the “savages,” it obscured from public view the broader system of which this was merely a part. The colonizer’s insatiable desire for more lands, for transcontinental travel, and for the natural resources that had been sustained by Native Nations for thousands of years was really at stake. Assimilation was a useful mechanism; a device, if you will, in conjunction with U.S. military attacks and massacres (e.g., Conestoga, Gnadenhutten, Muskingum River, Sappa Creek, Sand Creek, and Wounded Knee Creek), to dispossess Native Americans of what was rightfully theirs (e.g., Churchill, 1997; Cocker, 1998; Hunt Jackson, 1880/1993; Stannard, 1992). The cemeteries of these boarding schools are filled with Native children who paid the ultimate price for assimilation. So, while many may find the expectation of conformity to the dominant paradigms a smooth and easy fit, where does that leave a researcher (like myself), from the proverbial margins? I have to ask: at what price— assimilation? Since other epistemologies frame my thinking about research, must I forfeit them in the name of assimilation? Granted my biracial identity, coupled with my gender, fulfills a “target of opportunity” or affirmative action hire. And in such a scenario, my physical presence may lend support to the notion of a diversified workforce. But my skin-deep colorizing contribution feels more like the before and after photographs that Colonel Pratt used in the 1880s to promote the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. In a sense, the images of these children were used and prostituted to demonstrate the successful power of assimilation. So, are the unique cultural differences I bring tolerated only for the skin-deep value of diversification? Like the before image of an old Carlisle photograph, are my research interests still expected to fall in line with dominant ideologies and paradigms like the after image of a photograph? On occasion, White senior faculty have taken me aside and encouraged me to rethink my research interests. Couldn’t I switch my research to something more in line with contemporary [Western] trends in educational

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research? “Indians are such a small population, there won’t be much interest [for journal publications]; “the sample size would be too small,” and so on. Yet, in 1994, Malin raised a critical question regarding Aboriginal teachers hired in Australia. He asked, “If as a society [we] only accept those ethnic minority teachers who fit our culturally specific model of what is considered a good teacher, aren’t we defeating the purpose in having Aboriginal teachers in the first place?” (Italics added, p. 113). Substitute “researcher” for “teacher” and a similar question might be put to the academy. What responsibility does the institution have to respect and value, in tenurable ways, different sorts of research a person, such as myself, may bring to the academy? Interestingly, my different appearance (e.g., accessories, long hair), while carrying currency in terms of diversification can also be perceived as a [daily] act of nonconformity. For example, long after an interview for a position had occurred, it was leaked to me that the all White faculty at my interview had thought I was too Indian for them. (I had worn a matching skirt and suit jacket from J.C. Penney’s to the interview—hardly traditional Native regalia.) In trying to understand what that meant, I pursued the line of reasoning a bit farther. I was told that, apparently, the faculty weren’t expecting me to look so Indian. It would seem that, on occasion, those at the Center, find my Indian-ness too challenging to the status quo. In such a case, the assimilationist model is strong, and the myopia so blinding, that I would have to change my identity to even have access [via job interviews] to the academy. While only an example, this speaks to the intensity of conformity at the Center. I ask: why? Is my racial identity that threatening? Or could it be that my identity is a reminder of the “ . . . dark episodes of the destruction of Indians and their cultures . . . ” (Fixico, 1998, p. 86) that is less deniable if I am present? How does such a possibility affect the Center’s ability to value my research, when something as benign as my physical presence is deemed problematic? I am reminded of what Tatanka Yotanka [Chief Sitting Bull], the Hunkpapa Lakota leader, no stranger to clashes of worldviews, said: If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man, he would have made me so in the first place. He put in your heart certain wishes and plans; in my heart he put other and different desires. Each man is good in the sight of the Great Spirit. It is not necessary for eagles to be crows. (Nerburn & Mengelkoch, 1991, p. 85)


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His point, which is still valid today, holds that even in nature, not everything is the same. Thinking in terms of researchers, and pretenure fit, is it necessary for “eagles to be crows?” The assimilationist practices to secure adherence to the Western paradigms and epistemology, may determine an untenured scholar fit, but in the process may restrict the opportunity to expand what constitutes knowledge and research.

NARROWLY FOCUSED RESEARCH AGENDA, PREFERABLY IN AN ALREADY VALIDATED AREA OF RESEARCH The narrowly focused research agenda, preferable in an already validated area of research is supposed to be a helpful expectation along the tenure and promotion lines. “Focus, focus, focus” is the mantra. The purpose here is to demonstrate that a researcher can concentrate one’s efforts and, therefore, demonstrate a track record in a very narrowly prescribed area. I appreciate the value that focus offers; yet, epistemologically, I question its institutionalization. For example, how is the concept of “narrowing” one’s research at the pretenure level more reflective of the Newtonian rationality that is embedded in Western notions of science? What constitutes research? As Notah Verney (2004), articulates: [I]n the USA, where traditional academic philosophy generally means Euro-American (or Greek) philosophy, the tendency toward method has been to analyze by taking apart ‘what is’ to distinguish’ what is’ from ‘what is not.’ Using this method . . . ideas when severed, tend to lose meaning by losing relation with all surrounding things. In contrast, we Dine (People) philosophize by making connections among all things, thus giving all things meaning in relation, and approach our world in a wholistic manner. (p. 135.) What Notah Verney raises as problematic is a difference in worldview of how research and knowledge is constructed and understood. In Western paradigms, knowledge is compartmentalized and dissected into smaller and smaller units. Therefore, the Western paradigms that demand a narrowing of one’s research is actually grounded in a Western approach to understanding how to go about knowing what we know. “Focus” is seen as a Western research strategy (to take the proverbial magnifying class), and in this way, most closely examine the smallest unit of analysis to “know.”

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From the margins, however, I see the possibility of having more than one research interest. For example, because of experiences with prejudice, racism, and the power of White privilege throughout my lifetime, these issues are an important research focus for me. In addition, my early, unsuccessful arguments of protest regarding accurate Indian history and Indian [mis]representations, have forged a lifelong passion of researching these topics. Grounded in my location as Other, combined with my Indigenous epistemological framework, I do not see these distinct research interests as incompatible or problematic. Still, I have been strongly encouraged to “pick one” and “focus more narrowly if you want to get tenure” and, what is often unspoken but inferred: preferably, not on the former of the two research interests. The expectation of narrowing one’s research has been compounded by pressure to focus my research “preferably in an already validated area.” For example, I have been asked with some frequency: Can’t you just do a comparison of some sort between White students and Indian students? Setting aside, momentarily, the privileging of Whiteness in such a case, being asked to do comparative research would completely alter my research agenda and the nature of my inquiries. This expected change would recast my research designs, the methods I would need to implement, and the nature of the questions that my research might answer. It would mean that in order to maintain the fit, I would need to do research (in this case, comparative research) that would reinforce the dominance of Western epistemologies, while demonstrating that I had sufficiently acquiesced to the assimilationist model. In turn, this would demonstrate that I had obediently followed the Western construction of what constitutes an appropriate research topic. Besides the apparent need to completely change my research interests and foci, such blind obedience leaves intact the privileging of Whiteness as a standard of measure this type of comparative research embodies. It leaves unexamined the ways in which White/Indian comparison, by its very nature, embodies the dominant/subordinate paradigm. The implication is that a research study designed to inquire about some aspect of Indian student life, for example, would not be as valid, or as reliable a study, as that of a comparative design. This implication is not one that a White researcher would have to consider in designing a study on some aspect of White student life. That researcher would not be pressured to do a comparison with a non-White group, in order to validate their research. Too, there is another issue this “narrowly validated research” expectation raises. I am a Native American focused on Native American


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research. In sharing my research agenda with more senior White faculty, I have been told that I should steer clear of conducting Native American research. When I have asked why, I have been told that my research would be seen as lacking objectivity and, therefore, validity. Objectivity, then, becomes an issue, as Western epistemology prides itself on this concept as a means of legitimizing outsider research as carrying more validity. Ironically, White researchers have been conducting White-focused research for over one hundred years without any question of their insider status in such research. Rarely is the lack of outsider research on White subjects considered essential or necessary in the Center’s effort to maintain epistemological dominance. Instead, White researchers’ status and positionality or privilege at the Center, apparently vaccinates such insider research against any claims of subjectivity. Yet, Native scholars and Native communities question the validity and objectivity of research conducted by outsiders, who often misunderstand, misinterpret, and misrepresent the phenomena they investigate (Battiste & Youngblood Henderson, 2000; Mihesua, 1998a; L. Smith, 1999). Senior Native scholars, such as Vine Deloria, Jr., point out, “[f]or most of the five centuries, whites have had unrestricted power to describe Indians in any way they chose” (1996, p. 66). In American history, for example, Fixico (1998) states: Whether racially prejudiced or guilt-ridden, patronizing, paternalistic, or romantic, Indian history mainly has been perceived from a white perspective, based on the idea that the conquerors write the history. More than 30,000 manuscripts have been published about American Indians, and more than 90 percent of that literature has been written by non-Indians . . . The point here is that non-Indian scholars have sought to define the perameters [sic] of the field American Indian scholars have sought to define the perameters [sic] of the field American Indian history. They have attempted to determine its forms of evidence only as written accounts, professed limited theories, and devised methodologies from a non-Indian tradition. (p. 88) The case is similar in Indian education. Swisher (1998), cites as an example, that three White scholars, alone, have published over thirty articles and books on Indian education in the last fifteen years. “Their authority is cited more often than the experts from whom their experience and information was gathered, and they [the White scholars] have become the experts in Indian education recognized by their mainstream peers” (italics

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added, p. 193). In this way, then, the issue of objectivity in research becomes a thinly veiled code for the purposes of self-preservation, to protect the Center’s control of knowledge construction and epistemological imperialism. This leads to the issue of voice in research. For example, Harrison (1993), discussed the matter of polyvocal ventriloquism among some researchers at the Center. Referring, in this case, to anthropologists, who share some similar research strategies and paradigms with many educational researchers, she stated: . . . the sophisticated textual strategies and rhetorical devices in which it [anthropology] invests so much faith perhaps unwittingly encode the appropriation of subaltern voices—the voices of the oppressed— and amount to a version of polyvocal ventriloquism. The anthropologist as skillful ventriloquist only revocalizes colonial dominance while magically projecting the illusion of dispersed power and authority. (p. 401) The issue, then, of voice, of who gets to speak for whom, of what happens to authenticity, and how it is used, becomes central not only to my own research considerations, but also in terms of understanding how the Center protects its centricity by legitimizing who gets to conduct research with whom. The Center may deem outsider research as neutral and, therefore, fittingly objective and acceptable. However, the questions Mohanty raised in 1991, still resonate today. She queried, “[w]ho produces knowledge about colonized peoples and from what space/location? What are the politics of the production of this particular knowledge?” (1991, p. 3). As an American Indian researcher focused on Native research topics, Mohanty’s questions about objectivity raise for me the question of knowledge to serve what purpose? The nature of my inquiry and scholarship have been discouraged, deemed suspect of bias due to my insider cultural identity, and seen by the Center as lacking objectivity. Ironically, the Center’s vested interest in maintaining epistemological supremacy, obscures from positional scrutiny, the outside researchers culturally biased location at the Center. Many non-Indians have made lucrative, and lifelong careers researching Indians as objects. Do the human beings who are objectified for such career long research agendas truly benefit from such research, or are they simply commodities to be traded for the “outsider as expert” book deals, keynote addresses, consults, and the often well-paid speaking


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engagements? I ask these questions because in many Native Nations and communities, research has become a very ugly word (e.g., Cajete, 2000; Cook-Lynn, 2001; Deloria & Wildcat, 2001; Mihesua, 1998a; Parker, 2003; L. Smith, 1999). As Mihesua (1998b) points out: [t]he subjects of research usually receive few, if any, benefits from the lucrative research grants awarded to scholars each year. Ironically, some of these scholars bask in the glow of scholarly notoriety while the tribes they write about dismiss these same works as fiction. (p. 8) The issue of who benefits from such research has become so pervasive that some Native Nations are exercising their sovereignty by developing protection mechanisms to limit non-Indian researchers from exploiting Native people as objects, and the traditional Indigenous knowledges they possess as commodities (Lomawaima, 2000). Given the negative history of exploitive research in Native communities around the world; given the bitter taste it left for objectified peoples; and given the lack of visible benefits from much of this research, the issue of objectivity takes on new meaning, for both the researcher and the researched. The Center, with its Western colonizing epistemologies and paradigms, persists in the sense of entitlement that comes from questioning the status quo, and maintains a blind spot when objectivity is at stake. As a Native researcher, the consequences then, may be vastly different than my White pretenure colleagues conducting white research, where their insider status in their research is ignored, and therefore, does not carry the same weight in their bid for tenure.

PUBLICATIONS IN THE PREMIERE JOURNALS OF THE FIELD The third expectation regarding pretenure fit is the need to publish in “premiere” journals of the respective field. This is meant to demonstrate to the Center that the pretenure faculty’s research is sound in design and methodology, and that their scholarship meets acceptance in a blind review from experts in the field. Two major questions come into focus related to this expectation and matters of research. First, there is the issue of the premiere, or elitist journals. Because of the prestige and weight given to publishing in premiere journals at tenure and promotion time, getting scholarly work into such journals has (to some extent), come to represent the quality of the researcher and the legitimacy of their research. Conversely, not getting published in these journals,

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often leave pretenured faculty in a second class position. Therefore, there is enormous pressure to publish in such journals. Yet, scholars of color, in general, are less likely to have their work published in premiere journals than their White counterparts. While there is often sympathetic rhetoric and lip service given by the Center, in support of the contributions of scholars of color with respect to their research and scholarship, the number of articles accepted in such elite journals by researchers of color is demoralizingly low (Frierson, 1990; Padilla, 1994; Reyes & Halc´on, 1991). For example, Aguirre (1995) submitted an article, based on his research with Chicanos, to a premiere journal in his field. The turnaround was faster than he expected. He explains: In three sentences the journal’s editor said that he was using his authority as editor not to send out the paper for external review. According to the editor, the paper was of limited interest to the members. . . . Interestingly, an article dealing with Chicanos was published in the next quarterly issue of the journal. The . . . authors were white academics. (p. 22–23) Elite journals often publish a token amount of scholarship by scholars of color—enough to ward off direct claims of overt racism, but few enough to raise suspicion. Often, such journals uses veiled language to imply that the quality of scholarship and research generated by scholars of color is not as qualified as that of White scholars. Phrases such as “limited interest to the members,” or “too political” are some that have been used to deny scholars of color access to such journals (e.g., CookLynn, 2001; Deloria, 1997; Mihesua, 1998b; Rains, 1995; Reyes & Halcon, 1991). What is interesting about such rejection statements is that they do not refer to some design flaw, or methodological incompatibility, but rather emphasize the lack of fit between the research topic and the journal. So, the first question related to this expectation of pretenure fit is this: Are such stated reasons reflective of the quality of the scholarship, and the quality of the research design and method, or is this really a situation of potentially mis-matched epistemologies between the editorial board and the scholar? Boyer (1990), for example, argues that, “[w]hile we speak with pride about the great diversity of American higher education, the reality is that on many campuses priorities frequently are more imitative than distinctive” (p. 2). Compounding this is the symbiotic relationship between premiere journals and the Center.


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The Center needs the premiere journals to help maintain credibility and supremacy, and the premiere journals need the Center to maintain their respective members and readership. Given the Western colonizing paradigms and epistemology of the Center, any scholarship or research that does not uphold these traditions is more at risk of being labeled substandard. Because the research of many scholars of color falls outside the purview of Western epistemological dominance, their work is more vulnerable to second class status. This subordinated status may be repeated when these scholars submit their work to the very journals that uphold the Center’s dominance. In this way, the scholar of color, who goes up for tenure and promotion without prerequisite publications in premiere journals, may experience a blame-the-victim response. The researcher of color may have conducted insider research, framed with a non-Western epistemic paradigm. This researcher, then, may be denied tenure because the publication trail did not include esteemed, elite journals. It might be assumed that this researcher doesn’t measure up to the Center’s expectations. However, it could also be that the method of measure (the quantity of publications in elite journals), is not an accurate indication of the quality of the inside researcher’s work. For example, what would have happened if the inside researchers work had been accepted in journals that consistently blind review such work? What if the researcher’s work had, under the process of blind review, resulted in several publications in such journals. Would that then, be an indication that the researcher’s work was really second class, or merely different from the Western tradition. This leads to the second question related to the expectation of pretenure fit: What really constitutes elite? Using the analogy of fruit, the highest quality orange will never measure up to the criteria of what constitutes a superb apple. Does that mean that the orange is inferior, or merely different? I argue that the time has come to abolish the separate but equal status of journals that publish non-Western research and scholarship framed in Indigenous and Other epistemologies. Often such journals, for example the Journal of American Indian Education; the Journal of Negro Education; and the Journal of Latinos and Education, have some of the most respected and revered scholars of color in the field, who blind review work that is submitted. The process of such journals is not different from elite journals; blind review is used in both. These scholars as reviewers, are eminently qualified to blind review new work in the field. They are familiar with the research literature, designs and methodologies and are positioned to determine what constitutes

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strong versus weak scholarship. They are often in a better position to determine whether such scholarship is really too political or of limited interest than the reviewers of elite journals who are less versed in different, epistemic frameworks of research.

Self-determination in Research Indigenous communities have struggled since colonization to exercise what is viewed as a fundamental right: to represent ourselves. Indigenous peoples have been, in many ways, oppressed by theory [and research]. Any consideration of the ways our origins have been examined, our histories recounted, our arts analyzed, our cultures dissected, measured, torn apart and distorted back to us will suggest that theories have not looked ethically at us. (L. Smith, 1999, p. 38) For me, this discussion raises the issue of self-determination in research. The call for self-determination is prominent in both Native intellectual, and grassroots, circles (e.g., Battiste & Youngblood Henderson, 2000; Cook-Lynn, 2001; Deloria & Wildcat, 2001; Lomawaima, 2000; Mihesua, 1998a; Parker, 2003; Swisher, 1998; Swisher & Tippeconnic, III, 1999a; Waters, 2004). The clash of worldviews and paradigms permeate every element of contact between the Colonizers and the Indigenous Peoples on this continent. In order for the balance of power to be complete, however, it was also necessary for the Colonizers to delegitimize knowledge, Native science, and the metaphysics and epistemologies5 that frame them (e.g., Battiste, 2000; Battiste & Youngblood Henderson, 2000; Blaut, 1993; Cajete, 2000; Cook-Lynn, 2001; Deloria & Wildcat, 2001). As Deloria (1997) explains: Any group that wishes to be regarded as the authority in a human society must not simply banish or discredit the view of their rivals, they must become the sole source of truth for that society and defend their status and power to interpret against all comers . . . it is even permissible to tell lies in order to maintain status, since the most fatal counterattack against entrenched authority will not be directed against their facts but against their status (p. 26). In this way, the Colonizers were able to maintain a stranglehold on what constituted knowledge and legitimate worldviews. Self-determination is the struggle to reclaim the balance of power that has been eroded over the last 500 years between Native Peoples and


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these same Colonizers. More and more, Native Nations are exercising their right to self-determination in the area of research, despite Western colonization. This self-determination includes resistance to Colonizer theories of research and scholarship that, in combination, work to erase indigenous voice, accuracy, and agency. This erasure continues to be a necessary part of preserving dominance—cognitively, politically, and culturally. It leaves unquestioned the constructed nature of the research and the political and cultural positionality of the researcher. Yet, research is not neutral. Senior Native scholars like Deloria (1997), Swisher (1998), and Parker (2003) have questioned whether outsiders, who may have limited exposure to the Native communities they research, can really understand the cultures, languages, economics, and positionality of Other. In this light, self-determination takes on a different significance. At the research level, self-determination is not simply about empowering Indigenous scholars with choices of research foci, rather, self-determination in this context brings a different way of thinking about research practices and the epistemology that frames them. It means the: . . . authority to ask new and different questions based on histories and experiences as indigenous people. It is more than different ways of knowing; it is knowing that what we think is grounded in principles of sovereignty and self-determination, and that it has credibility . . . it takes American Indians and Alaska Natives to understand the depth of meaning incorporated in Indian education to ask appropriate questions and find appropriate answers (Swisher, 1998, pp. 193–194). In short, self-determination in research demands a rethinking of the nature of research and the role of the researcher, with implications for academe.

NATURE OF RESEARCH Self-determination in research brings with it a different conceptualization of the purpose of research. Certainly, the views from within (e.g., Rains, 1995;1998a; Swisher, 1998) are different from the outside looking in, and thereby affect the nature of research on a general level. But beyond the shift in viewpoint, self-determination in the context of inquiry, offers the opportunity to “. . . develop theoretical understandings and practices that arise out of our own Indigenous knowledge. . . . Theory will enable us

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to move forward in the work that we are doing in our communities, in developing sound critiques and effective interventions” (G. Smith, 2000, p. 214). Self-determination in research also requires a recognition of the sovereignty of Native Nations. This is important because the power differentials between academic researchers and the communities in which they work have rarely been balanced (Lomawaima, 2000). The positional differences between the Colonizer and the Colonized are mirrored in how Native sovereignty is often subordinated to the political whims of the greater society. This imbalance often affects the nature of the research as well as its outcomes and consequences. Western paradigms drive much of the research conducted among Native Peoples. This often self-serving nature of research, driven by the need to bolster careers through publications, leads to research practices that often exploit Native People and their cultural knowledge, languages, and spiritual practices. Ironically, the publications generated from such research are rarely accessible or useful to the people who made the research possible. Worse, such scholarship is sometimes used to shape federal policies and practices without the authentic voices of those who are most directly affected (e.g., Battiste, 2000; Deloria, 1998; Lomawaima, 2000; Swisher, 1998). In a survey conducted with over 50 Native Nations, 4 major issues regarding previous research with these Nations were revealed as problematic: 1. Inappropriate use of culturally sensitive information, especially spiritual information. 2. Commercial or other exploitive [sic] use of information. 3. Unauthorized infringement of individual, family, or group ownership rights for songs, stories, or other information. 4. Potential conflicts or harm resulting from the research, including what comes from the inappropriate interpretation of data, inappropriate intrusions into community life, and breaches of confidentiality and friendship (Nason, 1996, p. 19). Such issues have increased skepticism of the nature of research from the standpoint of many tribes. While some have research protocols in place (Lomawaima, 2000) to protect their people, cultures, languages, stories, prayers, spiritual practices, and songs, these issues speak to the way that self-determination in research may differ from past research. Self determination in research requires a respect for the sovereignty of the tribe(s). As Indigenous scholars (e.g., Battiste & Youngblood;


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Henderson, 2000; Lomawaima, 2000; L. Smith, 1999; Swisher, 1998; Swisher & Tippeconnic III, 1999b) indicate, there is a need to be more than simply mindful with regard to the Native Nations. In this sort of research, the balance of power shifts to honor the self-determination of the tribe. It requires an earnest recognition of the legitimacy of Indigenous knowledge, epistemic standpoints, and traditions. Trust may take time to establish. Preconceived research foci and designs may be of little value to the respective tribe, who instead may request research in a different, but more essential area. Valuable concerns emanating from the tribe may generate more useful questions in the research focus area. The tribe may also have ideas about dissemination of findings or about ownership of the data. The balance of power is level, with respect and negotiation at the forefront. Self-determination in research means that research is not about taking in an individualistic, career-driven way. Instead, it is about respectful reciprocity that honors the commitment and needs of tribe or community, while framing the research in ways that honors Indigenous epistemologies, metaphysics, and knowledge.

ROLE OF RESEARCHER Self-determination in research requires a different kind of role for the researcher. To gain entry into a tribe, a prospective researcher “. . . must first ask [permission from the tribe], and then listen. . . . If the researcher does more talking than listening in the ensuing dialog, something is wrong” (Lomawaima, 2000, p.15). It is, however, erroneous to assume that simply listening will earn automatic access to a community. Brayboy (2000) attests to the tensions and challenges of positionality when an Indigenous researcher (often with a Western, colonial education), enters a Native community to conduct research. The academic demands of a quick turnaround with results coupled with the numbers of researchers some Native communities have encountered, left many Native People with the view that research, with a capital “R,” is a revolving door. In such Native communities, researchers of one kind or another have come and gone in rapid fire succession. Some Native communities have been inundated with quick turn around researchers for one hundred years or more, with little or no benefit, and having been exploited. Native researchers may encounter this perspective. The Native researcher may be skeptically viewed as an “ivory tower intellectual, disconnected from Indigenous communities and concerns, a mere functionary for the colonization of our peoples” (G. Smith, 2000, p.

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213). Therefore, indigenous researchers need to positively, and yet humbly work to earn and build trust. Recognition and respect of Elders, and Keepers of Traditions and Languages, are essential. The researcher working with, rather than on, Native tribes and communities has an opportunity to build relationships. Research, viewed from the standpoint of these potential relationships, can be a form of agency, wherein the researchers and the Native communities work together to strengthen Native education, and Native sovereignty, and generate grounded theory using Indigenous knowledge and epistemic frameworks.

