Browsing by Subject "Social justice"

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Addressing the "Elephant" in the room: exploring race and social justice in the early childhood years
(2016-08) Holmes, Kathlene Alysia; Brown, Anthony L. (Associate professor); Brown, Keffrelyn D.; Salinas, Cinthia; Adair, Jennifer K; Price-Dennis, Detra
This critical case study examined young elementary students’ understandings of race as they participated in an interdisciplinary Social Studies and English Language Arts unit in two kindergarten classrooms and one first grade classroom in two urban regions of the United States. The study utilized the principles of Critical Race Theory, Social Education, and Social Justice to analyze the young elementary-aged students’ thought-processes on race. By implementing an interdisciplinary unit on counter-narrative stories about the past and present experiences of communities of color, the students were also able to examine the impact of race through multiple perspectives. There were distinct differences in classroom teachers’ years of experience, their comfort level in addressing contentious topics such as race and racism, as well as their approaches to deconstructing complex information to their young students. This study also included an in-depth review of the teachers’ thoughts on race and their rationale for teaching their students about it. While the curriculum, lessons, and materials presented in each of the classrooms were slightly different, the common theme of developing a strong sense of community emerged in all three classrooms. Each teacher discussed that, as a result of presenting the students with lessons focused on all different communities of color and their historical fight for equity, a stronger bond formed in their kindergarten or first grade classroom. Considering the curriculum, lessons, and materials all addressed how race and racism impacts different communities, this study presents the conversations that could occur when teachers begin to hold explicit conversations about race with young elementary-aged children.
Biking equity : the unresolved puzzle piece in San Francisco’s biking renaissance
(2019-06-21) Sahu, Disha; Zhang, Ming, 1963 April 22-
The surging bicycling rates in U.S. cities and the growing interest to improve avenues of active transportation substantiates the growing presence of the American biking renaissance. San Francisco’s sizeable share of bike-related improvements in the planning pipeline along with its third highest bike mode share amongst U.S. cities affirms that the city is in its most bike-conducive planning phase of history. As cities continue to invest their public dollars towards “Let’s Make Our Cities Bikeable” vision, growing number of planning studies are beginning to show that bike shares and biking infrastructure are inequitably distributed throughout the cities and in a manner that low-income households or communities of color do not use them as often or as comfortably (Smith, 2015) and San Francisco’s case is no different. With numerous Federal and State level grants being used to develop and expand the biking infrastructure in U.S. cities, communities are beginning to realize that biking can be a means to social justice. Additionally, for a high cost of living and housing price area like San Francisco, the low-income communities might benefit the most from the positive externalities accrued from improved access to the biking infrastructure. These benefits include but are not limited to - improved household transportation savings, lower fuel consumption, lowered health risks related to cardiovascular diseases and improved carbon footprint. The intent of this study is to inquire whether San Francisco’s existing biking infrastructure (including bike share programs) are absent or less accessible in communities of lower socioeconomic status. And if yes, how is this persisting inequity being influenced by the upcoming bikeway improvement projects and bike share programs. The study finds that bikers in San Francisco tend to be young, white, males with lower-to-middle income background. The study ran Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) between perceived bike accessibility index and socioeconomic indicators to observe that the low-income neighborhoods in San Francisco have an inequitable access to biking infrastructure. Households in low-income neighborhoods of San Francisco with high dependency rates, low educational levels and with no access to health insurance show low bike accessibility. The study elicits that although the city’s long-term bike and ped planning projects are geared towards addressing this persisting inequity, a closer look at bikeway improvement projects implementation since 2012 hasn’t mended the equity gap. Improving access to safe and convenient biking infrastructure through physical planning and design is a traditional model of addressing inequitable distribution of civic amenities. The study gathers evidence from other U.S. cities in promoting equitable bike share lessons. It postulates that San Francisco with its bike sharing expansion stands at an opportune moment, where appropriate sequencing of bike infrastructure expansion, bike share station siting in low-income communities, active bike sharing advocacy, discounted membership for low-income households, improved bike share and transit integration, and predicted surge in ridership in the newly expanded residential neighborhoods might bridge the equity gap that traditional modes of bike infrastructure improvements have not been able to accomplish
Conversation with an Apple : play development as movement-building against mass incarceration
(2015-05) Goodnow, Natalie Marlena; Gutierrez, Laura G., 1968-; Alrutz, Megan; Jones, Omi Osun Joni L.
