Critical Race Theory (CRT) came to the forefront of American society in 1970, when racial equality begins to lose its momentum after the 1960 civil rights movement.
Derrick Bell, Allen Freeman, and Richard Delgado were scholars in the 1970s who became frustrated with the pace of racial reform (Ladson-Billing, 1998). Much like the growing concerns of many Americans today are feeling the frustrations of racial injustices.
Many Americans believed America had real progress in race relations, but we are left with the harsh reality that America has not come far enough. Much progress is still needed when unarmed African American men, women, and children are being gunned down in the streets and their own homes.
Racial injustices are occurring while audiences watch and beg for George Floyd’s life, who ultimately dies in the streets of Minneapolis, Minnesota. A white police officer pinned him down for 8 minutes and 46 seconds.
As a grim result of race relations in America, African Americans are still singing and marching to the tune of “We Shall Overcome.” The late scholar Derrick Bells says it clearly in this quote: “It appears that my worst fears have been realized; we have made progress in everything yet notings has changed.”
Critical race scholars like Kimberle Crenshaw, Mari Matsuda, and Patricia Williams agree that racism is rooted in America’s fabric.
It is subtle and implicit, but it is here. CRT connects different aspects of data related to race and racism. It is a conceptual tool to help researchers explain racial inequalities in social, economic, judicial, and educational systems. CRT started around the mid-90s to describe how race and racism function. There are some identifying themes of CRT:
1. Racism is normal and is the way that America operates. Which sugged that racism is an everyday experience for oppressed populations.
2. Interest Convergence meaning that the race movement makes progress when it is in the best interest of the oppressor or people in power, not because it is morally right (Green, 2014).
3. Intersectionality people have more than one of the following identifiers gender, race, socio-economic status, sexuality, disability.
4. Centering the voices of Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC), recognizing that white voices dominate the discourse.
In 1995, Gloria Ladson-Billing and William Tate introduced CRT to understand how African Americans react and interact to racism in public education (Yosso, 2014).
Applying CRT in public education help researcher explain educational experiences by examining literature, media, education, traditions, curriculum, and laws (Howard 2016).
In education, CRT also identifies racism to include other forms of injustice such as gender, class, sexuality, linguistic background, citizenship status, disability of marginalized populations (Dexson & Andrson, 2018).
Critical race theory as questions like Who benefits? Who loses? Who gets the resources? Who doesn’t get resources? Who is heard? Who is silenced? The voices of disadvantaged people must be heard and valued.
Research has to move beyond the numbers of quantitative analysis. Listening to African American’s experiences will help better understand the numbers in context.
Controlled experimental research in special education legitimizes numbers but without qualitative, ethnographies, real experiences of people. We should not stop conducting controlled studies; it only suggests that we look at data with various tools to explain a phenomenon.
Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit) analyzes the intersectionality of race and disability by addressing disproportionality in education.
African American students are overrepresented in special education, and research explains that African American students with disabilities are placed in more restrictive learning environment than their peers (Reynolds & Parker, 2016). Seven tents describe DisCrit that will help us understand this theory.
1. Racism and ableism work interdependently to uphold normalcy in society.
2. No marginalized categories are identified separately; DisCrit believes that individuals have multiple dimensions, including race, disability, gender, and class.
3. Race and disability are emphasized as social constructs to identify cultural and psychological norms.
4. Voices of the marginalized populations are silent in traditional research. We have to get past the numbers.
5. Race and disability operate together in legal ad historical premises to deny citizen’s rights.
6. Gains for disabled people happen with the line up with the interest of the white middle class.
7. DisCrit requires continued activism and reform. People with disabilities have to demand their rights (Johnson, 2020 & Smith, 2016).
The prison to pipeline emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s with zero-tolerance policies in public schools (Hill, 2017). Zero tolerance was designed to target and rectify disciplinary for minor and major infractions in public schools.
Economically disadvantaged students, African American students, students with disabilities, and males students are placed on the STPP trajectory more than any other population (Hill, 2017).
When these students are labeled, they are subjected to suspensions, expulsions, ad arrests. African American and Latino students are disproportionally sent to the STPP, experiencing academic instruction loss (Jones et al., 2018). Studies reveal that students who experience harsh discipline that includes suspension, expulsion, and arrest are three times more likely to become involved in criminal activity, spending some of their adult lives incarcerated (Wolf & Kupchik, 2017).
Black students represent 16% of the national population; they also make up 27% of students referred to law enforcement, and 31% have school-related arrests.
The office of civil rights reported in 2011-2012, 20% of Black males were suspended (Goings, et al., 2018). Students with disabilities are overrepresented on the STPP. Students with emotional and learning disabilities are represented more than their nondisabled peers at 12% of the student population.
During 2015-2016, law enforcement officers physically or mechanically restrained 8600 students, of which 71% of them had disabilities (Hill, 2017). Administrators, teachers, and school resource officers feed the STPP. According to Sussman, in 2012, schools are lynchpins that connect to the STPP (Connor et al., 2016).
The STTP is a system vested in locking up African American youth rather than unlocking their minds. The system essentially uses harsh discipline policies to push African American students out of public school at disproportionate rates and deny their civil right to free education (Wolf & Kupckik, 2017).
Using CRT is necessary to understand the influence of racism in educational policies by directly addressing social, political, and historical ideologies (Wun, 2014 & King, 2018). Annamma et al. (2013) acknowledge CRT as a theoretical framework that explores the intersection of society’s belief about race.
DisCrit expands our understanding of how race and disability intersect in society. Important tenets are represented in both theories to be used as theoretical frameworks to study intersectional positioning to analyze what has been missed, overlooked, or unacknowledged (Annamma, Connor, and Ferr, 2016).
School to prison pipeline – broad
Critical Race Theory and the experiences of education – more narrow, and the bulk of your lit review (15) – Lots of studies, but broadly generalized, organized thematically
Parent involvement
Discipline
DisCrit as an explanation of the intersectionality of race (black), gender (male), and ability. (10 pages) This may be organized a bit more by study rather than by theme
Transition planning in the IEP