Conclusion: Making the Intellectual Space Research is a distinguishing characteristic of universities. Universities are committed to the creation of knowledge through research, reflection, scholarship and academic freedom. . . . For indigenous peoples, universities are regarded as rather elite institutions which reproduce themselves through various systems of privilege . . . bastions of Western elitism. It is not surprising then, that many Indigenous students find little space for indigenous perspectives in most academic disciplines and most research approaches (L. Smith, 1999, p.129). Making intellectual space in the academy is not an easy task. Yet, it is necessary. The pride that many institutions retain regarding the enterprise of expanding understanding, while standing on the foundational capstone of academic freedom needs to be honored, no less for Indigenous scholars than for White scholars. To do less would be hypocritical, at best and racist, at worst. Indigenous scholars, like myself, have a responsibility to ensure the intellectual space is made to carry out our research and scholarship. We stand on the shoulders of other Native scholars who have made the pipeline big enough for us to squeeze through. We must ensure that those who follow in our footsteps have the intellectual space in which to work. Academic freedom, and the mission to pursue and broaden our understanding of knowledge demand it. Freire might have argued that as Native scholars, we must empower ourselves. I believe this is important. The time has come for research institutions to live up to their mission statements. It is time for academic institutions to decolonize tenure practices that privilege Western knowledge. Supremacy is a dangerous thing, as the history of this country demonstrates over, and over again. The narrow


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construction of the tenure system dismisses anyone who does not assimilate into the dogmatic publish or perish paradigm. As a result, to obtain tenure Indigenous scholars, who bring a different epistemic standpoint, a self-determination research focus, and a commitment to Indigenous knowledge, have to become White and forego the research and scholarship that brought them to the research institution in the first place. As Blaut (1993) reminds us: Because of its power to reward, punish, and control, this [process] succeeds in convincing most scholars that its interests are the interests of everyone. These interests are social, economic, and political agendas, and it is a simple transformation to insert the word ‘ought’ and turn them into values. Viewed statically, these interests are always clear, and the values derived from them cohere into the dominant value system that more or less mirrors these interests. Hence, we have at all times a kind of environment of values, surrounding and influencing the ongoing validation process in scholarship (p. 39). In rigidly holding fast to this particular worldview, academe has invalidated scholarship and research that does not uphold this limited construction of what counts as legitimate. The academic rewards system advocates speed, repetition, elite journals, and fast turnarounds, but at what cost? Is faster research and rapid turnaround scholarship to publication necessarily the intent of the mission statements? Is this the system that produces expanding knowledge and understanding? Or is this the system that perpetuates the status quo? At the very least, the system is due for a tune-up (e.g., Boyer, 1990; Caplan, 1994; Ford-Slack, Rains, Dunlap, & Collay, 1994). We stand on the cusp of a new millennium, and tuning up the rewards system at the beginning of a new millenium might set a positive foundation for the future. As Boyer (1990) stated: It is this issue—what it means to be a scholar-that is the central theme. . . . The time has come, we believe, to step back and reflect on the variety of functions academics are expected to perform. It’s time to ask how priorities of the professoriate relate to the faculty reward system, as well as to the missions of America’s higher learning institutions. Such an inquiry into the work of faculty is essential if students are to be well served, [and] if the creativity of all faculty is to be fully tapped. (emphasis original; p. 2)

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One of the strong distinctions between Indigenous epistemologies and the Western colonizing epistemic standpoint (that continues to guard the Ivory Tower), is the value in and responsibility toward community. For example, service is often viewed with enormous disdain as the ugly stepchild of the reward system. Yet, perceived in a more dynamic way, it could offer “new intellectual understandings” out of the process of applying “theory and practice vitally interact, and one renews the other” (Boyer, 1990. p. 23). So, for example, Indigenous researchers whose work brings a focus on Indian self-determination could conduct research and also contribute to the generation of theory. Native scholars who enter into relationships with Native communities could offer a win-win situation to the academy. Outreach services to Native communities, could help restore balance and good will regarding future research endeavors that honor Native sovereignty. Such service could inspire a new generation of Native youth to consider the academic institution that supports such research and scholarship. Such Native scholars could bring their learning directly to students in their college classrooms through the courses they design. And, the time invested in the community could generate new scholarship in publications that blind reviews such work with knowledgeable scholars well-versed in the methodologies and epistemic frameworks that guide their research. In addition the institutional commitment to diversity could move beyond lip service to an earnest advancement in racial understanding. It would mean opening up an institutional system that has become very tightly bound. It would mean rethinking the positive potential and value of service. It would mean rethinking the frantic speed and “kill or be killed” attitude regarding the race for elite journal publications that maintain the current research house that Jack built. It would mean holding up a mirror to Western colonizing epistemologies as a means of opening up the institutions to different epistemologies. It would mean revisiting the mission statements of institutions to have the reward system more in sync with the mission statement. It would mean some rethinking indeed. But rethinking can easily be assigned to a committee or a commission, until it fades from view. More is needed. Action is needed. Earnest institutional change is necessary. Unless that White, male, doctoral student, who was in the field of higher education that produces the deans, chancellors and presidents of colleges and universities, was right about American Indians not belonging in higher education. Unless academe is really only for those scholars who embrace Western colonizing


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epistemologies. For despite claims to the contrary, the current reward system is subjective. So, it would seem paradoxical to claim that academe cannot change because to do so would mean it would have to relinquish equality. Fifty years after the Brown case, faculty of color in academe, in general, are still at the back of the Ivory Tower’s school bus. Changing the tenure process, and faculty reward system, would make intellectual space possible for Native scholars such as myself. Standing on the margins of Center, such an enterprise could make the circly bigger and more authentically inclusive. It could breathe new life into the leaning ivory tower (Padilla & Chavez Chavez, 1995).

Notes 1. For better or worse, given Columbus’s navigational error, treaties between the European governmental bodies and later, the United States, and respective independent, sovereign Native Nations were written using “Indians” and “American Indians.” Therefore, there is validity in using the terms “Indian” and “American Indian” despite political correctness arguments to the contrary. However, by using “American Indian” alone, it excludes Alaska Natives or First Nations of Canada and other indigenous peoples. Therefore, for this chapter I will use primarily Native, Native Peoples, Native Nations and Indigenous to reflect the original inhabitants of the lands. While less comfortable with the term, “Western” (see endnote), I will use this term and non-Indian, and occasionally, white to refer to people of European immigrant descent. It is important to note that I only represent myself in these views. 2. The use of this term “Western” has been appropriated by European/White Americans to represent their paradigms, behaviors and ways of life. A more accurate description might be “Newtonian rationality.” Western leaves the Native Nations, who have occupied this land mass “west” of Britain for over 10,000 years, little choice but to consider our paradigms, behaviors and ways of life as “non-Western,” all the while sharing the same land mass as those who claim to be “western”. This is an irony, given that standing on these shores, Europe is east of here and Asia is west. So, from a “Non-western” (read Indigenous) point of view, European/White American ways of knowing are actually “eastern” since the intellectual traditions are derived from Europe, not here. 3. Despite the fact that my father never had the luxury of going beyond the eighth grade, he was an intelligent man, who used his intellect and common sense, coupled with his tribal history as springboards to reading and learning more his entire life. However, he lost his mother when he was 5, and his father when he was 14. Times were hard in Oklahoma in the 1930s for many Indians. So, from 1932 to 1942, he lived with various elders and family members who shared various aspects of our history to him over the years he was growing up. Television, videos and dvds were a long way off into the future at that point, and so the telling of this history

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along with memories and stoires, occupied some of the evening hours. The Bering Straits theory played no role in this history. 4. While entire books have been written on the subject of Indigenous Knowledge and Indigenous Epistemology (see for example, Battiste & Youngblood Henderson, 2000; Cajete, 200; Deloria, 1997; Waters, 2004) briefly put, Western epistemology is about abstraction, whereas, Indigenous epistemology does not divorce human beings from the equation of understanding. Waters (2004), in discussing the work of Burkhart, states that what distinguishes “Indian knowing from Western knowing is the difference between the Western belief that philosophy holds knowledge, and the belief that literature and religion hold human expression. Indian philosophy fuses science and knowing with literature and religion. . . . [Western epistemology says] ‘I think therefore I am’ [whereas Native epistemology says] ‘We are therefore I am’. An understanding of all that I and others see and experience is accounted for and passed down through generations in the art of story and ceremony: (p. xviii). Burkhart (2004) draws upon the metaphor of a song, explaining that a person can learn a song without learning the musical notation. A Western world view would perceive that learning the notes (abstraction) would be akin to “knowing” the song. An Indigenous worldview would perceive that the song could be learned without ever seeing/reading a note. In one case[Western] one understands the “notes”, in the other case, one understands the “song.” Not better, not worse, but different ways of coming to understanding. Land, and our relationship to it, and all that it entails, along with the metaphysics and elements of nature, all are pieces of an Indigenous epistemology. While I am oversimplifying here, I do so, more to give a sense of the difference, rather than to offer a detailed explanation, which others have done more articulately and with more detail. 5. Each Native Nation has its own epistemology and metaphysics, yet there are some common threads that may be helpful to the non-Indian as a means of being able to distinguish the differences between Western and American Indian worldviews. The purpose here is not to debate or elaborate on the plurality of Native worldviews.

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Ford-Slack, P. J., Rains, F. V., Dunlap, D., & Collay, M. (1994, April). Can we rebuild the AERA house using the same old tools? The Academic Vampire Chronicles III. A reader’s theatre on life in academia. An experimental presentation at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA. Frierson, H. T. (1990, March). The situation of Black educational researchers: Continuation of a crisis. Educational Researcher, 19(2), 12–17. Gedicks, A. (1993). The new resource wars: Native and environmental struggles against multinational corporations. Boston: South End Press. Harrison, F. V. (1993). Writing against the grain: Cultural politics of difference in the work of Alice Walker. Critique of Anthropology, 13(4), 401–427. Hunt Jackson, H. (1880/1993). A century of dishonor: A sketch of the United States government’s dealings with some of the Indian tribes. New York: Indian Head Books. Hurtado, A. (1996). The color of privilege: Three blasphemies on race and feminism. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. LaDuke, W. (1999). All our relations: Native struggles for land and life. Cambridge, MA: South End Press. Little Bear, L. (2000). Jagged worldviews colliding. In M. Battiste (Ed.). Reclaiming Indigenous voice and vision (pp. 77–85). Vancouver, Canada: University of British Columbia Press. Lomawaima, K. T. (2000, Spring). Tribal Sovereigns: Reframing research in American Indian education. Harvard Educational Review, 70(1), 1–21. Macedo, D., & Bartolome, L. I. (1999). Dancing with bigotry: Beyond the politics of tolerance. New York: Palgrave Publishers. Malin, M. (1994). What is a good teacher? Anglo and Aboriginal Australian views. Peabody Journal of Education, 69(2), 94–114. Mihesuah, D. A. (Ed.). (1998a). Natives and academics: Researching and writing about American Indians. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Mihesuah, D. A. (1998b). Introduction. In D. A. Mihesual (Ed.), Natives and academics: Researching and writing about American Indians (pp. 1–22). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Mohanty, C. T. (1991). Introduction: Cartographies of struggle-Third world women and the politics of feminism. In C. T. Mohanty & L. Torres (Eds.), Third world women and the politics of feminism (pp. 1–47). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Nason, J. D. (1996). Tribal models for controlling research. Tribal College, 8(2), 17–20.


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Nerburn, K., & Mengelkoch, L. (1991). Native American wisdom. San Rafael, CA: New World Library. Notah Verney, M. (2004). On authenticity. In A. Waters (Ed.), American Indian thought: Philosophical essays (pp.133–139). Malden, MA: Blackwell. Padilla, A. M. (1994). Ethnic minority scholars, research, and mentoring: Current and future issues. Educational Researcher, 23(4), 24–27. Padilla, R. V., & Chavez Chavez, R. (1995). The leaning ivory tower: Latino professors in American universities. Albany: State University of New York Press. Parker, A. (2003, February). Should Native American scholars support the development of advanced studies in Native American self-determination as a unifying theory for the discipline of Native American Studies? Unpublished discussion paper. Fourth Annual American Indian Studies Consortium, Arizona State University. Tempe, AZ. Rains, F. V. (1995). Views from within: Women faculty of color in a research university. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Indiana University, Bloomington. Rains, F. V. (1998b). Is the benign really harmless?: Deconstructing some ‘benign’ manifestations of operationalized white privilege. In J. Kincheloe (Ed.), White reign: Learning and deploying whiteness in America. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Rains, F. V. (2003). To greet the dawn with open eyes: American Indians, white privilege and the power of residual guild in the social studies. In G. Ladson-Billings (Ed.), Critical race theory perspectives on the social studies: The profession, policies and the curriculum (pp.199–227). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing. Reyes, M. de la L., & Halcon, J. J. (1991). Practices of the academy: Barriers to access for Chicano academics. In P. G. Altback & K. Lomoley (Eds) The racial crisis in American higher education. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Rock Ethics Institute. (2004). Ethics and epistemologies of ignorance conference: Conference Goals. The Penn State University, University Park, PA. Retrieved (April 22, 2004) from http://www.rockethics.psu.edu/eei/conference_goals.html Roman, L. G. (1993). White is a color! White defensiveness, postmodernism and anti-racist pedagogy. In C. McCarthy and W. Crichlow (Eds.), Race, identity and representation in education (pp.71–88). New York: Routledge. Smith, G. H. (2000). Protecting and respecting Indigenous knowledge. In M. Battiste (Ed), Reclaiming Indigenous voice and vision (pp. 209–224). Vancouver, B.C. Canada. Smith, L. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples. New York: Zed Books. Stannard, D. E. (1992). American holocaust: The conquest of the new world. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Swisher, K. G. (1998). Why Indian people should be the ones to write about Indian education. In D. A. Mihesuah (Ed.). Natives and academics: Researching and writing about American Indians (pp.190–200). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Swisher, K. G., & Tippeconnic, J. W., III. (1999a), Next steps: Research and practice to advance Indian education. Charleston, WV: ERIC Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools. Swisher, K. G., & Tippeconnic, J. W., III. (1999b). Research to support improved practice in Indian education. In K. G. Swisher & J. W. Tippeconnic, III (Eds.), Next steps: Research and practice to advance Indian education (pp. 295–307). Charleston, WV: ERIC Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools. Waters, A. (Ed.). (2004). American Indian thought: Philosophical essays. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.

Chapter 3

Reflections on the Process of Becoming an Academician BARBARA K. CURRY

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or more than a decade I have spent much of my energy focused on research involving talking to women about their development as leaders. I found their life stories fascinating. Along with this, I have talked with people who have experienced change and have been captivated by the themes that emerge from their accounts of the process. I like to listen. If I were to describe my most loved and what I find, most exciting approach to research, I would have to confess that I am, at heart, a voyeur, not of the sexual obsession variety. Yes, it is true of me. I would rather than eat, sleep, or take in a glorious sunset, prefer to sit quietly, injecting an occasional probe to keep a story coming, and listen. And, I find the injection of the question “What do you think?” by the source of my extreme pleasure— the person talking-startling. After all, listening is not about what I think. It is about what the speaker thinks, feels, and has experienced. It is about his or her life in all of its unfolding wonder. The speaker brings me as close to the question that has been on my mind since I was about seven years old when I would sit down next to our company and simply ask: “So how do you like it here so far?” They would respond with “Here? Here-Where? And I would say, “This place.” My mother would scold me for making our company uncomfortable and would warn me that I was doing what she called showing off. This would embarrass me into retreating and feeling a bit peculiar although I was, during those times, unsure of why. I was fortunate; however, I had a rich source of other folk’s experiences through my neighbor and best friend in all the world at the time. Mrs. Baily was in her eighties when she moved next door with her daughter and son-in-law. It is important to emphasize the phrase “best friend in all 49

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the world” as it was always included in my introduction of her during my conversations with my peers. It remains, to this day, an accurate description of our relationship. And, it was part of the promise we made to each other: to be and remain best friends in all the world. My time with her was spent listening to her personal history and those of many of the people in her life. The life and times of her cousin, Mr. Benny, were especially delicious to hear about. Mrs. Baily’s bedroom was in the front of the old three-story limestone Victorian row home where she lived. Her home was identical to the one I lived in with my mother, father, and three sisters. She was in an ideal position to sit at one of the two windows and watch people up and down the block on South Christian Street. She knew everyone’s background and business. She even knew people on Woodward, Green, and Duke Streets. Most amazingly, as I grew up during Jim Crow and White folks did not mix with Black folks much, she knew White people’s business as well. This I found completely fascinating. They lived across the street and very few talked to us. White folks lived on one side of the street and we lived on the other. It is true that I tended to walk slowly by their houses to catch a glimpse inside, smell what they were cooking and listen to their conversations. But compared to what Mrs. Baily knew about them, I was barely scratching the surface of their lives. I believe that some of Mrs. Baily’s inside scoop came from her sonin-law. He hauled White folks’ trash in his truck. In fact, if some of the clothing and furniture were still in good shape, Mr. Lee would sell it to people who came to the secondhand shop he ran out of his basement. There was a step-down alley between our houses with a door to his store. Food, like bags of potato chips, he could save for the kids in the neighborhood if it were not too stale. My point is that everyday, for as long as she lived, Mrs. Baily planted seeds of interests in other people’s lives in fertile ground. She cultivated in me a fascination with other people’s lives. During our friendship, having been found by my immediate family to be a bit on the strange side—different drummer and all of that—I began reading books on psychology. I decided that this thing I had for wanting to hear other people’s stories must have a name or must be diagnosed. I went the diagnostic route because my father caught one of my sisters making up stories and took her to our family doctor for treatment for prevarification, which he viewed as some sort of disorder. Dr. Copper diagnosed her as having a vivid imagination and sent her home without medication to cure her. So I decided to diagnose myself. I found a book, whose title I do not recall, that had to do with personality development and mental illness. I

Reflections on the Process of Becoming an Academician

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almost conceded that I was in the thralls of some illness when Mrs. Baily stepped in and saved me. Out of the blue, she said that I was a good listener and that I was nosey just like her. I believe after noting the dejected look on my face—I knew that nosey was not good from what people said about her—she declared me to be curious. Curious was ok with me. I could live peaceably with that. Heck, I could even be proud of that. My experience with my best friend in all the world was the beginning of consolidation, a way of knowing my world and approaching intriguing people I encounter. Where does this put me with regard to constructing myself as a scholar, researcher, and theorist? There were many precursive iterations of me along these lines. I channeled my curiosity in different directions. I read anything and everything I could take out of the Lancaster Free Public Library. I was expelled from the library for hiding and listening to people’s conversations in the ladies room. I suspect that I was viewed as a juvenile delinquent by the librarians. They found me out during one of my investigations of what women do in the bathroom and why the place remained so neat. This was dramatically different from the times my friends and I used the facility. It turns out that adults had not figured out ways to squirt water from the faucets at each other. At some point I did leave the more undercover aspects of my listening behind for the overt activities of a nurse’s aid. I began working as an aid during grade school and continued on into high school. During the latter part of my tenure, as such, I lost my innocence. Information about people was a type of currency. The more one knew and knew exclusively, the more popular she could become. One day, as I stood in the lunch line, one of the cafeteria ladies said to me, “Barbara, you are a very nice girl. You don’t gossip. I’ve never heard you say a mean thing about anybody.” She set a standard for me with her comment, and I believed I fell short of it. I was moved by the positive impression the woman had of me. But I also knew that she was wrong about me from that day on. It seemed that wherever there was gossip and mean things being said—I was there to hear them. By my very presence, it seemed that I was duplicitous. Listening and expressing an interest in the story looked a lot like collecting gossip and being nosey. The desire to experience other people’s lives through their life stories became transformed by a motivation external to my own. My motivation was curiosity, however, as I continued to work in hospital settings, first as a nurse’s aid, then a ward clerk, and finally as a nurse, the motivation for collecting such stories was born of a higher purpose: to help, to nurse, to heal and make whole. The stories were tied to an ethic of caring

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and unconditional positive regard. These, I incorporated into my approach to listening. Selectivity, trust, and reciprocity became central dynamics in this relationship. By selectivity, I am referring to a respectful restraints. It seems to me to be reasonable, ethical, and moral to steal oneself against running brutally into other people’s lives. I have learned over the years to step cautiously, lightly, and respectfully into lives where I am a guest. I try not to listen in on private discussions unless I am invited. People needed to talk to me so that I could do my job, provide, and have them provided with services. After graduating from Harvard Graduate School of Education, I was fortunate to find employment as assistant to the president and the dean of Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster. When I was urged to teach as an adjunct at the University of Delaware College of Education, I said yes. Then I was asked to consider a full-time tenure track position in educational leadership. I met with the area faculty and discussed my doctoral work. I was aware of the faculty interest in the work I had completed as a graduate student, however, I was unsure of whether or not I could parlay my studies into whatever it took to be part of the academy. Yes, at that time I was thinking in terms of being part of the faculty, not in terms of remaining with the faculty. I was making a commitment to a line of work and production without a clue as to what that meant and how that would play out with the individuals who would be my colleagues. My first day as an assistant professor, I went into my office which was a little larger than a small walk-in closet without windows, called my mother and said, “Mom guess what. I am being paid to do what I love doing—read and write.” I was not factoring in the difficulty of managing a research agenda that had to be expanded in order to support any bid for tenure that I would make. For approximately three months, I sang quietly to myself, the lyrics from a song from The Sound of Music: “Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something right.” After a short honeymoon, students complained that I was demanding and intimidating in class. Jokes that I made in class to put them at ease were taken out of context and reported to the department chair. My colleagues were dismissive at faculty meeting—doing what my mother would have described as rolling their eyes, and seemed to be exasperated by my suggestions for program changes. It seemed to me that my suggestions were being ignored. However, when one of my male colleagues made the same, it was treated as if it were divinely inspired. My English was corrected, my students were encouraged to report on their experiences in my classes, a book on teaching mysteriously showed up in my mailbox, and I began receiving job


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announcements in my mailbox. My dream job was turning out to be a nightmare. I felt vulnerable, inadequate, and fraudulent, as if I had no right to work among these erudite individuals from whom I had to hide my many flaws. If I were to be successful at constructing myself as a member of the faculty, I needed help. I found mentors among the women who came into my life at conferences and professional meetings. I met women who were similarly situated and we supported each other. I met women who were much further along on the faculty tenure and promotion track at my own and other institutions and they supported me. These women mentored me through bouts of self-doubt and through idealization of the people with whom I worked. They served as much needed resources for reality checks. I had to learn the conventions of the academic community. Among those conventions was the need to see me, a Black woman, as manageable. I did not know how to be manageable. I needed to steel myself against selfdoubt, present my work for peer reviews that often garnered me cruel, scathing remarks. I was told not to take any of this personally even though I was very much invested in my projects. How could I not take something personally that was happening to me? On a rare occasion when I was feeling especially proud of a commentary on my work, my colleagues would warn me not to believe my own press. Consequently, I was to bear the unnecessary cruelty of reviewers who seemed to believe that it was their job to demoralize writers rather than provide them with constructive criticism; and to disregard any positive comments when they were forthcoming about the contributions I made to my field. Disillusionment created a crisis of identity for me. I needed to reconsider and consolidate my beliefs about the nature of my relationship to the others, including my colleagues, students, and individuals participating in my research. The latter was a far more familiar relationship, or more accurately an approach, to review and rework. I came to the conclusion that the academy would accept me on my terms; after all, I had come to who I am through my life experiences (as had those people to whom I had given myself over to sitting, listening, and approaching with unconditional positive regard). I committed myself to no longer tolerating those people who approach me with their idiosyncratic styles of brutality. These days, to me, they are people behaving badly. I decided to own and integrate those experiences that were part of me into my professional persona and my work. I would let them in as lenses through which to know the world of academe, and guide and enrich my work and life as an academic.

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The following pages are taken from my statements on research and teaching that are included in my professional dossier. The tone in my speaking to you will change somewhat as they were written with another audience and purpose in mind: to explain to my colleagues who I am as an academic. Convention stiffens them somewhat. However, I hope that my reconciliations are apparent in them. At least, I wanted them to be. The voyeur and listener is still there along with the nurse, counselor, and therapist, and the clinical social worker. The nosey little girl, Ralph and Carolyn’s daughter, Mrs. Baily’s best friend in all the world are here. By way of a summary, I will comment on the statements and where I am today and issues of legitimate research approaches (the great divide between quantitative and qualitative methodologies), the voices of researchers and scholars, original versus elaboration of other people’s work, offering theoretical perspectives for future studies. As my English teacher, whose memory very much reminds my of the character in The Prime of Miss Jean Brody, Miss Travethin taught me, I will come full circle.

