Unpacking the CRT in Negotiating White Science

FORUM

Unpacking the CRT in Negotiating White Science

Eileen R. Carlton Parsons • Billye Rhodes • Corliss Brown

Received: 24 June 2011 / Accepted: 24 June 2011 / Published online: 12 August 2011� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Abstract In this forum, we summarize CRT’s origins, tenets common to most CRT

writings, and CRT’s evolution. We discuss Yerrick’s article Negotiating White Sciencewith respect to certain CRT premises. Specifically, we use the CRT tenet of racism as

emphasized in first- and second-generation CRT and CRT elements liberal racial ideology

and voices of color to critically examine Yerrick’s propositions.

Keywords Critical race theory � Liberal racial ideology � Counter narrative �Black students

Even though Gloria Ladson-Billings and William Tate (1995) introduced critical race

theory (CRT) to the field of education over a decade ago, its uses in science education as a

lens to examine racial inequalities and racial inequities have been very limited. With the

onset of a post-racial discourse after the United States (US) Presidential election of the first

individual who self-identified as African-American, we, the authors, expected any

momentum enjoyed by CRT in education circles to subside. After all, history shows that

the racialization, subjugation determined by societal needs, of various groups in the US and

its contemporary effects are unwelcomed topics for public discussion; such issues typically

surface when provocations demand attention. Consequently, we find Randy Yerrick’s

willingness to employ CRT both refreshing and encouraging. We are delighted to par-

ticipate in this much-needed forum about race and racism in science education.

This review essay addresses issues raised in Randy Yerrick’s paper entitled: Negotiating white science inrural Black America: a case for navigating the landscape of teacher knowledge domains

E. R. C. Parsons (&) � B. Rhodes � C. BrownUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USAe-mail: [email protected]

B. Rhodese-mail: [email protected]

C. Browne-mail: [email protected]

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Cult Stud of Sci Educ (2011) 6:951–960DOI 10.1007/s11422-011-9349-z

Science has largely debunked race as a biologically distinguishable construct so it is

now commonplace to describe it as a social construct with traceable and distinctive his-

torical origins. Race, as a social construction, assigns meaning to human physiognomy.

These meanings position individuals, independent of and a part of a collective, into social

hierarchies that serve varied economic, educational, political, and cultural aims. Exam-

inations of US history, the country in which we the authors were born and are citizens,

indicate that these meanings positioned Whites at the top of the hierarchy and Blacks at the

bottom—the racial dynamic featured in Yerrick’s article. We, the authors, are Black and

we live this social construction called race every day. For us, sometimes race fades into the

background, not really perceptible to our consciousness–like music we no longer hear

blaring from the radio as we contemplate other matters. At other times race is in the

foreground, blatantly demanding attention, whether we prefer to give it or not. How we

experience and live race are as divergent as the DNA that makes each of us unique

individuals and as convergent as the DNA that connects sisters with the same biological

parents. In our forum response, we speak from points of convergence that are captured in

CRT.

In this essay, we position Yerrick’s article as a prompt to delve deeper into CRT. Even

though Yerrick discussed racism explicitly and alluded to cultural hegemony in his article,

we delimit our critique to racism, the overt emphasis of CRT. We provide a general

overview of CRT. This overview summarizes CRT’s origins, tenets common to most CRT

writings, and CRT’s evolution. We situate Yerrick’s approach within CRT and discuss it

with respect to CRT premises. Specifically, in this essay, we examine Yerrick’s article in

relation to the racism as emphasized in first- and second-generation CRT and CRT ele-

ments liberal racial ideology and voices of color, a phrase used by many critical race

theorists to accentuate the existence, importance, and validity of the lived experiences of

people of color that are often unintelligible to and seldom resonate with their White

counterparts.