This reflective practitioner research project explores if and how viewing and responding to drafts of my original solo play in development, "Conversation with an Apple," contributes to efforts to build a movement against mass incarceration, with a particular focus on dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline. I draw upon Michelle Alexander's theorization of mass incarceration in the United States, social movement theory elaborated and archived by contemporary activists, and theories in performance and affect studies to contextualize my investigation. I describe how I utilized Liz Lerman's Critical Response Process to elicit audience responses to staged readings of "Conversation with an Apple," and also how I employed modified grounded theory techniques to analyze those responses. I then explain how insights gained through these methodologies informed revisions of the "Conversation with an Apple" script and my plans for future post-show workshops. I conclude with an evaluation of the usefulness of these play development and research methodologies in my artistic practice. I find that both Liz Lerman's Critical Response Process and the modified grounded theory analysis I utilized, along with a return to my guiding theoretical frameworks, contributed meaningfully to my reflective practice, yielding several key insights. First, I discovered that the play does seem to have the potential to raise consciousness among audience members regarding multiple manifestations of mass incarceration as it affects young people, although I decided that a few key mechanisms of mass incarceration might be more fully elaborated through script revisions. Second, I found that when audiences responded to the play, the shared experience of viewing the performance functioned as a springboard for conversation about other shared experiences in their lives, thus building a sense of community in at least a small way. I also theorize that the act of transmitting heightened affect together while viewing this play built community. Finally, my analyses revealed that although some audience members felt outraged at the realities of mass incarceration and inspired to make a change, many felt hopeless after viewing the play. These analyses informed my most significant revisions to the "Conversation with an Apple" script and plans for post-show workshops.
Dan DeLeon Interview
(2020-10-01) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life
This interview is with Dan DeLeon, who serves Baptist congregations and has also been a youth minister for several years. Dan discusses growing in his theological beliefs and finally being a pastor at the Friends Congregational Church in College Station, Texas. Now, Dan and his community must learn how to stay connected, practice self-care, and worship during a pandemic. Friends Church has pursued several initiatives like spiritual care kits that were hand-delivered to every congregation member, quarterly newsletters, and Sunday zoom service.
Daylighting equity : evaluating efforts to daylight lower-income and minority areas in El Cerrito, California
(2018-12-07) Ligons, Sydni Atrice; Paterson, Robert G.
In recent years there has been a push to bring nature and its benefits back into the built environment. Urbanized areas are seeing the revitalization and restoration of once buried urban waterways. This growing trend is known as daylighting and has become an increasingly popular method of bringing nature back to the city. Although nature is making its way back into the built environment, the benefits of nature have been excluded from low-income and minority communities. Park space for the lower income residents has been an issue in the environmental justice arena for years, and in these low-income areas, the lack of green space for the city’s most vulnerable is a problem that has yet to be solved. This report examines urban green planning, daylighting specifically in the City of El Cerrito, California to explore whether daylighting projects present EJ concerns in a California community and the use of analysis tools under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to explore social justice issues. The PR draws on the California Department of Transportation (CalTrans) desk guide for EJ analysis under NEPA and CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act). That adopts the same definition and criteria of evaluation as NEPA. Smaller regional planning organizations also use this method. Using this evaluation process, I located communities of concern at the census tract and block group level in areas that were not located near daylighting projects in the City of El Cerrito. Although NEPA is primarily used for highway and transportation projects, this report demonstrates the potential of NEPA EJ tools to examine social justice issues for green amenity planning.