On Research. . . . I came to the university with my doctorate in administration, planning, and social policy from Harvard University. Upon graduation, I worked briefly in postsecondary management or administration. However, my background has been as a clinician following undergraduate training in sociology and graduate work in science and social work at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. My background is significant for several reasons. Prior to my graduate studies at Harvard, I worked as a clinical social worker for community mental health and mental retardation direct service agencies. While I was employed by a state health department as a district social service director, I also supervised field placements for graduate students majoring in social work and public administration. My own work at the time covered mental health, public health, and community organizing around implementation of public health policies and services. My interest and professional development shifted from direct service to organizational and policy issues during my doctoral studies. Upon moving into an academic career I have followed my interest in areas of organizational change including innovation design and implementation, institutionalization, and federal and state policy implementation. I initially concerned myself with structure and process in organizational change and leadership, spending several years exploring these and related dynamics. An example of this can be found in an article I wrote with my colleague


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Paula Kleine-Kracht in the journal, Educational Planning, “Continuity and Reform: A New Discourse for Discussion of Change in Schools.” (The journal credits me solely; however, this is a mistake. Dr. Kleine-Kracht coauthored the manuscript with me.) Following this, I turned my attention to more of the phenomenological aspects of organizations, life in organizations, and social action groups. This shift was from issues of instrumentation as foreground and people as background to the reverse. For example, I found the experiences of people in organizations as well as the ebb and flow of change influences the way they define who they are with regard to their work. This was equally compelling relative to people organizing for social action. I spent several years investigating school reform process characterized as outcome-based or competency-based. As active, vocal, and public movements in opposition to this kind of reform (the more objectionable of the outcomes were social competencies that included acceptance of diversity and tolerance) were organized, I began following their progress in forcing negotiations to changes in schooling. During that time I was especially interested in what I have referred to as dissident voices or opposition to change mobilized by members of religious communities. I found that the human interaction aspects of the reform process offered a different theoretical perspective worth considering during the change process. Moreover, the symbolic nature of change for individuals whose lives it influences was a significant contribution of this particular project. At the same time, I was aware of another public movement of a religious group that was mobilizing to advocate for its children’s educational needs. This group was bringing legal action to secure facilities. From this exploration, a colleague, Neil Houser (who now is on the faculty at the University of Oklahoma) and I suggested reconsidering policies involving education curriculum in Educational Policy titled “Moderate Secularism: Constructing a Language of Possibility for Religion in Public Education.” Although my interest in organizational change remained constant particularly with regard to the way it was experienced, I directed my attention to leadership in general and the part it plays in developing, directing, and supporting institutionalization. I also decided that I could make more of a contribution to the field by focusing on women’s leadership and adult identity development in particular. This was a departure from what I referred to as classical representations and discussions of leadership that centered on great-men theories that dominated the field until the latter part of the decade. To do this, I drew more directly on my background as a clinical social worker, on Kegan’s (1982) work on adult identity development

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which he refers to as neo-Piagetian, on Lahey, Souvaine, Goodman Kegan, Felix (n.d.) subject-object project, on Marcia, Waterman, Matteson, Archer & Orlofsky’s (1993) work involving ego-identity, as well as Erikson’s (1982) mastery of developmental tasks and crises, also found in Kegan’s and Josselson’s work and on Josselson’s (1990) typologies for adult identity work. Each of these served as scaffolding for the theoretical perspectives I was framing. As a clinician, I find the focus on the phenomenology of ego and identity both intriguing and rewarding. For individuals who spend a significant part of their adult lives working in organizations, this perspective stands to be particularly useful. Taking on this lens in my work, also represented a turning point for me as a member of a faculty engaged in research and scholarship. Up to this point, although I relied on my clinical training and experience, I felt that I needed to emphasize my work and the change process or leadership process outcomes rather than the perspective I brought to it. Having taken this position, I quickly found that I was in danger of presenting organizational change and, later, leadership processes as limited perspectives. I have been a certified social worker since 1983. I have an ACSQ which was the credential for private practitioners and, in some agencies, for administrators responsible for supervising direct-service providers at one time. I sat for the clinical licensure exam which is more widely required for private practitioners, and then applied for the licensure that requires an advanced degree in the discipline from an accredited school and years of supervised clinical practice. With an ASCW and as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), I committed myself to the integration of my work as a clinician with my work as a member of a faculty. My goal has been to represent my commitment to a clinician’s perspective within the areas of my research and scholarship. This is a departure from focusing on instrumentation issues such as those depicted in typical approaches to leadership and change. Moreover, working with people who ask for more individualized work on exploring leadership in general and their leadership in particular, has reinforced my decision to take this particular perspective. These individuals were interested in their own idiosyncratic leadership. In my own adult development, I have reached a milestone in adaptation and identity consolidation in keeping with the perspectives of Erikson (1982), Kegan (1982) and Josselson (1990, 1992). Adult identity development provided the theoretical backdrop for a three-year study of women’s leader persona. I followed a model of clinicalsession work and subject-object interviews with the women who partici-


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pated. From this work I produced “The Life Experiences of Women and their Leadership Practice,” an article published in the Journal of International Studies in Educational Administration. Following this, I produced Women in power: Pathways to leadership in education published by Teachers College Press. Maxine Greene, a philosopher, author of The Dialectic of Freedom, and a scholar whom I greatly admire, wrote the forward to this book. In her own work, she urges individuals to press on with their identity work that she refers to, as the project and this has been a source of inspiration to me. She, along with Kay Towns, a dear friend of mine whose council I will miss, were both role models and mentors albeit in quite different ways. Kay’s steady and steadfast guidance supported me through many difficult times as I struggled to construct myself as an academic. Maxine’s writings were and continue to be a source of inspiration. I believe the chapter I had published in the book Tenure in the Sacred Groves: Issues and Strategies for Women and Minority Faculty titled “The Caged Bird Sings: On Being Different and the Role of Advocacy” responds even more directly to Maxine Greene’s stance on becoming self. It also serves as a much needed catharsis following my first experience with tenure and promotion. Over the course of my explorations, I have been able to crystallize a human interactionist perspective on organizational dynamics including culture, change, and human resource management that integrate a clinical perspective as well. The influence of this can be found in my writing on leadership, leadership and organizational identity, the individual’s experience in coping with rapid-cycle restructuring in organizations, and the transitional cultures that emerge during those changes. I have advanced theoretical perspectives on these issues in “The Influence of the Leader Persona on Organizational Identity” published in The Journal of Leadership Studies and in articles currently in process, under review, or in press. In addition to continuing to explore ways of understanding the way people experience and react to organizational change, develop and become leaders, I have been concerned with reforms within the public school systems. I have spent several years collecting background data related to the intentions of those who frame reforms with regard to the sweeping overhaul of public schools, I have been listening to the perspectives of teachers as they bring the concerns they have with the reforms into my seminars where discussions develop on the ways in which the changes and new demands influence self-perception and raise issues of efficacy and mastery. Those teachers raise issues of object relations or their relationship to others as well. They are aware that the teacher/student interactions and relationships are subject to

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destabilization as a result of changed expectations in many cases. In these discussions research and teaching become joined. I have had an opportunity to work with a colleague who is a gifted third grade teacher and designs interventions for students with severe behavior problems in order to keep them in the classroom. This was an opportunity to capture a more intimate view of her and her colleagues as they work within a changing pedagogical environment. Although some of her students are struggling with significant adjustment problems related to the conflict between divergent cultures (differences between “at home” and “at school”), along with divergent parental and teacher expectations, this teacher was able to assess and implement successful interventions for conflict resolution. The progression for her approach follows from classroom structure to process, and then to the phenomenological, as well. This classroom practitioner and diagnostician, as well as others like her, are shaping my impressions of the teachers’ experiences of change and its influence on how they define who they are, their work, and their relationship with the children with whom they work. I began my discussion by recounting my background and describing my work, my interest, and the transformations these have undergone as a result of the directions that I have taken. I join my background and years of experience as a clinician with my investigations of organization and leadership. It is important to note here that much of my work has also fallen within the area of women’s studies relative to women’s advancement in areas of leadership, organizational issues and dynamics, and identity work. As a result, I was invited to become a member of the affiliated faculty in women’s studies and to make contributions to publications related directly to women’s issues. A more unusual work for me was the book titled Sweet Words So Brave: the Story of African American Literature, (1996) published by Zino Press, that I wrote with a colleague. This project, as unassuming as it was, and completed over a period of six months, gave me the opportunity to work with archival holdings at historically Black institutions. I found the experience of working within a community of African American scholars and students to be novel, as I received my education at majority institutions from grade school through my post-secondary years and live aspects of my life as a minority. Working on this project, I was able to draw on the contributions of African Americans to American culture and society, and explore African American identity through the creative work of poets and writers. I could explore ways of conveying a sense of the duality of biological and psy-


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chosocial reality along with the deliberateness that is involved in constructing African American identity. As I stated earlier, Maxine Greene (1988), within the context of the philosophy of education, refers to identity work as a project in which people deliberately, voluntarily, and sometimes forcibly define who they are. I decided to convey these through multiple storylines: historical documentary that involved designing a framework with temporal references and varying contexts, and employing oral tradition, including the use of poetry and metaphor as the voice of an elder juxtaposed to that of a child. The latter represents the process of informing the companion character and audience about the speaker and his relationship to them as other. In addition to addressing identity construction, I also hoped to achieve a type of social advocacy. The book has been widely celebrated and accepted for its contribution to the areas of social and cultural studies. It is used in multicultural education and won the Teacher’s Choice Award. It was displayed in the Education Department of the Museum of African American History in Detroit, and Museum of Art in Chicago, because of its unusual artwork and combination of historical content and poetic-narrative style. My work and interests, described here, continue through a number of projects. These include women in leadership, and leadership and cognition. I hope to continue to develop perspectives on human interaction, to address identity construction issues, leadership and, perhaps, do more on social advocacy.

For Miss Travethin I have been criticized for focusing only on women in my studies of leadership and identity development, and for my journalistic style of writing. I focus on women because I am interested in the way they have transformed leadership. The humanistic philosophy, described as soft and closeted feminism, is in contrast to leadership that relies heavily on instrumentation: hierarchical formal structures for decision making, power over those being led, formal policies and procedures. The humanistic philosophy driving soft leadership pays particular attention to the interpersonal experiences people have in their work places. It does not require a disintegration of the self into a private and professional individual. Soft leadership, with its humanistic perspective, pays attention to psychosocial meaning systems, and takes a constructivist position with regard to these. As a result, it assumes a higher level of consciousness for leaders. It also

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assumes that an organization’s culture is created by all of its members. The emphasis here is on “all” and the approach is deliberate by design. These leaders offer a duality of strength and vulnerability that suggests an aesthetic or way of being cultivated through life experiences along with some deliberateness in molding a persona. As a final caveat regarding my interest in women as leaders, I must add that I am a baby boomer and so have been part of several movements of the last century that have profoundly changed the way women and minorities live today in the United States. I am proud to say that I was part of both the civil rights and the women’s movements. I am a nappy-headed, card carrying, bra burner. I do not believe that depersonalization is always useful in reporting and discussing research. Depersonalization allows us to distance ourselves from the people we are studying and puts them at risk for being mistreated, not only by us as researchers, but by the people who use our research to further their interests, causes, and political and socioeconomic agendas. I want the reader to know that what I say is not divinely inspired, rather it comes from me: an individual with all of the frailty of being human. There has been a great deal of controversy over what is the better or more accurate, less biased approach to research: quantitative, qualitative, strictly science based, or applied methodology. The response, that makes sense to me is that it depends on what I am trying to do. For me, the guiding or underlying ethic and moral imperative for any approach to exploration must be to “do no harm.”

References Erikson, E. (1982). The life cycle completed. New York: W. W. Norton. Greene, M. (1988). The dialectic of freedom. New York: Teachers College Press. Kegan, R. (1982). The evolving self: Problem and process in human development. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Josselson, R. (1990). Finding herself: Pathways to identity development in women. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Josselson, R. (1992). The space between us: Exploring the dimensions of human relationships. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Lahey, L., Souvaine, E., Kegan, R., Goodman, R., & Felix, S. (n.d.). A guide to the subject-object interview: Its administration and interpretation. Cambridge: Subject-Object Research Group. Marcia, J. E., Waterman, A. S., Matteson, D. R., Archer, S. L., & Orlofsky, J. L. (1993). Ego identity: A handbook for psychosocial research. New York: Springer-Verlag.

Chapter 4

Language, Literacy, and Culture Intersections and Implications SONIA NIETO1

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iven my background and early life experiences, I should not be expected to write about literacy and learning. According to the traditional educational literature, my home and family situation could not prepare me adequately for academic success. My mother did not graduate from high school and my father never made it past fourth grade. They came to the United States as immigrants from Puerto Rico and they quietly took their place in the lower paid and lower status of society. In my family, we never had bedtime stories, much less books. At home we did not have a permanent place to study, nor did we have a desk with sufficient light and adequate ventilation as teachers suggested. We did not have many toys and I never got the piano lessons I wanted desperately from the age of five. As a family, we did not go to museums or other places that would give us the cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1985) it was thought we needed to succeed in school. We spoke Spanish at home, even though teachers pleaded with my parents to stop doing so. And when we learned English, my sister and I spoke a nonstandard, urban Black and Puerto Rican version of English: we said “ain’t” instead of “isn’t” and “mines” instead of “mine” and, no matter how often our teachers corrected us, we persisted in saying these things. In a word, because of our social class, ethnicity, native language, and discourse practices, we were the epitome of —————— 1. This article was previously published in the National Reading Conference Yearbook, 49, pp. 41–60. Reprinted with permission of the author and the National Reading Conference. 61

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what are now described as “children at risk,” young people then described when we were coming up as “disadvantaged”, “culturally deprived”, and even “problem students”. I was fortunate that I had a family who, although unable to help me with homework, would make sure that it got done; a family who used “Education, Sonia, education!” as a mantra. But they kept on speaking Spanish (even when my sister and I switched to English), they did not buy books, and they never read us bedtime stories. My parents, just like all parents, were brimming with skills and talents: they were becoming bilingual, they told us many stories and riddles and tongue twisters and jokes. When my father, 20 years after coming to this country, bought a bodega, a small Caribbean grocery store, I was awed by the sight of him adding up a column of figures in seconds, without a calculator or even a pencil. My mother embroidered beautiful and intricate patterns on handkerchiefs, blouses, and tablecloths, a trade practiced by many poor women in Puerto Rico, to stock the shelves of Lord and Taylor and Saks’ Fifth Avenue in New York. These skills, however, were never called on by my teachers; my parents were thought of as culturally deprived and disadvantaged, another segment of the urban poor with no discernible competencies. Sometime in my early adolescence, we bought a small house in a lower middle class neighborhood and I was able to attend a good junior high and an excellent high school. I did not particularly like that high school—it was too competitive and impersonal and I felt invisible there— but in retrospect I realize that my sister and I got the education we needed to prepare us for college, a dream beyond the wildest imagination of my parents, most of my cousins, and the friends from our previous neighborhood. My new address made a profound difference in the education that I was able to get. I eventually dropped the “ain’t” and the “mines” and hid the fact that I spoke Spanish. I begin with my own story, not because I believe autobiography is sacrosanct, or that it holds the answer to all educational problems. My story is not unique and I do not want to single myself our as an “exception” in the way that Richard Rodriguez ended up doing, intentionally or not, in his painful autobiography Hunger of Memory (1982). I use my story because it undersores the fact that young people of all backgrounds can learn. They need not be compelled, as Richard Rodriguez was, to abandon their family and home language for the benefits of an education and a higher status in society. In many ways, I am like any of the millions of young people in our classrooms and schools who come to school eager (although perhaps not, in the current jargon, “ready”) to learn, but who end up as the waste prod-

Language, Literacy, and Culture

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ucts of an educational system that does not understand the gifts they bring to their education. They are the reason that I am concerned about language, literacy, and culture, and the implications that new ways of thinking about them have for children. Language, literacy, and culture have not always been linked either conceptually or programmatically. But this is changing, as numerous schools and colleges of education around the country are beginning to reflect a growing awareness of their intersections, and of the promise they hold for rethinking teaching and learning. My own reconceptualized program at the University of Massachusetts, now called “Language, Literacy, and Culture,” mirrors this trend. I believe the tendency to link these issues is giving us a richer picture of learning, especially for students whose identities—particularly those related to language, race, ethnicity, and immigrant status—have traditionally had a low status in our society. One result of this reconceptualization is that more education programs reflect and promote a sociocultural perspective in language and literacy, that is a perspective firmly rooted in an anthropological understanding of culture; a view of learning as socially constructed and mutually negotiated; an understanding of how students from diverse segments of society—due to differential access, and cultural and linguistic differences—experience schooling; and a commitment to social justice. I know that multiple and conflicting ideas exist about these theoretical perspectives, but I believe some basic tenets of sociocultural theory can serve as a platform for discussion. I will explore a number of these tenets, illustrating them with examples from my research and using the stories and experiences of young people in U.S. schools. The language of sociocultural theory includes terms such as discourse, hegemony, power, social practice, identity, hybridity, and even the very work, literacy. Today, these terms have become commonplace, but if we were to do a review of the literature of 20 years ago or less, we would be hard pressed to find them, at least as currently used. What does this mean? How has our awareness and internalization of these terms and everything they imply changed how we look at teaching and learning? Let us look at literacy. It is generally accepted that certain family and home conditions promote literacy, including an abundant supply of books they read, and other such conditions (Snow, Barnes, Chandler, Goodman, & Hemphill, 1991). I have no doubt that this is true in many cases, and I have made certain that my husband and I did these things with our own children. I am sure we made their lives easier as a result. But what of the children for whom these conditions are not present, but who nevertheless “grow up literate” (Taylor & Dorsey-Gaines, 1988)? Should children be

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doomed to educational failure because their parents did not live in the right neighborhood, were not privileged enough to be formally educated, or did not take their children to museums or attend plays? Should they be disqualified from leaning because they did not have books at home?

Tenets of Sociocultural Theory I began with my story to situate myself not just personally, but socially and politically, a primary premise of sociocultural theory. Given traditional theories, the only way to understand my educational success was to use traditional metaphors: I had “pulled myself up by my bootstraps”; I had “melted”; I had joined the “mainstream.” But I want to suggest these traditional metaphors are as unsatisfactory as they are incomplete because they place individuals at the center, isolated from the social, cultural, historical, and political context in which they live. Traditional theories explain my experience and those of others who do not fit the conventional pattern as springing primarily, if not solely, from our personal psychological processes. Sociocultural theory gives us different lenses with which to view learning and different metaphors for describing it. This is significant because how one views learning leads to dramatically different curricular decisions, pedagogical approaches, expectations of learning, relationships among students, teachers and families, and indeed, educational outcomes. Sociocultural and sociopolitical perspectives are first, and foremost, based on the assumption that social relationships and political realities are at the heart of teaching and learning. That is, learning emerges from the social, cultural, and political spaces where it takes place, and through the interactions and relationships between learners and teachers. I propose five interrelated concepts that undergird sociocultural and sociopolitical perspectives. These concepts are the basis of my own work, and they help me make sense of my experience and the experiences of countless youngsters that challenge traditional, deficit views of learning. The concepts are also highly consistent with a critical multicultural perspective, that is, one that is broader than superficial additions to content or “holidays and heroes” approaches. I will focus on five concepts: (1) agency/coconstructed learning, (2) experience, (3) identity/hybridity, (4) context/situatedness/personality, and (5) community. Needless to say, each of these words holds many meanings, but I use them here to locate some fundamental principles of sociocultural and sociopolitical theory. These terms are also both deeply


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connected and overlapping. I separate them here for matters of convenience, not because I see them as fundamentally independent concepts.

AGENCY In many classrooms and schools, learning continues to be thought of as transmission rather than as agency, or mutual discovery by students and teachers. At the crudest level, learning is thought to be the reproduction of socially sanctioned knowledge, or what Michael Apple (1993) has called “official knowledge.” These are dominant attitudes and behaviors that society deems basic to functioning. The most extreme manifestation of this notion of learning is what Paulo Freire (1970) called “banking education,” that is, the simple depositing of knowledge into students who are thought to be empty receptacles. In an elegant rejection of the banking concept of education, Freire instead defined the act of study as constructed by active agents. According to Freire (1985), “To study is not to consume ideas, but to create and re-create them” (p. 4). Although teachers and theorists alike repudiate learning as the reproduction of socially sanctioned knowledge, it continues to exist in many schools and classrooms. It is the very foundation of such ideas as “teacher-proof curriculum,” the need to “cover the material” in a given subject, and the endless list of skills and competencies “that every student should know” (Hirsch, 1987). This contradiction was evident even near the beginning of the twentieth century when John Dewey (1916) asked: Why is it, in spite of the fact that teaching by pouring in, learning by a passive absorption, are universally condemned, that they are still so entrenched in practice? That education is not an affair of “telling” and being told, but an active and constructive process, is a principle almost as generally violated in practice as conceded in theory (p. 38). Why does this continue to happen? One reason is probably the doubt among the public that teachers and students have the ability to construct meaningful and important knowledge. Likewise, in low income schools with students from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, very little agency exists on the part of either students or teachers. In such schools, teachers learn that their primary responsibility is to “teach the basics” because students are thought to have neither the innate ability nor the experiential background of more privileged students. In the case of students for whom English is a second language, the assumption that they must master English before they can think and reason may prevail.

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Let me share some examples of agency, or lack of it, from the words of students of diverse backgrounds whom a number of colleagues (Paula Elliott, Haydee Font, Maya Gillingham, Beatriz McConnie Zapater, Mac Lee Morante, Carol Shea, Diane Sweet, and Carlie Tartakov) and I interviewed for my first book (Nieto, 1992, 2000). We found that students’ views largely echoed those of educational researchers who have found that teaching methods in most classrooms, especially those in secondary schools and even more so in secondary schools attended by poor students of all backgrounds, vary little from traditional “chalk and talk” methods; that textbooks are the dominant teaching materials used; that routine and rote learning are generally favored over creativity and critical thinking; and that teacher-centered transmission models still prevail (Cummins, 1994; Goodlad, 1984). Students in my study (Nieto, 1992, 2000) had more to say about pedagogy than about anything else, and they were especially critical of teachers who provided only passive learning environments for students. Linda Howard, who was just graduating as the valedictorian of her class in an urban high school, is a case in point. Although now at the top of her class Linda, had failed seventh and eighth grades twice, for a variety of reasons both academic and medical. She had this to say about pedagogy: Because I know there were plenty of classes where I lost complete interest. But those were all because the teachers just “Open the books to this page.” They never made up problems out of their head. Everything came out of the book. You didn’t ask questions. If you asked them questions, then the answer was “in the book.” And if you asked the question and the answer wasn’t in the book, then you shouldn’t have asked that question! (pp. 55–56) Rich Miller, a young man who planned to attend pharmacy school after graduation, described a “normal teacher” as one who “gets up, gives you a lecture, or there’s teachers that just pass out the work, you do the work, pass it in, get a grade, goodbye!” (p. 66) The students were especially critical of teachers who relied on textbooks and blackboards. Avi Abramson, a young man who had attended Jewish day schools and was now in a public high school, had some difficulty adjusting to the differences in pedagogy. He believed that some teachers did better because they taught from the point of view of the students: “They don’t just come out and say, ‘All right, do this, blah, blah, bla . . . ’ they’re not so one-tone voice” (p. 116). Yolanda Piedra, a Mexican


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student, said that her English teacher “just does the things and sits down” (p. 221). Another student mentioned that some teachers “just teach the stuff. ‘Here,’ write a couple of things on the board, ‘see, that’s how you do it. Go ahead, page 23’ ” (p.166). These students did not just criticize, however; they also gave examples of teachers who promoted active learning. Hoang Vinh, in his junior year of high school, spoke with feeling about teachers who allowed him to speak Vietnamese with other students in class. He also loved working with groups, contrary to conventional wisdom about Asian students’ preference for individual work (demonstrating the dangers of generalizing about fixed cultural traits). Vinh particularly appreciated the teacher who asked students to discuss important issues, rather than focus only on learning what he called “the word’s meaning” (p.143) by writing and memorizing lists of words. Students also offered thoughtful suggestions to teachers to make their classrooms more engaging places. One student recommended that teachers involve more students actively: “More like making the whole class be involved, not making only the two smartest people up here to do the work for the whole class” (p. 125). Teaching becomes much more complex, when learning is based on the idea that all students have the ability to think and reason. Sociocultural and sociopolitical theories emphasize that learning is not simply a question of transmitting knowledge, but rather of working with students so that they can reflect, theorize, and create knowledge. Given this notion of agency, “banking education” (Freire, 1970) makes little sense. Instead, the focus on reflective questions invites students to consider different options, to question taken-for-granted truths, and to delve more deeply into problems.

EXPERIENCE That learning needs to build on experience is a taken-for-granted maxim, based on the idea that it is an innately human endeavor accessible to all people. But somehow, this principle is often ignored when it comes to young people who have not had the kinds of experiences that are thought to prepare them for academic success, particularly those students who have not been raised with “the culture of power” (Delpit, 1988), or who have not explicitly learned the rules of the game for academic success. The experiences of these students—usually young people of culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and those raised in poverty—tend to be quite different from the experiences of more economically and socially

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advantaged students, and these differences become evident when they go to school. Pierre Bourdieu (1985) has described how different forms of cultural capital help maintain economic privilege, even if these forms of capital are not themselves strictly related to economy. Cultural capital is evident in such intangibles as values, tastes, and behaviors, and through cultural identities such as language, dialect, and ethnicity. Some signs of cultural capital have more social worth, although not necessarily more intrinsic worth, than others. If this is true, then youngsters from some communities are placed at a disadvantage relative to their peers simply because of their experiences and identities. Understanding this reality means that power relations are a fundamental, although largely unspoken, aspect of school life. We also need to consider the impact of teachers’ attitudes concerning the cultural capital that students bring to school, and the subsequent behaviors of teachers relative to this cultural capital. Sociocultural theories help to foreground these concerns. For example, a 1971 article by Annie Stein, cited a New York City study in which kindergarten teachers were asked to list, in order of their importance, the things a child should learn to prepare for first grade. In schools with large Puerto Rican and Black student populations, socialization goals were predominant, but in mostly White schools, educational goals were invariably first. “In fact,” according to Stein, “several teachers in the minority-group kindergartens forgot to mention any educational goals at all” (p.167). This is an insidious kind of tracking, where educational ends for some students are sacrificed for social aims. All children come to school as learners and thinkers, aptitudes usually recognized as important building blocks for further learning. But there seems to be a curious refusal on the part of many educators to accept as valid the kinds of knowledge and experiences some students bring to school. For instance, teachers often think that speaking languages other than English, especially languages with low status, is a potential detriment rather than a benefit to learning. Likewise, traveling to Europe to ski is usually considered culturally enriching; the same is not true of traveling to North Carolina, Haiti, or the Dominican Republic to visit relatives. The reason teachers evaluate these kinds of experiences differently has more to do with their cultural capital than with their educational potential or intrinsic worth. The reluctance, or inability to accept and build on students’ experiences is poignantly described by Mary Ginley, a teacher in Massachusetts who taught in a small city with a large Puerto Rican student population. A


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gifted teacher, Mary also knew that “being nice is not enough,” an idea she elaborated on in a journal she kept for a class she took with me: Every child needs to feel welcome, to feel comfortable. School is a foreign land to most kids (where else in the world would you spend time circling answers and filling in the blanks?), but the more distant a child’s culture and language are from the culture and language of school, the more at risk that child is. A warm, friendly, helpful teacher is nice, but it isn’t enough. We have plenty of warm friendly teachers who tell the kids nicely to forget their Spanish and ask mommy and daddy to speak to them in English at home; who give them easier tasks so they won’t feel badly when the work becomes difficult; who never learn about what life is like at home or what they eat or what music they like or what stories they have been told or what their history is. Instead, we smile and give them a hug and tell them to eat our food and listen to our stories and dance to our music. We teach them to read with our words and wonder why it’s so hard for them. We ask them quietly and we’ll tell them what’s important and what they must know to “get ready for the next grade.” And we never ask them who they are and where they want to go. (pp. 85–86) A case in point is Hoang Vinh, the Vietnamese student I mentioned previously. Vinh was literate in Vietnamese and he made certain that his younger siblings spoke it exclusively at home and they all write to their parents in Vietnam weekly. He was a good student, but he was struggling to learn English, something that his teachers did not always understand. He told how some teachers described his native language as “funny,” and even laughed at it. But as he explained, “[To keep reading and writing Vietnamese] is very important. . . . So, I like to learn English but I like to learn my language too” (Nieto, 1992, 2000, p. 178). Even more fundamental for Vinh was that teachers try to understand their students’ experiences and culture. He explained: “[My teachers] understand some things, just not all Vietnamese culture. Like they just understand some things outside. . . . But they cannot understand something inside our hearts’ (p. 178). Vinh’s words are a good reminder that when students’ skills and knowledge are dismissed as inappropriate for the school setting, schools lose a golden opportunity to build on their students’ lives in the service of their learning.