An overview of CRT

Numerous scholars recount the origins of CRT. From these varied accounts, we charac-

terize CRT as an outgrowth of the legal activism that led to civil rights legislation and as a

response to what critical legal studies (CLS) did not address. CLS began as a coalition of

liberal law professors, students, and lawyers committed to exposing and challenging law’s

legitimatization and reproduction of oppressive and unjust social structures. While func-

tioning within CLS and adhering to many of CLS premises, a small cadre of scholars of

color became increasingly discontent with CLS’s treatment of race, racism, and law and

the voices of color that speak to the relationships among race, racism, and law. These

scholars of color alleged that fundamentally CLS differed very little from its conservative

counterparts when it came to issues of race and law; they differed only in scope and not in

content. Like its conservative counterparts, CLS believed in the apolitical nature of law and

approached racism as the opposite of color-blindness, a belief that it is possible to remedy

inequalities and inequities that primarily exist as a result of racism without considering

race. As a consequence of the irreconcilable perspectives on race and racism with respect

to law (among other issues not pertinent to this essay), a small group of scholars of color

separated from CLS and ‘‘an intellectual identity and a political practice that would take

the form both of a left intervention into race discourse and a race intervention into left

discourse’’ emerged (Crenshaw, Gotanda, Peller and Thomas 1995, p. xix,).

952 E. R. C. Parsons et al.

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Like other intellectual and political movements, there is not a common doctrine to

which all members of CRT subscribe but there are unifying purposes. CRT seeks to

illuminate racial power and subsequent racial hierarchies, analyze their effects, understand

why and how they persist, and advance social action to disrupt and alter them. Accord-

ingly, key developers of CRT named several defining elements of this intellectual

movement (Matsuda, Lawrence, Delgado and Crenshaw 1993). We address the following

four elements in this essay:

(1) CRT centers race-consciousness, an intentional consideration of race necessitated by

racism. According to CRT, racism is interwoven into the fabric of American life. It is

normal, so ingrained in the American consciousness that it is ordinary. Only the most

blatant, egregious forms of racism garner attention and warrant remedy whereas more

subtle, systemic forms (e.g., inadequate funding of high-minority enrollment schools)

are business-as-usual. CRT views racism particularly in the form of whiteness as

property (Harris 1993), a foundational staple of America’s emergence and

maintenance as a nation-state, as the contributing factor to contemporary group

advantages and disadvantages that occur along racial lines.

(2) CRT insists upon historical and contextual analyses of current social and institutional

practices. Such analyses connect contemporary practices to historical practices in

which racial intent was clear.

(3) CRT challenges the existence and attainability of neutrality, objectivity, color-

blindness, and meritocracy, which are central to a liberal racial ideology of equality

and equal opportunity. This ideology treats racism as a series of a-historical,

intentional, random, isolated and often extremist acts perpetrated by individuals that

require a case-by-case remedy rather than a historically based system that operates,

oftentimes beyond awareness, in perpetuity to maintain a racial hierarchy. In CRT,

neutrality, objectivity, color-blindness, and meritocracy act as rationalizations that

both camouflage and advance White dominance.

(4) CRT situates the experiential knowledge of people of color and their communities as

valid and essential to analyzing racial inequalities, racial inequities and other

phenomena. The experiential knowledge of people of color is both captured and

shared through stories. These stories center the experiences of people of color and

bring to light a reality that is often obfuscated in stories narrated by Whites.

Notwithstanding adherence to the above elements in varying degrees, some purport the

existence of two generations of critical race theory (Morfin, Perez, Parker, Lynn, and

Arona 2006). The two generations differ in emphases.

Delgado (2003) placed the first generation of CRT into a realist school of thought. This

generation of CRT focused on the social materiality of racism with respect to power,

history, and other material determinants (e.g., profit) that impact the experiences and

advancement of people of color in society. This generation named and attacked racism as a

system that acted structurally and institutionally to maintain racial hierarchies through the

allocation of status, privilege and various forms of capital (e.g., cultural). He situated the

second generation of CRT into an idealist school of thought. This generation of CRT

shifted the focus from structures and institutions to ideation. The second generation of CRT

associated racism with words, symbols, stereotypes, and categories and addressed it

through the deconstruction of discourses. Even though Delgado (2003) promotes a realist

perspective, he acknowledges the necessity of both the realist and idealist in the eradication

of racism.

