Mixed Race Studies

#119: Moving “Multiracial” from the Margins: Theoretical and Practical Innovations for Serving Mixed Race Students

The 28th Annual National Conference on Race & Ethnicity in American Higher Education (NCORE)
Washington Hilton
1919 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20009
2015-05-26 through 2015-05-30

Part I: Tuesday, 08:30-11:30 EDT (Local Time)
Part II: Tuesday, 13:00-17:30 EDT (Local Time)

Despite evidence from the 2010 U.S. Census that multiracial youth are the fastest growing demographic in the nation, multiraciality continues to be on the margins of the discourse on race and racism in higher education theory and practice. This two-part institute invites educators from all backgrounds and expertise levels to engage in deep learning about the complexities of serving multiracially-identified students. After briefly reviewing contemporary models of multiracial identity and development, presenters will focus on better understanding the contexts shaping and complicating such models. Further, the institute will focus on theoretical innovations that help to move of understanding of multiraciality forward, including systems of oppression and models for assessing the campus climate for multiracial students. The latter part of the institute will focus on applying theories to practice and working through hands-on issues related to serving multiracial students. Throughout the institute, contradictions in the popular discourse about multiraciality and recent controversies will be presented for participants to engage in critical thinking about their own potential biases (i.e., self-work) as well as how to educate others toward creating more inclusive contexts for multiracial students. Additionally, a range of activities, including presentations, journaling, and small- and large-group discussions, will be used to allow participants to actively engage throughout the institute.

Pre-Conference Institute

This institute will:

• Contextualize current approaches to supporting the healthy identity development of multiracial people;
• Explicitly connect the discourse on multiracial identity to monoracism, a system of oppression related to traditional racism that marginalizes those who do not adhere to society’s promotion of discrete monoracial categories (Johnston and Nadal, 2010);
• Include multiraciality in larger efforts aimed at obtaining racial equality in higher education; and
• Provide ample opportunities for in-depth discussions of the complexities of serving multiracial students to assist participants in evaluating and growing their own institution’s service to multiracial students.

Presenters

Marc Johnston, Assistant Professor
Department of Educational Studies
Ohio State University

Eric Hamako, Assistant Professor
Department Equity & Social Justice Program
Shoreline Community College, Shoreline, Washington

Natasha Chapman, Assistant Professor
West Virginia University

Victoria Malaney, Special Assistant to the Dean of Students
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

More Than a Knapsack: The White Supremacy Flower as a New Model for Teaching Racism

Sociology of Race and Ethnicity
Volume 1, Number 1
pages 192-197
DOI: 10.1177/2332649214561660

Hephzibah V. Strmic-Pawl, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology
Manhattanville College, Purchase, New York

This article suggests that White supremacy versus White privilege provides a clearer and more accurate conceptual understanding of how racism operates, evolves, and sustains itself. This article suggests a specific model for teaching White supremacy, the White supremacy flower, and describes the application and benefits of the model.

Teaching race and racism, particularly to undergraduate students who are often learning this type of information for the first time, can be especially trying for professors (Jakubowski 2001; Lucal 1996; Moulder 1997). This difficulty has spawned many teaching articles that address race but relatively few that provide instruction on teaching racism (Khanna and Harris 2009; Kwenda 2012; Sharp and Wade 2011). Furthermore, while the articles that do suggest strategies for teaching racism are insightful, most center on the concepts of “White privilege” or “advantage” as the guides for conversation (Gillespie, Ashbaugh, and Defiore 2010; Pence and Fields 1999; Wooddell and Henry 2005). Thus, some scholarship is attentive to teaching race but neglects racism while others focus on White privilege at the expense of White supremacy. This article addresses both of these concerns by teaching racism using a particular model of White supremacy.

In this article, I first review how and why White privilege and White supremacy should not be conflated. Second, I argue that White supremacy should replace White privilege as the primary concept to teach racism. Third, I propose a specific model for teaching White supremacy, the White supremacy flower model…

Figure 1. The White supremacy flower model.

Read the entire article here.

Revealing Racial Purity Ideology: Fear of Black–White Intimacy as a Framework for Understanding School Discipline in Post-Brown Schools

Educational Administration Quarterly
Volume 50, Number 5 (December 2014)
pages 783-795
DOI: 10.1177/0013161X14549958

Decoteau J. Irby, Assistant Professor
School of Education
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

Purpose: In this article, I explore White racial purity desire as an underexamined ideology that might help us understand the compulsion of disciplinary violence against Black boys in U.S. public schools. By pointing to the dearth of research on sexual desire as a site of racial conflict and through revisiting Civil Rights–era fears about interracial intimacy between Black men and White women, I encourage readers to consider if and to what extent fears about sexual desires remain in the fabric of our school and social lives.

