In this week’s episode, we chat with Dr. Roberto L. Abreu about the intersections of Latinidad and LGTBQ+ identities at the university level and the implications that this has on research development. We also delve into how this type of scholarship supports burgeoning scholars. Finally, we learn about the work being done at the ¡Chévere! Lab.

Roberto L. Abreu, PhD, (he/him/él) is assistant professor of counseling psychology and the director of the Collective Healing and Empowering VoicEs through Research and Engagement (¡Chévere!) Lab in the Department of Psychology at the University of Florida (UF). He is also affiliate faculty in the Center for Gender, Sexualities and Women’s Studies Research and the Center for Latin American Studies at UF. Dr. Abreu’s research explores ways in which marginalized communities resist systemic oppression and promote bienestar colectivo (collective well-being), with a particular focus on Latinx communities, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people, and the intersection of Latinx and LGBTQ people and communities. Dr. Abreu’s work is guided by decolonial principles, social justice values, person–environment interactions, growth, and resistance.

Check out ¡Chevere! by visiting www.cheverelab.com

Follow Dr. Abreu on Twitter @RLuisAbreu

In this week’s episode we chat with Jose Luis Vilson about the state and future of NYC’s education with the new chancellor, David Banks at the helm of the largest school district in the country. We also discuss teacher shortages and what that means for the future of schooling. And finally, what grade does the Biden Administration get on his education agenda?

José Luis Vilson is a veteran educator, writer, speaker, and activist in New York City, NY. He is the author of This Is Not A Test: A New Narrative on Race, Class, and Education. He has spoken about education, math, and race for a number of organizations and publications, including the New York Times, The Guardian, TED, El Diario / La Prensa, and The Atlantic. He's a National Board Certified Teacher, a Math for America Master Teacher, and the executive director of EduColor, an organization dedicated to race and social justice issues in education. He is currently a doctoral student studying sociology and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. He is now on the board of directors for the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards and PowerMyLearning.

Follow José Luis Vilson on Twitter

Episode 3: Sistah’s Circle: Remembering bell hooks with Dr. Nakia Gray-Nicolas & Dr. Aisha Haynes

“Any woman who wishes to be an intellectual, to write non-fiction, to deal with theory, faces a lot of discrimination coming her way and perhaps even self-doubt because there aren’t that many who’ve gone before you. And I think that the most powerful tool we can have is to be clear about our intent. To know what it is we want to do rather than going into institutions thinking that the institution is going to frame for us".” - bell hooks

In this week’s episode of Race Through Education, we bring you a Sistah’s Circle of Black women scholars who discuss just what bell hooks meant to them - academically and personally. Co-host Fawziah speaks with fellow New York University scholars, Dr. Nakia Gray-Nicolas and Dr. Aisha Haynes about how the works of hooks have impacted their understanding of their existence as Black women in educational spaces.

Dr. Nakia Gray-Nicolas is an Assistant Professor at Queens college in educational leadership. She studies issues of equity and access through the K - Professoriate level and also examines equity and access for high school students as it relates to college transition programs and persistence to and through college. She also studies Black women in the professoriate and readiness for the tenure track-level and persistence to and through tenure and beyond.

She earned her doctorate in Educational Leadership at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education, Culture and Human Development. Her research focuses on college readiness, distributed leadership, and community engagement. She has over 10 years of combined experience in secondary teaching (7-12), college and graduate-level teaching, nonprofit management, higher education administration, and research. Gray-Nicolas holds a BA in English from Cornell University and two MSEd degrees (English Education and Inclusive Special Education) from the Syracuse University Graduate School of Education. An avid volunteer, she mentors high school and college students.

Follow her on Twitter

Dr. Aisha Haynes a director on the Prepared To Teach team. She co-develops and supports research, reports, and briefs that are written by and with local partnerships in our National Learning Network. Aisha most recently supported a college access program where she worked to strengthen academic enrichment activities to provide students with an effective academic bridge from high school to college. This work is an extension of her research, which focuses on the experience of historically excluded communities navigating public institutions. Her current research falls into several areas of focus, including neoliberal or market reform, school gentrification, school leadership, critical race theory, and interest convergence. She looks forward to extending that research to examining these phenomena in other public spaces. Aisha’s work ultimately aims to bridge the gap between academic research and the experience of practitioners. In addition to her professional work, she serves as the director of communications of C.O.O.L. Kids, a non-profit organization committed to cultivating the next generation to become socially conscious leaders.

Aisha earned her master’s degree in teaching at Fordham University and obtained her bachelor’s degree in English literature at Villanova University. She holds a doctorate in Educational Leadership and Policy from New York University.

