Race: Concepts & Theories

1. Race: Concepts & Theories And how this all relates to your M.Ed. in TEFL/ESL

2. Allan Luke (2004):from “Two takes on the critical” QUOTE: What exactly is the compelling reason for second language educators to engage with the critical? Is it because the traditional student bodies of such programs have historically been objects of colonial and imperial power or diasporic subjects living at the economic margins of Western and Northern cultures and economies? Is it because the work of second language education, notably Teachers of English to Speakers of Others Languages (TESOL), itself once a mixture of missionary work and orientalism, is now a transnational service industry in the production of skilled human resources for economic globalization, as Alastair Pennycook (1994) has argued? Is it because the identity politics and dynamics of power and patriarchy with the TESOL classroom in so many countries typically entail social relations between teachers and students that reproduce larger social and economic relations between economically mainstream and marginal, cosmopolitan and diasporic, and white and colored subjects? Probably all of the above. TESOL is a pedagogical site and institution for educating the racial and linguistic Other (p.25).

3. “educating the racial and linguistic other” (Luke,2004, p.25) • Notice that Kubota & Lin begin their article with their own experiences as so-called ‘NNS’ working in the TESOL field • They build on these narratives to discuss the conceptual framework of this Special Issue of TESOL Quarterly • Their purpose in this introductory article is to define terms and concepts used in theorizing race

4. race • “not biologically determined” -- no foundation in biology (K&L, 2006, p.474) • “always in flux” (Ibid.) • “race is socially and historically constructed” (Ibid.) • See K & L quote from Miles (1987) about how “races . . . are imagined” in two senses

5. Can race still be used as an analytical category? • Problematic because tends towards essentialism • Perhaps can be used strategically • Besides, even though race has no biological basis, it is still used in common sense assumptions/stereotypes and has material consequences in people’s lives

6. ethnicity • “as elusive as race given the tremendous variability within a group and similarity among groups” (K & L, 2006, p.475) • Cannot be used to describe “innate or inherent attributes of human beings” -- not accurate (Ibid.) • As a social construct, it is more about “constructing differences” based on assumptions (Ibid).

7. culture • ‘culture’ is now used in the process of making some people ‘other’ or different, in the way race used to be • “the notion of cultural difference [is thought to be] a more benign and acceptable signifier than race” (K & L, 2006, p.476). • “used to differentiate, exclude, or privilege certain groups of people” (Ibid).

8. racialization • “processes by which ideas about race are constructed, come to be regarded as meaningful, and are acted upon” (K & L, 2006, p.477). • “produces and legitimates differences among social groups based on perceived biological characteristics” (Ibid). • “a dynamic and historically situated process” (Ibid.)

9. racialization ≠ racism • Racialization (or the construction of racial categories) by “a minority and subordinate group” is not racism; such a group may use essentialized categories for solidarity and resistance (K & L, 2006, p.477) • Racism implies power • “carries a legacy of colonialism … [excluding] certain racialized groups as the inferior Other” (Ibid).

10. Types of racism • Beyond the level of the individual (e.g. “I’m not racist …”) • “racism as a discourse permeates every corner of society and shapes social relations, practices, and institutional structures” (K & L , 2006, p.478). • Institutional or structural racism (e.g. hiring NS as teachers of English worldwide, as in Angel Lin’s opening story)

11. Epistemological racism • What ideas or ways of viewing the world are privileged? • Textbooks • Curriculum • What is considered scholarly • “hegemony of whiteness stemming from Western imperialism” (Willinsky, 1998 cited in K & L, 2006, p. 479)

12. Intersection of “other injustices” with race (K & L, 2006, p. 480) • Race interacts with sexism, classism, homophibia, linguicism, ageism, ableism, etc … all those ways of marking others • “racism produces assumptions about someone’s language proficiency” (Ibid) • Based on “the myth of the native speaker” an “essentialized dichotomy” develops • NS = SE = white vs. NNS = nonSE = non-white (p. 481)

13. Racializing the nonnative English speaker by Gail Shuck (2006) • Language ideologies: “networks of beliefs about language that position human subjects within a social order” (p.259). • the ideology of nativeness, e.g. a “division of the linguistic world” into NS/NNS – this way of seeing the world is based on over-simplified categories onto which social hierarchies are mapped (p.260)

14. racialization • Shuck interviewed first year undergraduate students in a U.S. university (both NS & NNS) • This paper uses data from NS; questions centered around language in schools • Shows how in their speech these NS constructed NNS as non-white and foreign • This was accomplished through “processes of marking and unmarking individuals and groups” (p.262).

15. Table modified from Shuck (2006, p.262)

16. Back to TESOL and race • Shuck (2006) shows racialization at work in U.S. college students’ speech • This supports some of Kubota & Lin’s arguments about how an “essentialized dichotomy” develops • NS = SE = white vs. NNS = nonSE = non-white (p. 481)

17. Critical race theory (CRT) 6 basic tenets by Delgado & Stephanic (2001): • Racism is deeply ingrained in everyday ordinary and cannot be fixed by color-blind policies of superficial equality • Because racism benefits “white elites (materially) and working-class people (psychically) … little incentive to eradicate it” (p.7) • “races are categories that society invents, manipulates, or retires when convenient” (Ibid)

18. 6 tenets of CRT, continued • Racial forms are in flux, depending on socioeconomic needs of dominant society • Antiessentialist understandings of racialized groups are vital • Counterstorytelling can expose and challenge hidden forms of racism, as those subordinated voice their experiences (K & L, 2006, p.482)

19. Critical white studies (CWS) • Whiteness: “an invisible and unmarked norm” (K & L, 2006, p.483) • CWS exposes how whiteness is constructed • Again, anti-essentializing is important – whiteness always intersects with other social constructs (class, race, gender, etc.)

20. Critiques of CRT and CWS • CRT tends to ignore class differences – poverty and material conditions • CWS can tend to re-center white people and whiteness again

21. Critical pedagogies • Critique ways knowledge is constructed • Critical consciousness can mean students are able to “identify and analyze hidden racialized and racist discourses” especially structural and institutional racism (K & L, 2006, p.485) • Can lead to anti-racist education

22. Critical multicultural education • Critique of “liberal approach to multiculturalism … celebrating superficial aspects of cultural difference (i.e. the heroes and holidays approach)” which evades white power and privilege (K & L, 2006, p. 485) • Critique of not acknowledging difference • Critique of romanticizing the ‘other’

23. TESOL needs to look at race issues • TESOL needs to “move beyond its color-blind vision” (K & L, 2006, p. 488). • Need to watch out for essentialism -- to avoid talking about social categories as if everyone in them is the same (e.g. “Chinese like …; in Korea, we …”) • Need to be aware of “our own racial and other privileges that are both relational and situated” (Ibid)