Proposed Conceptual Argument: I argue that in schools, White-supremacist patriarchy reproduces normative Whiteness through the continual surveillance, punishment, distancing, and removal of primarily heteronormative Black male bodies, locating its justification in protecting the bodily safety and academic achievement of heteronormative White girls. I suggest that in predominantly White desegregated schools, disciplining heteronormative Black boys represents a new policy-based campaign of institutionalized violence and intimidation that reflects a subtle, but nonetheless pernicious, White male segregationist agenda.

Implications: Considering fear/desire of interracial intimacy as a lens, alongside economic and political explanations of resistance to desegregation, provides a more complete analytical framework to comprehend racial conflict and segregationism in contemporary school settings. Our collective failure to acknowledge and interrogate the ways schools produce Whiteness by seeking to protect White girls from Black boys ensures Black boys’ bodies and minds will continue to be unfairly subjected to the violence of harsh and disproportionate disciplinary measures.

Read or purchase the article here.

Race and Racisms: A Critical Approach

Oxford University Press
2014-08-01
528 pages
7-1/2 x 9-1/4 inches
Paperback ISBN: 9780199920013

Tanya Maria Golash-Boza, Associate Professor of Sociology
University of California, Merced

Race and Racisms: A Critical Approach engages students in critical questions related to racial dynamics in the U.S. and around the world. Written in accessible, straightforward language, the book discusses and critically analyzes cutting-edge scholarship in the field. Organized into topics and concepts rather than discrete racial groups, the text addresses:

• How and when the idea of race was created and developed
• How structural racism has worked historically to reproduce inequality
• How we have a society rampant with racial inequality, even though most people do not consider themselves to be racist
• How race, class, and gender work together to create inequality and identities
• How immigration policy in the United States has been racialized
• How racial justice could be imagined and realized

Centrally focused on racial dynamics, Race and Racisms also incorporates an intersectional perspective, discussing the intersections of racism, patriarchy, and capitalism.