Follow her on Twitter

Episode 2: Sistah’s Circle: Remembering bell hooks with Dr. Nakia Gray-Nicolas & Dr. Aisha Haynes

“Any woman who wishes to be an intellectual, to write non-fiction, to deal with theory, faces a lot of discrimination coming her way and perhaps even self-doubt because there aren’t that many who’ve gone before you. And I think that the most powerful tool we can have is to be clear about our intent. To know what it is we want to do rather than going into institutions thinking that the institution is going to frame for us".” - bell hooks

In this week’s episode of Race Through Education, we bring you a Sistah’s Circle of Black women scholars who discuss just what bell hooks meant to them - academically and personally. Co-host Fawziah speaks with fellow New York University scholars, Dr. Nakia Gray-Nicolas and Dr. Aisha Haynes about how the works of hooks have impacted their understanding of their existence as Black women in educational spaces.

Dr. Nakia Gray-Nicolas is an Assistant Professor at Queens college in educational leadership. She studies issues of equity and access through the K - Professoriate level and also examines equity and access for high school students as it relates to college transition programs and persistence to and through college. She also studies Black women in the professoriate and readiness for the tenure track-level and persistence to and through tenure and beyond.

She earned her doctorate in Educational Leadership at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education, Culture and Human Development. Her research focuses on college readiness, distributed leadership, and community engagement. She has over 10 years of combined experience in secondary teaching (7-12), college and graduate-level teaching, nonprofit management, higher education administration, and research. Gray-Nicolas holds a BA in English from Cornell University and two MSEd degrees (English Education and Inclusive Special Education) from the Syracuse University Graduate School of Education. An avid volunteer, she mentors high school and college students.

Follow her on Twitter

Dr. Aisha Haynes a director on the Prepared To Teach team. She co-develops and supports research, reports, and briefs that are written by and with local partnerships in our National Learning Network. Aisha most recently supported a college access program where she worked to strengthen academic enrichment activities to provide students with an effective academic bridge from high school to college. This work is an extension of her research, which focuses on the experience of historically excluded communities navigating public institutions. Her current research falls into several areas of focus, including neoliberal or market reform, school gentrification, school leadership, critical race theory, and interest convergence. She looks forward to extending that research to examining these phenomena in other public spaces. Aisha’s work ultimately aims to bridge the gap between academic research and the experience of practitioners. In addition to her professional work, she serves as the director of communications of C.O.O.L. Kids, a non-profit organization committed to cultivating the next generation to become socially conscious leaders.

Aisha earned her master’s degree in teaching at Fordham University and obtained her bachelor’s degree in English literature at Villanova University. She holds a doctorate in Educational Leadership and Policy from New York University.

Follow her on Twitter

Welcome back to season 2 of Race Through Education! We took some time off to work towards these degrees and get our minds right. But we are back with a brand new season and to kick things off we are talking Black education with Dr. Robert P. Robinson.

When you think about Black education in the United States do you go back to 1619 or does your mind bring you to 1954 and Brown v. Board of Education? Mainstream narratives surrounding Black education in America tend to ignore all of the contributions made by Black educators, parents, communities, and activists. In this week’s episode, Dr. Robinson discusses the Black Freedom Movement and what that means for Black education and schooling in the United States and we dive deeper into the history Black Panther Party’s Oakland Community Schools (OCS).

Robert P. Robinson is an Assistant Professor in the SEEK Program at John Jay College and an Induction Mentor at Teachers College, Columbia University. Prior to higher education, he was a K-12 educator and mentor for 11 years. His broad research and teaching focus on Black education history, history of U.S. education, curriculum studies, higher education mentorship, and the Black Freedom Movement. His upcoming new book project is a history of the Black Panther Party’s Oakland Community School (OCS) as a site for understanding Black self-determination, the shift in mainstream curriculum and pedagogy, and the Black radical imagination in education.

Find him on Twitter @RobertPRobinson

Welcome back to season 2 of Race Through Education! We took some time off to work towards these degrees and get our minds right. But we are back with a brand new season and to kick things off we are talking Black education with Dr. Robert P. Robinson.

When you think about Black education in the United States do you go back to 1619 or does your mind bring you to 1954 and Brown v. Board of Education? Mainstream narratives surrounding Black education in America tend to ignore all of the contributions made by Black educators, parents, communities, and activists. In this week’s episode, Dr. Robinson discusses the Black Freedom Movement and what that means for Black education and schooling in the United States and we dive deeper into the history Black Panther Party’s Oakland Community Schools (OCS).

