Content area
Teljes szöveg
Introduction
The sad and simple fact is that while there are some excellent black students.. on average, black students do not try as hard as other students. The reason they do not try as hard is not because they are inherently lazy, nor is it because they are stupid... these students belong to a culture infected with an Anti-intellectual strain, which subtly but decisively teaches them from birth not to embrace school-work too whole heartedly.
_p. E3, George, 2000, quoting John McWhorter
...it is time to `get real' about race and the persistence of racism in America. -Derrick Bell, Faces at the Bottom of the Well, 1992, p. 5
The two epigraphs above exemplify two distinct methods of addressing teacher education in the United States today. While John McWhorter explains the status of African American students in stereotypical, deficit terms, Derrick Bell offers a reminder of the lingering significance of racism and our inability to eliminate it from U.S. society. In this essay, we examine the linkages between a theoretical frameworkcritical race theory (CRT)-and its relation and application to the concepts of race, racism, and racial stereotyping in teacher education.
Critical Race Theory
Critical race theory (CRT) challenges the dominant discourse on race and racism as it relates to education by examining how educational theory and practice are used to subordinate certain racial and ethnic groups (Bell, 1995; Calmore, 1992; Crenshaw, Gotanda, Peller, & Thomas, 1995; Delgado, 1995a&b, 1996; Harris, 1994; Matsuda, Lawrence, Delgado, & Crenshaw, 1993).1 A CRT of education has at least five themes that form its basic perspectives, research methods, and pedagogy:
1. The Centrality and Intersectionality of Race and Racism: A CRT of education recognizes the central role racism has played in the structuring of schools and schooling practices, and that racism intersects with other forms of subordination including sexism and classism. In this, a CRT acknowledges how notions of objectivity, neutrality, and meritocracy, as well as curricular practices, such as tracking, teacher expectations, and intelligence testing, have historically been used to subordinate students of color.2 Critical race theorists also take the position that racism has at least four dimensions: (1) it has micro and macro components; (2) it takes on institutional and individual forms; (3) it has conscious and unconscious...