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theses

Race continues to be an important factor in youth identity and a stratifying element within school environments. Race influences relationships among students and staff, the construction and implementation of curriculum, and broader school policy; these aspects of school life intersect to inform racial identity in youth. This dissertation examines the varied and complex ways that students and teachers think about race and act out racial identity as they study multicultural literature in suburban high school classrooms. During the spring semester of 2012 I acted as participant observer in 10th and 11th grade literature classes at Excellence Academy (EA), a suburban, racially mixed charter school. Students and teachers at EA spoke of the school’s friendly environment, and especially mentioned the prevalence of long term, close cross-racial friendships among students. Using critical race theory as my theoretical framework and students’ responses to multicultural literature as my focal point, I argue that in this friendly environment race affected the daily experiences of students and teachers in important but largely unexamined ways. Students and staff constructed and maintained racially informed boundaries that perpetuated power structures among them. Some African American and white students expressed anger, frustration, and resentment at perceived marginalization, while white teachers were anxious about possible student accusations of racism; however, these feelings usually remained beneath the surface of the school’s friendly setting. Students’ cross-racial friendships allowed the space for some white students to engage in insensitively expressed discourses that denied the salience of racism in a present day context. Other white and African American students listened in silence, not wanting to contradict their more vocal white friends or make them feel “blamed” for racism. Therefore, the school’s friendly environment did not promote (and may have hindered) deep and productive conversations about race and racial inequity. I recommend ways that schools can facilitate broader understandings among students of how race continues to affect their lives in educational settings.

ETD_5179

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

Includes vita

by Marianne Modica

doi:10.7282/T3NG4NQM

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.