Essential practices for early childhood educators who value multicultural perspectives
(2014-05) Lee, Sunmin, active 2014; Adair, Jennifer Keys
This report addresses the importance of multicultural education in early childhood classrooms as well as three essential practices for early childhood educators who value multicultural perspectives. The early childhood classroom is the first place in which children develop their identities and recognize cultural differences. Multicultural education can offer opportunities for children to value and understand cultural diversity as they have more experiences outside of their homes and neighborhoods. While there are many kinds of practices that support a multicultural perspective, this paper focuses on three multicultural practices that early childhood educators can incorporate in their classrooms in order to create authentic multicultural classrooms and to promote multiculturalism. The three practices are 1) integrating culturally relevant pedagogy/culturally responsive teaching, 2) understanding multicultural families, and 3) pursuing social justice. These practices can help early childhood educators better understand multicultural students and families and have more meaningful interactions and partnership opportunities with them.
Feminist performance pedagogy : theatre for youth and social justice
(2013-05) Freeman, Emily Rachael; Alrutz, Megan
This thesis describes the use of feminist performance pedagogy in working toward a Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA) practice that engages youth in social justice. Drawing on feminist and pedagogical theories, this document explores the processes of writing, rehearsing, and touring a new social justice play for youth called 'And Then Came Tango.' The qualitative study outlined in this MFA thesis uses feminist research methodologies to analyze the engagement of the playwright, the artistic team working on the production of 'And Then Came Tango,' and the second and third grade audiences that participated in the touring production and post-show workshops. The author weaves personal story throughout the document in order to create new meaning around the research experiences as well as to illustrate the personal dimensions of engaging in the struggle around LGBTQ injustice. The discussion invites future artists, educators, and activists to imagine how theory, aesthetics, artists, and communities collaborate in order to work toward socially just and interactive TYA.
Feminist perspectives on a Latina-led rent strike and the struggle for homeplace in Sunset Park
(2015-08) Newman, Kaitlyn Beverly; Torres, Rebecca Maria; Faria, Caroline
Amidst cries of “¡Inquilinos unidos, jamás será vencidos!” a small circle of predominately Latina tenants in Sunset Park, a neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, spearheaded a multifamily direct action rent strike in three adjacent buildings against their negligent landlord from 2011 until early 2013. In this thesis, I highlight how key tenant leaders exercised agency to craft their own organizing strategy and messages based on their fraught and contentious relationship to nation-state citizenship. I use intersectional readings of interview findings and testimonials to illustrate how the rent strikers challenged globalizing discourses that may cast gentrification as the progenitor of moments of rupture like their rent strike. Rather, Sunset Park has housed for many years a robust, if not imperiled, “political society” that has survived within contested terrain by developing rules of engagement predicated upon markers of race, class, gender, and immigration status (Chatterjee 2004, Hum 2014). The rent strikers’ reliance on, and expectation of, ever-splintered subjectivities and cartographies, rather than static fixtures for security, reflect Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands theory (1987) and the work of Saskia Sassen (1996, 2013) on the unique character of city-based speech acts and their relation to violence. Because the rent strike unfolds within the implicitly gendered domain of homeplace, the boon of this synthesization and strategic posturing is not new to the Latina tenant leaders of the rent strike who are featured. I relay media representations of a particularly violent attack on one of the tenant leaders by the building’s superintendent to argue that the rent strikers’ produce, and are produced by feminist geographic renderings of “paradoxical space.” Their (in)visibility within homeplace as migrant women of color both imperils and protects them (Rose 1993). By withholding rent and engaging in “public” political acts, the female tenant leaders use their in-flux positions on the margins, at the center and in between to authoritate an “experiential geography” of homeplace (McKittrick 2006). In doing so, they recall the constitutive nature of the global and the intimate: the conditions of their building are inextricably and forever tied up in transnational processes of exploitation and domination.
Interdisciplinary curriculum and media literacy education in Global Action Project
(2021-05-08) Gold, Valarie R.; Straubhaar, Joseph D.
