The Shire as Metaphor for Systemic Racism with Joyce McCall
In this interview with Joyce McCall, we unpack and problematize some of the issues around race and racism in relation to education. In particular, we discuss the importance of allies not only showing up to support marginalized or oppressed groups, but staying when conversations get uncomfortable; the Shire from the Lord of the Rings as a metaphor for hegemony and systemic racism; as well as a variety of theories such as critical race theory, double consciousness, cultural capital; and much more.
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Welcome back to another episode of the
CSK8 podcast my name is jared o'leary
in this week's episode i'm interviewing
joyce mccall joyce and i have been
friends and colleagues for several years
as we both went to the same doctoral
program
at arizona state university she's now a
music education professor
in illinois all right now you might be
wondering why i'm having a music
education professor come on this podcast
the reason why is because
joyce is an expert at issues around race
and racism in education
so this particular episode discusses the
importance of allies not only showing up
to support marginalized or oppressed
groups
but staying when the conversations get
uncomfortable joyce also unpacks
some theories such as critical race
theory double consciousness
cultural capital hegemony etc so for
example she provides a brilliant
metaphor for the shire from the lord of
the rings as a metaphor for
hegemony and systemic racism as always
you can find a link to the show notes in
the app that you're listening to this on
which includes several links to scholars
that
joyce recommends for learning more about
anti-racist practices
critical race theory and more i hope you
get as much out of this interview as i
did
i really enjoyed this interview with
joyce and believe there's a ton of
important information in here and in the
show notes that can help cs educators
with that being said we're now going to
begin with joyce introducing herself
joyce mccall i am an assistant professor
at the university of illinois in urban
champaign
i just finished my second year my work
has to do with
looking at their topics in race class
culture and using various theoretical
frameworks such as critical race theory
double consciousness theory so i guess
how i started this work or how i was
inspired to do this work
has a lot to do with my experience
as a black female growing up in this
country and being a part of
school music and seeing that i was
always
pretty much one of you or the only in my
school bands and also even when i was in
the military center for 14 years in the
army bands i was
oftentimes the only black female in the
unit
or one of few black folks in the unit so
yeah it inspired me to do this this work
and especially as a teacher i taught in
houston texas as an assistant band
director at macarthur
high school in alden independent school
district
it's a predominantly latinx school
district
and it was there especially that
i was compelled or moved to go and
pursue a phd in music education
because i realized just how messed up
the system was
planned or was situated to work you know
to marginalize certain people
and raise other people up and i wanted
to find a way to set the table to create
change
and now that i'm sitting at the table
the table is really hard to sit at
sometimes
because the folks at the table if they
move very slow or
there are people at the table who have
no intention
of any sort of movement so they're there
to hold up progress
you know and so i said it's really
challenging to sit at the
table sometimes i ask myself well is it
worth
sitting at this table i go and sit at
another table or
build my own table or just not sitting
at the table right you have to have
a gig in higher ed or wherever to do
this sort of work
and the reason why i haven't said social
justice work is because people wear it
out
and that term has become pretty stale
over the years
even though that's essentially what
we're doing yeah i teach a couple
courses here at illinois
jazz methods this course called social
foundations this is a sophomore course
for undergrad music ed students and
it's basically looking at various
socio-cultural groups
and issues and situating all of that
within
the music classroom and i also teach a
class called transformative topics for
for graduate students and the most
recent
course well the course that i created
it's called social transformation
technology and music and so we're
looking
at all these issues in the world
situating them within
music but using theoretical frameworks
or no frameworks at all
and saying well what are these issues
how can we not just music education
people but performers
and music theorists music industry
people
i've even had a couple students in that
class from from
social sciences from drafting
and one student from engineering
and so yeah that those are just a few
things about me
so can you tell me a story about an
experience in education that continues
to impact you
i can tell you one story that has always
stayed with me and that really shook me
up a bit
even though the situation wasn't foreign
to me
so i was teaching in houston texas at
macarthur high school
well it was just after
the school day had ended and
i was preparing just like any other
marching band person
preparing to head out to the field you
know grabbing my water bottle
wrapping up a few emails grabbing my
baseball cap and so this student walks
in
who's just an outstanding student she
was an ib student
had like a 4.7 gpa already
and she came into the
office and said hey miss i can come to
rehearsal today
and i'm talking to her while i'm
you know grabbing my things dealing with
the computer putting files away so i can
head out to the field
and i'm like no no you you'll figure it
out you'll be there
because this student never missed a
rehearsal right
so she's like no miss i can't come i
can't come to rehearsal
she's a soft-spoken person and i was
like no you'll be there and all of a
sudden she raised her voice
and yelled at me and that was completely
out of her
personality it was totally totally
different
i stopped in my tracks and i turned
around and
this kid tears were just pouring down
her face
she had cuts on her face like a busted
lip
her face was black and blue and i said
who did this
to you and she's like miss i can't tell
you i just need i
i need to go home i said well you know
were you in a fight
did you get jumped things of that sort
she's like miss i just can't tell you
and i said well we can't leave
without you telling me she went to
explain to me as i closed the door to my
office
that her mom did that to her like her
mom
beat the crap out of this kid because
she was actually trying to save her
mom's life because her mom was
going to commit suicide and to save her
mom
she called 9-1-1 and her mom beat her
and when she told me that it took
everything within me
not to go and find her mom and beat the
hell out of this woman
everything's surging through me but then
i had to like find a way to come myself
down
because i'm like i gotta tend to to the
student and see what's up what can i do
and yada yada
but i was so furious at the situation
but then two i realized you know i got
