Saldo y transacciones con entidades relacionadas

Critical race theory (CRT) emerged as a response, predominantly by legal scholars of colour, to social justice and oppression in the United States. Since the early 1990s critical race theory has been used as a framework to examine racism in education.

One of the main tenets of critical race theory is that it puts race at the centre; seeing racism as a "permanent fixture" (Ladson-Billings, 1998), illustrating the fact that despite laws and policies reportedly intended to provide equal opportunity, people of colour still face racism at individual, structural, and institutional levels. Bringing race and racism to the centre of the discussion, means not having to explain that racism persists. Merit is another concept challenged by critical race theory. The United States is a meritocratic society, in which it is argued that anyone who works hard enough can achieve success. Because merit is highly valued, it is difficult to convince whites that people of colour are systematically excluded from opportunities to succeed, through individual racism as well as racist structures and institutions.

Critical race theory challenges Eurocentric epistemology. Ladson Billings, (2000, p.258, cited in Sleeter and Delgado Bernal, 2002), argues that, “there are well developed systems of knowledge, or epistemologies, that stand in contrast to the dominant Euro-American epistemology.” Through its grounding in systems of knowledge that counter the dominant Eurocentric view, critical race theory offers a tool for, “dismantling prevailing notions of fairness, meritocracy, colorblindness and neutrality” (Parker, Deyhle and Vilenas, 1999).

Parker and Stovall (2004), believe that the key to addressing the “color-blindness” of critical pedagogy is to connect it to critical race theory. Where the colour-blind perspective results in assimilation, critical race theory calls for the full awareness and critique of the ideology of race and how the law has been used to marginalise indigenous and minority groups. They suggest that critical pedagogy should look to specific areas of race-based pedagogy. For example critical pedagogy should look to how well schools in low socio-economic areas, with majority students of colour, schools described by Scheurich (1998), as “culture-centric”, value their racial cultures and first languages, how well they focus on community rather than competitive individualism and how well they bring community into the school in a genuine partnership. Critical pedagogy and critical race theory, Parker and Stovall (p.178) observe, are not mutually exclusive. They converge in a contested space, with social justice at its centre, in an attempt to provide a place for excluded voices in education to be heard:

If we are honest with ourselves about the end of oppression, we must be willing to consider all approaches that do not contribute to the further oppression and marginalization of children on color. The space is not always a safe one, but it is necessary if we profess a commitment to the development of safe spaces for young people to recognize their importance to themselves and the world. (Parker & Stovall, 2004, p.178)

Gillborn (2006, p.20), writing from a British perspective, advocates for the adoption of CRT as a tool to revitalise critical anti-racism in a situation where:

Anti-racism risks being reduced to the level of the worst kind of ‘‘multiculturalism’’: that is, a slogan, evacuated of all critical content, ritually cited but leaving untouched the deep-rooted processes of racist oppression and exclusion that currently shape the education systems in many nation states. (p.27)

A significant difference that sets critical race theory apart is the concept of storytelling. Counter- storytelling is a powerful tool that allows those on the margins of society to tell their own stories and to analyse and challenge the stories of those in power. These powerful personal stories, family histories, biographies, testimonials, journals, diaries and narratives put a human face on the practice of racism in society and challenge the accepted status quo. Similarly Bishop (2003, p.226, 232) discusses ‘storying’ and ‘re-storying’ as a feature of the Māori concept of ako, or reciprocal learning, and of a narrative pedagogy based on the notion that people lead ‘storied lives.’ Bishop states that “Narrative pedagogy is an educational practice that draws together the experiences of the home and school in ways that culturally connect.” Storytelling allows students to bring their lived experiences into the classroom. Stovall (2005, p.96) summarises the tenets of CRT when he lists its ability to:

1. name and discuss the pervasive, daily reality of racism in US society which serves to disadvantage people of color,

2. to expose and deconstruct seemingly “color-blind” or “race-neutral” policies and practices which entrench the disparate treatment of non-White persons,

3. legitimize and promote the voices and narrative of people of color as sources of critique of the dominant social order which purposefully devalues them,

4. revisit civil rights law and liberalism to address their inability to dismantle and expunge discriminatory socio-political relationships,

5. change and improve challenges to race-neutral and multicultural movements in education which have made White students behavior the norm. (Ladson-Billings, 1998, p. 2)

In the classroom CRT puts race and racism at the centre of the debate and explicitly names the white spaces that disadvantage, oppress and exploit young people of colour and challenges hegemonic practices that have made these white spaces the norm in our education system. Similarly, kaupapa Māori theory critiques dominant, racist, and westernised hegemonies, and

advocates for self-determination for Māori. This indigenous perspective is echoed in Brayboy’s (2005, p.430) Tribal Critical Race Theory (TribalCrit) which extends the central CRT tenet that racism is a given in society to add the primary notion that colonisation is also endemic to society. Both CRT and kaupapa Māori theory are founded on principles of social justice, which makes these theories both relevant to the goals of Te Whānau o Tupuranga and Clover Park Middle School, the two schools in this case study.

Grande (2000b) however, also reminds us of an important difference in the space where critical theory and indigenous perspectives of identity meet when she writes from an American Indian perspective:

To be fair, I believe that both American Indian intellectuals and critical theorists share a similar vision - a time, place, and space free of the compulsions of Whitestream, global capitalism and the racism, sexism, classism, and xenophobia it engenders. But where critical scholars ground their vision in Western conceptions of democracy and justice that presume a "liberated" self, American Indian intellectuals ground their vision in conceptions of sovereignty that presume a sacred connection to place and land. Thus, to a large degree, the seemingly liberatory constructs of fluidity, mobility, and transgression are perceived not only as the language of critical subjectivity, but also as part of the fundamental lexicon of Western imperialism .(p.483)