Global Action Project (GAP) is a nonprofit organization in New York City founded in 1991 with the goal of providing media arts programming for youth from low income, new immigrant, and LBGQT+ communities. This paper will focus on GAP’s Youth Breaking Borders (YBB) program, an education and leadership program for new immigrant and refugee youth within the theoretical context of critical media literacy. GAP’s educational approach is self-referred to as “Transformative Media Organizing”, focusing on social justice media production by youth. In 2007, Stephen Charbonneau analyzed a GAP documentary production created within the YBB program. Charbonneau shows criticism of GAP’s approach to auto-ethnography by immigrant youth, arguing that GAP embraces American globalism, a single global youth identity, and a universality of the immigrant youth experience (Charbonneau, 2007). GAP continued its Youth Breaking Borders program up until December of 2020, when they announced the organizations closure. By an analysis of GAP’s more recent short films produced through their Youth Breaking Borders program, this paper gives insight on how GAP’s approach to auto-ethnographic expression may have changed or stayed consistent over the course of the organization’s existence. Their social justice and cosmopolitan framework will be used as a foundation to analyze the effectiveness of their approach- determining whether the final film productions by youth participants meet the organizations “Transformative Media Organizing” curriculum goals. This paper aims to determine how GAP approaches multiple pedagogy within the curriculum and whether the organization’s mission over the years may reflect opportunities to effectively empower or support youth in developing a cosmopolitan, global citizen self-identity.
La identidad y la practica ‘entrelazadas’ : towards a humanizing pedagogy
(2014-12) Chávez, Guadalupe Domínguez; Salinas, Cinthia; Fránquiz, María E.
The purpose of this dissertation study was two-fold. First, the study explored how personal and professional experiences shaped three Latina bilingual Maestras’ identities. Secondly, this qualitative study further explored how histories framed a meaning of pedagogy for the Maestras. Presented in case studies, there were four themes that emerged across the three case studies: First, taking on the role of advocate; second, becoming a leader through professional development; third, developing critical thinkers using relevant classroom practices; and fourth, reflexivity for critical consciousness. Data were manually coded, themed and analyzed to answer the following research questions: Theoretical lenses framing this dissertation study include figured worlds and situated identities, critical race theory/Latina critical theory and sociocultural theory to analyze the data gathered through interviews, narratives, classroom and field observations, classroom and teacher artifacts, lessons and informal conversations collected over nine months of study as this dissertation study attempted to understand the findings as complex componentes entrelazados (interwoven components). The data were gathered in the classrooms and school campuses of three elementary schools across two school districts in two South Central Texas cities. The results provided six findings and they are 1) Tracing the positioning of Maestras, 2) Identifying opportunities of autoring self, 3) ¿Qué es ser maestra? What does it mean to be a maestra?, 4) Identity, culture and language: Racialized notions, 5) Taking on the role of advocate and finally, 6) Learning from lived experiences. The research revealed how Maestras’ positionings challenged structures of oppression in school and education in general and how opportunities for critical dialogue can support development of a more critical concientización (consciousness) and perspective, viewed through a social justice lens.
Literature circles : Latina/o students' daily experiences as part of the classroom curriculum
(2013-12) Martínez, Manuel, active 2013; Urrieta, Luis
After the Mexican-American war, the educational experience of Mexican and Mexican -American students was one of segregation, discrimination, and inequalities. Latina/o histories and funds of knowledge have not been historically part of the classroom curriculum. Although scholars, educators, and social movements have challenged such inequalities, they still persist. Students became objects of the educational process. New theories and educational practices, such as critical pedagogy, have helped empowered students to become aware of their situation and encouraged students to become social agents of change. Literature circles, an educational practice of critical pedagogy, enable educators to provide students with an educational experience where they become the Subjects of their own learning; thus, transforming their educational experiences.
Live stream micro-media activism in the occupy movement : mediatized co-presence, autonomy, and the ambivalent face
(2012-05) Thomas, Judith A.; Wilkins, Karin Gwinn, 1962-; Straubhaar, Joseph D.
