Teachers College Record The Voice of Scholarship in Education

Ewing, Eve L.; Khatri, Sanya M.; Irsheid, Sireen B.; Castleberry, Leah Y.

doi: 10.1177/01614681231153180pmid: N/A

Background/Context:Research suggests that sexual harassment and assault are distressingly common occurrences in middle school settings. However, prevention efforts have largely focused on secondary and post-secondary settings. While research-based initiatives to discuss consent could be effective, currently there is a dearth of literature on middle school students’ beliefs or attitudes on consent and sexual assault, which could inform such initiatives.Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study:Using the concept of “consent scripts,” this study asks: How do seventh- and eighth-grade students define, proscribe, understand, and operationalize consent as a concept?Research Design:We surveyed 177 middle school students about their ideas regarding consent and their analysis of scenarios of dubious consent, and conducted follow-up in-depth semi-structured interviews with 66 of the participants.Conclusions/Recommendations:We identify four consent scripts prevalent among middle school students 1) consent works differently within relationships; 2) seeking consent is a form of empathy; 3) acts of seeking or violating consent are informed by norms of masculinity; and 4) close friends will respect norms of consent. These findings can inform sexual assault prevention and intervention efforts in the middle school context.

Griffith, Jason J.; Sweet, Joseph D.

doi: 10.1177/01614681221150545pmid: N/A

Background/Context:Considering that the rise in popularity of podcasts as ubiquitous forms of entertainment mirrors a rise in the use of podcasts as curricular texts, this research explores the need for critical listening practices within and beyond the classroom. Specifically, we draw from our overlapping identities as podcast listeners, teacher-educators, and literacy researchers to trouble how descriptions of the informed consent process in podcast journalism contrast with those of qualitative ethnographic research, which is significant because of how well-produced narrative podcasts resemble ethnographic products, particularly in classroom contexts. We center Serial podcast because of its popularity and significance to the podcast genre, and how clearly the show describes instances for gathering journalistic consent.Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study:Thinking with and through critical media literacy, we address three research questions: (1) How can a discourse analysis of Serial inform critical listening practices in literacy education? (2) What can a discourse analysis of Serial teach us about informed consent? (3) What might an analysis of a podcast reveal about values and tensions in the fields of journalism and social science research? We hope that engaging with these questions might contribute to how we take up critical listening practices that critical media literacy calls for and, in turn, be informative for teacher-educators seeking to enact and encourage critical media pedagogy.Research Design:In this study, we utilize discourse analysis. We identified and transcribed six scenes from Serial, Season 3, and related media. We selected and organized this data, which Brinkmann referred to as “stumble data,” via an abductive method we dub “fortuitous listening and viewing.” We then analyzed the data via Gee’s discourse organization.Conclusions/Recommendations:Our findings indicate a tension between podcast journalism and ethnographic research, further delineated as a tension between fidelity to the story versus fidelity to the protection of participants. In some ways, podcast journalism well demonstrates the kind of positive difference-making that critical qualitative researchers aspire to. In other ways, podcast journalism could benefit from better protecting sources from harm in the way that university institutional review boards are designed to help protect participants. Furthermore, considering these tensions is a valuable site for critical analysis, particularly by student and teacher listeners in classroom contexts in which podcasts are being used as curricular texts. We invite fellow educators to join us in designing pedagogy that not only encourages and supports the inclusion of podcasts in the classroom, but also helps to foster a critical framework for engaging in the how and why of podcast journalism.

Seifert, Sophia; Porter, Lorna; Cordes, Sarah A.; Wohlstetter, Priscilla

doi: 10.1177/01614681221150546pmid: N/A

Background:In the United States, students’ experiences are shaped by racioethnic, socioeconomic, and linguistic segregation. School choice, and especially charter schools, generally exacerbate existing levels of school segregation. Counter to this trend, hundreds of intentionally diverse charter schools (IDCS), with a mission to promote school diversity, have opened across the country.Purpose:This study aims to clarify how IDCS operationalize their mission to serve diverse populations. To do so, we examine contextual factors that influence diversification efforts, the strategies that IDCS use to pursue diverse enrollments, and whether sample IDCS are more diverse than comparison schools.Research Design:This study uses a convergent mixed-methods design, in which qualitative and quantitative data were independently collected and analyzed, then merged for final analysis. The qualitative phase included thematic analyses of 101 interviews and 40 focus groups with IDCS staff and leaders to identify key contextual factors and practices that shape diversification efforts. For quantitative analyses, we used student and school-level administrative data from sample and comparison schools in New York, Colorado, and California. We explored researcher-created diversity outcomes for sample and comparison schools, including a racioethnic diversity index representing the probability that any two students chosen at random will be of a different race/ethnicity, and locally created diversity goals of having 40%–50% of enrolled students qualify for free/reduced price lunch (FRL) and no racial majority group among enrolled students.Conclusions/Recommendations:We found that local context, including race-neutral state policies and local housing patterns, created barriers to recruiting and enrolling diverse students. To overcome these barriers, IDCS staff developed data-driven recruitment and enrollment practices that were differentiated by the target group. Practices focused on increasing awareness of the school, building trust, and investing parents in the schools’ diversity mission. Enrollment data show that sample IDCS are more diverse than a set of comparison schools, with mixed results when analyzing diversity outcomes with locally defined goals. We conclude that, despite contextual barriers, choice schools have considerable agency in fostering school diversity.