IDENTITY/HYBRIDITY How students benefit from schooling is influenced by many things including the particular individual personalities of students and the values

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of the cultural context in which they have been raised. Traditional theories, however, privilege individual differences above all other circumstances. As a result, it is primarily through tests and other measures of students’ individual abilities that their intelligence is determined. Sociocultural theory goes beyond this limited perspective to include other issues such as students’ cultural identities. But culture should not be thought of as unproblematic. Mary Kalantzis, Bill Cope & Diana Slade (1989) remind us that: . . . we are not simply bearers of cultures, languages, and histories, with a duty to reproduce them. We are the products of linguistic-cultural circumstances, actors with a capacity to resynthesize what we have been socialized into and to solve new and emerging problems of existence. We are not duty-bound to conserve ancestral characteristics which are not structurally useful. We are both socially determined and creators of human features (p. 18). Culture is complex and intricate; it cannot be reduced to holidays, foods, or dances, although these are, of course, elements of culture. Everyone has a culture because all people participate in the world through social and political relationships informed by history as well as by race, ethnicity, language, social class, sexual orientation, gender, and other circumstances related to identity and experience. If culture is thought of in a sentimental way, then it becomes little more than a yearning for a past that never existed, or an idealized, sanitized version of what exists in reality. The result may be an unadulterated, essentialized “culture on a pedestal” that bears little resemblance to the messy and contradictory culture of real life. The problem of viewing some aspects of culture as indispensable attributes that must be shared by all people within a particular group springs from a romanticized and uncritical understanding of culture. Let me share an example of this. Last year, I received an email message with the subject heading “You Know You’re Puerto Rican When. . . . ” The message was meant to be humorous and it included a long list of experiences and characteristics that presumably describe what it means to be Puerto Rican in the United States (for example, being chased by your mother with a chancleta (slipper) in hand; always having a dinner that consists of rice and beans and some kind of meat; having a grandmother who thinks Vick’s Vapor Rub is the miracle cure for everything). I laughed at many of these things (and I shared a good number of these experiences


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when I was growing up in New York City), but it was also sobering to read the list because it felt like a litmus test for puertoriqueñidad (Puerto Ricanness). If you could prove that you had these particular experiences, you could claim to be “authentic.” By putting them to paper, the author was making it clear that these experiences defined the very essence of being Puerto Rican. Reading the list made me reflect on my own daughters, born and raised in the United States by highly educated middle class parents. My daughters would likely not pass the Puerto Rican litmus test; their dinner was just as likely to consist of take-out Chinese or pizza as rice and beans; they barely knew what Vick’s Vapor Rub was; and I do not remember ever chasing them, chancleta in hand. But both of them identify as Puerto Rican, and they speak Spanish to varying degrees and enjoy rice and beans as much as the next Puerto Rican. But they also eat salmon and frog legs and pizza and Thai food. The email message I received made it seem as if there was only one way to be Puerto Rican. The result of this kind of thinking is that we are left with just two alternatives: either complete adherence to one definition of identity, or total and unequivocal assimilation. We are, in the words of Anthony Appiah (1994) replacing “one kind of tyranny with another” (p.163). My daughters’ identities are complicated. They live in a highly diverse society in terms of race, ethnicity, social class, and other differences, and they enjoy privileges they have received as a result of their parents’ social class. The point of this story is to emphasize that culture does not exist in a vacuum, but rather is situated in particular historical, social, political, and economic conditions, another major tenet of sociocultural theory. That is, culture needs to be understood as dynamic; multifaceted; embedded in context; influenced by social, economic and political factors; created and socially constructed; learned; and dialectical (Nieto, 1999). Steven Arvizu’s (1994) wonderful description of culture as a verb rather than a noun captures the essence of culture beautifully. That is, culture is dynamic, active, and changing, always on the move. Even within their native contexts, cultures are always changing as a result of political, social, and other influences in the environment. When people with different backgrounds come in contact with one another, such change is to be expected even more. Let me once again use the example of Linda Howard, one of the young women we interviewed for Affirming Diversity (Nieto, 1992, 2000). The issue of identity was a complicated one for her. Being biracial, she identified as “Black American and White American,” and she said:

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I don’t always fit in—unless I’m in a mixed group. . . . Because if I’m in a group of people who are all one race, then they seem to look at me as being the other race . . . whereas if I’m in a group full or [racially mixed] people, my race doesn’t seem to matter to everybody else. . . . Then I don’t feel like I’m standing out. . . . Its hard. I look at history and I feel really bad for what some of my ancestors did to some of my other ancestors. Unless you’re mixed, you don’t know what it’s like to be mixed. (pp. 51–5) The tension of Linda’s identity was not simply a personal problem. It was evident throughout her schooling, and especially when she reached secondary school. She found that teachers jumped to conclusions about her identity, assuming she was Latina or even Chinese, and identifying her as such on forms without even asking her. Linda had won a scholarship to a highly regarded university. When discussing her future, she exclaimed proudly, “I’ve got it all laid out. I’ve got a four-year scholarship to one of the best schools in New England. All I’ve gotta do is go there and make the grade.” Linda’s future seemed hopeful, overflowing with possibilities. But she did not quite “make the grade.” When Paula Elliott, who had interviewed Linda the first time, spoke with her again 10 years later, she found out that Linda had dropped out of college after just a few months, and she had never returned. Over dinner, Linda described her experience at the university in this way: “I felt like a pea on a big pile of rice.” Using a sociocultural lens, we can see that identity is not simply a personal issue, but that it is deeply embedded in institutional life. Had there been a way to validate her hybridity, perhaps Linda might have graduated. She certainly had the intellectual training and resources; what she did not have was the support for her identity to ease the way. In some ways, we can think of culture as having both surface and deep structure—to borrow a concept from linguistics (Chomsky, 1965). For instance, in the interviews of students of diverse backgrounds (Nieto, 1992, 2000), we were initially surprised by the seeming homogeneity of the youth culture they manifested. Regardless of racial, ethnic, linguistic background, or time in the United States—but usually intimately connected to a shared urban culture and social class—the youths often expressed strikingly similar tastes in music, food, clothes, television, and so on. When I probed more deeply, however, I found evidence of deeply held values from their ethnic heritage. For instance, Marisol, a Puerto Rican high school student, loved hip hop, rap music, pizza, and lasagna. She never mentioned


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Puerto Rican food and Puerto Rican music to her was just the old fashioned and boring music her parents listened to. But in her everyday interactions with parents and siblings, and in the answers she gave to my interview questions, she reflected deep aspects of Puerto Rican culture; respect for elders; a profound kinship with and devotion to family; and a desire to uphold important traditions such as staying with family rather than going out with friends on important holidays. Just as there is no such thing as a “pure race,” there is likewise no “pure culture.” That is, cultures influence one another, and even minority cultures and those with less status have an impact on majority cultures, sometimes in dramatic ways. Power is deeply implicated in notions of culture and language (Fairclough, 1989). Indeed, what are often presented as cultural and linguistic differences are, above all, differences in power. Put another way, cultural conflict is sometimes little more than political conflict. Let me give you another example concerning the link between culture and context based on an experience I had that took me by surprise even as a young adult. Rice is a primary Puerto Rican staple. There is a saying in Spanish that demonstrates how common it is: Puertorriqueños somos como el arroz blanco: estamos por todas partes (Puerto Ricans are like white rice: we are everywhere), an adage that says as much about rice as it does about the diaspora of Puerto Rican people, almost half of whom live outside the island. As a rule, Puerto Ricans eat short grain rice, but I have always preferred long grain rice. Some Puerto Ricans have made me feel practically like a cultural traitor when I admitted it. I remember my surprise when a fellow academic, a renowned Puerto Rican historian, explained the real reason behind the preference for short grain rice. This preference did not grow out of the blue, nor is that rice innately better. On the contrary, the predilection for short grain rice was influenced by the historical context of Puerto Ricans as a colonized people. Near the beginning of the twentieth century, when Puerto Rico was taken over by the United States (as spoils of the Spanish-American War), there was a surplus of short grain rice in the United States. Colonies have frequently been the destination for unwanted or surplus goods, so Puerto Rico became the dumping ground for short grain rice, which had lower status than long grain rice in the United States. After this, of course, the preference for short grain rice became part of the culture. As is true of all cultural values, however, this particular taste was influenced by history, economics, and power. This example was a good lesson to me that culture is not something inherent, but often arbitrary and negotiated.

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Hybridity complicates the idea of cultural identity. It means that culture is always heterogeneous and complex; it also implies that assimilation or cultural preservation are not the only alternatives. Ariel Dorfman’s (1998) autobiography, Heading South, Looking North: A Bilingual Journey, eloquently described the turmoil he experienced as a child in developing his identity, first in New York City, and later in Chile: I instinctively chose to refuse the multiple complex in-between person I would someday become, this man who is shared by two equal languages and who has come to believe that to tolerate differences and indeed embody them personally and collectively might be our only salvation as a species. (p. 42) As an adult, he reflected on the demand to be “culturally pure” that he experienced in the United States as a graduate student: Sitting at my typewriter in Berkeley, California that day, precariously balanced between Spanish and English, for the first time perhaps fully aware of how extraordinarily bicultural I was, I did not have the maturity—or the emotional or ideological space, probably not even the vocabulary—to answer that I was a hybrid, part Yankee, part Chilean, a pinch of Jew, a mestizo in search of a center, I was unable to look directly in the face of the divergent mystery of who I was, the abyss of being bilingual and binational, at a time when everything demanded that we be unequivocal and immaculate. (p. 22) The notion of hybridity and/or culture, as implicated with power and privilege, complicates culturally responsive pedagogy. Rather than simply an incorporation of the cultural practices of students’ families in the curriculum, or a replication of stereotypical ideas about learning styles, culturally responsive pedagogy, in the broadest sense, is a political project. According to Gloria Ladson-Billings (1994), it is about “questioning (and preparing students to question) the structural inequality, the racism, and the injustice that exist in society” (p.128). Culturally responsive pedagogy is not simply about instilling pride in one’s identity or boosting selfesteem. It is also about context and positionality.

CONTEXT/SITUATEDNESS/POSITIONALITY When culture is thought of as context free, we fragment people’s lives. In the words of Frederick Erickson (1990), “as we freeze them out-


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side time, outside a world of struggle in concrete history” (p. 34). Context is also about situatedness and positionality, reminding us that culture includes the social markers that differentiate a group from others. It is once again the recognition that questions of power are at the very heart of learning. This view of culture also implies that differences in ethnicity, language, social class, and gender need not, in and of themselves, be barriers to learning. Instead, it is how these differences are viewed in society that can make the differences in whether and to what extent young people learn. Judith Solsken’s (1993) definition of literacy, as the “negotiation of one’s orientation toward written language and thus one’s position within multiple relations of power and status” (p. 6) brings up a number of questions that have traditionally been neglected in discussions of reading and writing, questions such as: How do students learn to use language in a way that both acknowledges the context in which they find themselves, and challenges the rules of that context? And how do young people learn to negotiate the chasm that exists between their home languages and culture and those of school? Let me share with you another example from Linda Howard. What helped Linda go from a struggling student in junior high to valedictorian of her class several years later? There are probably many answers to this question, but one ingredient that made a tremendous difference was Mr. Benson, her favorite teacher in high school. He too was biracial, and Linda talked about some of the things she had learned from Mr. Benson about positionality and context: I’ve enjoyed all my English teachers at Jefferson. But Mr. Benson, my English Honors teacher, he just threw me for a whirl! ‘Cause Mr. Benson, he says, I can go into Harvard and converse with those people, and I can go out in the street and rap with y’all. It’s that type of thing, I love it. I try and be like that myself. I have my street talk. I get out in the street and I say “ain’t” this and “ain’t” that and “your momma” or “wha’s up?” But I get somewhere where I know the people aren’t familiar with that language or aren’t accepting that language, and I will talk properly. . . . I walk into a place and I listen to how people are talking and it just automatically comes to me. (p. 56) Linda’s statement is an example of the tremendous intelligence needed by young people whose discourses (Gee, 1990) are not endorsed by schools, and who need to negotiate these differences on their own. Linda’s words are also a graphic illustration of James Baldwin’s characterization of

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language as “a political instrument, means, and proof of power” (p. 68). In the case of African American discourse, Baldwin suggested—as Linda learned through her own experience—“It is not the Black child’s language that is in question, it is not his language that is despised: It is his experience” (p. 70). As David Corson (1993) reminds us; “education can routinely repress, dominate, and disempower language users whose practices differ from the norms it establishes” (p. 7). What does this mean for teachers? Situations such as Linda Howard’s suggest that, “We are faced with essential epistemological questions such as, what counts as important knowledge or knowing?” (NelsonBarber & Estrin, 1995, p. 178). These questions are at the core of sociocultural theory, and they are neither neutral nor innocent. They are rarely addressed openly in school, although they should be. As Ira Shor (1992) has said: “A curriculum that avoids questioning school and society is not, as is commonly supposed, politically neutral, It cuts off the students’ development as critical thinkers about their world” (p.12). Sociocultural and sociopolitical perspectives have been especially consequential because they have shattered the perception that teaching and learning are neutral processes uncontaminated by the idiosyncrasies of particular contexts. Whether (and to what extent) teachers realize the influence social and political context have on learning can alter how they perceive their students and, consequently, what and how they teach them. A good example of positionality is the status of bilingual education. Bilingualism is only viewed as a problem and a deficit in a context where speakers of a particular language are held in low esteem or seen as a threat to national unity. This is the case of bilingual education in the United States, and especially for children who speak Spanish. There is nothing inherently negative about the project of becoming bilingual (many wealthy parents pay dearly for the privilege), but rather it is the identities of the students, and the status of the language variety they speak, that make bilingual education problematic. This is clearly explained by Lizette Roman, a bilingual teacher whose journal entry for one of my classes reads as follows: Unfortunately, most bilingual programs exist because they are mandated by law, not because they are perceived as a necessity by many school systems. The main problem that we bilingual teachers face every day is the misconception that mainstream teachers, principals, and even entire school systems have about bilingual education. . . . As a consequence, in many school districts bilingual education is doubly disadvantaged, first because it is seen as remedial and, second,


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because little attention is paid to it. Many mainstream teachers and administrators see bilingual education as a remediation program and do not validate what bilingual teachers do in their classrooms even when what they are teaching is part of the same curriculum. . . . The majority think that there must be something wrong with these children who cannot perform well in English. As soon as the children transfer out of the bilingual program, these teachers believe that this is the moment when the learning of these children starts. The perception of the majority distorts the importance and the purpose of bilingual education. It extends to bilingual children and their parents. Bilingual children and their parents sense that their language places them in a program where they are perceived to be inferior to the rest of the children. What isolates children in the bilingual program is not the way the program is conducted, but the perceptions the majority has about people who speak a language different from the mainstream. (pp. 87–88) Lizette’s reflections suggest that if teachers believe intelligence and learning are somehow divorced from context, then they will conclude that the political and economic realities of their students’ lives—including their school environments—have nothing to do with learning. In short, teachers can delude themselves by believing that they and the schools in which they work inhabit an “ideology free zone” in which dominant attitudes and values play no role in learning. When students are asked to give up their identities for an elusive goal that they may never reach because of the negative context in which they learn, students may be quite correct in rejecting the trade.

COMMUNITY How we define and describe community is of central significance in sociocultural theory. Lev Vygotsky’s (1978) research in the first decades of the twentieth century was a catalyst for the viewpoint that learning is above all a social practice. Vygotsky suggested that development and learning are firmly rooted in—and influenced by—society and culture. Accepting this notion means that it is no longer possible to separate learning from the context in which it takes place, nor from an understanding of how cultures and society influence and are influenced by learning. Vygotsky, and others who have advanced the sociocultural foundation of cognition (Cole & Griffin, 1983; Scribner & Cole, 1981), have provided us with a framework for understanding how schools either encourage or discourage the development of learning communities.

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Because schools organize themselves in specific ways, they are more or less comfortable and inviting for students of particular backgrounds. Most schools closely reflect the traditional image of the intelligent, academically prepared young person, and consequently, these are the young people who tend to feel most comfortable in school settings. But institutional environments are never neutral; they are always based on particular views of human development, of what is worth knowing, and of what it means to be educated. When young people enter schools, they are entering institutions that have already made some fundamental decisions about such matters. In the process, some of these children may be left out through no fault of their own. The ability to create community, so important in sociocultural theory, is lost. Maria Botelho, a doctoral student of mine and a former early childhood teacher and librarian, remembers very clearly what it was like to begin school as a young immigrant student in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After viewing a short video on bilingual education in one of my classes, she felt almost as if she had stepped back in time. The video highlights a number of students, one of them Carly, a young Portuguese student in a bilingual class in Cambridge. Maria reflected on her reactions to the video in the journal she kept for my class: I viewed the video “Quality Bilingual Education” twice. I wept both times. The Portuguese-speaking girl, Carla, attended kindergarten in a school that is less that a block from where my parents live in Cambridge; it was too close to home, so to speak. Like Carla, I entered the Cambridge Public Schools speaking only Portuguese. Unlike Carla, I was placed in a mainstream first-grade class. I still remember my teacher bringing over a piece of paper with some writing on it (a worksheet) and crayons. I fell asleep. There I learned quietly about her world and my world was left with my coat, outside the classroom door. (Nieto, 1999, p. 110) Sociocultural theories are a radical departure from conventional viewpoints that posit learning as largely unaffected by context. Traditional viewpoints often consider that children such as Maria (who do not speak English) have low intelligence. As a result, these children are automatically barred from entering a community of learners. A Vygotskian perspective provides a more hopeful framework for thinking about learning, because if learning can be influenced by social mediation, then conditions that help most students learn can be created in schools. These conditions can result


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in what Carmen Mercade (1998) describes as the “fashioning of new texts—texts of our collective voices” (p. 92) that emerge as a result of organizing learning environments in which literacy is for sharing and reflecting. Particularly significant in this regard is the notion of the zone of proximal development or ZPD (Vygotsky, 1978). But the ZPD is not simply an individual space, it is a social one. Thus, according to Henry Trueba (1989), if we accept Vygotsky’s theory of ZPD, then the failure to learn cannot be defined as an individual failure, but rather as a systemic failure, that is, as the failure of the social system to provide the learner with an opportunity for successful social interactions. In order to change academic failure to success, appropriate social and instructional interventions need to occur. For teachers, this means they need to first acknowledge the differences of students and then act as a bridge between their differences and the culture of the dominant society. The metaphor of a bridge is appropriate for teachers who want to be effective with students of diverse backgrounds. This is a lesson I learned from Diane Sweet, a former student who had been an engineer until she fell in love with teaching ESL at the plant where she worked and decided to become a teacher. Diane is well aware of the benefits of bridges, and she applies the metaphor to teaching: •

a bridge provides access to a different shore without closing off the possibility of returning home; a bridge is built on solid ground but soars toward the heavens; a bridge connects two places that might otherwise never be able to meet.

The best thing about bridges is that they do not need to be burned once they are used; on the contrary, they become more valuable with use because they help visitors from both sides become adjusted to different contexts. However, that is a far cry from how diverse languages and cultures tend to be viewed in schools. Conventional wisdom tells us that, if native languages and cultures are used at all, they should be discarded or burned once one learns the important language and culture. This is definitely a one-way street with no turning back. The metaphor of the bridge also suggests a different stance: you can have two homes, and the bridge can help you cross the difficult and conflict-laden spaces between them. Teachers, who take seriously their responsibility for working with students of diverse backgrounds, become bridges, or what Diaz, Flores, Cousin & Soo Hoo (1992) have called sociocultural mediators. That is, they accept and validate the cultural symbols

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used by all their students, and not just those from majority backgrounds. In sociocultural theory, learning and achievement are not merely cognitive processes, but complex issues that need to be understood in the development of community. Three of my colleagues provide a hopeful example of using students’ experiences and identities as a basis for creating community. Jo-Anne Wilson Kennan, a teacher-researcher (working with Judith Solsken and Jerri Willett, professors at the University of Massachusetts), developed a collaborative action research project in a school in Springfield, Massachusetts, with a very diverse student body. The project—based on the premise that parents and other family members of children from widely diverse backgrounds have a lot to offer schools to enhance their children’s learning—was distinct from others in which parents are simply invited to both speak about their culture and share food. Their research focuses on demonstrating how parents can promote student learning by transforming the curriculum. But engaging in this kind of project is not always easy. Kennan, Solsken, and Willett (1993), point out that collaborating with families “required that we confront our own fears of difference and open our classrooms to discussion of topics that may raise tensions among the values of different individuals, groups, and institutions: (p. 64). Through inspiring stories based on in-depth analysis of the families’ visits. They describe how they attempted to build reciprocal relationships with parents, and concluded: Both the extent and the quality of participation by the parents belies the common perception that low-income and minority parents are unable or unwilling to collaborate with the school. Even more important, our study documents the wide range of knowledge, skills, and teaching capabilities that parents are already sharing with their children at home and that are available to enrich the education of their own and other children in school. (p. 64) The important work of Moll & Gonzalez (1997) and their colleagues is another well-known example of research that builds on family knowledge.

Conclusion No theory provides all the answers. The persistent problems of education are not just about teaching and learning, but are about a society’s ideology. Sociocultural theories give us different insights into these prob-


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lems. While we need to accept the inconclusiveness of what we know, we also need to find new, more empowering ways of addressing these concerns. Maxine Greene (1994), in a discussion of postmodernism, poststructuralism, feminism, literary criticism, and other sociocultural theories, discusses both the possibilities and the limits they have. She writes: “The point is to open a number of fresh perspectives on epistemology in its connection with educational research” (p. 426), but she adds, “no universalized or totalized viewing, even of a revised sort” (p. 426) is possible. Nevertheless, in spite of this inconclusiveness, we know enough to know that teachers need to respect students’ identities. They need to learn about their students if they are to be effective with them. Ron Morris, a young man attending an alternative school in Boston, describes the disappointing relationships he had with teachers before attending his alternative school. He said: When a teacher becomes a teacher, she acts like a teacher instead of a person. She takes her title as now she’s mechanical, somebody just running it. Teachers shouldn’t deal with students like we’re machines. You’re a person. I’m a person. We come to school and we all act like people. (p. 265) Ron reminds us that we do not have all the answers, and indeed, that some of the answers we have are clearly wrong. Ray McDermott (1977) described this fact beautifully: “We are all embedded in our own procedures, which makes us both very smart in one situation and blind and stupid in the next” (p. 202). More recently, Herbert Kohl (1994) suggests that students’ failure to learn is not always caused by a lack of intelligence, motivation, or self-esteem. On the contrary, he maintains that “To agree to learn from a stranger who does not respect your integrity causes a major loss of self ” (p. 6) or what Carol Locust (1988) has called “wounding the spirit” (p. 315). Much has been written in the past few years about teachers’ reluctance to broach issues of difference, both among themselves and with their students (Fine, 1991; Jervis, 1996; McIntyre, 1997; Sleeter, 1994; Solomon, 1995; Tatum, 1997). This is especially true of racism, which is most often addressed in schools as if it were a personality problem. But prejudice and discrimination are not just personality traits or psychological phenomena; they are manifestations of economic, political, and social power. The institutional definition of racism is not always easy for teachers to accept because it goes against deeply held notions of equality and justice

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in our nation. Bias, as an instrumental system, implies that some people and groups benefit and others lose. Whites, whether they want to or not, benefit in a racist society; males benefit in a sexist society. Discrimination always helps those with power, which explains why racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination continue to exist. Having a different language, to speak about differences in privilege and power, is the first step in acquiring the courage to confront differences. Finally, sociocultural and sociopolitical concepts give us a way to confront what Henry Giroux (1992) has called our nation’s “retreat from democracy” (p. 4). Paulo Freire (1998), writing a series of letters to teachers focused on this problem: When inexperienced middle-class teachers take teaching positions in peripheral areas of the city, class-specific tastes, values, language, discourse, syntax, semantics, everything about the students may seem contradictory to the point of being shocking and frightening. It is necessary, however, that teachers understand that the students’ syntax; their manners, tastes and ways of addressing teachers and colleagues; and the rules governing their fighting and playing among themselves are all part of their cultural identity; which never lacks an element of class. All that has to be accepted. Only as learners recognize themselves democratically and see that their right to say “I be” is respected will they become able to learn the dominant grammatical reasons why they should say “I am” (p. 49; emphasis in the original) All students are individuals. They are members of particular groups, whose identities are either disdained or respected in society. When we understand this, then my story, and those of countless others, can be understood not simply as someone “pulling herself up by her bootstraps” or “melting” or joining “the mainstream,” but as a story of the concepts of agency/co-constructed learning, experience, identity/hybridity, context/ situatedness/positionality, and community can be explained. When language, literacy, and culture are approached in these ways, we have a more hopeful way of addressing teaching and learning for all students.

References Appiah, A. (1994). Identity, authenticity, survival: Multicultural societies and social reproduction. In A. Gutman (Ed.), Multiculturalism (pp.149–163). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.


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Apple, M. W. (1993). The politics of official knowledge: Does a national curriculum make sense? Teachers College Record, 95, 222–241. Arvizu, S. F. (1994). Building bridges for the future: Anthropological contributions to diversity and classroom practice. In R. A. DeVillar, C. J. Faltis, & J. Cummins (Eds.), Cultural diversity in schools: From rhetoric to reality (pp. 75–97). Albany: State University of New York Press. Bourdieu, P. (1985). The forms of capital. In J. G. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241–248). Westport, CT: Greenwood. Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Cole, M., & Griffin, P. (1983). A socio-historical approach to re-mediation. Quarterly Newsletter of the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition, 5(4), 69–74). Corson, D. (1993). Langiage, minority education and gender: Linking social justice and power. Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters. Cummins, J. (1994). Knowledge, power and identity in teaching English as a second language. In F. Genesee (Ed.), Educating second language children: The whole child, the whole curriculum, the whole community (pp. 35–58). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Delpit, L. D. (1988). The silenced dialogue: Power and pedagogy in educating other people’s children. Harvard Educational Review, 58, 280–298. Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education. New York: Free Press. Diaz, E., Flores, B., Cousin, P. T., & Soo Hoo, S. (1992, April) Teacher as sociocultural mediator. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco. Dorfman, A. (1998). Heading south, looking north: A bilingual journey. New York: Penguin. Erickson, F. (1990). Culture, politics, and educational practice. Educational Foundations, 4(2), 21–45. Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and power. New York: Longman. Fine, M. (1991). Framing dropouts: Notes on the politics of an urban high school. Albany: State University of New York Press. Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Seabury. Freire, P. (1985). The politics of education: Culture, power and liberation. New York: Bergin & Garvey. Freire, P. (1998). Teachers as cultural workers: Letters to those who dare to teach. Boulder, CO: Westview.

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Gee, J. P. (1990). Social linguistics and literacies: Ideologies in discourse. Bristol, PA: Falmer. Giroux, H. (1992). Educational leadership and the crisis of democratic government, Educational Researcher, 21(4), 4–11. Goodlad, J. I. (1984). A place called school. New York: McGraw-Hill. Greene, M. (1994). Epistemology and educational research: The influence of recent approaches to knowledge. In L. Darling-Hammond (Ed.), Review of research in education, 20 (pp. 423–464). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association. Hirsch, E. D. (1987). Cultural literacy, What every American needs to know. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Jervis, K. (1996). “How come there are no brothers on that list?”: Hearing the hard questions all children ask. Harvard Educational Review, 66, 546–576. Kalantzis, M., Cope, B., & Slade, D. (1989). Minority languages. London: Falmer. Kohl, H. (1994). “I won’t learn from you” and other thoughts on creative maladjustment. New York: Free Press. Ladson-Billings, G. (1994). The dreamkeepers: Successful teachers of African American children. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Locust, C. (1988). Wounding the spirit: Discrimination and traditional American Indian Belief sytems. Harvard Educational Review, 3, 315–330. Mercado, C. I. (1998). When young people from marginalized communities enter the world of ethnographic research: Scribing, planning, reflecting and sharing. In A. Egan-Robertson & D. Bloome (Eds.), Students as researchers of culture and language in their own communities (pp. 69–92). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton. McDermott, R. P. (1977). Social relations as contexts for learning in school. Harvard Educational Review, 47, 198–213. McIntrye, A. (1997). Constructing an image of a white teacher. Teachers College Press, 98, 653–681. Moll, L., & Gonzalez, N. (1997). Teachers as social scientists: Learning about culture from household research. In P. M. Hall (Ed.), Race, ethnicity and multiculturalism Vol.1 (pp. 89–114). New York: Garland. Nelson-Barber, S., & Estrin, E. T. (1995). Bringing Native American perspectives to mathematics and science teaching. Theory into Practice, 34, 174–185. Nieto, S. (1992, 2000). Affirming diversity: The sociopolitical context of multicultural education. New York: Longman. Nieto, S. (1999). The light in their eyes: Creating multicultural learning communities. New York: Teachers College Press.