With camera, smart phone, and wireless connection to a worldwide distribution source on a single device that fits in your pocket, now billions of citizens are able to become sousveillant micro-media activist – in real time. This case study investigates purposive texts in detail from over 50 hours of live and archived streaming video webcasts taken from geographically diverse sites. The goal is to explore how this tool is being used by videographers in a complex 21st century social movement. My sample video texts were gathered in late February and early March 2012 as the Occupy Movement stirred to life after a relatively quiet winter (from the corporate media’s point-of-view). In this project, I examine how Occupy’s use of live-streaming video combines “mediated co-presence” (Giddens 1984; Ito 2005) with “networked autonomy” (Castells 2011) to represent the ambivalent face of a complex, postmodern movement for social justice.
Moments of realization : the experiences, development, motivations and actions of student social justice allies
(2010-12) Owney, Catherine Sanders; Reddick, Richard, 1972-; Reagins-Lilly, Soncia; Rudrappa, Sharmila; Somers, Patricia A.; Vincent, Gregory J.
Social justice allies make important contributions to fighting oppression in campus environments and in their communities after college. However, knowledge of how one becomes a social justice ally is limited. This qualitative, phenomenological study was designed in an effort to better understand the social justice ally development process and advances the pioneering work of Broido (1997, 2000). Examination of student’s understanding of her/his formative and college experiences helped determine how each alone and in combination with other factors or experiences, contributed to her/his ally development process. The role of student affairs professionals and programs in this process was also examined. This study was conducted at The University of Texas at Austin, which was selected because of the historical context, institutional environment and diversity-related initiatives implemented over the past 10 years. Review of the literature on ally development reveals that a majority of the existing research focuses on allies who take action against heterosexism or sexism. Through this research project I addressed this gap by including student allies who focus on other areas of privilege/oppression including classism and citizenship status. This study also expands the analysis of social justice allies by including examination of the influence of gender on the development, motivations and actions of allies.
“Peace to kids and listen to them!” a case study in a summer art program for teens
(2015-12) Kay, Ariel Emily; Bain, Christina; Bolin, Paul
This case study investigates how teens in a low-income community center summer art program expressed their perspectives on their identities and their communities. Constructivist and advocacy paradigms guided the research methodology. The summer art program utilized an emergent asset-based curriculum grounded in social justice art education. Through the mediums of spray-paint stenciling and zine making, students addressed how to improve their communities. Through their stencil designs, the teens tackled complex topics such as immigration and bullying. They then synthesized their ideas of how to create positive community change. Within the summer art program, students expressed their perspectives across fifteen main themes including: immigration, bullying, voice, youth identity, soccer, geographic place, ethnicity, family, friends, the apartments, extracurricular activities, school, respect, perception of self, and economic status. The findings of this study demonstrate and support the integration of youth voice and choice in art education.
Planchando consciousness : public accountability, call-out culture, and a praxis sketch in queer activist scenes
(2016-05) Venegas, Mario; Young, Michael P.; Gonzales, Alfonso
I investigate the ideological mechanisms that enable a defeatist and neoliberal conception of social justice that inform what queer activists describe as “call-out” culture. From a Gramscian point of view, I argue that the call-out, a means for correcting problems in consciousness and behavior, loses its constructive potential and becomes a punitive practice under the vocabulary of postmodern identity politics. This process creates a Foucauldian Ostrich subject who must police contradictions to sustain a static notion of safe space. I rely on in-depth interviews with queer activists in Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, Texas and in Oakland, CA and Seattle, WA. From these interviews, call-outs carry a key function within queer activist scenes. One, they shape political consciousness insofar as they address egregious acts like corruption or sexual harassment, and two, they sharpen one’s political position to the extent that they provide a practical means beyond prognosis of the problem. Empirically, these consciousness shaping call-outs form part of Gramsci’s Philosophy of Praxis, of working with contradictions and ironing out consciousness and political practice as a means to unify them. However, under a postmodern social justice model that displaces questions of strategy, call-outs become tools to police identities and demand loyalty, thus impeding any coalition building that weaves across different identities. Foucauldian Ostriches mobilize the call-out to create gatekeeping within activists and to impede any practical coalition building. As such, their practice aligns with neoliberal common sense in that they prescribe individual solutions to structural problems and circumscribe the terrain of struggle within cultural consumption. I then follow with theoretical tools from Gramsci such as common sense and the Philosophy of Praxis to develop call-outs that address the everyday indignities from the level of common sense, reconceptualize the call-out as a means to sift through contradictions so as to develop good sense. Finally, I provide conceptual tools from Gramsci and queer of color theoretical work to begin to develop a more historical materialist conception of queer politics.