Table of Contents

• List of Excerpts
• Letter from the Author
• About the Author
• Preface
• Part I: The History of the Idea of Race
  • 1. The Origin of the Idea of Race
    • Defining Race and Racism
    • Race: The Evolution of an Ideology
    • Historical Precedents to the Idea of Race
    • Slavery Before the Idea of Race
    • European Encounters with Indigenous Peoples of the Americas
    • Voices: The Spanish Treatment of Indigenous Peoples
    • The Enslavement of Africans
    • The Need for Labor in the Thirteen Colonies
    • The Legal Codification of Racial Differences
    • Voices: From Bullwhip Days
    • The Rise of Science and the Question of Human Difference
    • European Taxonomies
    • Scientific Racism in the Nineteenth Century
    • The Indian Removal Act: The Continuation of Manifest Destiny
    • Freedom and Slavery in the United States
    • Global View: The Idea of Race in Latin America
  • 2. Race and Citizenship from the 1840s to the 1920s
    • The Continuation of Scientific Racism
    • Measuring Race: From Taxonomy to Measurement
    • Intelligence Testing
    • Eugenics
    • Voices: Carrie Buck
    • Exclusionary Immigration Policies
    • The Chinese Exclusion Act
    • The Johnson-Reed Act of 1924
    • Birthright Citizenship for Whites Only
    • Naturalization for “Free White People”
    • How the Irish, Italians, and Jews Became White
    • The Irish: From Celts to Whites
    • The Italians: From Mediterraneans to Caucasians
    • The Jews: From Hebrews to White
    • African Americans and Native Americans: The Long, Troubled Road to Citizenship
    • African Americans and the Long Road to Freedom
    • Native Americans: Appropriating Lands, Assimilating Tribes
• Part II: Racial Ideologies
  • 3. Racial Ideologies from the 1920s to the Present
    • Voices: Trayvon Martin
    • The 1920s to 1965: Egregious Acts in the Era of Overt Racism
    • Mass Deportation of Mexicans and Mexican Americans
    • Internment of Japanese and Japanese Americans
    • Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment
    • Voices: Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu
    • The Civil Rights Movement and the Commitment to Change
    • Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott
    • Sit-Ins
    • Freedom Rides
    • Old Versus New Racism: The Evolution of an Ideology
    • Biological Racism
    • Cultural Racism
    • Color-Blind Universalism
    • Global View: Cultural Racism in Peru
    • The Maintenance of Racial Hierarchy: Color-Blind Racism
    • Four Frames of Color-Blind Racism
    • Rhetorical Strategies of Color-Blind Racism
    • The New Politics of Race: Racism in the Age of Obama
  • 4. The Spread of Ideology: “Controlling Images” and Racism in the Media
    • Portrayals of People of Color on Television and in Other Media
    • Portrayals of Blacks
    • Portrayals of Latino/as
    • Research Focus: The Hot Latina Stereotype in Desperate Housewives
    • Portrayals of Arabs and Arab Americans
    • Portrayals of Asians and Asian Americans
    • Portrayals of Native Americans
    • Racial Stereotypes in Films
    • Global View: Racial Stereotypes in Peruvian Television
    • New Media Representations
    • Video Games
    • Social Media
    • Voices: I Am Not Trayvon Martin
    • Media Images and Racial Inequality
    • Raced, Classed, and Gendered Media Images
  • 5. Colorism and Skin-Color Stratification
    • The History of Colorism
    • Research Focus: Latino Immigrants and the U.S. Racial Order
    • The Origins of Colorism in the Americas
    • Does Colorism Predate Colonialism? The Origins of Colorism in Asia and Africa
    • The Global Color Hierarchy
    • Asia and Asian Americans
    • Latin America and Latinos/as
    • Voices: The Fair-Skin Battle
    • Africa and the African Diaspora
    • Voices: Colorism and Creole Identity
    • Skin Color, Gender, and Beauty
  • 6. White Privilege and the Changing U.S. Racial Hierarchy
    • White Privilege
    • Research Focus: White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
    • Whiteness, Class, Gender, and Sexuality
    • Whiteness and Racial Categories in Twenty-First-Century America
    • Latino/as and the Multiracial Hierarchy
    • The Other Whites: Arab Americans, North Africans, Middle Easterners, and Their Place in the U.S. Racial Hierarchy
    • Multiracial Identification and the U.S. Racial Hierarchy
    • Voices: Brandon Stanford: “My Complexion Is Not Black but I Am Black”
    • Will the United States Continue to Be a White-Majority Society?
    • Global View: Social, Cultural, and Intergenerational Whitening in Latin America
    • Changes in Racial and Ethnic Classifications
    • Revisiting the Definitions of Race and Ethnicity
• Part III: Policy & Institutions
  • 7. Understanding Racial Inequality Today: Socio logical Theories of Racism
    • Racial Discrimination, Prejudice, and Institutional Racism
    • Individual Racism
    • Voices: Microaggressions
    • Institutional Racism
    • Global View: Microaggressions in Peru
    • Systemic and Structural Racism
    • Systemic Racism
    • Structural Racism
    • Research Focus: Systemic Racism and Hurricane Katrina
    • Racial Formation: Its Contributions and Its Critics
    • White Supremacy and Settler Colonialism
    • Research Focus: Applying Settler Colonialism Theory
    • Intersectional Theories of Race and Racism
  • 8. Educational Inequality
    • The History of Educational Inequality
    • Indian Schools
    • Segregation and Landmark Court Cases
    • The Persistence of Racial Segregation in the Educational System
    • Affirmative Action in Higher Education
    • Educational Inequality Today
    • Research Focus: American Indian/Alaska Native College Student Retention
    • The Achievement Gap: Sociological Explanations for Persistent Inequality
    • Global View: Affirmative Action in Brazil