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Rodriguez, R. (1982). Hunger of memory: The education of Richard Rodriguez. Boston: David R. Godine. Scribner, S., & Cole, M. (1981). The psychology of literacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Shor, I. (1992). Empowering education: Critical teaching for social change. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sleeter, C. E. (1994). White racism. Multicultural Education, 1(4), 5–8, 39. Snow, C. E., Barnes, W. S., Chandler, J., Goodman, I. F., & Hemphill, L. (1991). Unfulfilled expectations: Home and school influences on literacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Solomon, R. P. (1995). Beyond prescriptive pedagogy: Teacher inservice education for cultural diversity. Journal of Teacher Education, 46, 251–258. Solsken, J. W. (1993). Literacy, gender and work in families and in school. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Tatum, B. D. (1997). “Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?” and other conversations about race. New York: HarperCollins. Taylor, D., & Dorsey-Gaines, C. (1988). Growing up literate: Learning from innercity families. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Trueba, H. T. (1989). Raising silent voices: Educating the linguistic minorities for the 21st century. Cambridge, MA: Newbury House. Vygotsky, L. E. (1978). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.


Chapter 5

The Outsider within Multicultural Education Understanding the Field from a Marginalized Viewpoint VALERIE OOKA PANG

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he field of Multicultural Education arose from the commitment of educators to provide equal educational opportunity to students from underrepresented communities who had been continually denied access to quality schooling. The needs of students were at the heart of the movement. In order to accomplish this important goal, leading scholars in the field called for total school reform (Banks, 2002; Gay, 2000; Grant & Sleeter, 1998). As a scholar who studies Multicultural Education, I believe the paradigm shift that multicultural educators proposed during the early 1970’s challenged the inherent nature of educational institutions: the field called into question the flawed reality of our national ideal of equality in the lived experiences of many folks in this democracy; the field demanded equity for all children; and the field called for continual resistance of systemic institutional oppression (Welch, this volume). The purpose of this chapter is to examine the field of Multicultural Education through the lens that I have chosen as a researcher and teacher. As part of this analysis, I address two main questions posed by Pollard and Welch. They are (1) How have you come to know what you know about research? And (2) What are some of the factors, issues, and concerns that have guided you as a researcher? The thrust of this chapter will focus on these two questions and discussion of the obstacles that I see facing scholars in the field of Multicultural Education. 87

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Though I am an insider (in that I am a scholar within the field), I often find myself marginalized by various forces. However, I do understand that change is slow and the national politics and social context of the present time do not encourage divergent thinking. As this book describes, women in academia often find themselves on the borders. In order to explain that marginalization process, I include several examples from my own journey. The reader needs to understand that my filter/lens is a composite of various subcultures: mother, member of the Japanese community, and elementary grade teacher. First, I am a mother who believes in young people. Motherhood has given me many insights into how children develop and learn. I worked as a lecturer for nine years while our children were growing up. Many folks could not understand why I would choose to be the caretaker of our daughter and son working as an adjunct, when I had earned a PhD. The life of an adjunct is difficult because one is paid poorly and treated as second class. One quarter I taught part-time at three local universities so I could teach at night when my husband was home. During another quarter, I taught 120 miles’ round trip from our home at a fourth university. Motherhood has been the most important role I have taken on. I believe parents have a limited time with their children and I enjoyed mine. Children grow up so quickly. I remember volunteering every week in our daughter and son’s early grades. I was never a room mother because I was an adjunct professor, however I went on many field trips with their classes. Our daughter and son’s classes went on train trips to the salmon ladder of the local science museum, and I was there with them. I also spent many hours tutoring in the classroom. My time with the children was full and busy. What I learned most about children was that they are intelligent, inquiring, and energetic learners. I found all the children to be fun and interesting. This taught me about the importance of teacher quality. If the teacher could see the potential of each child, the child would be affirmed and consistently encouraged. As a mother, I realized that quality time and quantity time was needed by most children. Parents often do not understand the powerful influence they have on the lives of children. Therefore, the many hours I spent at home reinforced the importance of continual adult mentoring and guidance to young people from parents and teachers. It was not always easy to stay home as the full-time caretaker. I saw my colleagues advancing in their careers, while I made cupcakes and wrote small grants for their elementary school. Though I was able to find financial support for the school library and bring to all the children in the school Asian Pacific American authors such as Jose Aruego and Laurence Yep,

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people at the university questioned my commitment to the academy because I did not hold a tenure track position. My role as a mother was seen as a weakness. In fact, professors generally in the College of Education where I earned my PhD did not believe I would be successful in higher education. They evaluated behaviors in terms of their own value systems and did not understand how underlying cultural values guided my life as a third generation Japanese American. Motherhood is a powerful role in Japanese culture, and children are considered precious gifts to the family. This, in itself, indicates a specific cultural orientation. Family is seen at the core of life. Though many sociologists have described the rapid cultural assimilation of Japanese Americans, I believe it is incorrect to assume that various cultural values do not remain underneath the hip clothes or professional demeanor of many. Throughout my career, I found folks from various communities responded to me based upon extremely powerful stereotypes held about Asian women. Though I usually do not fit into their stereotypical expectations of Asian women, this has and continues to be a double-edged sword. I am neither a quiet weak female nor the Suzy Wong sex kitten. Rather, I am a researcher who teaches and studies the areas of Multicultural Education, Urban Education, and Teacher Education. However, people have expectations that I often do not fill. Sometimes, I am included on a panel not for my knowledge but because of my ethnicity. However, this can be positive. Asian Pacific Americans are often used as the poster children for affirmative action, and used to rebuff the claims of Blacks and Latinos that racism is alive. In fact, Asian Pacific Americans are sadly used in society as model minorities or presented as White-like in order to demonstrate the American mythology of equal opportunity. Another way that I feel marginalized is when people react, not to my, but to their own expectations of how I should behave and respond. For example, I may be vocal in a committee meeting. I can quickly identify from the nonverbal behaviors of others, that they do not expect me to say something in opposition to the general feeling. For example, I have been on numerous university personnel committees. In some of my votes regarding tenure and promotion of assistant and associate professors, I may demonstrate a viewpoint that others do not agree with. I have been in the position where those in the majority will try to intimidate me to change my decision through their aggressive tone of voice or accusatory statements. Unfortunately, one of the patterns that I find is that many academics are uncomfortable with women from Asian American communities who dissent. They may speak louder as if this will help. I am a native speaker of English, but this seems to

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escape some folks. Even more surprising, some White women who write on the issue of White Privilege see their role as being smarter and more able to make decisions than myself. These folks will continue to question me about an issue, though I believe they are not listening to the context of my comments. I feel they are responding to my physical exterior and relate to me as if I have a lower social status. This is even harder for me to understand because I have great respect for their scholarship, however “walking the talk” of equality is difficult for all of us. These examples demonstrate how marginality is created by many unconscious forces within a community. I was an elementary grade teacher and I believe in the importance of teaching the whole child. When trusting relationships are formed as the basis for learning, children have confidence these teachers will do all they can to ensure student success. In this way, children are motivated to try because they know that their efforts will be affirmed and their abilities will be encouraged. Throughout my life, there have been many who have influenced my beliefs: students, teachers, scholars, family members, and friends. Like most folks, my cultural background is extremely diverse and yet, my values center on social justice, compassion, and community. These forces have shaped my belief system and have led me to study the issues I have chosen in my career. I think my own experiences as a women, a Japanese American, a mother, and a teacher have led me towards the importance of choosing a philosophical worldview that affirms and reflects my multidimensional identity.

Informed Social Criticism Educators must carefully consider and participate in extensive discussions about human ideals and their extension in actual practices. Within this process, educators must question the traditional focus of schooling from transmission of cultural knowledge to “informed social criticism” (Vinson, 1998). Teachers must be reflective thinkers who challenge social adaptation (Stanley & Nelson, 1994; Hahn, 1996; Ross, 2001) and struggle with complex issues such as race and racism. Addressing inequalities in schooling is a challenging goal. It is also imperative that scholars in the field carefully articulate an in-depth philosophy and present a comprehensive knowledge base for teachers because this will provide essential grounding. In this chapter, I expand on how to strengthen the foundations of Multicultural Education as a field so that “informed social criticism” is


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possible. In the discussion, I weave descriptions of several vital challenges that I feel hinder the development of the discipline. Finally, I end with a story about my oldest student, who was originally an engineer, and whose story demonstrates how trusting relationships, as Noddings (1984) has explained through her framework of the Ethic of Caring, must also be at the foundation of Multicultural Education.

Preparing Students and Teachers for a Complex, Multicultural World: An Analogy As educators our role, in a democracy, is a vital one. What does a student, in a school where “informed social criticism,” is prevalent, look like, and how does she behave? The following story presents an analogy of an individual who begins to understand the importance of developing higher order thinking skills and participating in the decision-making process of a democracy. An analogy is a mental cultural model or tool that is used as a bridge to deepen understanding (D’Andrade, 1987). The chick and egg analogy can be used to represent a paradigm shift from adaptation to “informed social criticism.” Picture an egg. The egg represents the first phase of a chick’s life where she lives in a protective environment. The chick may stay in that shell where it is warm and sheltered or she may decide she must breakout of the shell. The chick may find it difficult to break out of the shell because shattering the shell may be viewed as fighting against conformity and becoming self-empowered. The shell acts like a filter and obstacle. The chick finds it difficult to see clearly outside, however, she realizes it is vital for her to get out of the egg so she can investigate the world and develop her own voice. She wants to break out from the margins of her life. She sees that the shell acts as a structure that has been created to ensure her development, as well as a mechanism that perpetuates the status quo. Paradigm change is not easy because the institutional structures of egg making are based upon conformity and keeping the status quo in place. The chick and egg analogy is a powerful way to look at the struggles women of color must face in the academy and their careers. It is easy for individuals to appear to be engaged in culturally diverse or antibiased activities that are low risk, such as eating ethnic foods or being careful not to name call others. This is to stay within the safety of the egg’s shell. However, it is far more difficult to break out of the shell, see life from the views of people on the margins, and challenge oppression. It often takes

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courage to speak out against oppressive practices such as White privilege or the academic tracking that is common in K–12 schools. Initially, I saw many scholars in Multicultural Education crush the shell and fight the system of entrenched inequalities. However, because some had not adopted a new paradigm, their attitudes and actions became mainstream; they began to adopt practices that rebuilt the eggshell. For example, discussions were closed, and some scholars in the field did not allow for the presentation of opposing views. As Friere (1972) writes, “the oppressed become the oppressors.” Those of us in the field of Multicultural Education must guard against this and encourage open dialogue. This is especially important in a young field, where leading scholars need to identify a common definition for Multicultural Education. This leads to another concern. Though the shell can be broken, the chick cannot become completely self-empowered without collaboration with others. Multicultural Education is especially dependent upon a community of scholars who work towards common goals in school. However, scholars in the field do not hold a common knowledge base that includes a common definition of Multicultural Education. This hampers our ability to integrate equity philosophy, and culturally relevant curriculum practices, in schools. Our efforts as multicultural educators have been limited; there is evidence demonstrating this. For example, in some elementary classrooms, I still see alphabet cards that include “I” for Indian. This demonstrates that teachers have not looked at another perspective regarding this issue. In Multicultural Education, many educators point out that the use of the card, “I” for Indian, objectifies a group of people, just as the use of a ball to refer to the letter “B.” Many teachers do not even have a minimal understanding of the field or its purposes. Change is slow in many educational arenas. The above example deals with elementary schools; change is also needed in colleges of education. Therefore an educator who is dedicated to equity in schools must clearly identify her beliefs. With strong ethical grounding, she will be more able to address her goals and deal with obstacles. Often this means one must take risks and be willing to do things that are perceived to be on the margins. These are choices many women of color in academia must make. For example, when I was a doctoral student, I had a strong desire to investigate the self-concept of Japanese American children (not adults, children). I could not find studies on this topic. There were several measuring the selfconcept and self-esteem of African American, Caucasian, and Vietnamese American children. However, there was a dearth of research on Japanese American youth. When I first approached one of my doctoral professors,


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the Asian American professor advised me not to conduct research on Japanese Americans. He explained that this would be career suicide. It would be much better for me to conduct research that was more mainstream, otherwise, I would find myself at the margins of the academy. Given the time period of the late 1970s it is somewhat understandable why he advised me not to choose a study that examined an ethnic population. Though he pleaded with me several times, I felt it was important for me to follow my interest. He also told me that many educators believed Japanese American students were model minorities and did not need to be studied or served. However, I believed I would be making a contribution to the educational community if I did research on the self-concept of Japanese Americans. Fortunately, I did study the physical and general self-concept of Japanese Americans for my dissertation. I discovered that if educators only used general measures of self-concept, they missed patterns about specific dimensions of identity. I found that a general self-concept score often masked a lower physical self-concept in fourth through sixth graders (Pang, Mizokawa, Morishima, & Olstad, 1985). Later, I was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship by the National Academy to examine academic and test anxiety in high achieving Asian American middle school students. In this study, I found that Asian American middle school students showed significantly higher test and achievement anxiety in comparison to their European American peers. However, these Asian American young people felt significantly more encouraged and supported by their parents than the Caucasian sample (Pang, 1991). Since one of my goals is to address inequities in education, I felt it was important for me to take a leadership position in presenting educators with vital information about Asian American students. These research findings can be used by teachers to address these students’ needs better. This encouraged me to provide leadership in a book project. I was senior editor of Struggling to be heard: The unmet needs of Asian Pacific American children (Pang & Cheng, 1998), one of the few research books on Asian Pacific American children. I broke out of the academic shell. I followed my cultural values, keeping the children and students I serve at the heart of my work.

Multicultural Education: Identifying an Educational Belief System As an academic, I am concerned that many scholars focus primarily on politics and have not grounded their work in philosophy and research. Though I understand that working in schools can be considered a political

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act, and educators must be politically active, I also think the work we do must be grounded in educational theories. I am not a Diane Ravitch or Chester Finn (who do not believe in Multicultural Education). I am an educator who believes the field can make a difference, but I am frustrated by the lack of leadership, rigor, and clarity in the discipline. Few of the leaders in Multicultural Education have written clearly about their philosophical orientation. Several exceptions are Carl Grant, Christine Sleeter, Geneva Gay, and Sonia Nieto. Understanding the philosophical orientation of educational scholars is vital. Identification of a scholar’s philosophy indicates the value system and filters an educator uses in viewing issues or the foundation of their decisions. Grant and Sleeter (1999) have presented social reconstructionism as a key philosophy. Gay (2000) has written extensively about progressive education and John Dewey, in particular. Nieto (2000) has chosen critical theory as her philosophical framework and extends the beliefs of scholars such as Paulo Freire. These philosophical orientations demonstrate that some scholars in the field have chosen social change, aimed at providing educational equity, as a major goal. They are dedicated to moving schools toward reforms that center on providing equity in education. Though there are many other scholars who write in the field, they have not clearly identified the theories that form their belief system. My philosophical framework is grounded in the work of John Dewey, Lev Vygotsky, Vanessa Siddle Walker, Geneva Gay, Luis Moll, and Nel Noddings. Since the ethic of care as developed by Noddings is foundational to the framework, it is called caring-centered multicultural education (Pang, 2005). I believe it is critical to have a strong philosophical orientation that includes educational principles and educational psychological theories, because they address the learning process. The principles and theories of these researchers form an integrated and holistic orientation towards education that emphasizes the importance of critical thinking skills, culture, and the creation of a community of learners. However, as an outsider within the field, my theoretical orientation has been marginalized. This leads to another omission found in the field. Few multicultural educators identify an educational psychological orientation. This is a glaring oversight, especially when multicultural educators call for reform in instructional practice. What are the underlying theories that guide their instruction? Educational psychological theories are critical to effective instruction. These theories can provide educators with important directions for choosing curricular as well as instructional strategies. For example, some theorists believe that it is vital for teachers to construct


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curriculum that builds upon what students already know and have a deep grasp of because that provides a steady foundation for new knowledge (Moll, 1990).

Research: A Vital Need in Multicultural Education Research and scholarship is a critical component in the growth of Multicultural Education. Just as the need for a common definition, rigorous research must be conducted to add to the knowledge base of the discipline. However, many scholars continue to present anecdotal examples of teacher bias and prejudice without solutions for change. There is an overabundance of qualitative research where only one, two, or four teachers are studied.The repetitive nature of this type of research slowly erodes the foundation of the field. I, myself, am guilty of this weakness. The research must include both quantitative and qualitative studies. The lack of more comprehensive studies may, in part, be a result of increases in professors’ teaching loads. Even in some research institutions, faculty members may be required to teach up to six courses yearly and supervise numerous doctoral students. My own teaching load is eight courses per year. The increase in teaching and administrative responsibilities is making it increasingly difficult for scholars to conduct comprehensive research. In addition, there is little funding for in-depth educational research. Current funding is aimed at standards-based education rather than research on issues dealing with culture and equity. So, without financial assistance, many scholars have studied the teachers they serve because, in this way, they integrate research with their teaching. Though qualitative research can provide in-depth understanding of particular types of teachers, and how bias manifests itself, scholars must also continue to investigate the beliefs and practices of large numbers of teachers using quantitative methods. For example, Margo Monteith has led various studies of racial bias. Her work involves the use of the Implicit Association Test (IAT). She and her colleagues found that individuals who are less prejudiced and told they have minor biases, are less likely to address them (Monteith, Veils, & Aashbury-Nardo, 2001). My colleague, Park, and I built upon Monteith’s theory of self-regulation, and examined stereotypes held by preservice teachers. We collected both quantitative and qualitative data and found that self-regulation skills could be taught to novice teachers, and this assisted them in identifying personal prejudices (Pang & Park, 2003). We would like to extend this study because research in teacher prejudice reduction can point out effective strategies that can be implemented in

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professional development. The field would benefit from more studies that contribute to enlarging its research base.

Multicultural Education: Building a Knowledge Base Presenting interdisciplinary knowledge is essential for the expansion of Multicultural Education as a discipline. Since the field deals with many social issues, teachers must be exposed to extensive knowledge from many fields and multiple perspectives regarding issues of social inequities, whether they deal with ethnic patterns of privilege, economic have-nots, or inequalities in academic success among different groups of students (Nofke, 2000). One important example deals with affirmative action. Some beliefs about affirmative action may have altered or changed over the years since the Supreme Court’s Bakke decision in 1978. Initially, the use of quotas was seen as one of the most effective strategies to assure equal opportunities in universities and federal employment for members of underrepresented communities. However, in the 21st century, many people opposed quotas, and affirmative action programs were eliminated by public initiatives in such states as Washington and California. Not only would teachers benefit from examining the history of affirmative action, they would also benefit from viewpoints that have come from other disciplines such as law. Laycok, Issacharoff, and Wright, law professors from the University of Texas, predicted that if affirmative action programs were eliminated, lower standards would be established by universities (Rosen, 2003). They felt this occurred in Texas after “the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit banned affirmation action in 1996” and “the Texas legislature adopted a series of laws that required the University of Texas to lower its admissions standards in various ways” (Rosen, 2003, p. 54). One of the ways they thought this occurred was the implementation of a ten percent plan. This assured that high school graduates, who graduated in the top ten percent of their class, would be “admitted to any public university in Texas, regardless of their test scores, the classes they took, or their ability to contribute to intellectual diversity (Rosen, 2003, p. 54). Therefore, Laycok, et al., felt affirmative action programs should be continued rather than eliminated, because then, academic excellence would be preserved. There are other educators who support affirmative action and question the values supported by the law professors. They argue that institutional practices, such as the use of standardized achievement test scores, are not accurate indicators of academic success (Mathison, 2001; Noguera, 2003). In addition, other educators argue that educational excellence and


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equity are complex issues and involve more than the school context. For example, Noguera (2003) discusses social complexities that students and parents from urban schools face every day. The lack of adequate employment, health care, and housing are huge obstacles in the lives of many students. He believes the No Child Left Behind Initiative left behind thousands of students in urban schools. Noguera writes: The extreme disparities in wealth that pervade U.S. society are largely responsible for the plight of young people and the state of education in urban areas. However, the dearth of good schools is also the inevitable by-product of a system that is almost completely unaccountable to those it serves. Public education is one of the few enterprises where the quality of service provided has no bearing whatsoever on the ability of the system to function. Even when there is little evidence that schools are able to fulfill their basic mission— educating children—the system continues to chug along and all employees get paid (some quite well). This is why I believe that the high-stakes exams adopted in states such as Massachusetts and California are fundamentally flawed and morally irresponsible. The exams are used to hold students accountable for their achievement even though the authorities who have imposed the exams know that they cannot guarantee the quality of the education students receive. (2003, p.15) These examples demonstrate how the examination of issues using data from multiple disciplines can help teachers develop a more comprehensive understanding of complex social problems such as affirmative action. In the previous section, I provided recommendations that I believe will strengthen the knowledge base in the field of Multicultural Education. In the next section, I turn to teaching and, in particular, to the importance of caring in Multicultural Education. This section describes Raymond, the oldest student in my 35 years of teaching, who taught me a great deal about successful teaching. By creating a bond of trust, Raymond allowed me the opportunity to see into his life and understand, partially, essential values that helped define him. This story demonstrates that it is through reciprocal trusting relationships between students and teachers that quality teaching is created in the classroom.

Raymond’s Story Last summer I taught an introductory class in Multicultural Education at a large public university. This is a working students’ university, serving

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almost 35,000 students, and where a majority of students work 20–40 hours a week in addition to carrying a full load of courses. My class was early in the morning. Many students took the class at that time so they could go to their jobs immediately afterwards. This class was a prerequisite to enter the teacher certification program. One of the students was Raymond who was almost 65. He was to have a birthday at the end of this class session. Every morning he arrived at the university about 40 minutes before class. I would often see him sitting on the steps in the foyer. Ray was no marshmallow. He had very definite feelings and was willing to share them with the class. It was obvious that he didn’t want to be in the class. He told me on the first day that he didn’t believe in Multicultural Education. Once, during a class discussion, Ray made a profound announcement, “I don’t believe in this culture stuff. Kids just need to work harder in school. I don’t think we should be babying them.” Several of the others students disagreed; one identified a racist action of a teacher. The conversations were always interesting and thought provoking. I required students in this class to read The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and asked them if the life of Malcolm X should be taught in schools. Each student was to indicate why or why not. One by one, students took a stand based on their beliefs. Many openly proclaimed that they thought Malcolm X’s life should be taught because he was an example of selfempowerment. Some others felt intimidated by peer pressure; they thought they would be labeled racist if they did not want to teach about Malcolm X. However, when it was Raymond’s turn, he stood up and unflinchingly stated the opposing perspective. “I didn’t know much about Malcolm X before reading the book, however, after much thought, I still do not believe [he] should be taught in schools. He was himself racist and a violent man.” Some of the other students were surprised, others were relieved. Ray was always upfront. Originally, Ray had been a civil engineer and city manager of a city of about 75,000 people. One of the issues that still troubled him was affirmative action. He explained to the class that he felt that many affirmative action programs allowed for the less qualified person to be hired. Once he had to choose between two potential employees; one Latino and the other White. Both were well-qualified for the position. Ray chose the Latino candidate, however it wasn’t because of his ethnic background. He felt that though both were equally qualified technically, the Latino man lived in the area and had a better grasp of city issues. Now retired, Ray worked as a teaching assistant, in a local middle school, tutoring children in math. He began to create math lessons built on


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the knowledge his children brought to school He was beginning to see the impact of culturally relevant teaching. He also enjoyed being among the 20–35 year olds planning to enter the teacher certification program. Two of these students asked if he would help them with their math homework and Ray tutored them after class for several days. Another student, a young woman about 25-years-old was quiet and reserved, often sitting by herself. One day she asked to make a presentation about her health issues. Through her lesson she described her depression and its impact on her life. After the presentation, Ray thanked her. He had thought she did not want to talk but learned she was shy and found it difficult to rise out of her shell and reach out to others because of her illness. Ray showed flexibility and openness that was not readily obvious. During the last week of class, Ray did not attend on Monday or Tuesday. This was unusual because he had not missed any sessions. Someone asked if anyone had heard from him. No one knew what had happened to him. On Tuesday, I called Ray at home. He had been in the hospital over the weekend after his son found him unconscious at home. However, he was feeling better and assured me he would be on class on Thursday. However, on Thursday he wasn’t in class. I called him again and he explained he had to go back to the hospital for tests. I let him know that students asked how he was. I said “should I tell them you send your best regards? Immediately he said “No, I want you to tell them that I love each one of them.” Ray never came back to class. The doctors told him he had stomach cancer. He died two weeks later. Ray reminded me of the importance of the relationships we develop in the classroom. Yes, sometimes he was a bit prickly, but inside, he was ethical, open-minded, and caring. He was an extremely complex person who was willing to reflect on some of his values. He seemed so set in his ways, yet he was also open to new ideas. At the beginning, he did not believe in Multicultural Education. Later, as the class progressed, Ray began to understand the importance of knowing more about the cultural diversity of children in the classroom. I observed him work with several middle school Latino students in a remedial class. Ray was extremely positive, asked questions about the students and built a career unit on police officers because they were interested in this profession. He had them read important selections about police officers and gave them information about how to get admitted to the police academy. The students asked questions and were engaged in the lesson. Raymond was excellent with children. He believed in the ability of each of his mentees and built trusting

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relationships with them. Though age was somewhat of an obstacle, initially, Ray used humor to work effectively with them.

Summary A scholar of color must decide what path to take. Should she break out of the egg? If she does, she must be prepared for a journey where folks will continually question her motives, her research methods, and her beliefs. When she aligns herself with individuals from the mainstream, there may be talk of being an assimilationist, a sell out, a banana, oreo, apple, or coconut. When she builds coalitions with people of color, others will say she is segregating herself. Knowing that there will always be criticism, one must choose an ethical and educational philosophy that serves to anchor her so that students are at the heart of her work. In this way, she does not feel she is working from the margins because the choices she makes arise out of her integrity to the community. My research in education is grounded within a multidimensional identity. As a Japanese American female, mother, and elementary school teacher, I created a value system that is based on these subcultures. Though I often feel marginalized within academia, I am able to move forward in my work because of the strong cultural foundation that I have chosen. These various communities have assisted me in choosing research that I believe will lead to more compassionate and effective schools. There are always costs to those who risk. However, I believe these risks have led to my learning that resistance is a good place to be. As Janice Mirikitani wrote in her poem, “Who is Singing this Song,” the way to live one’s life: . . . We are required legacies of grandparents, parents our enslaved and servant ancestors, our heroes and sheroes, our fighters for freedom, to be now the storm of hands that wave in protest against apartheid, racism, classism, sexism, war, hate, crime, violence and indifference to the poor . . . Who is singing this song? I am. You are. Our music is beautiful. (Mirikitani, 2001, pp. xxxiv–xxxc)

References Banks, J. A. (2002). An introduction to multicultural education ( 3rd ed.) Boston: Allyn & Bacon.


