EQUITY language for learners By Rusty Bresser, Kathy Melanese, and Christine Sphar STEFANIE TIMMERMANN/ISTOCKPHOTO.COM (2) Learn how to focus mathematical language on concepts to accommodate the needs of the 10 percent of U.S. students whose first language is not English. Copyright © 2009 The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Inc. www.nctm.org. All rights reserved. This material may not be copied or distributed electronically or in any other format without written permission from NCTM. E veryone uses language to learn mathematics. Paying close attention to the needs of students who are learning English as a second (or third) language is crucial so that we can modify lessons to accommodate those needs. The Equity Principle requires that we accommodate differences in our diverse student population to help everyone learn mathematics (NCTM 2000). About 10 percent of the nation’s public school students are English Language Learners (ELLs), and every year this percentage increases (NCELA 2007). Although language arts is probably the most challenging subject of their school day, mathematics is likely a struggle for these students as well. In fact, achievement data show that ELLs are not performing at the same levels in mathematics as their native English-speaking counterparts (NAEP 2007). Teaching ELLs Many educators share the misconception that because mathematics uses symbols, it is not associated with any language or culture and is ideal for facilitating the transition of recent immigrant students into English instruction www.nctm.org (Garrison 1997). On the contrary, language plays an important role in learning mathematics. We use language to explain mathematical concepts and carry out mathematical procedures. Students can deepen and cement their understanding of mathematics by using language to communicate and reflect on their ideas. When students converse about their mathematical thinking, such talk can help them improve their ability to reason logically (Chapin and Johnson 2000). Communication in mathematics has the potential to facilitate understanding, but the practice of discussing ideas in English may place children who are learning English as a second language at a distinct disadvantage, especially if they do not fully understand key vocabulary words, or if they have an incomplete understanding of syntax and grammar. The challenge of teaching mathematics to English language learners lies not only in making lessons comprehensible to students but also in ensuring that students have the language needed to understand instruction and express their grasp of mathematical concepts. ELLs have the dual task of learning the second language UFBDIJOH
DIJMESFO
NBUIFNBUJDT
t
October 2009 171 and the subject content simultaneously. For this reason, it is important to set both language and content objectives for ELLs. Just as language may not develop if we focus only on subject matter, content knowledge cannot grow if we focus only on learning the English language (Hill and Flynn 2006). Many teachers use supports such as manipulatives, visuals, and graphics to help students understand the content in their math lessons. These supports are important for building basic understanding of mathematical concepts but may not provide students with enough linguistic support for them to discuss their thinking, which would lead to deeper understanding of content. For example, if a student’s understanding of polygons is based on a two-column chart with drawings that distinguish polygons from shapes that are not polygons, once the chart is put away, the student may not have internalized enough of the lesson’s linguistic elements to be able to continue learning subsequent lessons on polygons. Having the language to talk about mathematical concepts is crucial to developing an understanding of those concepts (Bresser, Melanese, and Sphar 2008). The challenge for teachers is to focus on mathematical concepts and the academic language that is specific to mathematics. Teachers must be aware of the linguistic demands of their lessons and how they will address those demands explicitly during instruction so that ELLs can fully participate. During the lesson, will students be expected to do the following: s #OMPARE AND CONTRAST numbers, data sets, or geometric figures. s (YPOTHESIZE while playing a number guessing game. s $ESCRIBE the location of ordered pairs on a Cartesian coordinate plane. s 3UMMARIZE a strategy they used to solve a multiplication problem. Each of these activities requires students to use language to communicate their mathematical thinking. And if students are expected to use these language functions in math class while they are learning English as a second language, they will need well-designed extra support. 172
0DUPCFS

t