Unpacking the CRT in Negotiating White Science 953

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CRT and Negotiating White science in rural Black America

In this section, we discuss with respect to CRT elements one, racism as endemic, and two,

historical/contextual analyses, how Yerrick identified the problem and how he positioned

his study and its findings in relation to the problem. We then examine Yerrick’s article in

regards to CRT elements three, liberal racial ideology, and four, voices of color. Specif-

ically, we critically examine Yerrick’s interrogation of White science as it pertains to

project aspects reported in the article and we speculate on how CRT’s conceptualization of

voice can help us to teach across differences.

Problem definition, study focus, and study findings: realist and idealist perspectives

Yerrick began the article by highlighting group disparities in access to quality learning

opportunities. He described how these inequalities and inequities by race and social class

were created and maintained through institutionalized structures like de facto segregation

and tracking, manifestations that can be directly linked to historical practices for which

racial intent was clearly and overtly articulated. He also acknowledged in the discussion of

social class and schooling how these structures, unconscious and conscious procedures and

protocols that enable productions of social life to be continually re-enacted (Sewell 1992),

impacted opportunities and eventual stations in life of groups of students (e.g., students

from lower economic classes). As he discussed the maintenance of such inequalities and

inequities he shifted from institutionalized structures that produce and reproduce group

advantages/disadvantages to educators’ views of non-dominant students and their com-

munities. He centered teacher knowledge about students as individuals as one solution to

the previously described systemic, group-level disparities. This brief synopsis of how

Yerrick described the problem and the focus of the study brings to the forefront the

emphases of first (realist) and second generation (idealist) CRT. The synopsis also presents

a pernicious shortcoming of equity-focused research and praxis in science education—the

disconcerting mismatch between the problem and proposed solutions.

In the opening paragraphs Yerrick painted a realist portrayal of racism in education. He

briefly discussed the intended and unintended roles of institutions and structures in the

promotion and protection of disparity-producing segregation that sustain the racial power

of Whites. He further acknowledged, in his discussion of social class and schooling, the

life-long effects of allocating privileges to one group over another, an argument that

corresponds with a realist perspective. Although he started with a critique that aligned with

a realist school of thought in CRT, he did not continue in this vein. In line with CRT

element two, historical/contextual analyses, such a continuation might have traced the

connections among the contemporary outcomes (e.g., large percentage of Black students

tracked in low quality experiences, de facto segregation) that presently exist in the absence

of overt, clearly articulated racial intent with the outcomes’ local and national historical

precedents during times in which racial intent was blatant. In the end, Yerrick did not

address racism from a realist CRT perspective. According to Delgado (2003), Yerrick

made us aware of the structural and institutional nature of White dominance and sub-

sequent effects but left them somewhat intact; they were not critically deconstructed. For

example, in the discussion of tracking Yerrick did not briefly highlight the threads that

transverse access to quality educational experiences, the composition of decision-makers

and controller of resources, and to structures under the decision-makers’ auspices that

determine and influence access. Instead, he took the discourse turn and examined idea-

tional constructs, the emphases of second generation CRT.


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The section entitled ‘‘Racial Inequity in Science Education’’ marked a noticeable shift

in schools of thought. The views of White educators and their attitudes towards students

who differed from them became the foci. These foci directly correspond to the assumptions

underlying second generation CRT. That is, if we change people’s negative and stereo-

typical views, attitudes, etc. and the language and imagery that fuel them then we can

eradicate racism. Delgado (2003) concurred with the importance of ideation preeminent in

second generation CRT but also recognized its limitations. He located its importance in

understanding the persistence and perpetuation of racism but viewed ideation as inadequate

in and of itself for a system-wide social transformation that could mitigate racism in the

US. We agree with Delgado’s contentions. Although Yerrick acknowledged the role of

educators’ views and attitudes in the maintenance of White power, he seemed to present a

change in educators’ ideas which includes but is not limited to knowledge, for example

knowledge about the learner, as a remedy for the systemic racial disparities that he earlier

cited as primary aspects of the problem. Essentially, he proposed a micro-level solution,

alteration in the attitudes of individual educators, for a macro-level problem, formal and

informal protocols and procedures that work systemically and comprehensively to

advantage some and disadvantage others. We acknowledge a similar shortcoming in our

own work and often contemplate, with respect to a single research project or study, how we

could better align the problem targeted by our work and the remedies suggested by our

study’s findings. This is indeed a formidable challenge if the problem is defined from a

CRT realist perspective. In closing this section, we briefly propose two tactics to address

the problem-remedy mismatch.