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D’Andrade, R. (1987). Folk models of the mind. In D. Holland & N. Quinn (Eds.), Cultural models in language and thought. New York: Cambridge University Press. Freire, P. (1972). The pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum. Gay, G. (2000). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research and practice. New York: Teachers College Press. Grant, C. A., & Sleeter, C. (1999). Turning on learning. New York: Wiley. Hahn, C. (1996). Research on issues-centered social studies. In R. W. Evans & D. Saxe (Eds.), Handbook on teaching social issues (pp. 25–41).Washington, DC: National Council for Social Studies. Mathison, S. (2001). Assessment in social studies: Moving toward authenticity. In E. W. Ross (Ed.), The social studies curriculum: Purposes, problems and possibilities (Rev. ed, pp. 217–234). Albany: State University of New York Press. Mirikitani, J. (2001). Who is singing this song? In V. Nam (Ed.), Yell Oh Girls! (pp. xxxi–xxxv). New York; Quill Publishers. Moll, L. (1990). Vygotsky and education: Instructional implications and applications of sociohistorical psychology. New York: Cambridge University Press. Monteith, M. J., Voils, C., & Ashburn-Nardo, L. (2001). Taking a look underground: Detecting, interpreting, and reacting to implicit racial biases. Social cognition, 19(4), 395–417. Nieto, S. (2000). Affirming diversity: The sociopolitical context of multicultural education. New York: Longman. Noddings, N. (1984). Caring: A feminine approach to ethics and moral development. Berkeley; University of California Press. Noguera, P. (2003). City schools and the American dream. New York: Teachers College Press. Nofke, S. (2000). Identity, community and democracy in the new social order. In D. W. Hursh & E. W. Ross (Eds.), Democratic social education: Social studies for change (pp. 73–83). New York: Flamer. Pang, V. O. (2005). Multicultural education: A caring-centered, reflective approach (2nd ed.). Boston; McGraw Hill. Pang, V. O. (1991). Test anxiety and math achievement: Their relationship to parental values in Asian American and White American middle school students. Journal of Research and Development in Education, 24, 1–10. Pang, V. O., & Park, S. D. (2003). Examination of the self-regulation mechanism: Prejudice reduction in pre-service teachers. Action in Teacher Education. Pang, V. O., Mizokawa, D., Morishima, J., & Olstad, R. (1985). Self-concepts of Japanese-American children. Journal of Cross-cultural Psychology, 16, 99–108.

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Pang, V. O., & Cheng, L. L. (1998). Struggling to be heard: The unmet needs of Asian Pacific American children. Albany: State University of New York Press. Rosen, J. (2003, June 1). How I learned to love quotas. The New York Times Magazine, 53–55. Ross, E. W. (2001). The struggle for the social studies curriculum. In E. W. Ross (Ed.), The social studies curriculum: Purposes, problems and possibilities (Rev. ed., pp. 19–41). Albany: State University of New York Press. Stanley, W. B., & Nelson, J. L. (1994). The foundations of social education in historical context. In R. Martusewica & W. Reynolds, (Eds.), Inside/out: Contemporary critical perspectives in education (pp. 266–284). New York: St. Martin’s Press. Vinson, K. (1998). The traditions revisited: Instructional approach and high school social studies teachers. Theory and Research in Social Education, 26, 50–82. Welch, O. M. (2006). Making the familiar strange: Inclusion, exclusion, and erasure: Summarizing the philosophies of women researchers of color in D. Pollard and O. M. Welch (eds.) From center to margins: The importance of selfdefiinition in research, Albany: State University of New York Press.

Chapter 6

Seeing with the Cultural Eye Different Perspectives of African American Teachers and Researchers JACQUELINE JORDAN IRVINE1

T

he disparities between the achievement of African American students and their White and Asian peers have perplexed researchers, educators, and policymakers for decades. Most explanations center on socioeconomic, sociopathological, and cultural explanations for what is generally called the Black–White achievement gap. Recently, researchers have begun to examine another explanation for the lack of achievement among African American students: the quality of their teachers. However, the research on teacher quality variables has not included the perspectives of African American teachers. Perhaps this exclusion is related to the fact that African American teachers see things differently than researchers (Foster, 1997; Mitchell, 1999; Siddle Walker, 1996; Stanford, 1998). For more than 20 years I have been a boundary crosser between the world of researchers and the world of African American teachers. My experience in working in both of these very different domains is that African American teachers seldom reference or validate researchers’ perspectives that attempt to explain African American students’ low achievement. Instead teachers look introspectively at how their ethnic identity, classroom practices, and their beliefs are related to the achievement of their African American students—a complex examination indeed —————— 1. Reprinted from Educating Teachers for Diversity: Seeing with the Cultural Eye. Teachers College Press with permission of the author and Teachers’ College Press. 103

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(Irvine, 2002b). Hence, African American teachers’ perspectives about the Black–White achievement gap originate from a historical and cultural view of teaching and are derived from a process of unlearning and modifying what they have been taught in the academy. Here are a few stories that African American teachers have shared with me: •

•

•

•

A beginning African American teacher said: “I never thought that I had to convince my principal that my students labeled ‘at risk’ or ‘low level’ or some other insulting term could truly be successful if we all held high expectations. Just because they aren’t learning doesn’t mean they can’t. Another 30-year veteran African American teacher said that she never looks at the test profile of her students from the central office. She said, “I just put them in the drawer.” Another teacher, commenting on what she learned in an instructional methods course, said: “I tried a lot of teaching methods that I learned in college—cooperative learning, whole language centers. But, you know, when I work with my kids I found out how much they like to perform on a program. You know—like church, like an Easter speech. Yet another teacher confronted her colleagues who had been taught that a good measure of parental involvement is the frequency with which parents attend school conferences. She said, “I heard a teacher say that African American parents didn’t care about their kids because they don’t come to school. My parents didn’t come to school meetings but I know they cared about us. So I said something to her about that.”

The Cultural Eye An obvious limitation of researchers’ explanations of African American underachievement is their failure to acknowledge appropriately the influence of culture on the teaching and learning processes. This is what I refer to as the “cultural eye” of African American teachers. The cultural eye is associated with culturally specific ways in which African American teachers see themselves, not as the reason for the existence of the Black-White achievement gap, but rather, as one strategy for closing it. This oversight or omission of African American teachers’ conceptions, is a serious issue because it leaves their perspectives and voices, and the African American community as a whole silenced, marginalized, and invisible once again.

Seeing with the Cultural Eye

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I argue here, using the metaphor of sight or vision, that researchers and African American teachers view both their world and their work from the perspective of their cultural eye. I contend that researchers fail to recognize the influence of the cultural eye in their own research in the classrooms of African American teachers and fail to understand how African American teachers situate themselves professionally and personally to address the problem of the Black students’ underachievement. Finally, I suggest that researchers learn to use their “third eye” to: (1)

(2) (3)

understand the perspectives of African American teachers and how their views of themselves and their practice influence African American students’ achievement; envision new ways of closing the gap between Black and White students’ achievement; and see that the problem of the achievement gap reflects a much larger and intractable problem of race and racism in America.

Researchers’ Perspectives Williams Sanders, formerly a statistician at the University of Tennessee, reported findings on the significant impact of teachers on student achievement, particularly for African American students. He concluded that a single ineffective teacher may retard a child’s progress for at least four years (cited in Wenglinsky, 2000). There are other researchers, such as Darling-Hammond (1999) who have isolated the teacher quality variable as the focus of their research, citing data that specifically show how unqualified teachers hinder the achievement of low income children of color. In high poverty schools, teachers are twice as likely to be teaching out of field than in low poverty schools (U.S. Department of Education, 1999). In the state of California, for example, students in low income socioeconomic status schools are ten times as likely to be taught by uncertified teachers as students in high socioeconomic status schools (Haycock, 2000). Perhaps the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future (NCTAF) best exemplifies this focus. NCTAF’s recommendation, “A competent teacher for every child,” has become the mantra for policymakers who have mandated teacher competency tests and more rigorous standards for admission to teacher education programs and teacher licensure (Darling-Hammond, 1997a). Proponents of this line of thinking cite

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the results of the Massachusetts certification tests, where 60% of the 1,800 candidates failed, as support for their position. John Silber of the Massachusetts State Board of Education proclaimed that any bright tenth grader could pass such an essay test (Laitsch, 1998). The push for a highly qualified teaching force is a reasonable and worthwhile objective. However, similar to the analysis of student deficits, there are criticisms of researchers who narrowly examine teacher quality variables. The prestigious National Research Council (NRC) issued a report in which members of the council concluded: “there is little evidence about the extent to which widely used tests distinguished between those who are minimally competent and those who are not” (Bradley, 2000, p.1). In addition to concerns regarding measurement and methodological issues, members of the NRC are concerned about the high failure rate of teacher candidates of color. On the Massachusetts teacher certification test, for example, only 5% of those who took the Communications and Literacy Skills test were people of color. Of the 5% who took the test, only 46% passed compared to 70% of White test takers. This dismal rate promoted Kiang (1998/1999), a professor of teacher education and Asian American Studies to write: By constructing a test based on a sequence of isolated, decontextualized questions that have no relationship to each other, the underlying epistemology embedded in the test design has a Western-cultural bias, even if individual questions include or represent “multicultural” content. Articulating and assessing a knowledge base required examining not only what one knows, but also how one knows. (p. 23) On a poignant note, Kiang adds that he has come to understand why African American teachers in the past have often referred to the National Teachers Examination (NTE) as The “Negro Teacher Eliminator.” Ingersoll’s work (1999) on out-of-field teaching in secondary schools suggests that there is serious misunderstanding on this issue. He documents that out-of-field teaching is related to the “lack of fit” between teachers’ fields of preparation and their teaching assignment, as well as the shortage of teachers. (More than 2 million teachers will be needed over the next ten years). Ingersoll concludes that the problem of unqualified teachers is as much related to the mismanagement of schools and the poor treatment of teachers as semi-skilled workers as it is to the charge that teachers are incompetent or intellectually inferior.


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African American Teachers’ Perspectives In chapter 1 (Irvine, 2003), I assert that African American teachers view teaching as telling, guiding, and facilitating mastery of mandated content standards; but they also define teaching as caring, “other mothering,” believing, “demanding the best,” and a calling and disciplining. There are other researchers whose work supports my conclusion that teachers execute their practice and look at teaching through their cultural eye (Foster, 1997; Mitchell, 1999; Siddle Walker, 1996; Stanford, 1998). Dyson (1996) in an interesting essay titled, “Shakespeare and Smokey Robinson” describes his fifth grade teacher, Mrs. James, who would not let them “skate through school without studying hard,” without mastering high standards; and without appreciating their Black culture (p. 128). He writes: Mrs. James helped bring the people off the pages and into our lives. She instructed us to paint their pictures, and to try our hand at writing poetry and sharpening our rhetorical skills. Mrs. James instilled in her students a pride of heritage and history that remains with me to this day. (p. 127) Another researcher, Rickford (1999), illustrates how one Black teacher used Black cultural church rituals in his disciplinary and classroom management strategies. In spite of the fact that not all of the children were regular churchgoers, they were familiar with these church-based rituals. For example, the student who was assigned the role of class monitor assumed responsibilities comparable to those of a church usher. The student’s hand signals directed the group’s sitting, standing, and exiting. Rickford describes the practice in the following way: These classroom seating procedures represent direct borrowings from the Black Church where assigned ushers formally welcome members and visitors on Sunday morning, and escort them to their seats. . . . In effect, Mr. Peters (the African American teacher) transported the familiar concept of church into the classroom. (p. 54) Similar findings regarding the influence of spirituality and religion on African American teachers can be found in the works of Lipman (1998) and Siddle Walker (1999).

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In comparing Black teachers’ culturally specific teaching styles with those of White teachers, Cooper (2002) concludes that Black teachers often exercise authority directly when teaching. Conversely, White teachers often see their role as facilitators and joint constructors of knowledge. Consider statements made by White teacher-researchers such as Kohl (1998), Ayers (1993), and Hankins (1998). Kohl states that, “Listening to students’ voices means giving up the authoritarian role of the teacher. I found myself much more at ease in a dialogue with my students than in telling them what to do all the time” (1998, p. 14). Ayers (1993), wrote that, “I have almost always begun the year by asking students to think about their own learning agendas: ‘What do you want to do this year?’ ” (p.43). Hankins (1998) describes her frustration and failure in preventing her African American students from moving books from a particular area of her classroom. She finally decided that rather than admonishing them she would “celebrate how the African American children changed the rule about books and staying in the book corner: (p.89). Compare these statements to an African American teacher in Ladson-Billings’ work (1994) who said: I know it seems old-fashioned but I believe the students benefit from the structure. It’s as if it were important for them to know what comes next. I have children in here who other teachers told me couldn’t read. Heck, they (the students) told me they couldn’t read. But I look them squarely in the eye in the beginning of the school year and tell them, you will read, and you will read soon. (p.114)

Failure to See Eye to Eye The African American teachers quoted in this chapter believe that their culturally specific views of teaching are not included in researchers’ explanations of the school experiences of African American students and, more specifically, the Black-White achievement gap. Why is it that researchers look at variables, such as African American students’ social class and income, teacher variables (like test scores) on mandated professional competency exams, and theories of cultural incompatibility, yet fail to see African American teachers’ perspectives? Researchers and African American teachers do not see eye to eye because they do not share the same physical spaces, and consequently, tend to see different worlds as related to the world of schools and classrooms. Researchers and African American teachers do not see eye to eye


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because teachers see their classrooms and conduct their practice through their cultural lens and researchers through their assumed intellectual and objective lens. Researchers’ inability to see African American teachers perspectives is related to: • • •

Scant attention to the ways in which knowing is “inherently culture-bound and perspectival” (Lather, 1991, p. 2) Naïve beliefs that researchers do not seek research conclusions that fit their prejudices (Myrdal, 1969, p. 43); and Adherence to claims that objectivity is independent of the race, color, creed, occupation, nationality, religion, moral preference, and political predispositions of the investigator.

Researchers’ work does not resonate with many African American teachers because they act as if their research is “produced from no standpoint, out of no personal history” (Sartwell, 1998. p. 5). Their work is assumed to come from a neutral, all-seeing eye and the African American teachers and students they research are mere objects of their gaze. Researchers, as well as the African American teachers and students they write about, bring prior socialization and present experiences, race, gender, ethnicity, and social class to the table (Banks, 1996). These cultural attributes shape the cultural eye of the research, that is, perspectives, questions, choice of methodology, interpretation, and the teacher’s cultural eye that influences the ways they view their profession and practice their craft. Although it is unfair to imply that teachers and researchers are solely a product of their cultural experiences, it is equally naïve to assume that their research and teaching are unaffected by cultural variables as well as ethnic and racial backgrounds. Consequently, it is important to acknowledge that the race and culture of researchers and African American teachers are critical components of their conscious and subconscious selves, and hence become manifest in their work. Most of the studies of teacher thinking, including “wisdom of practice” studies (Shulman, 1987), do not consider the influence of teachers’ racial identity on their belief systems. This is surprising given the research documenting the ways in which previous life experiences, identities, cultures and critical life incidents help shape their view of teaching and the core elements of their practice (Gay, 2000). Although demographic data predict that educational researchers will increasingly study African American teachers and African American

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students, too few researchers are knowledgeable about African American culture. I believe that it is critical for educational researchers to understand diverse populations by first acknowledging their own “cultural eye” and understanding the cultural eye of African American teachers and African American students. Instead of assuming that these teachers and students are deficient, that is blind or suffering from bad eyesight, researchers should try to understand situated pedagogy and how African American teachers “make meaning” within their classrooms and communities and how they describe their teaching roles. How may researchers begin to see through their own cultural eye and understand the cultural eye of the African American teachers and African American students that they research? I propose that seeing with the third eye is an invaluable first step.

Seeing with the Third Eye To acquire an intimate understanding of African American teachers and, hence a different view of the achievement gap problem, researchers should raise a different set of questions and consider the problem of African American students’ lack of academic success from multiple perspectives. In particular, it is imperative that they include the perspectives of African American teachers who teach African American students. I challenge researchers to look beyond the limitations of the physical eye to what in Asian philosophy is called the third eye. The third eye is situated at the center of one’s forehead and is a symbol of transcendent wisdom and extraordinary insight. Educational researchers should learn to look through the third eye to see a different picture and examine alternative explanations offered by African American teachers about African American school achievement. How may this alternative vision be applied to education research? Alternative vision may be attained by addressing the four following points: 1. Changing the place where research is conducted. Place is a significant variable in the discourse on research and cultural diversity. Place is a simple five-letter word that means much more than the obvious. Place is more than setting; it represents power, import, and status. For example, there are some researchers who have little contact and almost nothing in common with K-12 teachers. Some educational researchers believe that these schools are large, unwieldy bureaucratic structures that house underclass children who are so incapacitated by the culture of poverty that teaching and learning are essentially impossible tasks. Consequently, the idea of


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changing the place or setting for research from the university to the school is not considered a serious proposal by many researchers, especially if a school is ethnically and culturally diverse, urban and poor. Yet, this change is exactly what I advocate. There should be more authentic collaborative efforts among teachers of color and their culturally diverse students and researchers than currently exists. Importantly, such alliances should identify ways to improve the research process from problem conception to data interpretation. Working relationships should be established in which the roles of subject and investigator are indistinct and protean. Researchers who employ this strategy do not simply impose meaning through their own obstructed cultural lens, but meaning is negotiated through a reciprocal process of discussion and mutual respect. Murrell (1998) refers to this stance as assuming, “the humility of a good anthropologist” (p. 31). Changing the place where research is conducted is the first step, but we should also examine the curriculum used in programs of educational research. Hence, alternative Third Eye vision also includes: 2. Changing how we train researchers. How do we revise the doctoral research curriculum to help students use their third eye to understand that African American teachers and their students do not wish to be simply objects or subjects of research. Rather, they want to be actively involved in studying their own lives and classrooms. Residents in urban communities of color are demanding that their children, schools, and communities not become convenient locations where researchers collect data without any prior experiences, training, or knowledge of the school or community— that is, collecting research data as if picking up orders at the drive-in window of a fast food restaurant. Additionally, many researchers overestimate their levels of knowledge and familiarity with communities of color based on cursory and superficial experiences. However, their “blind spot” precludes them from seeing the subtleties of culture and critical “webs of significance” (Geertz, 1973). Researchers often forget that they are research tools as well as processors of inquiry data. As such, researchers should reflect and engage in perspective-taking to unearth hidden assumptions about themselves as cultural beings. It is inadequate to hire a devoted graduate student researcher who shares the ethnicity of the cultural other. Furthermore, scholars should be cognizant that attending to bias is not mere adherence to methodological or technical rigor reducible to terms such as Differential

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Item Functioning (DIF), reliability, and validity. The process extends beyond keeping a researcher journal, completing member checks, and triangulating data sources. Researchers’ biases and perspectives should be made visible and public as well as problematic. Problematization demands that researchers address their biases and limited knowledge in methodological ways. Researchers should prepare to enter communities of color by reading relevant scholarly literature, talking to community members, observing and participating in selective community events disclosing their relevant personal experiences, making their values and agendas explicit, recognizing their predispositions, and monitoring their conduct throughout their research. Third eye vision involves complex research issues of ethics and ownership as related to interpreting data and telling the story of the cultural other. Is the story being told correctly? Who owns the research? Who has the last word? Who has the power to veto or change the research? This orientation recognizes the right of cultural communities to disagree with researchers’ conclusions as well as to provide alternative interpretations and explanations. Members of cultural communities should ask researchers questions such as: Who establishes the rules of discourse? Who speaks? What may be said? What is left unsaid and unwritten? Who is the audience? Who decides, as Vivian Gadsden and Irvine (1994) have previously asked, “When private lives become public research conversations?” (p. 2) Where is the recognition of the unequal power and status between the researcher and the researched: Before entering communities of color, researchers should realize that the study of culture is more than a sociological investigation or inquiry into diverse groups’ behaviors, artifacts, values, beliefs, and norms. There should be recognition of the difference in status and power between the researcher and the informant that could make the researcher and the informant parts of a power struggle. What does informed consent really mean for African American teachers and students who hold little power? Where is the reciprocity in the research process? What should the researcher leave for the school and the informants—a report? Enhanced opportunities? Lieberman (1995) writes about research that not only describes schools, but research that can be an aid to improving them. I believe that as researchers, we have a responsibility not only to adhere to the ethical principle of “do no harm” but we should also “do good.” Too often researchers, and the professors who train them, ignore these questions and the issues raised here. Instead, they proceed with a naïve, color- and culture-blind approach in their research. This avoidance,


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denial, and defensiveness will result in researchers working in cultural communities who believe that they are, “making the familiar strange” (Erickson, 1985, p.121). Yet, in actuality, they are making what is strange even stranger. Siddle Walker (1999) provides many examples of this phenomenon in her work on how culture differences can exaggerate and distort research findings. Changing the location and manner in which we train researchers will produce different and more powerful research agendas than presently prevail. There is I believe, a third focus of alternative vision that is: 3. Changing the nature of the research questions that we investigate. I often ponder the question: Why can’t researchers apply their knowledge and skills to closing the achievement gap between Black and White children? As summarized in a report of Education Week, “The bottom line is that no one knows for sure what causes the achievement gap: (Johnson & Viadero, 2000, p. 20). I think the answer lies, in part, in the fact that we often ask very ordinary research questions and use the findings from such research to implement very ordinary school reforms. We have, as Leonard (1984) stated, simply tinkered and rearranged the educational horse and buggy under the guise of educational research and reform. We spruce up the buggy, give the horse more training, keep the passengers on board longer, invite the business community to join us on the buggy, increase salaries for drivers, and now politicians want to give parents a choice among buggies. Adding to the banality of this scenario are research questions that seek answers to justify the horse and buggy mentality. We have asked and answered questions such as: Do White children travel faster in a horse and buggy than African American children? Do African American horse and buggy drivers perform better than White drivers? Do African American children travel longer distances in Black buggies, White buggies, or integrated buggies? If corporations adopt Black buggies, do they move faster and more efficiently than buggies without their assistance? Unless researchers envision their work differently and ask more compelling questions, there will always be an achievement gap between Black and White students. Researchers who study the classrooms of African American teachers should look for what they cannot distinctly and apparently see. Schoenfeld (1999) summarizes that: If researchers do not understand a teacher’s understanding of what they are teaching (and those understandings are deep), then they

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cannot get a real sense of what the classes are all about. If researchers do not understand teachers’ conceptions of (and goals for) learning communities, their understandings of their classrooms, will be equally impoverished. (p.173) Seeing with the third eye will produce research questions that are jointly constructed by researcher, teachers, teacher educators, school administrators, and parents who employ new and improved methodologies, collect data in different places, and establish and maintain collegial research relationships. I recommend a more complex, multivariable, and interdisciplinary rubric to explore nuances of context as suggested by Bronfenbrenner (1976) whose inclusive ecological approach to research is instructive. His model for research includes microsystem, mesosystem (relationships), and macrosystem variables (economic, legal, political). Bronfenbrenner’s macrosystemic variables are most pertinent to the fourth and last change that I suggest, which is to recognize that race influences everyone’s daily lives—including educational researchers. Appreciating the salience of race in academic inquiries may be accomplished by: 4. Changing how we see the influence of race in our work. In Parting the Waters, Branch wrote that “Almost as color defines vision itself, race shapes the cultural eye—what we do and do not notice, the reach of empathy, and the alignment of response” (1988, p. xi). Branch’s quote reminds us of the power and significance of race in shaping the cultural eye. However, many researchers remain both blind and mute when it comes to issues of race. Researchers’ refusal to see out of the cultural eye and their inability to talk about race is indeed ironic because research professors earn their living by making astute observations—that is, seeing what others do not see and sharing their observations with the uninformed. How may researchers help to close the achievement gap between Black and White students when they do not acknowledge the role of race in their own lives and in the lives of the students they study? The blind spot in our national vision reveals more about ourselves as researchers than it does those African American students who cannot ever seem to catch up with their White counterparts. Yankelovich (quoted in Johnson & Viadero, 2000, p. 21) boldly asserts that our society may not be seriously ready to assault the achievement gap problem because if Black students perform as well or outperform Whites, the myth of Black intellectual inferiority is destroyed.


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I hope the transformative vision of the third eye will allow us to see that the great divide between the achievement scores and performance of Black and White students is merely a mirror that reflects the great divide between Blacks and Whites in American society. As researchers, we should “deconstruct the binary between the self and other” (Kumashiro, 2000, p. 35). Deconstruction of the binary begins by situating one’s work in broad conversations about race and racism and accepting African American teacher’ explanations of the Black-White achievement gap as legitimate and important arguments.

References Ayers, W. (1993) To teach. New York: Teachers College Press. Banks, J. A. (1996) The African American roots of multicultural education. In J. A. Banks (Ed) Multicultural education, transformative knowledge and action: Historical and contemporary perspectives. (pp. 30–45) New York: Teachers contemporary College Press. Bradley, A. (2000, March 15) National research panel tepid over tests for licensing teachers. Education Week, 19 (27), pp. 1,6. Branch, T. (1988) Parting the waters: America in the King years, 1954-63. New York: Simon & Schuster. A Bronfenbrenner, U. (1976) The experimental ecology of education, Educational Researcher, 5, 5-15. Cooper, P. M. (2002) Does race matter? A comparison of effective Black and White teachers of African American students. In J. J. Irvine (Ed.) In Search of wholeness: Aftican American teachers and their culturally specific classroom practices (pp. 47-63). New York: Palgrave. Darling-Hammond, L. (1 997a) Doing what matters most: Investing in teacher quality. New York: National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. Darling-Hammond, L. (1999) State teaching policies and student achievement (Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy Report No.2) Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Dyson, M. E. (1996) Between God and gangsta rap: Bearing witness to Black culture. New York: Oxford University Press. Erickson, F. (1985) Qualitative methods in research on teaching. In M. C. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of Research on Teaching (pp. 119-16 1). New York: Macmillan. Foster, M. (1997) Black teachers on teaching. New York: New Press. Gadsden, V. L. & Irvine,, J. J. (1994, March). Private lives in public conversations: The ethics of research across cultural communities. Paper presented at the annual

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From Center to Margins meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA.

