“Free License to Communicate”: Licensing Black Language against White Supremacist Language Assessments in a PreK Classroom.
The policing of Black Language is inextricably tied to the policing of Black people and is entrenched in a long history of white Western European colonization. The legacies of white supremacy pervade schooling in its earliest years, yet Black teachers have consistently mounted a counterforce in batt...
| Publicado en: | Research in the Teaching of English Vol. 57; no. 2; pp. 133 - 156 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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National Council of Teachers of English
Nov2022
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=160513676&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 160513676 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 0034527X RTE jtl: Research in the Teaching of English issn: 0034527X maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Nov2022 vid: 57 iid: 2 pid: 286 pub: National Council of Teachers of English artinfo: ui: 160513676 10.58680/rte202232152 ppf: 133 ppct: 23 formats: tig: atl: “Free License to Communicate”: Licensing Black Language against White Supremacist Language Assessments in a PreK Classroom. aug: au: Lee, Alice Y. affil: University of California, Riverside. su: Language ability testing Classrooms White supremacy Black people Black students Observation (Educational method) Colonization sug: subj: Language ability testing Classrooms White supremacy Black people Black students Observation (Educational method) Colonization ab: The policing of Black Language is inextricably tied to the policing of Black people and is entrenched in a long history of white Western European colonization. The legacies of white supremacy pervade schooling in its earliest years, yet Black teachers have consistently mounted a counterforce in battling white hegemony. In this article, I feature one such teacher, Raniya, who licensed Black Language in her preK classroom. Based on three months of classroom observations and interviews, this ethnographic case study explores the institutional architecture that affords white supremacist language assessments, particularly through an epistemology of language as an abstracted entity and through its process of curricularization. A raciolinguistic perspective illuminated how the white teachers at Raniya’s school insisted on broadly dehumanizing students of color through a schoolwide policy based on white monolingual standards. Drawing on Kynard’s (2013) notion of “vernacular insurrections,” I juxtapose white teachers’ raciolinguistic ideologies with Raniya’s practices. She claimed her classroom as a critical vernacular site through her approach of student language as a practice, and by subverting the normalcy of white hegemony within the schoolwide assessment process. This article calls for a shift in thinking about skills-based, decontextualized approaches as inherently white supremacist, and excavates how such a language approach supports white supremacy to thrive. I discuss the significance of centering the fight against white supremacy in our analysis of literary practices, which elucidates the potency of even small amounts of white dominance in institutional mechanisms as detrimental for Black students. As a field, the stagnation of Black student equity and commitment to white hegemony by white educators and administrators across preK through higher education persists. Though some white educators diverge from hegemonic practices, we must consider who benefits and what is sustained when exceptions are used to overlook and not interrogate the norm. This work contributes to the mounting rationales for racial diversification in the teacher workforce. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y dt: @attributes: year: 2022 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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