    • Parental Socioeconomic Status
    • Cultural Explanations: “Acting White” and Other Theories
    • Tracking
    • Social and Cultural Capital and Schooling
    • Hidden Curricula
    • Voices: Moesha
    • Research Focus: Rosa Parks Elementary and the Hidden Curriculum
  • 9. Income and Labor Market Inequality
    • Income Inequality by Race, Ethnicity, and Gender
    • Dimensions of Racial Disparities in the Labor Market
    • Disparities Among Women
    • Disparities Among Latinos and Asian Americans
    • Underemployment, Unemployment, and Joblessness
    • Voices: Jarred
    • Sociological Explanations for Income and Labor Market Inequality
    • Voices: Francisco Pinto’s Experiences in 3-D Jobs
    • Individual-Level Explanations
    • Structural Explanations
    • Research Focus: Discrimination in a Low-Wage Labor Market
    • Affirmative Action
    • Entrepreneurship and Self-Employment 260
    • Global View: Racial Discrimination in Australia
  • 10. Inequality in Housing and Wealth
    • Land Ownership After Slavery
    • Residential Segregation
    • The Creation of Residential Segregation
    • Discriminatory and Predatory Lending Practices
    • Research Focus: The Role of Real Estate in Creating Segregated Cities
    • Neighborhood Segregation Today
    • Voices: A Tale of Two Families
    • Wealth Inequality
    • Inequality in Homeownership and Home Values
    • Wealth Inequality Beyond Homeownership
    • Explaining the Wealth Gap in the Twenty-First Century
  • 11. Racism and the Criminal Justice System
    • Mass Incarceration in the United States
    • The Rise of Mass Incarceration
    • Mass Incarceration in a Global Context
    • Race and Mass Incarceration
    • Global View: Prisons in Germany and the Netherlands
    • The Inefficacy of Mass Incarceration
    • Voices: Kemba Smith
    • Mass Incarceration and the War on Drugs
    • Race, Class, Gender, and Mass Incarceration
    • Institutional Racism in the Criminal Justice System
    • Racial Profiling
    • Sentencing Disparities
    • The Ultimate Sentence: Racial Disparities in the Death Penalty
    • Voices: Troy Davis
    • The Economics of Mass Incarceration
    • Private Prisons
    • The Prison-Industrial Complex
    • Beyond Incarceration: Collateral Consequences
    • The Impact of Mass Incarceration on Families and Children
    • The Lifelong Stigma of a Felony: “The New Jim Crow”
    • Research Focus: Can Felons Get Jobs?
  • 12. Health Inequalities, Environmental Racism, and Environmental Justice
    • The History of Health Disparities in the United States
    • Involuntary Experimentation on African Americans
    • Free Blacks as Mentally and Physically Unfit
    • Explaining Health Disparities by Race and Ethnicity Today
    • Socioeconomic Status and Health Disparities by Race/Ethnicity
    • Segregation and Health
    • Research Focus: Health and Social Inequity in Alameda County, California
    • The Effects of Individual Racism on the Health of African Americans
    • Life-Course Perspectives on African American Health
    • Culture and Health
    • Global View: Health and Structural Violence in Guatemala
    • Genetics, Race, and Health
    • Voices: Race, Poverty, and Postpartum Depression
    • Environmental Racism
    • Movements for Environmental Justice
    • Voices: The Holt Family of Dickson, Tennessee
  • 13. Racism, Nativism, and Immigration Policy
    • Voices: Robert Bautista-Denied Due Process
    • The Racialized History of U.S. Immigration Policy
    • Race and the Making of U.S. Immigration Policies: 1790 to 1924
    • Global View: Whitening and Immigration Policy in Brazil
    • Nativism Between 1924 and 1964: Mass Deportation of Mexicans and the McCarran Internal Security Act
    • The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act and the Changing Face of Immigration
    • Illegal Immigration and Policy Response
    • The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA ) and Nativism
    • Proposition 187 and the Lead-Up to the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (II RIRA)
    • The 1996 Laws and the Detention and Deportation of Black and Latino Immigrants
    • Voices: Hector, a Guatemalan Deportee
    • Nativism in the Twenty-First Century
• Part IV: Contesting & Comparing Racial Injustices
  • 14. Racial Justice in the United States Today
    • Perspectives on Racial Justice
    • Recognition, Responsibility, Reconstruction, and Reparations
    • Civil Rights
    • Human Rights
    • Moving Beyond Race
    • Intersectional Analyses: Race, Class, Gender
    • Racism and Capitalism
    • Struggles for Racial Justice
    • Racial Justice and the Foreclosure Crisis
    • DREAMers and the Fight for Justice
    • Voices: Fighting Against Foreclosures: A Racial Justice Story
    • Racial Justice and Empathy
  • 15. Thinking Globally: Race and Racisms in France, South Africa, and Brazil
    • How Do Other Countries Differ from the United States in Racial Dynamics?
    • Race and Racism in France
    • French Colonies in Africa
    • The French Antilles
    • African Immigration to France
    • Discrimination and Racial and Ethnic Inequality in France Today
    • Voices: The Fall 2005 Uprisings in the French Banlieues
    • Race and Racism in South Africa
    • Colonialism in South Africa: The British and the Dutch
    • The Apartheid Era (1948-1994)
    • The Persistence of Inequality in the Post-Apartheid Era
    • Research Focus: The Politics of White Youth Identity in South Africa
    • Race and Racism in Brazil
    • Portuguese Colonization and the Slave Trade in Brazil
    • Whitening Through Immigration and Intermarriage
    • The Racial Democracy Myth in Brazil and Affirmative Action
    • Racial Categories in Brazil Today
    • Research Focus: Racial Ideology and Black-White Interracial Marriages in Rio de Janeiro
• Glossary
• References
• Credits
• Index