First, we deem it important, especially when racial inequalities and racial inequities are

the topics of interest, to discuss the scope of a project’s and study’s findings. In this case, it

would have been useful to explicitly discuss how a change in educators’ knowledge would

disrupt, either marginally or substantially, racial inequalities and racial inequities and at

what level. For example, Yerrick discussed how his expanded knowledge base as the

teacher enabled him to usher Black students into scientific discourse and helped them to

use the scientific discourse within the classroom but the article did not describe how he

used his expanded knowledge to develop a critical consciousness among the Black students

about this scientific discourse—the role of scientific discourse in racial dominance, the

need to disrupt scientific discourse and constructive ways to do it, if and how the scientific

discourse could be instrumental in improving their life prospects, etc. Second, it would

have been very helpful to connect the micro-level solution, i.e., change in knowledge to

aspects of the macro-level problem. For example, Yerrick, as the teacher in the study,

leveraged his understandings of Black students’ participation patterns to broaden the

students’ notions of what is acceptable participation in a classroom thereby enhancing the

students’ engagement but the article failed to address if Black students were taught how to

decode participation patterns and expectations for participation and re-appropriate codes as

a means to navigate and transform racist, as labeled by the students in the article, spaces,

inside and outside school. That is, did the Black students leave the science class under-

standing the structure of scientific discourse; the structure of the discourses (e.g., school,

community) they employed prior to adopting the one advocated by Yerrick into their

repertoire; the similarities and differences among the discourses; the various functions of

each discourse; and the situated appropriateness for each (e.g., when and how to use them

and the associated pros and cons)? Did he explicitly teach the ‘‘rules of power’’, an

assertion made in the discussion section of the article, when the teaching appeared limited

to how to do scientific discourse?


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Liberal racial ideology and White science

In his study, Yerrick did not explicitly mention CRT element four, critique of a liberal

racial ideology, but certain components such as Yerrick’s discussion of culture-free science

in the article pertain to it. CRT questions neutrality and objectivity and deconstructs their

role in normalizing White racial power. Neutrality and objectivity strips away context,

which can provide important information on the nature of activity, the origin of activity,

benefactors of activity, and the like.

Yerrick concurred with others that science was neither culture-free nor objective and

stated in the article that he, as the teacher, continuously reminded the Black students that

science was always impacted by the prior conceptions and personal theories of people

doing the science. As in the case of syntactic structures of scientific discourses, Yerrick, in

the role of teacher, appeared to implicitly rather than explicitly teach the previously

mentioned through the learning environment and instructional strategies. At the end of the

class, did students understand science as a human enterprise inclusive of human frailties

and vices or did they leave the class with the culture-free and value-neutral myths intact

but with a slightly different spin on what is meant by objectivity and neutrality (e.g., biases

negated by the scrutiny and consensus of the scientific community without noting the racial

homogeneity of that community)?

Specifically, to disband the notions of neutrality and objectivity Yerrick created a

community within the classroom in which the roles of evidence, scrutiny, and consensus in

the generation of knowledge were exemplified but the article did not share if and how the

students and he critiqued this process. Consider the following historical case. In the 1800s

the community of scientists purported that Blacks were intellectually inferior to Whites and

produced evidence to support these claims. After many decades, other evidence eclipsed

the prevalence of these genetic-based assertions of inferiority but the collective consensus

of the scientific community comprised of Whites did not prevent the emergence and

promulgation of the racist propositions. Even though the genetic-based inferiority claims

regarding Blacks are not overtly prominent and the assertions are considered politically

incorrect in this era, the impact of these claims are ever-present: they underlie many

contemporary policies and practices, as evinced in the investment of higher quality and

more resources in White children, the reverse of what Yerrick identified as the problem of

interest in his study.

