Session Information
19 SES 02, Parallel Paper Session
Paper Session
Contribution
A great deal has been written about multiracial identity in the past 20 years but the school experiences of multiracial children have not been as well attended to in the literature. The cultural awareness of multiracial students and their own insights into their current educational environment have received limited academic attention. Because of this gap in research, the author set out to explore multiracial adolescent identity development, conception and experience in a secondary educational context.
The framing research questions were:
- In what ways do multiracial teens develop identity in the monoracial context of an urban Midwestern secondary school in the US?
- To what extent do multiracial children feel the ‘stigma’ associated with their apparent ‘blackness’ affects their school relationships with peers and teachers?
- How do these students advocate for themselves in the school context?
As a critical ethnographer the researcher drew on theories of blackness or nigrescence (Cross, 1960; hooks, 2000; Dyson, 2007), theories of whiteness (Dyer, 1990; Lipsitz, 1998; Roediger, 2002), development of mixed race, biracial identity (Daniel, 2002; Rockquemore & Brunsma, 2005) as well as theorists who argue against the separation of multiracial black and other from the generalized group of black Americans (Spenser, 2011). As a school ethnography the research relies on such theorists as Signithia Fordham (2008) as well as John Ogbu (1981), Lisa Delpit (1990) and Gloria Ladson-Billings (1994). While this study was conducted in the USA the author believes that the insights her research provides illustrate the experiences of multiracial students as a collective group in education and have relevance in European educational contexts.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Cross, W. E. (1978). The Thomas and Cross models of psychological nigrescence: A literature review. Journal of Black Psychology, 5(1), 13-31. Daniel, G. R. (2002). More than black?: Multiracial identity and the new racial order. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Delpit, L. D. (1995). Other people's children: Cultural conflict in the classroom. New York: The New Press. Dyer, R. (1997). White. London; New York: Routledge. Dyson, M. E. (2007). Debating race with Michael Eric Dyson. New York: Basic Civitas Books. Fordham, S. (2008). Beyond capital high: On dual citizenship and the strange career of " acting white ". Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 39(3) …. Page numbers hooks, b. (2001). Where we stand: Class matters Taylor & Francis, Inc. Ladson-Billings, G. (1994). The dreamkeepers: Successful teachers of African American children. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Inc. Lipsitz, G. (1998). The possessive investment in whiteness: How white people profit from identity politics (1st ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Ogbu, J. U. (1981). School ethnography: A multilevel approach. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 12(1, Issues in School Ethnography), 3-29. Ogbu, J. U. (1990). Minority education in comparative perspective. Journal of Negro Education, 59(1), 45-57. Rockquemore, K. (2002). In Brunsma D. L. (Ed.), Beyond black: Biracial identity in America. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications. Roediger, D. R. (2002). Colored white transcending the racial past. Berkeley: University of California Press. Spencer, R. (2011). Reproducing race: The paradox of generation mix. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
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