Robert P. Robinson is an Assistant Professor in the SEEK Program at John Jay College and an Induction Mentor at Teachers College, Columbia University. Prior to higher education, he was a K-12 educator and mentor for 11 years. His broad research and teaching focus on Black education history, history of U.S. education, curriculum studies, higher education mentorship, and the Black Freedom Movement. His upcoming new book project is a history of the Black Panther Party’s Oakland Community School (OCS) as a site for understanding Black self-determination, the shift in mainstream curriculum and pedagogy, and the Black radical imagination in education.

Find him on Twitter @RobertPRobinson

In our last episode, this season we ask the question "Should Black parents have the right to opt-out their children from taking standardized assessments?" Though mostly defined as a white, suburban, and upper-income-led movement, Black parents are beginning to use the opt-out movement as one of the many ways to resist education reforms that prioritize standardized exams over student learning. Our co-host and EdD Leadership and Policy NYU Steinhardt candidate Fawziah Qadir is in the hot seat to talk about her research in standardized exams and Black resistance in the opt-out movement.

Fawziah Qadir is an EdD Leadership and Policy candidate at NYU Steinhardt. She is a Teacher's Assitant at both NYU and Barnard College.

Anderson, J. D. (1988). The education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935. Univ of North Carolina Press.

https://www.villagevoice.com/2016/03/28/low-income-parents-are-caught-between-the-growing-opt-out-movement-and-the-citys-attempts-to-clamp-down-on-dissent/

If you read or watch the news, you would easily believe that Black boys and men's educational trajectories are bleak and that they are impervious to success (Harper, 2012). While Black boys and men are one of the most marginalized groups in the U.S., the perception that they do not care about education is not true. In an effort to dispel these stereotypes and perceptions, we center the lived experience of an early-career Black male scholar and professor. Listen as we unpack what it means to be a Black man on campus, from Black identity formation as an undergrad student at a Historically Black University (HBCU) to completing advanced graduate degrees at a Predominately White Institution (PWIs), and everything else in between.

To discuss this journey, we are joined by Dr. Christopher Johnson. His dissertation, Negotiating Black Male Identity While Navigating Predominately White Institutions, explored Black male doctoral students' strategies and behaviors to manage their interracial interaction with their White faculty and peers at a Predominately White Institution (PWI). Dr. Johnson is an assistant professor at Coe College, where he teaches Sport and Black Culture, Interracial Communication, and interracial interactions. You can find him on Instagram @DeepAsEmptyPockets.

Resources

Harper, S. R., & Davis III, C. H. (2012). They (Don't) Care about Education: A Counternarrative on Black Male Students' Responses to Inequitable Schooling. Educational Foundations, 26, 103-120.

Johnson, C. O. (2016). Negotiating black male identity while navigating predominately white institutions (Doctoral dissertation, University of Georgia).

Homeschooling in the United States is generally perceived as a white, middle-class, religious-based schooling phenomenon (Fields-Smith, 2015). National estimates put the number of homeschooled students at 3% of the population, about two million students (Redford, Battle, and Bielick, 2017). Black parents are increasingly homeschooling and in the last 15 years, their numbers have doubled from 103,000 to about 220,000. Black parents’ reasons for electing to homeschool are increasingly related to issues of racism, segregated schools, and a lack of culturally relevant curriculum.

We are joined this week by Dr. Cheryl Fields Smith, associate professor at the University of Georgia, Mary Frances Early College of Education. A former elementary school teacher in Connecticut, her research interests include family engagement and homeschooling among Black families. Her dissertation explored family engagement from the perspective of 22 Black middle-class families. Later, she received a Spencer Foundation Grant to conduct a two-year study focused on homeschooling among 46 Black families. From this study, Dr. Fields-Smith has published several journal articles and chapters, which among them includes the first empirically-based publication to focus exclusively on Black homeschool families. Her research on homeschooling among Black families has most recently been featured in a PBS NewsHour report and the Atlantic.

Dr. Cheryl Field Smith recently published the book, Exploring Single Black Mothers’ Resistance Through Homeschooling, which expands on contemporary Black homeschooling as a form of resistance among single Black mothers. It corroborates many of the issues that plague the education of Black children in America, including discipline disproportionality, frequent referrals to special education services, teachers’ low expectations, and the marginalization of Black parents as partners in traditional schools. This book challenges stereotypical characterizations of who homeschools and why.

You can learn more about her organization called Black Family Homeschool Educators and Scholars (BFHES) on  Facebook and the website is http://www.blackfamilyhomeschool.org/. You can also find her on Twitter @drcherylfields.