Perhaps, progress towards the common goals among critical race theorists surmised by

Yerrick, to understand how racial inequity is created and maintained and to sever racial

power and law (more generally structures), would have been more substantive if he, as the

teacher, had explicitly named and countered the neutrality and objectivity, especially in

relation to racism, that was implicit in the science content studied and the scientific

processes enacted by the Black students. Yerrick, as the teacher in the study, only taught

the ‘‘White’’, as denoted in the title of the article, account of the water cycle, weather

predictions, and seasons. In helping students to enter into scientific discourses, one way to

empower and to improve the students’ conditions, Yerrick did not expose and counter the

‘‘White’’ norm. We were left wondering: Could the myths (e.g., neutrality and objectivity)

as well as the supremacy of Whites, one cornerstone of the racism Yerrick wanted to

alleviate, have been more powerfully illustrated if the knowledge of indigenous peoples in

the development of canonical understandings of the phenomena were included in the

teaching? Could the tacit link between ‘‘White’’ and doing science the right way, impli-

cated in the title and contents of the article, have been broken if parallels and connections

in what Yerrick called the rules of science (i.e., using evidence, constructing arguments,


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and evaluating knowledge) were found with the Black students’ ways of being and doing

outside the school and classroom? If these parallels were not found and explicitly labeled,

did the Black students learn the unintended lesson that their ways of being and doing were

either inadequate for science or insufficient bridges for crossing over into science?

The counter narrative: more than voice

Yerrick clearly articulated his intent as the teacher: to listen to the students’ voices, to

acknowledge their voices, and to use their voices in meeting their needs. From the usual

deployment of voice in science education research, we believe that Yerrick realized suc-

cess in these areas. In this section, we provide some insight on CRT’s conceptualization of

voice, a view of voice neither intended nor used by Yerrick in the project.

In lieu of ‘‘voice’’, CRT speaks of stories. Stories create and sustain a shared reality

(Delgado 1989). According to Delgado (1989), the narratives told by dominant groups

often include scripts that not only remind them of their superior position in relation to other

groups but also make their position seem natural. Mainstream accounts often represent the

perspectives of society’s dominant groups and distort, marginalize, or omit the views of

less dominant groups. In CRT, the stories of less dominant groups can serve many func-

tions, among them is to challenge the dominant narrative and portray realities it distorted,

at best, and omitted, at worst. Consequently, CRT situates voice as counter storytelling or

counter narratives. Counter stories in CRT are more than voice, the inclusion of partici-

pants’ perspectives, as it is typically used in science education research. They are more

than stand-alone transcribed interviews, conversation snippets, or observations presented to

redress explicit and implicit oppression. Rather, counter stories are the enactment of a

multiple consciousness in which the narrator deliberately sees the world and its corre-

sponding realities from the position of the subjugated (Duncan 2005).

On one hand, we do not think it impossible for Whites to develop a multiple con-

sciousness and to be allies in the obliteration of racial oppression and dominance. On the

other hand, we imagine it to be painstakingly difficult to not only become cognizant of the

many ways in which Whites dominate and experience privilege as a result of that domi-

nance but also to uncover and unlearn, for the purposes of eradication, understandings from

life-long submersions in both subliminal and overt manifestations that produce and

reproduce the idea of White superiority. In cultivating a multiple consciousness, some

draw upon their experiences of oppression (e.g., sexism, classism) and how survival and

success in the oppressive conditions necessitated an understanding of the oppressor’s

perspective whereas others participate in critical self-examination and self-reflection.

Although Yerrick conveyed the latter to some degree in the article, we, for the purposes of

unpacking the CRT element of counter stories, interrogate what was absent in the self-

examination and self-reflection with respect to developing a multiple consciousness.

