Pedagogy of Respect: The Inter-Generational Influence of Black Women

There is a large corpus of literature that not only speaks to the nature and qualities of Black women teachers, but that further disrupts the way these educators have been historically located at the margins of \u27education,\u27 by highlighting their political and culturally relevant/responsive approaches (Ladson- Billings, 1992/1994/2000; Gay, 2000; Beauboeuf-Lafontant, 1997/1999/2002; Irvine, 1989/1990/2003; Irvine & Hill, 1990; Collins, 2000; Siddle Walker, 1996/2005; Dixson, 2002/2005; Dingus, 2003, among others). This work, that looks at the larger political movement of Black women teachers, comes at a time when researchers are beginning to better blur the traditional boundaries that defined ‘center’ and ‘margin’ for educators. In this piece Fasching-Varner presents vignettes that describe the pedagogy of Black female teachers whom educated him, showing how they each have embodied various aspects of Respect as has been (re)defined by Lawrence-Lightfoot (2000/2001), and how that pedagogy informed his own work with students, particularly African American and Latino/a students

Race, Residential Segregation, and the Death of Democracy: Education and Myth of Postracialism

Since the 1930s, federal housing policies and individual practices increased the spatial separation of whites and blacks. Practices such as redlining, restrictive covenants, and discrimination in the rental and sale of housing not only led to residential segregation by race but also continue to shape Whiteness and frame narratives about what constitutes Blackness. Despite the judicial and legislative victories of the civil rights movement, including the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas decision, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, residential segregation persists and in many cases has grown. Claims of a postracial society notwithstanding, the continued segregation of Blacks and Whites exacerbates racial wealth inequality, racial achievement gaps, and racial profiling. Using White racial frame and critical race theory, we explain the persistence of residential segregation amid growing ethnic diversity in the United States. We also demonstrate why current efforts to narrow racial gaps in wealth, education, and the criminal justice system have failed. Finally, we discuss several important tenets that must guide efforts to curb the epidemic of death by residential segregation in America

Moving Beyond Seeing with Our Eyes Wide Shut. A Response to “There Is No Culturally Responsive Teaching Spoken Here”

A struggle exists to engage in culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) that authentically represents the voices and interests of all across the K–20 spectrum, from higher education institutions, to teacher preparation programs, and into U.S. classrooms. This article responds to Hayes and Juárez\u27s piece “There Is No Culturally Responsive Teaching Spoken Here” by extending the conversation with the suggestion that one of the major problems in speaking CRP has to do with a disconnect between articulated commitments and actual practices. This response article takes a critical look at the landscape in which educators work to reveal the nature of overrepresentation of privileged identity markers in teacher composition that do not match with student demographics. The response also examines how misunderstandings about CRP\u27s theoretical and empirical frameworks, along with resistance, permeate individual teachers’ discourses and evidence how higher education institutions, teacher preparation programs, and teacher professional-development programs operate. The response ends with suggestions as to the identity work that is necessary if we are to hope for educators across settings to see and speak a CRP