Improving Anti-Racist Education for Multiracial Students

University of Massachusetts, Amherst
May 2014
479 pages

Eric Hamako

Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education

This dissertation explores how anti‐racist education might be improved, so that it more effectively teaches Multiracial students about racism. A brief history of anti‐racist education and a theory of monoracism–the systematic oppression of Multiracial people–provide context for the study. Anti‐racist education in communities and colleges has supported U.S. social movements for racial justice. However, most anti‐racist education programs are not designed by or for students who identify with two or more races. Nor have such programs generally sought to address Multiraciality or monoracism. Since the 1980s, Multiraciality has become more salient in popular U.S. racial discourses. The number of people identifying as Multiracial, Mixed Race, or related terms has also increased, particularly among school‐age youth. Further, the size and number of Multiracial people’s organizations have also grown. Anti‐racist education may pose unintended challenges for Multiracial students and their organizations. This study asked twenty‐five educators involved in Multiracial organizations to discuss anti‐racist education: what it should teach Multiracial students; what is working; what is not working; and how it might be improved. Qualitative data were gathered via five focus group interviews in three West Coast cities. Participants proposed learning goals for Multiracial students. Goals included learning about privilege and oppression; social constructionism; historical and contemporary contexts of racism; and impacts of racism and monoracism on Multiracial people. Participants also called for education that develops interpersonal relationships, self‐reflection, and activism. Participants also discussed aspects of anti‐racist education that may help or hinder Multiracial students’ learning, as well as possible improvements. Participants problematized the exclusion of Multiraciality, the use of Black/White binary racial paradigms, linear racial identity development models, and the use of racial caucus groups or affinity spaces. Participants also challenged educators’ monoracist attitudes and behaviors, particularly the treatment of questions as pathological “resistance.” Suggestions included addressing Multiraciality and monoracism, accounting for intersectionality and the social construction of race, validating self‐identification, and teacher education about monoracism. The study then critically analyzes participants’ responses by drawing on literature about anti‐racist education, social justice education, multicultural education, transgender oppression (cissexism), and monoracism. Based on that synthesis, alternate recommendations for research and practice are provided.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• ABSTRACT
• 1. INTRODUCTION
  • Significance of the problem
  • Goals and intended audiences
  • Locating myself as a researcher
  • Research questions
  • Organization of the study
• 2. FOUR CRITIQUES OF COMMUNITY‐BASED ANTI‐RACIST EDUCATION
  • A brief overview of CBARE
  • Two brief histories of CBARE
  • Anti‐intersectional praxes
  • Binary racial paradigms
  • Racial essentialism
  • Pathologizing “resistance”
  • Toward new anti‐racist praxes: Accounting for monoracism
• 3. THEORIZING MONORACISM
  • Theorizing monoracism
  • Addressing challenges to a theory of monoracism
  • Benefits of theorizing monoracism
  • Summary
• 4. METHODOLOGY
  • Focus group interview methodology
  • Participants
  • Focus groups: Number, size, and locations
  • Pre‐focus group data collection: Surveys, curricula sharing, and curricula analysis
  • Focus group data collection
  • Data analysis
• 5. LEARNING GOALS FOR MULTIRACIAL STUDENTS
  • Representational knowledge: Learn about racism and monoracism
  • Representational knowledge: Hierarchies that trouble Multiracial organizing
  • Relational knowledge: Learn to connect with other people
  • Reflective knowledge: Learn about oneself
  • Summary
• 6. DISCUSSION OF LEARNING GOALS FOR MULTIRACIAL STUDENTS
  • Representational knowledge: Learn about racism and monoracism
  • Representational knowledge: Hierarchies that trouble Multiracial organizing
  • Relational knowledge: Learn to connect with other people
  • Reflective knowledge: Learn about oneself
  • Summary
• 7. ANTI‐RACIST EDUCATION: WHAT IS WORKING AND NOT WORKING FOR MULTIRACIAL STUDENTS
  • Monoracism in anti‐racist educational theories, curricula, and pedagogies
  • Monoracism in educators’ attitudes and behaviors
  • Summary
• 8. DISCUSSION OF ANTI‐RACIST EDUCATION: WHAT IS WORKING AND NOT WORKING FOR MULTIRACIAL STUDENTS
  • Monoracism in anti‐racist educational theories, curricula, and pedagogies
  • Monoracism in educators’ attitudes and behaviors
  • Summary
• 9. CONCLUSION
• APPENDICES
  • A. RECRUITING SCRIPT
  • B. PARTICIPATION CONFIRMATION EMAIL
  • C. HUMAN SUBJECTS WRITTEN INFORMED CONSENT FORM
  • D. SURVEY 1: PARTICIPANT INTAKE SURVEY
  • E. PHONE/EMAIL REMINDER SCRIPT
  • F. SURVEY 2: CURRICULA EVALUATIONS
  • G. SURVEY 3: FOCUS GROUP PARTICIPANT WORKSHEET
  • H. FOCUS GROUP INTERVIEW PROTOCOL
  • I. MULTIRACIAL TIMELINE CURRICULUM
  • J. DESIGN A MONORACIST INSTITUTION CURRICULUM
  • K. RACIALBREAD COOKIE CURRICULUM
  • L. MULTIRACIAL POWER SHUFFLE CURRICULUM
• BIBLIOGRAPHY

Read the entire dissertation here.

One Big Mixed Race Classroom: New Models for Digital, Transnational, and Cross-Disciplinary Pedagogy

Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association
Beyond the Logic of Debt, Toward an Ethics of Collective Dissent
2013-11-21 through 2013-11-24

Washington Hilton
1919 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C.

Washington Hilton, Columbia Hall 9 (T)
Friday, 2013-11-22, 12:00-13:45 EST (Local Time)

CHAIR: Asha Nadkarni, Assistant Professor of English
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

PANELISTS:

Zelideth María Rivas, Assistant Professor of Japanese
Marshall University, Huntington, West Virginia

Michele Elam, Martin Luther King, Jr. Centennial Professor of English and Olivier Nomellini Family University Fellow in Undergraduate Education
Stanford University

Lawrence-Minh B. Davis
University of Maryland, College Park

Catherine Ceniza Choy, Professor Ethnic Studies
University of California, Berkeley

Steven F. Riley, Independent Scholar
MixedRaceStudies.org

In Fall 2013 and Spring 2014, the Mixed Race Initiative, a new digital pedagogy project, will stage a global conversation about mixed race, virtually connecting over 70 classrooms in 9 countries, exploring how notions of race vary—and remain constant—across regions and borders. Transnational and cross-disciplinary in character, the project will exist at once inside and outside of American studies, with numerous participating Americanists and American studies classrooms in dialogue with an even greater number of scholars and students in other fields.