Self-examination and self-reflection requires a certain level of exposure, a revealing that

makes one vulnerable. The article lacked this vulnerability-inducing exposure in several

domains. Yerrick mentioned biases of the research team but in lieu of sharing what the

research team uncovered in their own discussions of their biases they invited Black stu-

dents to identify them: ‘‘…invited students to discuss our biases or those of school rep-

resentatives that were pertinent to mutually observed events. Throughout the interviews,

focus groups, and recollections of classroom observations sustained a reciprocity as out-

siders, honoring all questions students asked me of my own background, assumptions, and

agendas.’’ One statement appeared to contradict the earlier acknowledgment of biases and

insinuated the absence of such biases on the part of the research team: ‘‘I actively had to


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work against the bias of looking like nearly every principal I had met in the county and

likely every principal they had actively resisted. I was a middle-aged, White male and

represented some of the baggage my students brought to class.’’ The first example

explicitly illustrates and the second example implicitly implicates a shift of examination/

reflection conducted by one’s self to examination/reflection to be performed by students.

He also alluded to the importance of assumptions. Except in one instance that pertained to

the research team’s assumption that the students would resist contributing publicly, the

article did not articulate the research team’s assumptions about the Black students and their

learning of science. In a similar vein, Yerrick discussed shifts in his knowledge, especially

as it pertained to the student milieu, but he did not clearly describe his knowledge before

the shifts. Lastly, with regards to demonstrating a multiple consciousness, the Black stu-

dents’ views served as an addendum to Yerrick’s perspective (e.g., vast majority of the

excerpts featured students’ responses to the teacher’s queries and the talk went from

teacher-to-student and student-to-teacher). How could Yerrick show a multiple con-

sciousness in this article, an essential in teaching other people’s children (Delpit 1995) or

the children who are not designated heirs to the dominant’s kingdom? He could have

employed CRT element four. He could have constructed dominant narratives and the Black

students’ stories that countered them.

In his depiction of the problem, Yerrick shared portions of a dominant narrative but

another dominant story, one more closely connected to the Black students in the class, was

left untold and undisclosed—his narrative as the teacher. In the absence of such a narrative,

what we considered the inadvertent positioning of Whites as superior and the Black stu-

dents as deficient in the article appeared natural and normal. For example, Yerrick used the

term ‘‘different’’ or phrases such as ‘‘backgrounds unlike our own’’ quite frequently

throughout the article after first establishing the norm as White, male, and middle class

(Yerrick’s phrasing) science. The language constantly reminded us that the communities in

which Yerrick are a part stands as a sharp contrast to Black students and their communities.

From what Yerrick included in the article we know very little about the Black students and

their communities and what Yerrick reported appeared less than positive (i.e., racist

experiences, pregnancy, family structure and social connections unfamiliar to Yerrick, the

absence of tools for meeting teacher expectations). Without Yerrick’s narrative, in the role

of teacher, overtly labeled as a dominant narrative, alternatives in which discussions of

‘‘our differences’’ would not simultaneously preclude or devalue the Black students’ ways

of being and doing are not activated. By labeling and constructing more fully his narrative

and situating the Black students’ stories as equal and counter to it, Yerrick could have

ushered Black participants into scientific discourse without situating them as deficient or

deviant from his established norm.

In constructing his narrative, Yerrick could have exposed and unpacked his own story in

relation to Black students. This is incredibly important for critical autoethnography; it must

be critical if CRT is Yerrick’s guiding frame. It is especially important with this study, as

the Black/White binary had been implicitly discussed, but deconstructed from only one

side. There are many issues and questions that we believe Yerrick’s dominant narrative

could have addressed. In an attempt to illustrate the nature and direction of a possible

dominant narrative, we propose a few questions Yerrick’s dominant narrative might have

addressed. What constituted his racial biases? What assumptions did he have about Blacks

as a collective? What were his preconceptions about Black students and their abilities and

how had he enacted them in the past? How did he become aware of these preconceptions,

biases, and assumptions? Was he cognizant of them when he interacted with Black students

and how did he manage them in his interactions? How did he conceptualize racism and


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how did he view his role as a White male in Black students’ experiences of racism? What

did he think about his whiteness? How did he view the role of whiteness in his status within

the communities to which he is a part? How did he view his life experiences as a White

male in relation to scientific discourse—discordant, irrelevant, compatible, valuable, and

the like? The construction of such a dominant narrative exposes it for self-critique and

critique by others, a vulnerability Yerrick and the research team circumvented and, in most

cases, would not be asked to assume because such questioning and challenges are most

often levied against the counter narrative. These intense deconstructions, unsettling as they

might be, would have been the first aspect of illustrating a multiple consciousness. The

second dimension would have involved the construction of the Black students’ stories as a

counter to Yerrick’s narrative.