teaching children mathematics Modifying math lessons During the past four years, we have collaborated on designing lessons to help all students, especially ELLs, accomplish two goals: develop English proficiency and develop mathematical understanding. Using existing mathematics lessons intended for native English speakers, we combined our knowledge and experience of English language development and of mathematics to modify lessons in ways that help us explicitly structure experiences to benefit all students, especially ELLs. When we modified lessons, we used the following questions to guide our work: 1. What is the lesson’s mathematical goal, and what language goal will support students’ understanding of this goal? 2. How can we support students when they are required to talk about their mathematical thinking? 3. How can we accommodate students with different levels of English language proficiency? 4. Are there vocabulary words with which students are unfamiliar, and how can we explicitly teach these words? 5. In what ways can we build in opportunities for discussion? Determining the language goal We based the language goals that we identified on the content of the mathematics lessons. After determining what we would expect students to do in each lesson, we analyzed the lesson for the language they would need to fully participate. This included vocabulary and language that teachers would use during instruction, as well as language that students would need to use to let us know if they had met our mathematical goals. For example, if students are working toward the goal of determining equivalent fractions, they need language to describe the fractions they create as well as language to compare and contrast them with other fractions. If the mathematics goal is that students solve a word problem using an effective strategy that makes sense to them, then they must be able to express, orally or in writing, the sequence of steps that they used to solve the problem. If students are learning about classifying and categorizing geometric shapes, the lanwww.nctm.org TABLE 1 We used sentence frames for dice game predictions. Function Beginning Predicting The have Examples I will roll a six. will . Intermediate Advanced I predict that will . I predict that will because . I predict that I will roll a six. I predict that I will roll a six because I have rolled it more times than any other number. guage goal would be for students to describe the categories they chose for the shapes and to explain their reasoning. Each of these three mathematical goals— learning about fractions, solving word problems, and classifying and categorizing geometric shapes—has an accompanying logical language goal (or goals). In these instances, the respective language goals were to describe, compare and contrast, sequence, and categorize. With prompts such as the following from the teacher, native English-speaking children can perform these language functions to articulate their mathematical understanding: “Tell me what knowledge you have about fractions.” “Explain the steps you took to solve this word problem.” “Tell me what category this shape belongs to, and why.” ELLs may understand lesson content, but inexperience with the language can keep them from articulating what they know. Their struggles with the language of instruction can also lead them to partial or inaccurate understanding of the content. Until they verbalize their understanding, what they have or have not learned remains a mystery to the teacher and may even be unclear to students themselves. Choosing a language goal or language function that matches the mathematical content goal makes the learning more observable to all (Bresser et al. 2008). Once we determined the mathematical and language goals for a particular lesson, we designed sample ways that students could frame sentences to practice expressing their thinking about a mathematical concept with a partner, during small-group time, and during whole-class discussions. For example, after explicitly teaching key vocabulary terms such as predict, likely, unlikely, equally likely, and chance, we introduced sentence frames to help students make predictions (see 4ABLE ) on the basis of data that they collected during a dice game. If students are sequencing the steps that they would use to solve a subtraction problem, they might use this sentence frame: Supporting classroom math talk Such frames can be powerful tools in the hands of students learning the English language. When structured appropriately, the frames are flexible enough to be used in a variety of contexts. They allow students to use key vocabulary terms to put together complete thoughts that can be connected, confirmed, rejected, revised, and understood. Just because we provide opportunities for ELLs to talk about their mathematical ideas in English does not necessarily mean that they will have the language to do so. Students must understand a lesson’s academic vocabulary, and they must also be able to use that vocabulary in their conversations during the lesson. www.nctm.org First I , then I . First I said, Eight, then I counted back three to get five. If students are comparing and contrasting quadrilaterals, they might use this frame: A has and , but a has both have . . A square has two pairs of parallel sides, but a trapezoid has one pair of parallel sides. A square and a trapezoid both have four sides. UFBDIJOH
DIJMESFO
NBUIFNBUJDT
t
October 2009 173 Accommodating various proficiencies The classrooms in which we worked included native English speakers and learners at different levels of English language acquisition: beginning, intermediate, and advanced. When modifying math lessons, we differentiated instruction by taking these levels into account and creating frames that were increasingly more sophisticated. While helping fourth graders compare circle circumferences and diameters, we decided that beginning-level students could talk about circumference and diameter using this frame: The is . The is Or students might say the following: The diameter is three centimeters. The circumference is nine centimeters.” We wanted intermediate-level students to use comparative language, so we modified the frames for them: The is than . The circumference is longer than the diameter. . Or they could use this frame: The diameter is short. The circumference is long. Reflect and discuss: “Equity for language learners” Reflect on the following questions related to “Equity for language learners” by Rusty Bresser, Kathy Melanese, and Christine Sphar. The prompts are provided as a tool to aid you in reflecting independently on the article, discussing it with your colleagues, and considering how the authors’ ideas might benefir your own clasroom practice. 