This engages the hows and whys of the initiative, thinking through its guiding theoretical and ethical concerns, its challenges and opportunities. Roundtable participants, all of whom helped develop the project curriculum and/or took part in the teaching program, will discuss their particular points of entry, the cross-disciplinary and transnational work in which they engaged, and how that work has grown or could grow the humanities, American studies, and mixed race studies. How, we might consider, can mixed race pedagogy be a critical means of rethinking American studies—and vice versa?  How can a global initiative, extending beyond U.S. borders and the English language, explore mixed race as a necessarily inter- and transnational subject? What does it mean to teach—and craft curriculum—communally?

For more information, click here.

Diverse Millennial Students in College: Implications for Faculty and Student Affairs ed. by Fred Bonner II, Aretha F. Marbley, and Mary F. Howard-Hamilton (review)

The Review of Higher Education
Volume 37, Number 1, Fall 2013
pages 122-124
DOI: 10.1353/rhe.2013.0074

John A. Mueller

Scott E. Miller

Bonner II, Fred A., Aretha F. Marbley, and Mary F. Howard-Hamilton, eds., Diverse Millennial Students in College: Implications for Faculty and Student Affairs (Sterling, Virginia: Stylus Publishing, LLC., 2011).

In a pithy and direct manner, the introduction to Diverse Millennial Students in College makes it clear that the book “eschews the tendency to force students into constraining frameworks” (p. 1) that overly simplify college populations. In doing so, the editors challenge the utility and relevance of the defining traits of millennial students (Howe & Strauss, 2000) in describing students of color, multiracial students, and LGBTQ students. The editors and chapter authors also analyze how the Howe and Strauss “generational framework underestimates the potential of these students” (p. 113). After nearly a decade of the ubiquitous “millennials” in student affairs literature, conferences, and coursework, along comes a book that critically examines how diversity impacts generational status.

This book is structured around paired chapters that address particular diverse constituencies of millennial college students: African American, Asian American, Latino/a, Native American, LGBTQs, and bi/multiracials. While this is a fitting approach, the editors do not provide a rationale for their choice of chapter topics, nor do they forecast for the reader the content of each chapter in light of the book’s objective.

Chapter 1 is an extension of the introduction and, as the title suggests, tests our assumptions about generational cohorts. The author points out similarities among all millennials, such as the defining moments that have shaped their lives, their increased focus on social justice and service, and a significant increase in parental influence, among others. The author also identifies ways in which millennial students may experience college differently based on generation status and identity.

Part 2 focuses on African American millennials. Chapter 2 presents data on the differences between today’s African American students and previous generations of African American students with respect to enrollment, financial affluence, and levels of academic achievement. Taking a less quantitative approach, the authors of Chapter 3 provide a narrative analysis of an African American male who grew up in a small, rural town in Georgia from elementary school through graduate school. This narrative illustrates the challenges faced by African American students of rural backgrounds attending a predominantly White institution in a larger city.

Part 3 examines Asian American millennial college students. Chapter 4 presents research that compares Asian American millennial students to both their millennial counterparts and to Asian American students from previous generations. The author also outlines a number of current social and political trends in the United States that are likely to have an impact on Asian American millennials and their experience in higher education.

Chapter 5 expands on the previous chapter and homes in on three specific trends with respect to Asian American millennials: an increase in the diversity of Asian Americans in higher education (i.e., diversification); an increase in the use of technology, particularly among Asian American millennials (i.e., digitization); and the degree to which Asian American millennials are connected to national and global events and to Asian American and Asian communities (i.e., globalization).

The authors in Part 4 examine the Latino/a experience in higher education. In Chapter 6, the authors provide demographic data regarding the increase in the Latina/o population in the United States and compare and contrast this generation of students with those before it across different categories, such as enrollment, parents’ education, family structure and size, religion, technology, motivation, goals and aspirations, career objectives, and civic engagement.

In Chapter 7, the authors use the Howe and Strauss (2000) framework to demonstrate how findings from two studies on Latino/o college students parallel and diverge from the seven characteristics of millennials. In addition, they offer useful insights on how generation status (from an immigrant perspective) can be more useful than generational theory as a predictive theory.

Part 5 focuses on Native American millennial college students. Chapter 8 documents the challenges that Indigenous students face in higher education: a lack of academic preparation, inadequate finances, few higher education faculty as role models, cultural differences between their native home and the university setting, and institutional barriers. Chapter 9 places the millennial generation of Native American college students in a historical context. Examined in some depth are the boarding school era, tribal colleges, and Native American students’ entrance into predominantly White institutions. Complementing this history are…

Diverse Millennial Students in College: Implications for Faculty and Student Affairs

Stylus Publishing, LLC.
October 2011
320 pages
6″ x 9″
Cloth ISBN: 978 1 57922 446 2
Paper ISBN: 978 1 57922 447 9
Ebook ISBN: 978 1 57922 712 8
Library Ebook ISBN: 978 1 57922 711 1

Edited by:

Fred A. Bonner II

Aretha F. Marbley

Mary F. Howard-Hamilton

While many institutions have developed policies to address the myriad needs of Millennial college students and their parents, inherent in many of these initiatives is the underlying assumption that this student population is a homogeneous group. This book is significant because it addresses and explores the characteristics and experiences of Millennials from an array of perspectives, taking into account not only racial and ethnic identity but also cultural background, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status differences—all factors contributing to how these students interface with academe.