Gay, G. (2000) Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research and practice. New York: Teachers College Press. Geertz, C. (1973) The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books. Hankins, K. H. (1998) Cacophony to symphony: Memoirs in teacher research, Harvard Educational Review, 68, 1, 80–95. Haycock, K. (2000) Honor in the boxcar: Equalizing teacher quality, Thinking K-16, 4 (1)51–12. Ingersoll, R. M. (1999) The problem of underqualified teachers in American secondary schools, Educational Researcher, 28(2), 26-37. Irvine, J. J. (2002) In search of wholeness: African American teachers and their African culturally specific classroom practices. New York: Palgrave. Johnson, R. C. & Viadero, D. (2000, March 15) Unmet promise: Raising minority achievement, Education Week, 19(27), pp. 1, 18-23. Kiang, P. (1998/1999 winter) Trivial pursuits, Rethinking Schools, 13, (2) 23. Kohl, H. The discipline of hope. New York: Simon & Schuster. Kumashiro, K. K. (2000) Toward a theory of anti-oppressive education, Review of Educational Research, 70 (1), 25-53. Ladson-Billings, G. (1995) The dreamkeepers. San Francisco. Jossey-Bass. Laitsch, D. (1998, August 31) The Massachusetts teacher tests: What happened? American Associationfor Colleges of Teacher Education Briefs, 19(11), 1-3. Lather, P. (199 1) Getting smart. New York: Routledge, Chapman & Hall. Leonard, G. (1984, April) The school reform hoax, Esquire Magazine, 47–56. Lieberman A. (1995) Practices that support teacher development, Phi Delta Kappan, 76,591-596. Lipman, P. (1998) Race, class and power in school restructuring. Albany: State University of New York Press. , Mitchell, A. (1999) African American teachers: Unique roles and universal lessons, Education and Urban Society, 31, (1)5 104–122. Murrell, P. C. (1998) Like stone soup: The role of the professional development school in the renewal of uban schools. Washington, DC: American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. Myrdal, G. (1969) Objectivity and social research. New York: Pantheon Books. Rickford, A. (1999) I can fly. Lanham MD: University Press of America. Sartwell, C. (1998) Act like you know. Aftican American autobiography and White identity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.


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Schoenfeld, A. H. (1999) The core, the canon and the development of research skills. In E. C. Lagemann & L. S. Shulman(Eds) Issues in educational research: Problems and possibilities (pp. 166-202). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Shulman, L. (1987) Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform, Harvard Educational Review, 57, 1–22. Siddle Walker, V. (1996) Their highest potential: An Aftican American school community in the segregated South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Siddle Walker, V. (1999) Culture and commitment: Challenges for the future training of educational researchers. In E. C. Lagemann & L. S. Shulman (Eds) Issues in educational research (pp. 224–244). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Stanford, G. (1998) African American teachers’ knowledge teaching: Understanding the influence of remembered teachers, Urban Review, 30, 229-243. U. S. Department of Education (1999) A talented, dedicated and well-prepared teacher in every classroom. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Wenglinsky, H. (2000) How teaching matters: Bringing the classroom back into the discussions of teacher quality. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service.


Chapter 7

Response to Papers on From Center to Margins: The Importance of Self-Definition in Research MAXINE GREENE

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should like to respond to these revealing and significant papers from a number of points of view. One has been shaped by an intensified consciousness of what might be called social suffering, a suffering due to the injustices that increasingly afflict individuals in our society. More often than not, they are afflicted because of their membership in a group discriminated against and excluded from any fair distribution of social goods and benefits. As distinctive persons, they are rendered invisible in Ralph Ellison’s sense: their invisibility is a “condition of the eyes of those who look at them.” They may be seen as minorities, the disadvantaged, single mothers, immigrants (frequently, illegal immigrants); distinctive beings defined and classified by the categories into which they have been thrust. Seldom do observers think of them as induplicable, even though they know on one level that no human being can be a duplicate of another. The problem usually is that they have been stigmatized by their share of social suffering. The voices we have heard [here] give us important clues as to how this has been experienced by aware, intelligent women who are in touch with their own narratives, their own quests for meaning, and their own primordial landscapes, our original encounters with the world as embodied beings, imagining, and perceiving before entering into the life of language, and beginning to layer meanings on imagined, sensed, and perceived 119

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ground. In losing touch with the ground of our knowing, and our sense of what it is to be alive, we may too easily be seduced into compliance with a reality presumed to be objectively existent, and constructed by those in power, a “reality” beyond the grasp of feeling, intuition, empathy, imagination, and even wonder. It is to be understood rationally; analyzed and synthesized logically; known by means of symbol systems; penetrated and made significant in human practice by technologies. Those who are excluded, and stigmatized by their exclusion, are kept (often without realizing it) from breaking the codes that hold the secrets to fundamental knowledge—or what is considered such. Those thrust to the margins (or the boundaries) of what is called the great conversation or the carrier of Western tradition over time, are condemned to silence, in spite of the many voices said to be heard in the conversation. Unheard, unheeded, however, have been the voices of countless women, like the voices raised in cultures considered undeveloped, even primitive. And today, those trying to be listened to at the so-called Center are likely to cause a certain unease in those identifying themselves with ideas conceived to be universal utterances of a voice from nowhere. Not only does an unfamiliar diversity of opinion threaten their certainties, a specter of postmodern relativism begins to haunt them whatever their fundamentalism. They feel a wind from the margins that does not merely chill. It is likely to cause severe irritation among those who define and justify their lives by belief in the absolute and the unquestionably true. And, more often than not, they regard those outside the boundaries of their belief system as not only different, but inferior. In time, of course, this applies to those who are conceived as lesser beings because of their gender, color, class, or nationality. Admitting my own privilege, I have to say a few works about how my own self-definition as student, teacher, writer, and researcher was affected by my particular experiences with marginality. I am Jewish but the child of stubbornly secular people who sent me to an Episcopalian school in order to assimilate. Not only were all the girls Christian; most rode in horse shows, looked forward to debuts, were sure of acceptance at the best women’s colleges. I learned this mostly by hearsay, since even my best friend could not invite me to her home because “my grandma doesn’t like Jews.” And the sympathetic principal told me it was too bad I was Jewish or she could have got me a scholarship to Mt. Holyoke. I never forgave myself for whispering, “I’m sorry.” Yes, I knew vaguely about college quotas; and I had seen a sign on a Cape Cod house saying “No Jews or dogs allowed.” But I was somehow sure there was a place for me in the great conversation,

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perhaps because of the books I read, the number of Jewish novelists there were (male novelists, of course), the notion that even a girl like me, from Brooklyn, could cross the bridge to the city, to opportunity. I guess I thought (having done well at Barnard, the college with the largest quota of Jews) that I could somehow pass as a scholar, a researcher, an intellectual. I continued to be marginalized as a woman, as a qualitative researcher, as an existentialist when proper philosophers were analytic and language philosophers and literary critics were formalists. I think being marginalized helped in my self-definition. I believe, after all, that we create ourselves by choice and action, and that we (like Ellison’s narrator) have to achieve our own visibility. So repeatedly choosing myself as a humanities, aesthetics, existentialist person (usually in reaction against dominant orientations), I survived. I still often feel like an imposter, not ‘rigorous’ enough, not really part of the majority; and I keep being (as I have said too often) “what I am not yet.”


Chapter 8

Making the Familiar Strange Inclusion, Exclusion, and Erasure: Summarizing the Philosophies of Women Researchers of Color OLGA M. WELCH In purpose and design this book has been about putting women [researchers] at the center of the discourse. In trying to rethink, and in some instances, reframe our personal experiences into new and meaningful patterns from a self-conscious and personal perspective, the process of putting ourselves in the center has been at the heart of the effort. This book has proposed a way of looking at epistemology and ontology structured out of the dailiness of women [researchers’] lives, and it has attempted to put the ‘doing’ [of research] into practice —Aptheker, 1989, p.7.

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s the above-amended quotation from Bettina Aptheker suggests, our purpose in developing this text involved intentionally placing the experiences or women of color who are also researchers at the center of the discourse on research. Using the dailiness of their experiences as researchers, we have sought to highlight the impact of their contributions to knowledge construction in their disciplines as well as the challenges they faced in having those contributions accepted by colleagues whose discourses dominate and, at some level, determine debate in the Center. Thus, in the preceding chapters you have come to know the experiences of women researchers whose epistemological and ontological stances developed, shifted, and continue to evolve in the Margins. In presenting their responses to the question: How have you come to know what you know about research? And, What are some of the factors, issues, and concerns that have guided you as a researcher? each of the contributors has interwoven portions of her/story that provide an alternative context for considering the margins of educational research. 123

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In this summary chapter, I examine the central theme of the text that the Margins are viable sites for conducting, analyzing, and interpreting research questions in a variety of disciplines. To underscore that point, I provide an overview of each researcher’s perspective. Finally, in the latter half of the chapter, I offer suggestions for promoting a climate of engagement within the general research community that recognizes and appreciates the valuable roles that women researchers of color can play in dialogues on epistemology and ontology designed to advance equity in education.

The Margins as Sites of Resistance and Reclamation Aptheker (1989) posits that women have a consciousness of social reality that is distinct from that put forth by men. She believes this consciousness represents a particular way of seeing and interpreting the world. Although not uniform, these ways of seeing are unique to women in each specific culture or group that is “distinct from the way the men of their culture or group see things” (p.12). Indeed, Aptheker suggests that all women share this “process of distinction.” (p.12) Moreover, she advances the idea that the only way to make visible women’s particular consciousness is to make visible the culture it creates. Aptheker notes that; “Culture may be defined as the ordered system of meanings in terms of which people define their world, express their feelings, and make judgments (p.13). Furthermore, she states that women’s ways of knowing and communicating in particular groups can be linked to the “shared consciousness of ordered meanings and symbols” (p.13). In much the same way, Hill Collins (1991) speaks about her concept of the particularistic nature of Black feminist thought. She suggests that Black women share a consciousness born of their outsider-within status in White society. “This outsider-within status has provided a special standpoint on self, family, and society for Afro-American women” (Hill Collins, 1986, p. 514). As Black feminist critic bell hooks notes, “living as we did— on the edge—we developed a particular way of seeing reality. We looked both from the outside in and from the inside out. We understood both (hooks, 1984 as cited in Hill Collins, 1986, p. 515). Merten (1972), in his article on Insiders and Outsiders cites the position of “stranger” as developed by Simmel (1950) in his description of the outsider within. Simmel suggests that the stranger, unfettered by the commitments and constraints imposed by group membership, is able to

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acquire the strategic role of the relatively objective inquirer (p. 32). Merten provides the following quote by Simmel on this role of stranger: He (the stranger) is freer, practically and theoretically. He surveys conditions with less prejudice; his criteria for them are more general and more objective ideals; he is not tied down in his action by habit, piety, and precedent. . . . It is the stranger, too, who finds what is familiar to the group significantly unfamiliar and so is prompted to raise questions for inquiry less apt to be raised at all by Insiders. (Simmel, 1950 as cited in Merten, 1972. pp. 32–33) Thus, as both Outsiders Within and Women of Color, the contributors to this volume have crafted their own self-definitions and self-valuations as researchers. In speaking about this process for Black women, Hill Collins (1986) suggests: The insistence on Black female self-definition reframes the entire dialogue from one of determining the technical accuracy of an image, to one stressing the power dynamics underlying the very process of definition itself. When Black women define themselves, they clearly reject the taken-for-granted assumption that those in positions granting them the authority to describe and analyze reality are entitled to do so. The related theme of Black female self-valuation pushes the entire process one step further. While Black female self-definition speaks to the power dynamics involved in the act of defining images of self and community, the theme of Black female self-valuation addresses the actual content of these self definitions. (Hill Collins, 1986, pp. 516–517) In a very real sense then, the women of color in this text have used their positions of marginality as sites of both resistance and reclamation. The margins have become sites of resistance to definitions of either themselves or their research by those whose views dominate the Center. Moreover, the margins also have become sites of reclamation and validation where these same women have contested the racist and sexist ideologies that have attempted to treat them as “Objects lacking full human subjectivity” (Hill Collins, 1986, p. 518). Therefore, rather than seeing the margins as providing information that only gains credibility when it is assimilated into the Center, in this volume, our colleagues argue that the Margins are viable epistemological sites

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that are essential and necessary to understand, not only the researchers but also the communities from which they come. Further, as each researcher has suggested, the margins represent spaces that cannot and should not be appropriated or contested by a hegemonic Center. Instead, the book’s overriding message is that the Margins can furnish an essential space where interrogation of old disciplinary questions and knowledge production can occur. Indeed, along with our colleagues, we suggest that the creation of this space is essential in order to develop new strategies and evolve more inclusive and authentic questions that will expand the understanding of both Margin and Center researchers of each other’s worlds and research stances.

Worlds Separate and Inseparable: Summarizing the Individual and Relating the Particular Stances of the Researchers In the opening chapter, Pollard discussed four themes that emerged from the literature. The themes of invisibility from the Center, obstacles and barriers imposed by the Center, identifying supports, and developing alternative perspectives described in the first chapter represent forms of inclusion and erasure that underscore the issues and questions regarding research stances raised by each contributor to this volume. In this section, I attempt to illustrate the explicit and implicit role of self-determination in each of these researchers’ stances by providing an overview of the major points presented by the individual researchers. I have prefaced each of these overviews with a theme that I feel represents my best effort to capture the essence of each of these particular epistemological and ontological positions.

Theme 1: Self-determination as a research imperative In describing her response to the two questions posed, Frances Rains deliberately focused on how “assimilationist practices” in the academy silenced and circumscribed epistemologies and the construction of new or oppositional knowledge. She frames her discussion around her/story as an untenured, Native researcher attempting to establish an authentic research voice. She suggests that the academy, far from being a place hospitable to debate and dialogue that is unrepresentative and even critical of dominant discourses, is instead a system that supports “narrowly, closely monitored knowledge construction.” She adds that this system “breeds conformity,


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expediency, and in some cases, redundancy” while maintaining the undisturbed superiority of dominant paradigms. Rains struggles and yet continues to assert the need for an alternate practice in her research, one that stresses self-determination, alternative ways of presenting one’s research ideas (i.e., opening up the definitions of “premier” or “elite” publication venues to include those that deal with the particular issues confronting individual communities of color), and a wider and different conceptualization of the purpose of research. She argues that such a conceptualization would revere and seek rather than revile and represent the views from within the communities of color being researched—views that are often different from those possessed by the outsider researcher who is looking in, but whose views of those communities may affect the nature of research on a general level. Raines notes: “Self determination in research means that research is not about taking in an individualistic, career-driven way. Instead, it is about respectful reciprocity that honors the commitment and needs of the tribe or community, while framing the research in ways that honor Indigenous epistemologies , metaphysics, and knowledge: (p. 56 ). Rains contends that this self-determination will, in turn, change the role of the researcher and his/her relationship with the communities in which and with whom the research is conducted. Indeed, she adds that the very reciprocity of the relationship holds the promise of producing a grounded theory that makes use of Indigenous Knowledge and Indigenous epistemic frameworks opening a new and potentially more collaborative and authentic intellectual space. For Rains, self-determination is the heart of her discourse from the margins.

Theme 2: Hearing People Into Voice (Palmer, 1983) Barbara Curry’s ways of knowing involve a process similar to that employed by Parker Palmer in his teaching, that is, “hearing people into voice.” This process entails a deliberate decision on the part of the listener to background his/her discourse in order to foreground the experience of the speaker. For Curry, this means a commitment to temper her desire to “know the stories of others” as well as the curiosity that prompted that desire through the use of “respectful restraint, (p. 52) the ethic of caring, trust and reciprocity: Guided by this framework, Curry describes the integration of her work as a clinician with her work as a faculty member in the crafting of a varied and yet focused research agenda on leadership behavior. In choosing this focus, Curry talks about a conscious decision to center

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her inquiry on individuals rather than instrumentation, situating her scholarship in the theoretical frameworks of Erikson (1982); Kegan, (1982); and Josselson (1990, 1992) as cited in Curry, this volume. “Hearing people into voice” for this researcher, means a fidelity to ensuring authenticity in the presentation of the experiences of others. To do so, she is committed to advancing an agenda of social advocacy. She makes no apologies for that commitment, believing that foregrounding the experiences of women administrators, teachers, and other clinicians, requires her to become an agent of transformation in research. Curry speaks from several sites in the margins and in much the same way as researchers like bell hooks and Cornel West, intentionally challenges the dominant discourses of the Center on leadership, identity development, hierarchical formal structures for decision-making, and a focus on instrumentation over people in discussions of organizational culture. She is clear that she wishes to be a catalyst for dialogue between the Center and the Margins but not at the expense of “harming” those professionals in administration, teaching and social work that she considers to be her research colleagues and collaborators.

Theme 3: Affirming Diversity by Advancing the Currency of Marginalized Cultural Capital Sonia Nieto speaks of the interrelatedness of language, literacy, and culture in education. Her research philosophy reflects the sociocultural perspective that promotes a view of learning as socially constructed and mutually negotiated. Taking as a conceptual framework, support for social justice, Nieto describes the kind of learning that emerged for her within the personal space of a home that validated knowledge construction rooted in Puerto Rican culture and how often that knowledge was discounted in the public schools she attended. In defining the sociocultural theory that has influenced her work, she speaks of learning that occurs as a result of social relationships that are enacted in social, cultural, and political spaces. In describing these interactions she introduced five concepts: agency/coconstructed learning, experience, identity/hybridity, context/positionality, and community. Moreover Nieto views these concepts as interrelated, deeply connected and overlapping. She suggests that in order to change academic failure to success, teachers must acknowledge the different “cultural capital” their students bring into classrooms. Not only must the value of “home knowledge construction and culture” be recognized, teachers must act as “bridges between their students’ differences and the culture of the dominant society” (p 79). In this way knowledge from the Margins and


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that from the Center become confluent, meeting and complimenting each other. Nieto believes this process can result in a new and more authentic form of “border crossing,” one that privileges no process of knowledge construction or form of knowledge over another.

Theme 4: Questioning the Status Quo from the “Inside” Valerie Pang uses the metaphor of Insider/Outsider (Merten, 1972; Hill Collins, 1986; Simmel, 1950) as cited in Merton, 1972 pp. 32–33 to characterize her experiences as a researcher in multicultural education. In discussing these experiences, she situates herself both within the discourse on Multicultural Education and, outside of that same discourse. Thus, Pang is an “Outsider on the Inside.” As such, her epistemology is a composite of the various roles (i.e., motherhood, third generation Japanese American, elementary grade teacher, and woman). Because of these roles, she contends that she has crafted an epistemic position that allows her to differ from her colleagues who are also recognized authorities in Multicultural Education. As one situated within that discourse, Pang also has taken risks (i.e., writing about the self concept development of Japanese American children in her dissertation against the explicit advice of a major professor who considered the topic a form of career suicide.) This risk taking has sometimes placed her outside of the dominant discourse. From that position, she has fashioned the concept of “caring multicultural education” and the recommendations for improving Multicultural Education featured in this volume.

Theme 5: Unlearning Center Knowledge, Re-Conceptualizing the Margins: See with the Cultural Eye In evolving her stances on epistemology and ontology, Jacqueline Jordan Irvine has been a staunch advocate of research partnerships with practitioners. Her contribution to this volume underscores that commitment as she lays out the exclusions and omissions in research on the achievement gap between African American and White children occasioned by researchers’ own mono-cultural perspectives. She proposes as an alternative paradigm, “seeing with the cultural eye,” in which the marginalized discourse of African American perspectives and voices are moved to the center of discussions on ways to facilitate the achievement of African American children. In addition, like Ladson-Billings, Jordan Irvine endorses collaboration between communities of color and researchers to

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assure an authentic representation of the communities’ issues and questions, in the selection of research methodologies, data collection and analysis, and, above all, in the interpretation and dissemination of findings. In calling for this new, inclusive paradigm, she centers the issue of achievement squarely within the “larger and intractable problem of race and racism in America.” (p. 105) Therefore, for Jordan Irvine, deconstruction of the self and other binary systems involves situating the work of the researcher “in broad conversations about race and racism.” (p. 115) Recognition of this binary system, in turn, compels researchers to face the difference in status and power that exists between themselves and their informants, differences that can and do effect who really has control over whether or not the research findings result in positive effects and “enhanced opportunities” for the participant communities. Thus, for Jordan Irvine, epistemology and ontology coalesce around the issues of collaboration and ownership by all of the stakeholders in the research process. She warns that without the authentic collaboration and ownership particularly of the research questions that can emerge from a perspective built on “seeing with the Third Eye,” finding solutions to the achievement gap between Black and White children will remain an elusive goal.

Theme 6: From a Situated Being . . . I am Still . . . Becoming In the previous chapter and throughout her career, Maxine Greene has been concerned herself with the possible, with “what can be imagined” rather than what already exists. By “making the familiar strange” she constantly interrogates her own privileged insider stance by stressing the importance of pluralism in research as well as in the arts. Like Rains, Curry, Nieto, and Pang, she crafts her epistemology from multiple perspectives (i.e., Jewish/philosopher/White/woman/intellectual), perspectives she views not as static but rather evolving. In arguing for this pluralism, she also rejects a monocultural definition of a common epistemological landscape, suggesting that such a definition marginalizes all other stances based on ethnicity, gender, class, or race while reinforcing the supremacy of a dominant and primarily Western discourse. Quoting Dewey, Sartre, and Said, Greene (1993) stresses that this process of homogenization reduces rather than encompasses the complexity and multiplicity of the human experience, an experience that does not preexist but rather “is created in the choice of action, in the choice of project.” Thus, in the spirit of Nieto’s metaphor, Greene presents herself as a bridge, suggesting that she seeks to become aware of the reasons why


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ethnic, racial, religious, or political affiliations are used as excuses, even rationales, for exclusion. She adopts this epistemological stance as both recognition and celebration of people from various cultures who use their victimization and perceived deficits as catalysts for evolving alternative research paradigms. It is these alternative paradigms that, Greene argues, allows educators to challenge the positivist stances of a global, imperialism that both excludes and seeks to stifle the possibilities and opportunities for “new ways of knowing and seeing.” In adopting this position, she also affirms that even as a celebrated scholar of the Center, she seeks to understand the epistemologies of those in the Margins as a form of self-transformation.

Toward a Climate of Engagement in Educational Research Each of the contributors to this volume has intentionally developed a counter hegemonic epistemological stance articulated in their approaches to knowledge construction and in their discussions of alternative paradigms for achieving praxis between research and practice in their fields. Together, these stances offer a potential framework for building a more inclusive climate of engagement in educational research. Such a climate would stress a “blurring of the lines” between Margin and Center in ways that would complement and not compromise the integrity of either. Instead, like concentric circles, each would inform and be informed by the other in a nonprivileged, nonhierarchial, and inclusive paradigm. Indeed, each would consider the other’s perspectives and issues critical to the construction of new knowledge. Moreover, any knowledge produced would be considered incomplete and suspect if it did not reflect the multiple epistemological lenses and inclusive viewpoints of both dominant and historically marginalized scholars. In suggesting this paradigm, the coeditors of this volume are mindful of the accusation that what we envision ignores the entrenched historical and systemic barriers that would need to be dismantled. While we do not dispute this reality, we believe that by presenting alternative, epistemological stances, we can contribute to the kind of dialogue between Center and Margin researchers that is crucial to the development of any framework. In doing so, we situate our discussion squarely within our own epistemological standpoints as African American feminists. For, as Gloria Ladson-Billings (2000) reminds us, “An epistemology is a system of knowing that has both internal logic and external validity” (p. 267). This distinction between epistemology and ways of knowing is not a trivial one. Indeed, she notes that epistemology is linked

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ultimately to worldview and offers the following quotation from Shujaa (1997) as cited in Ladson-Billings, 2000 to illustrate her point: Worldviews and systems of knowledge are symbiotic—that is, how one views the world is influenced by what knowledge one possesses, and what knowledge one is capable of possessing is influenced deeply by one’s worldview. Thus the conditions under which people live and learn shape both their knowledge and their worldviews. [Moreover,] the process of developing a worldview that differs from the dominant worldview requires active intellectual work on the part of the knower, because schools, society, and the structure and production of knowledge are designed to create individuals who internalize the dominant worldview and knowledge production and acquisition process. [Indeed,] the hegemony of the dominant paradigm makes it more than just another way to view the world—it claims to be the only legitimate way to view the world (2000, p. 258). Black feminists have questioned not only what has been said about Black women, but the credibility and the intentions of those possessing the power to define. Likewise, for our contributors, self-determination and self-valuation denote deliberate responses to exclusion and erasure. Thus, they represent the kind of agency exercised by each of these women as they pursued the sometimes dichotomous and oppositional research agendas they have described. Hill Collins (1986) depicted “the construct of dichotomous oppositional difference” as a means of categorizing people, things and ideas in terms of their differences from one another. As she notes: The terms in dichotomies such as black/white, male/female/, reason/emotion, fact/opinion, and subject/object gain their meaning only in relation to their difference from their oppositional counterparts. Moreover, another fundamental characteristic of this construct is that difference is not complementary in that the halves of the dichotomy do not enhance each other. Rather, the dichotomous halves are different and inherently opposed to one another (p. 51). As each contributor demonstrates, the need to develop alternative epistemologies is intricately tied to issues of self-determination and self-definition. They chose these alternative perspectives in order to retain their own sense of self and fidelity to their own cultural contexts. In a real sense, then, whether at the Margins or the Center, these researchers use that position as a site of resistance and reclamation.


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Through the contributions of our colleagues, we highlight the crucial role of self-determination in the research of women of color. In presenting discussions of their individual epistemologies, we intentionally focus on how these alternative perspectives can and have enriched research discourse in each contributor’s discipline and/or field. Having said this, we are emphatic that we do not view these perspectives or our conclusions as “a unilateral and unassailable cookbook perspective,” Our contributors themselves, eschew such a simplistic and reductionist portrayal of their work. Instead, we all conclude by stating that this volume should be viewed, not as the definitive dialogue on the multiple epistemologies of women researchers of color, but rather as the beginning of what we hope will be an ongoing conversation about an ever evolving and changing phenomenon—research epistemologies and their ontological antecedent. We believe the importance of developing such an authentic dialogue on epistemology and ontology between Center and Margin is eloquently captured in the following poem, “Marginalized” by Renard Harris (2002) with which we conclude this chapter. I don’t like being in the margin. It is like the corner of a room. I’m caged, My freedom is fenced with barbed wire, I wake with ideas But go to sleep with rejections. I shout for dreams And I am hushed by reality, A reality that controls my choices, Choices measured by someone else’s vision. What they cannot see Cannot be my choice. I choose to have a voice, I choose to be heard! But I am in the margin. No one listens Harris, 2002, Academic Exchange, used by permission of the author.

References Apetheker, B. (1989). Tapestries of life: Women’s work, women’s consciousness and the meaning of daily experience. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.

