Emotional praxis is not a phrase usually associated with teaching and teacher education. Yet when race enters educational spaces, emotions frequently run high. In particular, Whites are often ill-equipped to handle emotions about race, either becoming debilitated by them or consistently evading them. Without critically understanding the relationship between race and emotions—or, simply, racialized emotions—teachers are unprepared to teach one of the most important topics in modern education. This chapter addresses this gap in education and teacher training by surveying the philosophical, sociological, and burgeoning literature on emotion in education to arrive at critical knowledge about the function and constitutive role it plays in discourses on race. Specifically, the argument delves into white racial emotions in light of the known fact that most teachers in the United States are White women. This means that our critical understanding of emotion during the teaching and learning interaction entails appreciation of both its racialized and gendered dimensions, and attention to both race and gender becomes part of emotional praxis. Finally, the essay ends with a proposal for an intersubjective race theory of emotion in education.

This paper examines how community-based civic action research can cultivate civic engagement, civic belonging, and shifts in civic stakeholders’ perceptions of racially and economically minoritized youth’s civic agency. Specifically, this paper examines the implementation of Youth, Research and Plan (YRP) – a community-based research methodology that cultivates equitable relationships between schools, cities, and communities by situating disenfranchised youth and their schools at the center of civic and urban planning – in a unique academic program focused on the development of Black manhood and achievement in a public high school. Using a Critical Race Theoretical application of Communities of Practice and drawing on qualitative data gathered over the course of two years, we show how YRP was instrumental in the development of three interrelated communities of practice that supported the youth’s academic endeavors and civic agency and yielded important shifts in civic stakeholders’ perceptions of and relations with Black urban youth.