A quantitative analysis of the production, selection, and career paths of Texas public school administrators
(2012-08) Davis, Bradley Walter; Gooden, Mark A.; Cantu, Norma V; Feng, Li; O'Doherty, Ann; Powers, Daniel A; Young, Michelle D; Reyes, Pedro
Using state-wide, longitudinal data on Texas public school educators employed between the 1991-1991 and 2010-2011 school years, this study explores the disproportionate selection of campus leaders based on ethnicity and gender. Through a combination of descriptive and inferential techniques, this study illustrates how trends in the production, selection, and career paths of administratively-certified educators at the various intersections of ethnicity and gender have changed over time. Controlling for a variety of individual work history and campus characteristics, this study also explores how an administratively-certified educator’s ethnicity and gender affect their probability of procuring a campus leadership position.
Realizing inclusive social justice leadership : two principals narrate their transformative journeys
(2015-05) Cole, Heather Ann; Pazey, Barbara Lynn, 1951-; O'Reilly, Mark; Schaller, James; Reddick, Richard; Gooden, Mark; Vasquez Heilig, Julian
This interpretive biographical case study relies on the personal narratives of two successful public school principals to explore and build upon current theory of inclusive social justice leadership in the pursuit of understanding not just the characteristics of such leadership but its actual implementation. Using transformative learning as its theoretical framework, it seeks to create a theory of action for inclusive social justice leadership. Delving into the life journeys of two educational leaders, the study looks at how their backgrounds as special education teachers and their experiences in childhood, as young adults and as professionals shaped their perspectives on full inclusion of students with disabilities as well as larger concepts of fairness and social justice. The study seeks to answer the overarching research question: How do two former special education teachers and experienced public school principals who have successfully implemented a full inclusion model describe and understand their commitment to and implementation of inclusive social justice leadership? Additional sub-questions are also asked: How has this developed over time? What, if any, events in their lives do they see as significant to their evolution as inclusive social justice leaders? What role does their current leadership position play in their social justice journey? A comprehensive literature review of inclusion, social justice leadership, and inclusive social justice leadership in theory and in connection to student success and school reform is provided. The methodology of interpretive biography is explained. Findings illuminate the individual journeys of each participant as they come to realize inequities in education and their personal struggles to address them first on small and then larger scales. Cross-comparative analysis brings to light corresponding themes with existing theory including advocacy, collaboration, intersectionality and inclusive practice but adds new action-oriented dimensions of the impact of fear and failure as an asset. Conclusions are drawn about the impact of these future leaders on the persistent inequities of public education today and recommendations are made for the training and professional development from within the education profession for more inclusive social justice leaders.