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Greene, M. (1993). The passions of pluralism: Multiculturalism and the expanding community. Educational Researcher, January–February, 13–18. Harris, R. (2002). Marginalized, Academic Exchange, unpublished. Hill Collins, P. (1986). Learning from the outsider within: The sociological significance of Black feminist thought. Social Problems, 33 (6), 514–532. Hill Collins, P. (1991). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. Boston: Unwin Hyman. Ladson Billings, G. (2000). Racialized discourses and ethnic epistemologies. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 257–277). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Merten, R. K. (1972). Insiders and outsiders: A chapter in the sociology of knowledge. Varieties of Political Expression in Sociology. [An American Journal of Sociology Publication]. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Palmer, P. J. (1983). To know as we are known: Education as a spiritual journey. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Contributors

Barbara K. Curry is an associate professor in the College of Human Services, Education, and Public Policy at the University of Delaware. She works with students in the School of Education graduate leadership programs. Prior to obtaining her Doctorate in Education from Harvard University, she received her training as a social worker at the University of Wisconsin and worked in the field as a clinician. She is a member of the Academy of Certified Social Workers and is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. Dr. Curry continues to bring a clinical perspective to bear on her interests in human interaction and other phenomenological aspects of organizational management and change, leadership development and adult identity development. Maxine Greene, Professor Emerita at Teachers College, Columbia University, is renowned for her teaching and scholarship in educational philosophy. She has been a faculty member at Teachers College since 1965, and was founder of the Center for Social Imagination, the Arts and Education; Director of Teachers College-Lincoln Center Project in the Arts and Humanities; editor of Teachers College Record, and the William F. Russell Professor in the Foundations of Education. She is a past president of the Philosophy of Education Society, the American Educational Studies Association, and the American Educational Research Association (AERA). In 1984, she was elected to the National Academy of Education. She has received Educator of the Year awards from both Columbia University and Ohio State University. She is the author of six books, numerous professional articles, and book chapters. Dr. Greene lectures widely at universities and educational associations throughout the United States. Jacqueline Jordan Irvine is the Charles Howard Chandler Professor of Urban Education at Emory University. Her research and teaching specializes 135

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in multicultural education and urban teacher education, particularly the education of African American students. She is the author of: Black students and school failure; Growing up African American in Catholic Schools; Critical Knowledge for Diverse Students; Culturally Responsive Lesson Planning for Elementary and Middle Grades; In search of Wholeness: African American Teachers and Their Culturally Specific Pedagogy; and, Educating Teachers for Diversity: Seeing with the Cultural Eye. In addition she has published numerous articles and book chapters. Dr. Irvine has received a number of awards, including the Distinguished Career Award from the SIG on Black Education of the American Educational Research Association, an award from the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development for exemplary contributions to the education of African American children, the 2000 Dewitt-Wallace/AERA Lecture Award and the American Association for Colleges of Teacher Education (AACTE) 2003 AACTE Lindsey Award for distinguished Research in Teacher Education. Sonia Nieto is professor of Education at the University of Massachusetts. Her scholarly work focuses on multicultural and bilingual education, curriculum reform, teacher education, Puerto Rican children’s literature, and the education of Latinos, immigrants, and other culturally and linguistically diverse student populations. She is widely known for her publications including Affirming Diversity (1992) now in its fourth edition (2004); The Light in Their Eyes: Creating Multicultural Learning Communities; What Keeps Teachers Going?; and Puerto Rican Students in U.S. Schools. In addition, she has published numerous articles in professional journals and contributed to edited books. Dr. Nieto has received many awards from state and regional entities as well national and international professional associations and universities for her scholarship, teaching and advocacy of educational equity for all students. Valerie Ooka Pang is a professor in the School of Teacher Education at San Diego State University. She was a first-and second-grade teacher in rural and urban schools. Her second edition of Multicultural Education: A Caring-centered Reflective Approach, presents theories, issues, and curriculum about educational equity and culture. She was also senior editor of Struggling to be Heard: The Unmet Needs of Asian Pacific American Children that was awarded honorable mention by the Gustavus Meyers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights at Boston University. She has published in a variety of journals including Harvard Educational Review; The Kappan; The Journal of Teacher Education; Action in Teacher Education;

Contributors

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Social Education; Theory and Research in Social Education; and Multicultural Education. Dr. Pang has been a consultant for Sesame Street, Fox Children’s Network, Family Communications (Producers of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood) and Scott Foresman. Dr. Pang was a senior fellow for the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University and honored by organizations such as the American Educational Research Association’s Standing Committee on the Role and Status of Minorities in Education, the National Association for Multicultural Education, and the University of Washington’s College of Education. Diane S. Pollard is Professor Emerita of Educational Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her research focuses on factors related to coping and achievement in African American children, and African American families’ contributions to their children and on the intersections of gender and race. She has published two books, Gender and Education (with S. Knopp Biklen) and African Centered Schooling in Theory and Practice (with C. S. Ajirotutu). In addition she has published articles in journals such as the Journal of Negro Education, Educational Psychologist, Social Policy and Educational Leadership; has contributed chapters to several books; and has presented her work at national and international conferences, and U.S. universities. She is the 1996 recipient of the American Educational Research Association’s Willystine Goodsell Award. Frances V. Rains, Ph.D. is a faculty member of the Native American & World Indigenous Peoples Studies at Evergreen State College. Her research interests include critical race theory, social justice, and American Indian educational issues. She writes on issues of white privilege and racism, and American Indian issues in curricula. Dr. Rains’s recent scholarship includes a book chapter on White privilege and Indian representation in G. Ladson-Billings (ed.) Critical Race Theory Perspectives on the Social Studies: TheProfession, Policies, and the Curriculum. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing, Inc. Christine E. Sleeter is Professor Emerita in the College of Professional Studies at California State University, Monterey Bay. Her research focuses on antiracist multicultural education, and multicultural teacher education. She also lectures nationally and internationally. Dr. Sleeter has received several awards for her work, including the California State University Monterey Bay President’s Medal, the National Association for Multicultural Education Research Award, and the AERA Committee on

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the Role and Status of Minorities in Education Distinguished Scholar Award. Her journal articles appear in publications such as Review of Research in Education; Journal of Teacher Education; Teacher Education Quarterly; and Social Justice. Her most recent books include Culture, Difference and Power (Teachers College Press); Multicultural Education as Social Activism (SUNY Press); and Turning on Learning with Carl Grant (Wiley). Dr. Sleeter is currently completing a book on multicultural curriculum in the context of the standards movement. Olga M. Welch is dean of the School of Education at Duquesne University. She also has served as the department head of Counseling, Deafness, and Human Services, and interim department head of Educational Administration and Policy Studies and professor of the College of Education, Health and Human Services at the University of Tennessee. Her extensive publication record centers on social justice, equity, and diversity. She has served on editorial boards for journals; and reviewed for Educational Researcher (AERA); American Annals for the Deaf; and The International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. At the University of Tennessee, she has been the recipient of the Chancellor’s Award for Research and Creative Achievement; The University of Tennessee Alumni Association’s Alumni Outstanding Teaching Award; and the Chancellor’s Citation for Extraordinary Service to the University. In 2000, she was named the Professor of the Year by the Alpha Kappa Chapter of Phi Delta Kappa. In 2003, she was corecipient of the University of Tennessee’s Commission for Women Angie Warren Perkins Award for excellence in governance and administration. Dr. Welch’s most recent publication (with C. Hodges) is Making Schools Work: Negotiating Educational Meaning and Transforming the Margins (2003) Peter Lang, Volume 8 of the series, Adolescent Cultures, School and Society, coedited by J. L. DeVitis and L. Irwin-DeVities.

Index

Aboriginal: teachers, 28 academic disengagement, 15 acculturation, 15 achievement gap, ix, 114, 129 Black-White, 103–5, 108, 115 ACSQ, 56 affirmative action, 27, 89, 96, 97, 98 Africa, viii, 22 African American, 9, 58, 92 children, 15, 108, 129; colleges and universities, 12: community, 104; culture, 110; discourse, 76; feminist, 131; identity, 58–59; perspectives, 129; researcher, 4; scholars, 58; school achievement, 110; students, viii, 103, 105, 108–12; teachers, 103–13, 115; underachievement, 104; women, 7, 10, 12, 16 Affirming Diversity, 71 African art, viii agency/coconstructed learning, 64, 65–67, 82 American: American Indian history, 31; American Indian scholars, 31; culture and society, 58; higher education, 34; history, 31; Indians, 31, 37, 42, 47, 48; mythology, 89 American Educational Research Association (AERA), vii, 3, 21 antibiased, see bias Arab, viii

ASCW, 56 Asia, 22, 23, 47 Asian: philosophy, 110 Asian American, 12, 89, 93 Asian students, 67 Asian/Pacific American, 88, 89, 93; American women, 12; women, 12 assimilation, 21, 25, 26, 27, 71, 74 assimilate, 120; model, 25, 28, 30 assimilationist, 100 “assimilationist practices,” 29, 126 Australia, 28 The Autobiography of Malcolm X, 98 “banking education,” 65, 67 Barnard, 121 belief systems, ix, 90, 94, 109, 120 Bering Strait theory, 23, 47 bias, 82, 95, 111–12 antibiased, 91; racial, 95; teacher, 95; Western-cultural, 106 bilingual, 62, 76 children, 77; education, 76–77, 78; programs, 76–77; teachers, 76 bilingualism, 76 blind review, 33, 35, 42 “blind spot,” 111 “border crossing,” 129 Britain, 47 “The Caged Bird Sings: On Being Different and the Role of Advocacy,” 57 139

140

Index

Cape Cod, 120 California, 96, 97, 105 Berkeley, 74 Caribbean, 62 caring-centered multicultural education, 94 Carlisle Indian Industrial School, 27 Caucasian, 92, 93 centrist thinking, 8 “chalk and talk,” 66 Chicanos, 34 “children at risk,” 62 Chile, 74 Chilean, 74 Chinese, 71, 72 Choctaw/Cherokee, 23, 25 Christian, 120 class, 4, 7, 120, 130 clinical licensure exam, 56 clinical social worker, 54, 55, 56 Coast Salish, 21 College of Education, 89 Colonel Pratt, 27 colonialism, 23 Communications and Literacy Skills test, 106 community, 64, 77–80, 128 comparative design, 30 context/situatedness/personality, 64, 74–77, 82, 128 “Continuity and Reform: A New Discourse for Discussion of Change in Schools,” 55 Contributions of Black American Academic Women to American Higher Education, 9 critical theory, 94 cross-cultural research, 7 cultural background, 90 cultural capital, 61, 68, 128 cultural diversity, 8, 99 “cultural eye,” 104–5, 107, 109 cultural knowledge, 90 cultural and linguistic differences, 63 cultural preservation, 74 “culturally deprived,” 62 culturally diverse, 91

culturally relevant curriculum practices, 92 culture, 63, 70, 71, 73, 74, 75, 77, 79, 94, 95, 98, 109, 112–13, 120, 124, 128, 131 Puerto Rican, 128 “culture of poverty,” ix “the culture of power,” 67 “culture on a pedestal,” 70 The Dialectic of Freedom, 57 Differential Item Functioning (DIF), 111–12 discourse, 63 discrimination, 81, 82 disenfranchised populations, 2 district social service director, 54 dominant orientations, 121 dominant/subordinate paradigm, 30 Dominican Republic, 68 divergent cultures, 58 diversification, 28 Education Department of the Museum of African American History in Detroit, 59 Education Week, 113 educational leadership, 52 Educational Planning, 55 Educational Policy, 55 educational psychological theories, 94 elders, 40, 47 Episcopalian, 120 epistemic: frameworks, 40, 42; frameworks of research, 36; paradigm, 35, position, 129, standpoint, 26, 39, 41, 42 “epistemologies of ignorance,” 21 epistemological, 1, 5, 21, 22, 26, 29, 31, 76, 123, 125, 126, 130, 131 hegemonic, 131; imperialism, 32; indigenous epistemological framework, 30; supremacy, 32; Western epistemological dominance, 35 epistemology , ix, 2, 22, 27, 29, 34, 36, 37, 42, 47, 48, 81, 123–24, 126, 129, 130, 131–33

Index epistemology, con’t. Feminist standpoint, 15–16; indigenous, 24, 35, 39, 42, 127; western, 24, 30, 31, 47; western colonizing epistemologies, 23, 33, 35, 42–43 equality, 81 inequality, 92 equity, vii, 2, 5, 92, 94, 95, 97, 124 philosophy, 92 ethnicity, 3, 7, 61, 63, 68, 70, 71, 75, 109, 130 ethnocentric research, 16 Euro-American, 29 Europe, 47, 68 European, 22 American, 93 existentialist, 121 experience, 64, 67–69, 82, 128 exploitative research, 16 Feminist(ism), 2–3, 16, 24, 59, 81 African American, 131; Black, 124, 132; of color, 15 First Nation, 4, 47 Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, 52 “From Center to Margins: The Importance of Self-Definition in Research,” 3–4 fundamentalism, 120 gender, 3, 4, 7, 8, 15, 27, 70, 75, 120, 130 Great Spirit, 28 Haiti, 68 Harvard: 54, 75 Graduate School of Education, 52 Heading South, Looking North: A Bilingual Journey, 74 hegemonic, 5, 126 epistemological, 131; hegemony, 63, 132 Hispanic, 12 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HCBUs), 10, 58 homogeneity, 8, 72

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humanistic philosophy, 59 Hunger of Memory, 62 hybridity, 63 identity, 15, 28, 53, 56, 57, 58, 59, 63, 68, 70, 71, 72, 74, 76, 77, 80, 93, 109 adult, 55, 56; African American, 58–59; construction, 59; cultural, 32, 68, 70, 74, 82; development, 59, 128; ego-identity, 56; multidimensional, 90, 100; racial, 28, 109 identity/hybridity, 64, 69–74, 82, 128 ideological, 25 ideology, 25, 27 “ideology-free zone,” 77 immigrant, 61, 71 European, 47; immigrant status, 63 imperialism, 131 Implicit Association Test (IAT), 95 Indian, 22, 23, 27, 28, 32, 47, 92 American, 23, 25, 31, 32, 37, 42; American Indian history, 31; American Indian scholars, 31; country, 22; education, 31, 37; history, 30, 31; misrepresentations, 30; students, 30; self-determination, 42 indigenous: 48 academic publications, 25; communities, 36, 39; epistemologies, 24, 35, 39, 42, 47, 127; indigenous epistemological framework, 30, 127; knowledge, 21, 23, 24, 33, 37, 39, 40, 41, 47, 127; people, 23, 36, 47; research, 25; researcher, 24, 39, 42; scholars, 22, 37, 38, 40–41; students, 40 inequity, ix, 14 racial/ethnic, 12; sexual, 12; social, 96 “The Influence of the Leader Persona on Organizational Identity,” 57 “informed social criticism,” 90, 91 Insider/Outsider, 129 institutionalization, 24, 29 interdisciplinary knowledge, 96 interethnic differences, 15 intraethnic diversity, 15 invisibility, 10, 11, 126 ivory tower, 22, 43

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Index

Japanese, 25 American, 15, 89, 90, 92, 93, 100, 129; community, 88, culture, 89; Japanese American children, 129; Japanese American students, 93 Jew, 74, 120–21 Jewish, 120–21 Journal of American Indian Education, 35 Journal of International Studies in Educational Administration, 57 Journal of Latinos and Education, 35 The Journal of Leadership Studies, 57 Journal of Negro Education, 35 Keepers of Traditions and Languages, 40 language, 62, 63, 65, 68, 69, 70, 73, 75, 76, 79, 82, 119, 121, 128 “Language, Literacy, and Culture,” 63 Latina, 4, 72 Latinos, 89, 98, 99 leadership, 54–57, 59 leadership processes, 56 Lewis and Clark, 22 Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), 56 “The Life Experiences of Women and their Leadership Practice,” 57 literacy, 61, 63, 75, 128 literary criticism, 81 literary critics, 121 macrosystem, 114 Mainstreaming Minority Women’s Study Program, 13 Maori, ix Massachusetts, 68, 97 , 106 Boston, 81; Cambridge, 78; Certification Test, 106; Springfield, 80 Massachusetts State Board of Education, 106 mental cultural model, 91 mental health, 54 mental illness, 50 Mexican, 66 American, 15

mesosystem, 114 Mestizo, 74 methodologies, 22, 33, 35, 42, 130 applied, 60; methodological, 34; qualitative, 54, 60; quantitative, 54, 60; science-based, 60 Michelangelo’s Pieta, 1 microsystem, 114 Middle East, viii minorities, 9 “Minority women and higher education,” 11 Minority women in research in education: A report of the Dallas conference on expanding the role of minority women in educational research, 13 “model minority,” 12, 89 “Moderate Secularism: Constructing a Language of Possibility for Religion in Public Education,” 55 monocultural, 130 monolithic, 7 Montreal, 21 Canada, 1 Mt. Holyoke, 120 Multicultural Education, 87, 89, 90–91, 92, 93–94, 95–96, 97, 98, 99, 129 Museum of Art in Chicago, 59 National Academy, 93 National Commission on Teaching America’s Future (NCTAF), 105 National Council for Research on Women, 13 National Research Council, 106 National Teachers Examination (NTE), 106 nationality, 120 native, 28 Alaska, 37, 47; Americans, 27, 30; children, 27; communities, 31, 33, 37, 39, 40, 42; cultural integrity, 27; education, 40; language, 61; Nations, 21, 22, 23, 27, 33, 37, 38, 39, 47, 48; Native American research, 31; people, 22, 23, 33, 36, 38, 39; research, 32; researcher, 22,

Index 26, 33, 39, 126; scholars, 21, 25, 31, 37, 40, 42, 43; science, 36; Sovereign Native Nations, 22; sovereignty, 22, 38, 40, 42; tribes, 40; youth, 42 “Negro Teacher Eliminator,” 106 neo-Piagetian, 56 New England, 72 New York City, 68, 71, 74 Brooklyn, 121 New Zealand, ix Newtonian rationality, 29, 47 No Child Left Behind Initiative, 97 North America, 22 North Carolina, 68 “official knowledge,” 65 Oklahoma, 23, 47 ontological, 1, 123, 126, 133 ontology, 124, 129, 130, 133 organizational change, 55, 56 Other, 2, 4, 24, 30 epistemologies, 35 particularistic roles, 15 Parting the Waters, 114 pedagogy, 66, 110 culturally responsive pedagogy, 74 personality development, 50 personality traits, 81 pluralistic society, 8 pluralism, 130 polyvocal ventriloquism, 32 Portuguese, 78 postmodernism, 81 postmodern, 120 postructuralism, 81 power, vii, 8, 63, 73, 74, 75, 76, 81, 110, 112, 114 prejudice, 30, 81, 95, 125 The Prime of Miss Jean Brody, 54 “problem students,” 62 progressive education, 94 psychosocial meaning systems, 59 psychological phenomena, 81 public health, 54 Puerto Rico(Rican), 61, 62, 68, 70, 71, 72–73 culture, 128

143

“Quality Bilingual Education,” 78 qualitative data, 95 qualitative research, 95 qualitative studies, 95 quantitative data, 95 quantitative methods, 95 quantitative studies, 95 race, vii, 3, 4, 7, 11, 63, 70, 71, 72, 73, 90, 109, 114, 130 racism, 12, 30, 81, 82, 89, 90, 130 racist, 2, 12, 98 society, 82 rapid-cycle restructuring, 57 reward system, 42, 43 “scholar identity,” 15 school reform, 55, 87, 113 competency-based, 55; outcomebased, 55 self-determination, 22, 36, 37, 38, 39, 41, 126–27, 132, 133 Indian, 42 self-transformation, 131 sex, 11 sexism, 12, 82 sexist society, 82 sexual orientation, 70 social advocacy, 59 social class, vii, 61, 70, 71, 75, 109 social justice, 63, 90, 128 social mediation, 78 social practice, 63 social reality, 124 social status, 90 sociocultural foundation of cognition, 77 sociocultural mediators, 79 sociocultural perspective, 128 sociocultural perspective in language and literacy, 63 sociocultural theory, 63, 64, 68, 70, 71, 76, 77, 78, 80, 81, 128 sociocultural and sociopolitical concepts, 82 sociocultural and sociopolitical perspectives, 64, 76

144

Index

sociocultural and sociopolitical theory, 64, 67 The Sound of Music, 52 southeast, 23 Spanish, 61, 62, 69, 71, 73, 74, 76 Spanish-American War, 73 standards-based education, 95 state health department, 54 Struggling to be heard: The unmet needs of Asian Pacific American children, 93 subject-object interview, 56 subject-object project, 56 Supreme Court’s Bakke decision (1978), 96 Sweet Words So Brave: The Story of African American Literature, 58 systemic institutional oppression, 87 Tatanka Yotanka (Chief Sitting Bull), 28 Te Kotahitanga, ix teacher-centered transmission models, 66 Teacher’s Choice Award, 59 Teachers College Press, 57 Teacher Education, 89 “teacher-proof curriculum,” 65 teacher quality, 88, 103 Tenure in the Sacred Groves: Issues and Strategies for Women and Minority Faculty, 57 Texas, 96 Thai, 71 theory of self-regulation, 95 “third eye,” 105, 110–12, 114–15, 130 traditional theories, 64, 70 trans-historical research, 7 transitional cultures, 57 United States, viii, 47, 60, 61, 70, 71, 73, 76 units of analysis, 22 University of Delaware College of Education, 52 University of Massachusetts, 63 University of Oklahoma, 55 University of Tennessee, 105 University of Texas, 96

University of Wisconsin at Madison, 54 Urban Education, 89 U.S. military attacks: Conestoga, 27; Gnadenhutten, 27; Muskingum River, 27; Sand Creek, 27; Sappa Creek, 27; Wounded Knee Creek, 27 Vietnamese, 67, 69, 92 visibility, 11, 121 Vygotskian, 78 Vygotsky, 79 Washington, 96 “webs of significance,” 111 Western, 22–23, 24, 26, 29, 39, 47, 48 colonial research, 23; colonizing knowledge, 23; construction of knowledge, 24; discourse, 130; elitism, 40; epistemologies, 24, 26, 30, 31, 33, 35, 42–43; epistemological dominance, 35; knowledge, 24; knowledge production, 23; notions of science, 29; paradigms, 26, 29, 35; research strategy, 29; tradition, 35, 120 White, vii, viii, 33, 34, 41, 82, 89, 98 Americans, 47; authors, 9; children, 129; faculty, 27, 28, 31; feminist, 16, 24; men, 11; peers, 103; privilege, 30, 90, 92; research, 23, 31; researcher, viii, 7, 30, 31; scholars, 31, 34, 40; society, 124; student, 30, 42, 115; university, 16; women, 8, 11, 90; women researchers, 2 “White flight,” viii White/Indian comparison, 30 “wisdom of practice,” 109 Women in Power: Pathways to leadership in education, 57 World’s Fair, 1 Yale Law School, 7 Yankee, 74 Zino Press, 58 Zone of proximal development (ZPD), 79

EDUCATION

From Center to Margins The Importance of Self-Definition in Research

Diane S. Pollard and Olga M. Welch, editors Foreword by Christine E. Sleeter In From Center to Margins, women educational researchers of color, trained in mainstream Euro-American traditions, interpret the experiences of those, including themselves, who are marginalized by these very traditions. Deliberately looking at research from within the margins rather than from the center, the contributors detail how their perspectives influence the way they frame questions for study, develop procedures to investigate them, and devise strategies for answering them. The contributors offer an alternative to the dominant perspective in educational research that uses its power to determine who shall be centered and who, marginalized. This book presents the margins, where women and other people of color reside intellectually, not as deficient areas from which we need to escape, but as legitimate sites where knowledge, useful to wider audiences, has been and will continue to be generated. “The contributors speak to the ways in which women researchers of color and their research questions and approaches are so often marginalized in the academy. Their experiences are important for the field to understand and learn from in order to enrich our approaches to educational research.” — Lee Anne Bell, coeditor of Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice: A Sourcebook “With the rising global entrance of ‘significant others’ into the academy, this is a book that will find a home and resonate with a significant number of young and emerging scholars.” — LaRuth Gray, New York University DIANE S. POLLARD is Professor Emerita of Educational Psychology at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. She is the coeditor (with Cheryl S. Ajirotutu) of African-Centered Schooling in Theory and Practice. OLGA M. WELCH is Professor and Dean of the School of Education at Duquesne University and the coauthor (with Carolyn R. Hodges) of Standing Outside on the Inside: Black Adolescents and the Construction of Academic Identity, also published by SUNY Press. State University of New York Press www.sunypress.edu

From Center to Margins: The Importance of Self-Definition in Research

Research In Multicultural Education: From The Margins To The Mainstream (Wisconsin Series of Teacher Education)

German History from the Margins

China Off Center: Mapping the Margins of the Middle Kingdom

The Importance Of Living

Outsider Art: From the Margins to the Marketplace

The Importance Of Living

Women in Flight Research at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center from 1946 to 1995

Property in the Margins

The Importance of Disappointment

Contemporary American Independent Film: From the Margins to the Mainstream

Research and Information Center

Margins of Error in Accounting

Family Matters: The Importance of Mattering to Family in Adolescence

Journey to the Center

Contemporary Environmental Politics: From Margins to Mainstream (Routledge Research in Environmental Politics)

Encountering Kali: In the Margins, at the Center, in the West

Writing in the Margins: The Ethics of Expatriation from Lawrence to Ondaatje

Journey to the Center of the Earth

The Importance of Being Emma

Encountering Kali: In the Margins, at the Center, in the West

Journey to the Center of the Earth

Journey to the Center of the Earth

Journey to the Center of the Earth

Journey to the Center of the Earth

Journey to the Center of the Earth

Journey to the Center of the Earth

Journey to the Center of the Earth

The Importance of Being Earnest

Heteroptera of Economic Importance

Physician's Guide to Arthropods of Medical Importance

From Center to Margins: The Importance of Self-Definition in Research

Research In Multicultural Education: From The Margins To The Mainstream (Wisconsin Series of Teacher Education)

German History from the Margins

China Off Center: Mapping the Margins of the Middle Kingdom

The Importance Of Living

Outsider Art: From the Margins to the Marketplace

The Importance Of Living

Women in Flight Research at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center from 1946 to 1995

Property in the Margins

The Importance of Disappointment

Contemporary American Independent Film: From the Margins to the Mainstream

Research and Information Center

Margins of Error in Accounting

Family Matters: The Importance of Mattering to Family in Adolescence

Journey to the Center

Contemporary Environmental Politics: From Margins to Mainstream (Routledge Research in Environmental Politics)

Encountering Kali: In the Margins, at the Center, in the West

Writing in the Margins: The Ethics of Expatriation from Lawrence to Ondaatje

Journey to the Center of the Earth

The Importance of Being Emma

Encountering Kali: In the Margins, at the Center, in the West

Journey to the Center of the Earth

Journey to the Center of the Earth

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