Linares, Rebecca E.

doi: 10.1177/01614681221150551pmid: N/A

Context:Transnational emergent multilingual (TEM) adolescents are young people who maintain emotional, social, economic, and physical connections and networks to more than one country, often a home country and a host country. Because of their linguistic identities and varied schooling experiences, when they enroll in U.S. public schools, many are designated as English Learners and subsequently positioned as “illiterate” or having “limited” linguistic and literacy skills through additional labels such as “limited/interrupted formal schooling.” Such linguistic and cultural erasure mirrors the systematic invisibility and intra-racial stereotyping that many adolescents, particularly those from Indigenous backgrounds, faced in their home countries. However, despite such positionings, many TEMs are highly literate and engage regularly in complex literacy practices.Purpose:The purpose of this article is to showcase the kinds of literacy practices that one TEM adolescent, Paula, engaged in, how, and to what end, as well as how those literacy practices reflected unique aspects of her multifaceted identity as an Indigenous transnational being. The languaging and literacy practices that TEMs like Paula engage in allow them to maintain their cultural and linguistic identities and social ties in multimodal, local, and transnational dimensions; yet, such practices and skills are not recognized or built upon in schools. As findings of this study indicate, TEMs’ engagement in such practices is also made possible through the support of both local and transnational “sponsorships” from individuals, including family, with whom TEMs actively maintain or establish relationships; yet, this kind of familial engagement often goes unrecognized by schools.Research Design:This article draws on ethnographic data gathered through sustained participation in the field. Data collection occurred across one school year and consisted of ethnographic observations, interviews, and artifact collection at a combined middle/high school newcomer school in an urban community. This article draws on a subset of data centered on Paula’s out-of-school literacy practices. Data analysis drew directly on the theoretical framework: Literacy sponsorship theory was used to identify who, if anyone, facilitated Paula’s participation in literacy practices and in what ways; translanguaging theory was used to identify how translanguaging was evident in the ways language was used and discussed; and border theory was used to identify the social significance of the literacy practices in Paula’s daily life, as well as how they embodied and represented her transnational identity. Such an analysis allowed for the understanding of how the literacy practices Paula engaged in reflected her life experiences as an Indigenous TEM, not only in terms of how she engaged in them, but also in terms of the significance they held in her day-to-day life.Conclusions:Findings indicate that Paula engaged in multimodal literacy practices, across languages, cultural contexts, and national boundaries, that were personally, spiritually, and intellectually sustaining. Outside the classroom, Paula was positioned as a sophisticated communicator who leveraged language and literacy knowledge to build relationships and meet the responsibilities of her daily life. Yet, the wherewithal and critical thinking visible in Paula’s life in her community were rarely visible or elicited in the classroom. As such, findings provide insights around how teachers and school personnel can better bridge the diverse community and classroom spaces TEMs navigate, thereby making school a more welcoming space for students and their families.

James-Gallaway, ArCasia D.

doi: 10.1177/01614681221151191pmid: N/A

Background/Context:School segregation scholarship underlines that litigation challenging the segregation of Mexican American students in Texas schools stressed their legal racial identity as white. The other white race strategy, as scholars call it, granted Mexican Americans the right to access resources designated for the country’s dominant racial group. Put differently, a defining feature of this argument pivoted on Mexican Americans’ non-Blackness. An emerging body of more critical history scholarship has engaged almost exclusively the concept of whiteness to interpret this legal strategy. Few to no comparative analyses, however, examine Mexican American civil rights struggles outside this lens of whiteness, raising questions about Blackness’s relationship to Juan Crow and the other white race strategy.Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study:This historical essay examines analyses of Mexican American school segregation litigation in Texas to consider how these legal arguments affected Black Texans. Positioning these considerations in the history of education to address this historiographical silence, I emphasize four notable court cases from 1930 to 1970: the 1930 Salvatierra case, the 1948 Delgado case, the 1957 Hernandez case, and the 1970 Cisneros case. I highlight how accounts of Mexican American legal strategies against Texas school segregation implicate African Americans. This critique represents an effort to grapple meaningfully with the groundbreaking, extant scholarship on Mexican American education and suggest new vantage points and considerations that interrogate and challenge antiBlackness.Research Design:Conceptually, I couple antiBlackness with Toni Morrison’s literary metaphor of the Africanist presence to reveal that a writer’s choice to leave Blackness unarticulated does little to invalidate its existence or significance. This historical essay engages particular elements of historiography, framing that affords greater latitude for innovation than the parameters of historiography in and of itself. The chronological organization I use demonstrates links between specific cases and the legal strategy underpinning them in a way that the thematic organization expected of a historiography would obscure. Although much of the scholarship I examine is situated within the history of education, I use wider, interdisciplinary perspectives and other forms of evidence for deeper insight, support, and analysis. Specifically, I integrate primary source evidence alongside germane perspectives from other fields, including legal studies, human geography, Black studies, educational policy, and literary studies.Conclusions/Recommendations:I argue that this historiography has understated the antiBlack implications of the other white race strategy’s racial dimension, that is, the specific ways this litigation tactic excused and perpetuated African American segregation. I demonstrate that a conceptualization of school de/segregation in Texas history is more illuminating from a Black/non-Black perspective than from a white/non-white one. This emphasis clarifies how white supremacy has historically worked in tandem with antiBlackness to shape social, cultural, and political behavior and outcomes in education, even for non-Black peoples of Color. This analysis (1) clarifies the central role race and racial identity have historically played in U.S. history, (2) illustrates the possessive investment in whiteness as a valuable form of property that has historically determined access to key resources in this country, and (3) reveals the primacy of antiBlackness that has historically undergirded claims refuting discriminatory treatment experienced by non-Black peoples of Color. This examination represents a clarion call for scholars interested in justice and equity to admit, interrogate, and contest any adherence, witting or unwitting, to antiBlackness.