For several decades, the Gramscian notion of the intellectual has been a popular framework to view the potentiality of educators as counter-hegemonic cultural workers. While this was an invaluable contribution to the field of critical education, notions of the intellectual have largely focused on class conflict. For a deeper theorization of the…

This article argues that a new specialization in education has been developing: educational criticism. It takes as its model the existing fields of criticism found in other disciplines, mainly in literature, or literary criticism. The article outlines the central features of educational criticism as a new specialization, guided by a program of…

In this chapter, we unpack "intersectionality as an analytical framework." First, we cite Black Lives Matter as an impetus for discussing intersectionality's current traction. Second, we review the genealogy of "intersectionality" beginning with Kimberlé Crenshaw's formulation, which brought a Black Studies provocation into…

Best known for arguing that individual development is part of social and historical development Vygotsky's entry into education may be captured by his concept of the "zone of proximal development" (ZPD). ZPD has not yet been synthesized with a critical study of whiteness. When ZPD is used to explain racial disparities in the service of…

This article presents the main terms of the racial contract, as they appear in the subcontracts of Mills' theory, such as the spatial, epistemological, cognitive subcontracts. It is important to keep in mind that these subcontracts are by no means separate and represent analytical moments of the main contract. Furthermore, other than its…

This article is an engagement of methodology as an ideologico-racial practice through Critical Race Theory's practice of storytelling. It is a conceptual extension of this practice as explained through Charles Mills' use of the "racial contract (RC) as methodology" in order to explain the Herrenvolk Education--one standard for…

The Right has a long history of questioning the importance of race analysis. Recently, the conceptual and political status of race has come under increased scrutiny from the Left. Bracketing the language of "race" has meant that the discourse of skin groups remains at the level of abstraction and does not speak to real groups as such. As a…

This article is intended to appraise the insights gained from Critical Race Theory (CRT) in Education. It is particularly interested in CRT's relationship with Marxist discourse, which falls under two questions. One, how does CRT understand Marxist concepts, such as "capital," which show up in the way CRT appropriates them? The article argues that…

Background/Context: Two scholars who each primarily identify as a scholar of critical race/whiteness studies and a scholar of disability studies, respectively, engage in this article in a purposeful dialogue that responds to the invitation put forth by Baglieri, Bejoian, Broderick, Connor, and Valle to engage with the construct of inclusive…

In education, it is common to put the condition of "safety" around public race dialogue. The authors argue that this procedural rule maintains white comfort zones and becomes a symbolic form of violence experienced by people of color. In other words, they ask, "Safety for whom?" A subtle but fundamental violence is enacted in safe discourses on…

The study of whiteness in education is receiving increased attention. This essay argues that the No Child Left Behind Act is an example of color-blindness "par excellence." NCLB's hidden referent of whiteness makes a casual pass at racial explanation that sidesteps race as a causal explanation for educational disparities. In this sense,…

In educational policy theory orthodox Marxism is known for its commitment to objectivism or the science of history. Race analysis is developed in its ability to explain the subjective dimension of racial oppression. The two theories are often at odds with each other. This article is an attempt to create a theory by integrating Marxist objectivism…

In 1996, an edited volume devoted to Stuart Hall's work published the essay "Gramsci's Relevance for the Study of Race and Ethnicity." Central to Hall's analysis was Gramsci's deployment of the concept of hegemony. This article hopes to accomplish parallel insights on race and multiculturalism by going through the concept of ideology as theorized…

In the last decade, the study of white privilege has reached currency in the educational and social science literature. Concerned with the circuits and meanings of whiteness in everyday life, scholars have exposed the codes of white culture, worldview of the white imaginary, and assumptions of the invisible marker that depends on the racial other…