1. What role does language play in learning mathematics? 2. List some challenges that English Language Learners (ELLs) face during math instruction. 3. State important points to remember when modifying a math lesson for ELLs. 4. How can teachers differentiate math instruction for ELLs with varying levels of proficiency in English? 5. What are the benefits of using sentence frames to teach mathematics? With the following questions in mind, consider a math lesson you plan to teach: 1. What is the lesson’s mathematical goal? 2. Which vocabulary terms must students understand and use? How can key vocabulary be explicitly taught? 3. What will students be able to say if they meet the math goal? In other words, state the terminology that students will use during the lesson. 4. For what purpose will students use language (e.g., to describe, to categorize, to hypothesize, to sequence, to compare and contrast)? 5. What strategies will you use to help ELLs understand mathematical content and generate language? 6. How will you differentiate the lesson for students whose English language proficiency levels vary? 7. Are opportunities for discussion built into the lesson? Tell us how you used “Reflect and discuss” as part of your professional development. Submit letters to Teaching Children Mathematics at tcm@nctm.org. Include “readers exchange” in the subject line. Find more information at tcm.msubmit.net. 174
0DUPCFS

t
teaching children mathematics The is times than . The circumference is three times longer than the diameter. Advanced students and native English speakers need frames that help them make more complex statements: The of the is about/around/approximately . In addition to creating frames, we differentiated our questions to allow ELLs at all levels of English proficiency to respond and communicate their mathematical thinking. Students at beginning levels need simple prompts and questions that do not require lengthy explanations. We gave them opportunities to use physical rather than verbal responses: s 3HOW me the polygon. s 4OUCH the triangle. Questions with a yes or no answer are also appropriate for beginning ELLs: “Is forty-five greater than sixty-seven?” “Is the square a polygon?” To provide support, teachers can build in answers when asking short-answer questions: s 7HICH shape belongs to this group, the triangle or the square? s )S this the diameter or the circumference? s $O more people on our graph like vanilla ice cream or chocolate ice cream? www.nctm.org TABLE 2 Before students can use a sentence frame, they must learn key vocabulary terms that they can place in the frame to begin to talk about their learning. Function Describing Beginning A is/has . Examples A rhombus has four angles. Intermediate A is/has , and Advanced , A might have or but it will always have . . A square has four sides, four vertices, and no curves. Students with intermediate and advanced proficiency levels need less support to understand and respond to questions from the teacher, but carefully designed questions can elicit responses that reveal students’ mathematical thinking and allow for further development of academic English. For example, instead of asking an intermediate-level student, “What can you tell me about the graph?” you might phrase your question this way: “What do the most (or the fewest) people on the graph prefer?” This second question structure models an answer using academic discourse: “Most people prefer to swim. The fewest number of people prefer to ride bikes.” Compare this answer to the likely response to the first question: “A lot of people like to swim.” Students with advanced fluency can respond to even more open-ended questions and prompts such as, “Describe to me the steps you used to solve the problem and explain how you used them.” Teaching key vocabulary , A polygon might have three sides or six sides, but it will always have straight sides. Using sentence frames in primary grades In the primary grades, literate children are able to read different sentence frames and choose among them independently. Students with emergent literacy levels also make use of the frames, but in an auditory manner. As the teacher uses a frame, students hear how to structure their verbal responses. The teacher writes the frame or frames on the board to make sure she incorporates and models the vocabulary and syntax that will help students articulate their thinking. When the teacher introduces and models the frame aloud, it helps language learners to focus on the key vocabulary and learn how to structure some words around the key vocabulary in order to say something about the concept. This very careful and intentional use of speech by the teacher is what promotes oral language development, an important building block for literacy. For a lesson in which second graders had to sort and categorize objects by their attributes, Before students are asked to use a sentence frame, they learn key vocabulary terms that they can place in the frame to begin to talk about their learning. For instance, during a third-grade lesson on polygons, we explicitly taught key mathematical terms such as polygon, sides, vertex, vertices, open, closed, square, and triangle in the context of familiar objects in the classroom (see TABLE ). Then we introduced the sentence frames and had students practice describing familiar objects: “A calendar has four sides.” “A piece of paper has four sides, four vertices, and is a closed shape.” After practicing the vocabulary words and sentence frames in familiar contexts, students were ready to use academic language to learn about polygons. www.nctm.org UFBDIJOH