In accordance with CRT, Black students would have likely written their own stories but

if Yerrick constructed their stories then he would need to enact a multiple consciousness on

several levels. He would need to recognize his default voice, one of dominance, and temper

it. Also, he would need to exert great care in how he told their stories (e.g., ‘‘I recognized,

after many early difficulties that the students did not bring to the classroom the tools to be

productive in the ways I was asking them to be.’’). Additionally, he would need to handle

with considerable diligence the positioning of himself as the narrator of the Black students’

stories as well as situating the Black students’ stories as counter to his own. Yerrick

indicated in his narration that Black students spoke openly about racism, occurrences

inside their classes with White teachers and outside their school in their jobs, and he

implied that Black students valued family and friends. From the previous, we imagine that

perhaps the Black students’ stories would not only have highlighted the challenges they

faced, the emphasis of Yerrick’s current reporting, but would have celebrated family and

friends. Their stories would have been windows into their out-of-classroom discourses; to

their family structures and social connections unfamiliar to Yerrick; and to their coping

mechanisms and resiliency that Yerrick acknowledged as being aptly and sometimes

inappropriately transferred to the school learning context. These stories when juxtaposed

with the deconstructed dominant narratives could have possibly revealed the tools that the

Black students did have that we, as educators, could employ in our well-intentioned efforts

to achieve CRT goals. As defined by Yerrick and described as a motivation in his actions

these goals include but are not limited to ‘‘understanding how racial inequity is created and

maintained in America and working toward breaking the bond between racial power and

law.’’

CRT and science education

Critical race theory brings to light what many would prefer to keep hidden. It calls into

question the liberal racial ideology that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, an ideology that

under girds the intentions of many people of good will.

…the reigning contemporary American ideologies about race were built in the sixties

and seventies around an implicit social compact. This compact held that racial power

and racial justice would be understood in very particular ways. Racial justice was

embraced in the American mainstream in terms that excluded radical or fundamental

challenges to status quo institutional practices in American society by treating the

exercise of racial power as rare and aberrational rather than as systemic and

ingrained (p. xiv, Crenshaw, Gotanda, Peller and Thomas 1995).


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It requires not only exposure of any truths we believe to be self-evident but also their

deconstruction such that racial power is revealed and racial egalitarianism achieved. CRT

is radical. Is science education ready for CRT? We hope that Yerrick’s courageous efforts

and our attempt to further unpack CRT by using his efforts, as a forum, will help prime

science education for the onset of CRT. As described by Yerrick in his depiction of the

problem, past and present efforts to redress racial inequalities and racial inequities in

science education are not producing the results necessary in ensuring the nation’s future

prosperity. Perhaps, it is time for radical.

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Author Biographies

Eileen R. Carlton Parsons is an associate professor in science education at the University of NorthCarolina at Chapel Hill. She works in the Culture, Curriculum, and Change strand of the PhD in Educationprogram. Her research interests include socio-cultural influences, including race, on the science learning andscience educational experiences of students of color. Critical race theory, culturally relevant pedagogy, andsociocultural theories rooted in sociology and psychology are among the theories that inform her work.

Billye Rhodes is a doctoral student in the Culture, Curriculum and Change strand of the PhD in Educationprogram at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research interests include socialfoundations, multicultural and equity education, narrative inquiry, critical race theory, and Black feministtheory.

Corliss Brown is a doctoral student in the Culture, Curriculum and Change strand of the PhD in Educationprogram at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research interests include teacher educationand culturally responsive teaching.


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Unpacking the CRT in Negotiating White Science