In providing a “voice” to “voiceless” populations of African American, Asian American, Bi/Multi-Racial, Latino, Native American, and LGBT millennial college students, this book engages with such questions as: Does the term “Millennial” apply to these under-represented students? What role does technology, pop culture, sexual orientation, and race politics play in the identity development for these populations? Do our current minority development theories apply to these groups? And, ultimately, are higher education institutions prepared to meet both the cultural and developmental needs of diverse minority groups of Millennial college students?”

This book is addressed primarily to college and university administrators and faculty members who seek greater depth and understanding of the issues associated with diverse Millennial college student populations. This book informs readers about the ways in which this cohort differs from their majority counterparts to open a dialogue about how faculty members and administrators can meet their needs effectively both inside and outside the classroom. It will also be of value to student affairs personnel, students enrolled in graduate level courses in higher education and other social science courses that explore issues of college student development and diversity, particularly students planning to work with diverse Millennial college students in both clinical or practical work settings.

Contributors: Rosie Maria Banda; Fred Bonner, II; Lonnie Booker, Jr.; Brian Brayboy; Mitchell Chang; Andrea Domingue; Tonya Driver; Alonzo M. Flowers; Gwen Dungy; Jami Grosser; Kandace Hinton; Mary Howard-Hamilton; Tom Jackson, Jr.; Aretha F. Marbley; Samuel Museus; Anna Ortiz; Tammie Preston-Cunningham; Nana Osei-Kofi; Kristen Renn; Petra Robinson; Genyne Royal; Victor Saenz; Rose Anna Santos; Mattyna Stephens; Terrell Strayhorn; Theresa Survillion; Nancy Jean Tubbs; Malia Villegas; Stephanie J. Waterman; Nick Zuniga.

Table of Contents

• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• INTRODUCTION / Fred A. Bonner, II
• PART ONE: DIVERSE MILLENNIALS IN COLLEGE: A National Perspective
  • 1. A NATIONAL PERSPECTIVE: Testing Our Assumptions About Generational Cohorts / Gwendolyn Jordan Dungy
• PART TWO: AFRICAN AMERICAN MILLENNIALS IN COLLEGE
  • 2. AFRICAN AMERICAN MILLENNIALS IN COLLEGE / Terrell L. Strayhorn
  • 3. THE PERSON, ENVIRONMENT, AND GENERATIONAL INTERACTION: An African American Rural Millennial Story / Corey Guyton and Mary F. Howard-Hamilton
• PART THREE: ASIAN AMERICAN MILLENNIALS IN COLLEGE
  • 4. ASIAN AMERICAN AND PACIFIC ISLANDER MILLENNIAL STUDENTS AT A TIPPING POINT / Mitchell James Chang
  • 5. ASIAN AMERICAN MILLENNIAL COLLEGE STUDENTS IN CONTEXT : Living at the Intersection of Diversification, Digitization, and Globalization / Samuel D. Museus
• PART FOUR: LATINA/O MILLENNIALS IN COLLEGE
  • 6. LA NUEVA GENERACIÓN: Latina/o Millennial College Students at Four-Year Institutions / Victor B. Saenz, Manuel Gonzalez, and Sylvia Hurtado
  • 7. MILLENNIAL CHARACTERISTICS AND LATINO/A STUDENTS / Anna M. Ortiz and Dorali Pichardo-Diaz
• PART FIVE: NATIVE AMERICAN MILLENNIALS IN COLLEGE
  • 8. INDIGENOUS MILLENNIAL STUDENTS IN HIGHER EDUCATION / Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy and Angelina E. Castagno
  • 9. NATIVE AMERICAN MILLENNIAL COLLEGE STUDENTS / Stephanie J. Waterman
• PART SIX: LGBTQ MILLENNIALS IN COLLEGE
  • 10. LGBTQ MILLENNIALS IN COLLEGE / Lori D. Patton, Carrie Kortegast, and Gabriel Javier
  • 11. IDENTITY MAKEOVER MILLENNIAL EDITION / Using Contemporary Theoretical Frameworks to Explore Identity Intersections Among LGBTQ Millennial Populations / Lori D. Patton and Stephanie Chang
• PART SEVEN: BI- AND MULTIRACIAL MILLENNIALS IN COLLEGE
  • 12. MULTIRACIALIZATION, ‘‘MIXING,’’ AND MEDIA PEDAGOGY / Nana Osei-Kofi
  • 13. MIXED RACE MILLENNIALS IN COLLEGE: Multiracial Students in the Age of Obama / Kristen A. Renn
• PART EIGHT: VOICES OF MILLENNIALS IN COLLEGE: A Diversity of Perspectives
  • 14. MOVING UP AND OUT: Students of Color Transitioning From College to the Workforce / Lonnie Booker, Jr., Tonya Turner-Driver, Tammie Preston- Cunningham, Theresa Survillion, and Mattyna L. Stephens
  • 15. CURRICULUM DESIGN FOR MILLENNIAL STUDENTS OF COLOR / Rosa Maria Banda, Alonzo M. Flowers, III, Petra Robinson, Genyne Royal, Rose Anna Santos, and Nicholas Zuniga
• CONCLUSION: FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER GENERATION: New Realities, New Possibilities, and a Reason for Hope / Aretha F. Marbley
• ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
• INDEX