DIJMESFO
NBUIFNBUJDT
t
October 2009 175 s -EET the mathematical goal. s -EET the language goal. s 0ARTICIPATE more than you normally do in math lessons. s 2ESPOND as if our sentence frames were appropriate for the lesson (not as if we used too many or too few frames). we first introduced names of objects (e.g., blocks, metal washers, rubber bands, crayons) that we wanted students to sort. Then we brainstormed with the students to identify some attributes they might use to categorize the objects (see TABLE ). Whether designing sentence frames for primary- or intermediate-level students, we had to keep in mind our chosen language goal or function that supported the mathematical goal. We molded the frames to fit the grade level and the particular lesson, and we considered the number of blanks necessary for each frame. We also had to think about what tense we wanted students to articulate their thinking in: past, present, future, or conditional. After creating the frames, we practiced using them to see if they made sense. The most important idea that guided us when creating sentence frames was to keep them as open and flexible as possible to allow students to express their own mathematical thinking. Modeling the sentence frames for students and giving them time to practice the frames were keys to students’ success. Reflecting on lesson modifications TA BLE 3 After modifying and then teaching each math lesson, we took time to reflect on how successful the lesson was and what changes could make it more successful. We wanted ELLs in the class to do the following: 176
Guided by the idea that true reflection leads to action (Freire 1970), we used the questions as a way to assess the effectiveness of our teaching so that we could make specific changes that would benefit all students. Our goal was to level the playing field so that everyone had equal access to the mathematical content being taught. Modifying lessons—to make them comprehensible and to provide language support to help English learners think about new concepts, experiment with their knowledge, and solidify their understanding—is not easy. This is the type of work, however, that promotes equity and helps all students, especially English language learners, to fully participate in their learning community and fully benefit from our teaching. REFERENCES Bresser, Rusty, Kathy Melanese, and Christine Sphar. Supporting English Language Learners in Math Class, Grades K–2. Sausalito, CA: Math Solutions Publications, 2008. ———. Supporting English Language Learners in Math Class, Grades 3–5. Sausalito, CA: Math Solutions Publications, 2008. Chapin, Suzanne H., and Art Johnson. Math Matters: Understanding the Math You Teach. Sausalito, CA: Math Solutions Publications, 2000. Dutro, Susana, and Carrol Moran. “Rethinking Sentence frames can be used to identify some attributes and then sort objects. Function Beginning Intermediate/Advanced Categorizing Expect beginning ELLs to use singleword responses to describe how objects are sorted. These are ; these are These objects are These objects are . Examples Blue! Red! White! Not white! These are blue; these are red. These objects are straight. These objects are not straight. 0DUPCFS

t
teaching children mathematics . www.nctm.org English Language Instruction: An Architectural Approach.” In English Learners: Reaching the Highest Levels of English Literacy, edited by Gilbert G. García. Newark: International Reading Association, 2003. Farrell, Thomas S. C. Reflective Practices in Action: 80 Reflection Breaks for Busy Teachers. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, 2000. Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: The Seabury Press, 1970. Garrison, Leslie. “Making the NCTM’s Standards Work for Emergent English Speakers.” Teaching Children Mathematics 4 (November 1997): 132–38. Hill, Jane D., and Kathleen M. Flynn. Classroom Instruction That Works with English Language Learners. Alexandria, VA: Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2006. National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). 2007. http://nationsreportcard.gov/ math_2007/m0015.asp. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics www.nctm.org (NCTM). Principles and Standards for School Mathematics. Reston, VA: NCTM, 2000. National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition (NCELA). 2007. www.ncela.gwu. edu/policy/states/reports/statedata/2005LEP/ GrowingLEP_0506.pdf. Rusty Bresser, bbresser@ucsd.edu, lectures and supervises teacher education in the Education Studies Program of the University of California at San Diego. Kathy Melanese, kmelanese@ucsd.edu, is a Distinguished Bilingual Teacher in Residence in the Education Studies Program at the same university. Christine Sphar, ccsmith@ sdcoe.net, is a beginning teacher support administrator and consulting teacher in San Diego’s El Cajon Valley School District. UFBDIJOH
DIJMESFO
NBUIFNBUJDT
t
