No abstract

This study examines how African American adult female students respond to a culturally relevant curriculum. Research confirms that adults enter college classrooms with a variety of experiences that they value and experiences to which they wish to connect. Black female students in particular possess knowledge unique to their positionality in American society, and they want to apply this knowledge to what they are learning. A curriculum that speaks to their personal experiences and ways of knowing can be a bridge to connect what they want and need to learn. Three themes emerged from this study involving Black women and culturally relevant curriculum: language validation, the fostering of positive self and group identity, and self-affirmation or affirmation of goals. The study's findings reveal that the approach of integrating students' experiences as an explicit part of the learning agenda encourages them to participate to the fullest extent in their own education.

In the majority of public schools across the nation, Black male youth are undergoing what can be deemed as "educational genocide"the killing off of any chances for an equitable education. This dramatically decreases opportunities for Black male youth to develop into fully participating citizens in a democratic society. In many ways, race is the silent killer because it is frequently masked. Preservice teachers often take their cue for how to treat Black male students from existing stereotypes about Black males and media representations of them. In this article, we argue for the development of racial literacy in preservice teacher education programs as a pedagogical method to mitigate the misreading of Black male students in teacher candidates' fieldwork experiences and subsequently in their future classrooms. Our argument operates from the premise that in a time when diversity, multiculturalism, and inclusion are more widely recognized than ever before, the notion of race, and popular education films that depict race, still influence how teacher candidates view Black male students, and race remains a predictor for how these students experience school.

No abstract

In this article, the authors discuss the potential for emancipatory pedagogies, which include practices like the use of digital tools and popular culture, to undo deficit constructions of Black and Latino males and their literacy practices. They discuss why such practices are not more readily available and visible in traditional urban school settings but how their use of digital tools and popular culture with urban Black and Latino males happens in “alternative” settings and outside official school contexts. The authors challenge the criminalization and policing of digital and popular literacies among Black and Latino males in urban school settings and reflect on the ways that they have witnessed emancipation and empowerment when these male students were not only allowed but “free” to engage in such practices.