Engaging Culture, Race and Spirituality: New Visions

Peter Lang Publishing
2013
232 pages
Softcover ISBN: 978-1-4331-2327-6
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4331-2328-3

Cynthia B. Dillard, Mary Frances Early Endowed Professor in Teacher Education
University of Georgia

Chinwe L. Okpalaoka, Director of Undergraduate Recruitment and Diversity Services in the College of Arts and Sciences
Ohio State University

Engaging Culture, Race and Spirituality addresses a critical question rarely addressed in our conversations and the literature about race, culture and diversity: How might spirituality and our inner lives matter in teaching and teacher education that explicitly engages and addresses race and culture? In ways explicit and embodied, this book focuses on how engaging spirituality and the inner life can serve as radical intervention in our dialogues about race and culture in education. Gathered together are the voices of emerging young scholars whose thinking and research explicitly marshal theories of spirituality as critical interventions in their dialogues and discourses about culture and race in teaching and teacher education. Each chapter is followed by a scholar visionary who points to ways for educators and educational researchers to see the usefulness of such spirituality in engaging research, pedagogy and practices. Their collective visions  all deeply political, sometimes humorous, always insightful, and thoughtfully provocative  call us to a new way of thinking about the «evidence of things unseen», about spirituality in education as a site of profound possibilities for change, equity, and social justice.

Contents

• Cynthia B. Dillard/Chinwe L. Ezueh Okpalaoka: Introduction: Culture, Race, and Dialogue: Toward a Spiritual Praxis in Education
• Tami A. Augustine/Deborah Justice Zurmehly: Conversations about Race: How Embracing Spirituality Opens Space for Dialogues in Teacher Education
• Barbara Dray: Visionary Response: With Mindfulness as a Guide: Engaging Conversations in Teacher Education
• Eyatta Fischer: Writing and Telling: Healing the Pain of Disconnection
• Robin M. Boylorn: Visionary Response: On Teaching and Telling: Two Sides of a Teaching (Cassette) Tape
• Brooke Harris Garad: Spiritually Centered Caring: An Approach for Teaching and Reaching Black Students in Suburbia
• Samara D. Madrid: Visionary Response: Care as a Racialized, Critical, and Spiritual Emotion
• Gilbert Kaburu/Chris Landauer: Less Religion, More Spirituality: Spiritually Relevant Pedagogy in the Global Era
• Khosi Kubeka: Visionary Response: Infusing Identity Enactment as a Component of Spiritually Relevant Pedagogy
• Angela Cartwright Lynskey: Occupy Classrooms: Teaching from a Spiritual Paradigm
• Carmen Liliana Medina: Visionary Response: Spiritual Occupations: Reflections on Pedagogies and Everyday Stories of Globalization
• Ashley N. Patterson: Can One Ever Be Wholly Whole? Fostering Biracial Identity Founded in Spirit
• Bettina L. Love: Visionary Response: Biracial Identity, Spiritual Wholeness, and Black Girlhood
• Erica Womack: Lessons in Love, Literacy, and Listening: Reflections on Learning with and from Black Female Youth
• Marcelle M. Haddix: Visionary Response: Listening Face-to-Face and Eye-to-Eye: Seeing and Believing Black Girls and Women in Educational Practice and Research

Moving forward on race – by understanding our own prism

Embrace Diverse Schools: Beyond celebrating: Debunking myth-perceptions to build strong diverse schools and communities
Welcome to Eileen Kugler’s Blog
2013-07-26

Eileen Kugler

“I don’t get it. Why do we need to be talking about race?” a commenter wrote on a LinkedIn group on diversity and inclusion. In her high school, “everyone got along great and we actually looked down on those who were prejudiced against one race over another.” So she can’t figure what the big issue is right now.

Her authentic comment is just the reason we need to keep discussing – and dealing with race. We each see issues through our own personal prism. That prism is formed by our life’s experiences that include our race, ethnicity, and religion, but also factors such as our family structure and where we grew up, right down to the neighborhood we called home.

President Obama did a courageous job of helping white people to understand what it feels like to be a Black man in this country, even as we are making strides every day…

Read the entire article here.