October 2009 177 656938 research-article2016 EDRXXX10.3102/0013189X16656938Educational ResearcherZirkel and Johnson Feature Articles Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: A Critical Examination of the Conceptualization of the Study of Black Racial Identity in Education Sabrina Zirkel1 and Tabora Johnson2 The role that racial identity plays in the well-being, educational achievement, and life outcomes of Black youth has received tremendous attention from the early post-slavery years right up until today, and remains a surprisingly contested area of study. We call for the examination of why images of Black racial identity as “damaged” and “dangerous” persist despite scores of studies that demonstrate otherwise. Despite a proliferation of theories suggesting a “damaged” Black psyche and suspicion about its value to Black youth, we find the history of research about Black racial identity reveals robust and consistent evidence that Black racial identity is linked to a broad range of positive outcomes from measures of well-being— including greater resilience, coping with discrimination, higher academic performance, greater commitment to education, and improved educational outcomes on a number of measures. Given this, we question why Black identity has been so controversial and why, 150 years after the end of legalized Black slavery, theories suggesting the “danger” of Black racial identity still hold so much power with both lay and professional audiences. Keywords: anti-Blackness; Black education; Black history; Black identity; critical theory; descriptive analysis; race T he role that racial identity plays in the well-being, educational achievement, and life outcomes of Black youth in the United States has received tremendous attention from the early post-slavery years through today. Nevertheless, it is a surprisingly contested area of study. The question of whether a strong, positive racial identity is both “possible” and “beneficial” for Black youth has long been an area of controversy and contestation within the social science literature. The educational literature is no stranger to these controversies, and, as we demonstrate below, questions about the meaning and implications of a strong, positive racial identity among Black youth have not been uniformly resolved by educational researchers and theorists. Our objective in this article is to surface questions about why Black identity has been so controversial through an exploration of the history of the meaning attached to Black identity in U.S. social science research from the early post-slavery years through the present. Why, 150 years after the end of slavery, do we still give so much credence to questions about whether Black identity is antithetical to education, personal well-being, and professional success? Our purpose in this article is to interrogate and critically analyze the outsize attention that debates about the value of a strong, positive Black identity have received in the United States, particularly regarding the relationship between Black identity and education. We argue that these debates reveal much about our perspectives and underlying beliefs—as both educators and social scientists—about Black youths’ well-being and educational achievement. Empirical research demonstrating that a strong, positive Black identity is positively associated with a stronger commitment to education and better educational outcomes measured in numerous ways is pervasive, consistent, and robust. Despite this, we still see a steady stream of widely read and discussed books and arguments suggesting the opposite: We see it in teachers’ suggestion that perhaps a strong, positive Black identity is “dangerous,” distracting Black youth and even their peers away from school and academic accomplishment (e.g., see S. J. Lee, 2005). We see this in research demonstrating that educators often 1 Santa Clara University & Mills College, Oakland, CA Medgar Evers College, CUNY, Brooklyn, NY 2 Educational Researcher, Vol. 45 No. 5, pp. 301­–311 DOI: 10.3102/0013189X16656938 © 2016 AERA. http://er.aera.net Downloaded from http://er.aera.net at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on September 20, 2016 June/July 2016   301 perceive Black youth to be unmotivated and uninterested in education regardless of how the students describe themselves (e.g., P. L. Carter, 2006; Pollack, 2013; Seglem & Garcia, 2015; Warikoo & Carter, 2009; Zirkel, 2016; Zirkel & Pollack, 2016). We see it in arguments suggesting that there is something fundamentally “wrong” with Black culture and ways of being (e.g., Payne, 1996/2005; see also Dumas, 2016b; Dumas & Nelson, 2016; McKenzie & Scheurich, 2003; Valencia, 1997, 2010, for critiques) and that a strong Black identity might lead students away from school for fear of “acting white”1 (e.g., Fordham, 1988; McWhorter, 2001, 2003, 2006; Ogbu, 1974, 1978). As educators and educational researchers ourselves, we ask why we, as a field, so often seem to theorize—sometimes explicitly, but often implicitly—that the road to Black educational and professional success is through the adoption of what are termed “white”2 cultural practices. In this way, we see ourselves coopted into equating “white” with “professional” or “studious” rather than expanding our conceptions of what is “Black.” Here, we build on the influential theorizing of Yosso (2005) in her critical examination of how we decide whose culture has value and Dumas’ (2016a; Dumas & ross, 2016) theorization of anti-Blackness in education. For example, we find educational research that explores whether