Toward a Theory of Race, Change, and Antiracist Education

Abstract

This article is an effort to build on academic theories of race and antiracist education. Using a Gramscian theoretical framework that emphasizes perspectives from organic intellectuals, this article puts the academic literature on race and adult education in conversation with the theory generated on race from select U.S. working-class organic intellectuals and scholar activists. The principal argument of the article, drawn from the dialectical and materialist work of select organic intellectuals and scholar activists, is that race seen as a social construct captures the subjective aspect of race but does not capture the internal relationship of the subjective aspect with the objective aspect of race. All social constructs must be seen objectively and subjectively to consider the prospects for change and antiracist adult education in specific historical and geographical contexts.

Conceptualizing Anti-Racist Pedagogies Within Experimental Music's Community of Practice

“…Taken together, it then follows that the organization has conceptualized their (upcoming and ongoing) work within this DEI initiative as a process of reimagining their CoMP through the lens of anti-racist pedagogy. This study then contributes to the work being done within adult education research that focuses on reimagining adult teaching and learning practices through an anti-racist lens (Boyd, 2020;Brookfield, 2014;Holst, 2020) by instilling the framework of COPs developed by Wenger (1998) with antiracist practices and aims.…”

“…Yet despite the emphasis on power dynamics, Curnow (2022) argues that COP research has rarely examined the role of racialization, or the construction and reinscription of race as a systemic force through its application to certain bodies and populations (Ng et al, 1995), within the learning processes of these communities. Representing one approach to investigating the connection between race and learning, adult education researchers have routinely highlighted the value of analyzing anti-racist pedagogies in this work (Bohonos & Duff, 2020; Boyd, 2020; Brookfield, 2014; Holst, 2020). Briefly defined as “a paradigm located within Critical Theory utilized to explain and counteract the persistence and impact of racism using praxis as its focus” (Blakeney, 2005, p. 119), anti-racist pedagogy challenges broader racist formations and white supremacy in particular through educational processes.…”

A many‐splendored thing? Transformative learning for social justice

“…Responding to this, it is argued, requires sustained reflection on power and privilege as well as a dialogue across, and about, social, racial, and cultural hierarchies. In AEQ this is approached mainly in terms of making a case for integrating these insights into adult education theory (for example, Holst, 2020; Manglitz, 2003). In JTED there are also articles of this sort (Brookfield, 2003b) but in this journal, and at the ITLCs, the preeminent concern is with embedding these ideas in educational practice through reflection on pedagogy and curriculum and through teacher and faculty training (Miller Dyce & Owusu‐Ansah, 2016; Murray‐Johnson & Ross‐Gordon, 2018).…”

“…In a small field there is of course limited capacity to do research and engage with other areas of scholarship, but I think these gaps do help reveal widely shared ontological and epistemological assumptions which need to be carefully scrutinized. Across the dataset as whole, as with adult education research more widely, there is a tendency to foreground agency and possibility over structural constraint, and there is little detailed analysis of the interplay of structure and agency, although there are studies of this sort in the data set (for example, Bilon, 2021; Cooper, 2011; Holst, 2020). Many of the texts across all perspectives and clusters treat consciousness raising as the main precondition for acting for social justice.…”

“…Where perspective transformation is discussed in relation to the wider modalities and strategies of social change, significantly this is often linked to community‐based projects (for example, Bilon, 2021; Clover, 2006; Kastner & Motschilnig, 2022; Mayo, 2003) and/or research connected to popular education and social movements (for example, Ebert et al., 2003; Gouin, 2009; Holst, 2020; Kluttz & Walter, 2018; Maison, 2023). This point to the significance of space and settings in thinking about TLSJ; learning in movements and communities is not usually highly institutionalized and are spaces where the link between social and educational, personal, and larger scale changes are organically linked (Zibechi, 2012).…”