Researcher as witness : pedagogical and curricular decision making in race-centered professional learning
(2019-04-29) Ward, Angela Marie; Brown, Keffrelyn D.; Green, Terrance L; Brown, Anthony L; De Lissovoy, Noah
Urban School districts search for professional learning endeavors that will assist staff as they adapt to change at a rapid pace and build capacity to become in tune to the needs of the students and families. The facilitator of race-centered professional learning in urban school districts has to be pedagogically, mentally, socially and emotionally prepared for what the learner brings into the space. This research study used semi-structured interviews, observations and a researcher reflective journal to explore the definitions of effectiveness and the pedagogical and curricular decision making of ten participants who design and deliver race-centered professional learning in urban school districts across the U.S. This study employed Critical Race Theory to frame the study and analyze participant definitions of effectiveness and pedagogical and curricular decision making for race-centered professional learning. Black Feminist Thought is used to extend critical race theory centering analysis on the perspective of the researcher as participant observer. While experience of participants varied, each participant was consistent in defining effectiveness as negotiating the emotional nature of race for learners and facilitators and understanding application of learning as a long term process. Findings showed participants made pedagogical decisions to account for the complex ways race operates in a learning endeavor to establish an affirming, affective learning environment. Participants made curricular decisions drawing from counter storytelling, they chose to study or adopt existing race curricular models, and grounded learning opportunities in sociohistorical content knowledge
Richard Lapchick and the fight for human rights in sport
(2021-12-06) Jones, Tanya Kathleen; Hunt, Thomas M.; Ozyurtcu, Tolga; Todd, Janice; Bartholomew, John; Sikes, Michelle
The United States went through a tumultuous time during the mid-twentieth century. The Civil Rights Movement dominated the 1960s making way for a new movement to form in the 1970s. The human rights movement in the U.S. focused on the indisputable rights of African American citizens and all marginalized groups across the globe. During the 1970s, many non-governmental organizations began in the United States to pursue social justice issues. One of these groups was the American Coordinating Committee for Equality in Sport and Society (ACCESS), created by human rights activist Richard Lapchick in 1976. Lapchick created ACCESS in alliance with the anti-Apartheid movement. He believed that using sport to fight against Apartheid would play a crucial role in South African politics. While Richard Lapchick’s early work focused on the campaign to end America’s sporting participation with South Africa, he blossomed into an influential and dynamic human rights activist. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, he worked with multiple human rights organizations and anti-Apartheid associations to bring attention to injustices occurring in the U.S. and South Africa. These groups sought to use sport to alleviate the issues created by South Africa’s culture of racial segregation. As the end of South Africa’s Apartheid regime appeared, Lapchick started advocating for other marginalized groups like women, LGBTQ+ members, and student-athletes. Studying Lapchick’s career provides an original contribution to sport history by examining individual activism and exploring how sport can significantly impact politics and society. Richard Lapchick needs to be recognized and remembered for the work he has done and is still doing, both in the U.S. and abroad. His commitment to human rights and the anti-Apartheid movement adds new insights into the intersections of race, sports, politics, and social movements in the United States. Examining his life not only provides an understanding of how sport has created political and social changes in the past but how activists can continue to use sport for social justice.
Searching for social justice : an ethnographic study of a historically black university's PETE classroom
(2014-12) Clark, Langston David; Harrison, Louis, 1955-
Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have played and continue to play an important role in uplifting African Americans through education. Most of these institutions began as normal schools designed to prepare teachers who would train and educate students of color— a population that has been historically marginalized and oppressed. Scholarly conversations regarding teaching and teacher education for social justice omit the contributions of HBCUs. Likewise, scholarship about social justice within the field of Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) has been minimal. These trends including the current overemphasis on the training of a monolithic White female middle class teaching force served to justify the ethnographic study in an historically Black PETE program. Rooted in situated learning theory, this study used ethnographic methods and methodology to explore the manifestations of social justice and (physical education) teacher education at Jackie Robinson University— an HBCU. This study uncovered several cultural manifestations of social justice within JRU using interviews, artifact analyses, and observations of several cultural manifestations about social justice and teacher educating for social justice were uncovered. One of the most prominent manifestations is “The Gap”, a theme that can be seen throughout the historical and contemporary culture of JRU. In one sense, “The Gap” represents the void filled by the university as it provides opportunities for education for students with limited educational options. In another sense, “The Gap” represents tensions within the institution. These tensions exist as gaps among students, faculty, administration, and the university as a whole. Despite “The Gap”, Teacher Education for social justice exists in the culture of JRU as forms of care and culturally relevant pedagogy. While these cultural manifestations were located within specific classrooms, they represent the ethos of the university as a whole. The findings of this study offer both theoretical and practical value. From a theoretical perspective, the findings shed insight into the meaning of social justice and (physical education) teacher education for social justice in an ethnically diverse context. In a practical sense, the strategies utilized by (physical education) teacher educators at JRU foster a classroom culture of holistic education.