Black youth are better off if they adopt “white” ways of dressing (Arroyo & Zigler, 1995; Ford, Grantham, & Whiting, 2008; Fordham, 2008; Ogbu, 1978), “white” attitudes and beliefs (Fordham, 2008; Fordham & Ogbu, 1986), have more white friends (Antonio, 2004), live in predominantly white neighborhoods (Ogbu, 1974; Wells & Crain, 1994), or study and adopt what are described as “white” orientations to education (Ford, Grantham, & Whiting, 2008; Fordham, 1988, 2008; Fordham & Ogbu, 1986; Ogbu, 1978). Some theorists, of course, have problematized these social constructions of Black identity (e.g., see Nasir, 2012; Nasir et al., 2009; O’Conner, et al., 2007; Warikoo & Carter, 2009). In this article, we ask why ideas purporting that a strong, positive Black identity is “dangerous” and likely to lead to negative outcomes for Black youth have such traction. In what ways are we—as educators, educational researchers, and theorists—complicit in the persistence of this argument? We wish to raise questions about our conceptual frameworks for understanding Black resistance and success, and also ask our field to reflect upon which empirical questions are investigated and which are not. How have anti-Black theories and assumptions about damage and deficits about Black youth, Black families, and Black culture informed our conceptual frameworks and the research questions we ask?3 Black Racial Identity A historic exploration of the meaning and implications of Black racial identity is, in many ways, the history of Black people in the United States. From the onset, antislavery, Black Nationalist, and later Black Power movements in the U.S. alike have all focused, in different ways, on the importance of the development of a Black identity (see, e.g., Austin, 2006; Nasir, 2012; Rael, 2002; Wintz, 1996). Black theorists with ideas as distinct as DuBois (2013/1903), B. T. Washington (1901), and Garvey (2004) all point to the development of a distinctive African or Black identity as a central task in the development of Black American success post-slavery. This focus on the development of identity occurs in large part because both slavery itself and proslavery rhetoric were so focused on depriving Black slaves of their humanity through the obliteration of personal identity (Gordon, 2003).4 Black racial identity theory increasingly presumes identities are complex, that they include understandings of one’s individual self as well as the social context of being Black (e.g., Cross, 1991; Helms, 1990; Marks et al., 2004; Nasir, 2012; Nasir, McLaughlin, & Jones, 2009; Sellers et al., 1997; Sellers, Smith, et al., 1998; Tatum, 1999, 2003, 2004), and that they are sociological constructions as much as psychological ones (O’Connor, 2001). Our working definition of a strong, positive Black racial identity is intentionally broad—our purpose here is not to debate different specific models of Black racial identity. Our conceptualization of a strong, positive Black racial identity rests on two foundations: (a) a strong and positive identification with being Black combined with (b) a racial consciousness of the historical, social, and cultural context of being Black in the United States, including a critical consciousness about race and racism.5 Is a Strong, Positive Black Identity Even Possible? Much of the theory and research on Black racial identity from the post-slavery period to the present can be described as asking the central question of identity: Given depth of anti-Blackness in U.S. history (see, e.g., Dumas, 2016a; Dumas & ross, 2016), is it possible for Black youth in the United States to have a strong, positive, personal and racial identity? Using DuBois’s terminology of “contempt and pity,” Scott’s (1997) comprehensive history of social policy debates regarding Black people from 1880 to 1996 emphasizes the prominent role that what he terms “damage imagery” has played throughout much of this history. From the political right, this “damage imagery” centered on images designed to elicit or provoke contempt for Black people, centering on deficit views of, for example, Black biology, genetics, culture, or family structures (e.g., Lewis, 1966; Moynihan, 1965; Payne, 1996/2005). In contrast, “damage imagery” emerging from the political left, or sometimes from within the Black community itself, was centered on eliciting something closer to pity. These theorists located the source of the “damage” they described to Black psyches as emerging from influences external to the Black community itself—in segregation, prejudice, stigma, and discrimination. Intended as an indictment of the treatment of Black people in the U.S., these theorists sought to elicit sympathy and guilt from white people and put forward their perspectives in an attempt to shape law and policy with regard to the regulation of the treatment of Black people. From DuBois’s (1903/2013) double-consciousness to the Clarks’ (Clark & Clark, 1950) doll studies, to the Supreme Court decisions in Brown (1954) and Grutter v. Bolinger (2003), the emphasis from the left has typically centered on the damage done to the psyches of Black people by stigma, discrimination, and segregation. Tuck (2009) pleads with us to “suspend” this damage research because of their destructive nature. Balancing an awareness of the real damage caused by white racism and white supremacy while simultaneously articulating 302   EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER Downloaded from http://er.aera.net at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on