Racial Tokenism in the School Workplace: An Exploratory Study of Black Teachers in Overwhelmingly White Schools

Kelly, Hilton

doi:10.1080/00131940701325712

Cited by 60 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 19 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Sameer the devoted Christian/non‐terrorist/ex‐Muslim accepts stereotypes of Muslims (“If I saw a guy who looked like me, I would arrest me too”) and also critiques them in small ways (“Truth is, religious people do some crazy stuff”). Although he is the founding pastor of the church—already commissioned, already sanctioned, and already approved by the white majority—Sameer is caught in the paradox of the token, constrained by the very assumptions of the people who use his presence in their community to feel good about being “nice” nonracist people, while remaining the undeniable racial “other” (Jackson, Thoits, and Taylor ; Kelly ). In the end, his self‐presentation strategically transmutes his identity from a stigmatized and disdained minority to a legitimated and envied spiritual authority in a manner that works within the structural possibilities of seeker‐oriented, “new paradigm” evangelicalism.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“I Was a Muslim, But Now I Am a Christian”: Preaching, Legitimation, and Identity Management in a Southern Evangelical Church

Martí

2016

Scientific Study of Religion

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Established in 2005, "Life" is a suburban, nondenominational, evangelical church in Charlotte, North Carolina, with an almost entirely white membership, yet the lead pastor is an immigrant from the Middle East. As an ex-Muslim ethnic Pakistani who was born and raised in Kuwait, Pastor Sameer Khalid does not "fit" into southern culture, and he did not convert to Christianity until he was enrolled in college in the United States. Ethnographic data from 14 months of fieldwork reveal how Pastor Sameer uses weekly sermons to negotiate racialized stigmas, emphasize his common religious identity with the congregation, and make his immigrant background a distinctive religious resource for the church. More specifically, while all pastors require legitimation of their charismatic authority, this research focuses on the dynamics of performance through preaching within the Sunday morning services of this congregation, a performance that negotiates this lead pastor's ethnic and religious identities and accentuates his strategic use of institutionalized evangelical narratives to subvert Islamophobic threats and buttress legitimation of his pastoral identity.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“I Was a Muslim, But Now I Am a Christian”: Preaching, Legitimation, and Identity Management in a Southern Evangelical Church

Martí

2016

Scientific Study of Religion

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Despite collective assumptions made by much of the literature, Preservice Teachers of Color do not automatically enter the teacher preparation pipeline with a set of innate culturally responsive skills at their disposal [5,70]. This "essentializing" the diversity among Teachers of Color into one homogenous group is an effect of white supremacy and hegemonic forces [20] (p. 337), which contributes to the problem of stereotype threat and a reifying of tokenism [71]. It can also compound the problem of Preservice Teachers of Color feeling isolated and like an outsider if their positionality does not align with teacher educator assumptions [72].…”

Section: Experiences Of Preservice Teachers Of Color In Teacher Educamentioning

confidence: 99%

Reflections of Preservice Teachers of Color: Implications for the Teacher Demographic Diversity Gap

Plachowski

2019

Education Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The reproduction of white supremacist culture in schools continues to marginalize Students of Color in a variety of implicit and explicit ways. A diverse teacher workforce not only helps to disrupt the direct effects of racism on Students of Color, but also prepares all students for successful democratic participation in a diverse global society. This article uses a portion of qualitative interview data from undergraduate Preservice Teachers of Color from a dissertation study completed within a College of Education at a minority-serving public university in the southwestern United States. This study adds to the literature on the complex issues that have resulted in our nation’s teacher demographic diversity gap. The findings from these data reveal meaningful teacher–student encounters that eight successful Preservice Teachers of Color have experienced during their K12 education and how these experiences affected their drive to become a teacher. The findings confirm that resolving the teacher diversity gap is more than a simple recruitment problem. Practitioners, scholars, and policy-makers must attend to the climate and culture of schools, in particular the racialized experiences of Students of Color, if we hope to begin to address the complexity of this issue. All names and places are pseudonyms. Participants chose their pseudonym, and their identifying categories listed are directly from how they identified themselves during the interviews.

show abstract

“…One effect of tokenism highlighted in the case is role entrapment (Kanter, 1993; Kelly, 2007). Zardari’s job is increasingly defined around his identity as a South Asian American.…”

Section: Teaching Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Counselor’s Tale: The Need for Cultural Awareness

Cotman

Enyioha

Guerra

et al. 2019

Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Culturally responsive (CR) leadership permeates all leadership practices and consists of several domains including: developing critical consciousness, supporting cultural knowledge development, and advocating for social justice within and outside of the school walls. This case focuses on the need to ground CR leadership in critical self-reflection and cultural consciousness by exploring the relationship between a White principal and his first leadership team member of Color who brings a different, bicultural perspective to his work. Assumptions that fill the void left by a lack of cultural knowledge lead to damaging effects including tokenism and stereotype threat.

show abstract

Racial Tokenism in the School Workplace: An Exploratory Study of Black Teachers in Overwhelmingly White Schools

Cited by 60 publications

References 19 publications

“I Was a Muslim, But Now I Am a Christian”: Preaching, Legitimation, and Identity Management in a Southern Evangelical Church

“I Was a Muslim, But Now I Am a Christian”: Preaching, Legitimation, and Identity Management in a Southern Evangelical Church

Reflections of Preservice Teachers of Color: Implications for the Teacher Demographic Diversity Gap

A Counselor’s Tale: The Need for Cultural Awareness

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About