September 20, 2016 that Black racial identity may well be strong and healthy has presented a theoretical as well as a practical dilemma. The dilemma of those who argue for the positive nature of Black racial identity is to do so without obscuring the many destructive aspects of living with white racism. In order to address this, strengths-based narratives of Black identity generally center on one of three approaches: (a) a focus on the African origins of much that is culturally or linguistically Black, with particular attention to the positive implications of these cultural practices; (b) a focus on the important conceptual difference between how Black people see themselves and how others, especially white people, might see them, and emphasizing the importance of the former in identity development; and (c) models that focus on the creative and resilient ways that Black people resist and ameliorate the negative impact of prejudice and discrimination on Black identity. In the first approach, efforts are made to explore and uncover African culture and to use this growing understanding of African cultural roots to inform and reframe our understanding of Black cultural practices (Gay, 2010; C. D. Lee, 2007). In other words, “contemporary Black culture is continuous with its African origin” (Jones, 2003, p. 223). Such perspectives are explicitly anticomparative and insist that we understand Black culture on its own terms, not in comparison to white society (see, e.g., Akbar, 2007, 2008; Asante, 2003; Jones, 2003; Woodson, 1933). The second approach acknowledges that Black Americans live and must operate in a racist society in which prejudice and discrimination are ubiquitous and often institutionalized, but it highlights that the attitudes and actions of others need not be incorporated into one’s own personal identity. One can understand that one’s group is stigmatized and denigrated and still have a fully functioning, strong, positive, and healthy sense of one’s personal and racial identity because one does not internalize these attitudes. In this model, we see theorists who emphasize the need for educators and other adults to help Black youth see themselves as part of a community and culture that actively refutes negative experiences, attitudes, and images seen in schools and elsewhere (see, e.g., Cross, 1991; Robinson & Biran, 2006; Sellers, 2003; Tatum, 2004). The third approach also acknowledges the need for Black youth to cope with stigma, prejudice, and discrimination, but highlights the strengths that the Black community has developed to manage these issues (Ladson Billings, 2009; C. D. Lee, 2007). In other words, rather than speaking about the psychological damage caused by white racism, these theorists emphasize how these struggles have helped Black people develop strengths and resilience, as individuals and as a community, that are worthy of examination and admiration (D. Carter, 2008a; Chavous et al., 2008; Cross & Strauss, 1998; C. D. Lee, 2007; Oyserman, Harrison, & Bybee, 2001; Sanders, 1997; Tuck, 2009). Many theorists combine more than one aspect of these three approaches, but all seek a narrative frame that integrates Black self-determination and incorporates efforts to perceive and describe Black Americans’ experience in their own terms, rather than in comparison to white people’s experience. Despite social scientific and lay assumptions that Black people in the U.S. must not feel very good about themselves, empirical research consistently demonstrates that Black youth and adults typically report levels of self-esteem that match or exceed those of white people in the U.S. In Cross’s (1991) reanalysis of the 20th-century literature on the development of Black identity, he finds no evidence of low self-esteem or a negative Black racial identity. Indeed, he argues that research purporting to find “damaged” Black psyches was politically motivated by both the right (to demonstrate weakness or deficiency) or the left (to demonstrate the impact of segregation or other Jim Crow policies). For example, he notes that earlier interpretations of the Clarks’ doll studies were that white participants insisted on a racially matched doll because they were less racially “open” (i.e., more discriminatory) and that Black children picked dolls from a variety of racial groups because they were more open to interacting across races. In other words, picking dolls from a range of racial groups was seen as a strength, not a weakness. Later, as the political needs of the Civil Rights Movement required evidence of damage, these data were reinterpreted to mean that the Black children were choosing non-Black dolls because racism led them to hold a damaged racial identity. Cross’s (1991) careful analysis of research on Black racial identity throughout the 20th century reveals that Black people have always evidenced a strong and positive personal identity, even as they may have been very aware of negative social views towards their racial group. Sellers’s (Sellers et al., 1997, 1998) influential Multidimensional Model of Racial Identity builds on this analysis by separating the measurement and analysis of Black Americans’ personal view of their racial group from their understanding of public views of their group. In decades of research across dozens of studies, Sellers and his collaborators have found positive but very low correlations between Black people’s personal view of their racial group and their perception of the views of a broader public (
Purchase answer to see full attachment