a healthy student i said well we need to
go talk to the counselor
at first i mentioned the principal she
was like no no no she started to freak
out and so i said well
you know let's go talk to the counselor
and and so we went to the counselor and
i
said hey can we come in and chat with
you
so we went in and i told her i said well
i asked the student i said well
do you mind if i share the story with
you know
my colleague and she she agreed and i
told her what happened
and of course the counselor said well
you know we have to call dhs
and of course the student was like no no
no we're going to put my mom in jail
you know that's any kid's concern about
it so
i said well maybe dhs will find a way to
help your mom but we got to get you out
of this situation
and eventually you know over the course
of a couple days a few days
we were able to get the student out of
situation but the challenge was
was that she would have to change
schools and she would go and live with
her dad
just outside of houston and she didn't
want to do that because of course she
had made friends and she loved being in
the
band program it was horrible but she got
the help that she needed
fast forward a year later i'm at a
marching band
festival of course somebody tapped me on
my shoulder
and it was the student who i had helped
the year before
she was at the competition to support
her band colleagues
in the band and she had a poster and
everything she had this huge smile on
her face
and she came up and she said hey miss i
just wanted to come up
and thank you for saving me
and i swear jared it took everything
within me not to break down
in that in that moment because i
remember
going through some crap in my own home
but
no one at school knew no one at school
bothered to ask and no one
kinda you know no one stepped into quote
unquote saved me
and so it was that experience
as well as a whole lot of others while
teaching
that made me throw my philosophy of
teaching
in the trash
it made me just completely do this
huge turnaround and say you know at the
end of the day
what we do as music educators or as
musicians or whatever the case may be
it's not really about the music it
really really isn't
i mean the music is one of many tools
that we use
to create community to create a sense of
belonging
and opportunities to create and innovate
but at the end of the day especially in
music education
it's not about the music it just happens
to be
one of the many products that we create
through our interactions with students
and colleagues
and so that experience as well as a
wealth of others while teaching
really gave me the sort of encouragement
but also a platform
a real platform from which i could
speak to because that platform i knew
very well
because of my own story i could speak
from that platform in a real way
and i felt like not a lot of people
could speak to it
or not a lot of people really wanted to
speak to it
that story and many others were the
sort of gears that create shifts in my
career and even how i think about music
education
it's wonderful to have that kind of
impact and
it's definitely relatable in terms of
you expressing that you
went through similar experiences and
being able to help and identify with
that like
myself being chronically depressed and
suicidal like
being able to identify kids who are
struggling through depression and
suicidality
because i've been through it as well
it's been one of those things where it's
like
i wouldn't wish depression or
suicidality on anyone but i've been able
to help out kids with it
and that has been invaluable and i
totally understand
the importance of working with kids
one-on-one and just
meeting them where they're at mentally
emotionally etc
in that moment it's not about the
content it's about helping
individuals so what about with your
research
so your research areas have been about
basically helping marginalized
communities and whatnot specifically
around race
how has your research kind of informed
or impacted
your understandings of education well i
think
it's two-pronged my response one in that
it has helped to i guess confirm
that education has not done its job or
so many people who have had the
opportunity to create equitable spaces
and to provide a socially just
experience for all students a lot of
people have failed in that
like for instance even my dissertation
when i looked at african-american
students moving from historically black
college undergraduate music program to a
graduate
music program at a predominantly white
institution in the 21st century
a lot of well actually all the
participants in that study
encounter overt racism you know in the
like when you mention that you know a
lot of people assume that we're still in
the post-racial era
and particularly when president obama
was elected participants in that study
were in graduate school when president
obama was president
here these these black men are
negotiating
racist structures but also racist
behaviors from their white peers and
faculty
and so i think my research confirms
a lot of the things that either a i
myself have
experienced or observed or read about
but then also i think the other piece of
my research
i think it has impacted or compelled
some people
in the profession to reflect and to
create some waves of change whether it's
in their own classroom or how they talk
about race or how they
engage racially minoritized populations
i wish my research could do a bit more
because i'm one of the things that i
really am working on even when i speak
to
universities or whomever is to push them
to act
because i feel like you know a lot of
research is
is situating along the line of starting
points and i feel like we've been at the
starting point for too long on race and
racism in this country
and so pushing people to think about
initiatives
and strategies that are anti-racist
to look at all the forms of racism right
and not just the individual or
interpersonal racism but
the structural and institutional stuff
we'll see if this is still the case like
a year and five years from now but it
seems like we're
we're at an awakening point where people
are starting to realize we need to learn
more
and engage in discussions on anti-racism
in particular
so hopefully like things are getting
better one thing that i would
argue against though is like you
mentioned that schools are designed to
be
like promote equity and whatnot but i
think it's also designed to oppress
people and like one
easy way to look at that is like what
we've historically done to
american indian or indigenous
populations where
like we were quote trying to civilize
the savages
and there's a lot of research on this
that has been done that has talked about
like basically
we took kids off the reservation and
tried to
made them white make them white and
there's
tons of research out there on that if
people are listening to this and are
confused about it i'll put some
in the show notes it's like on one hand
we say yeah we want to be equitable and
like we want to do these like great
things and
promote this like good things for
society and people but on the other hand
we're going to oppress you and make you
do things
our way yeah it's like you do it our way
and that's
you know that's one of the things that i
that i mentioned here at illinois
you know people always talk about
diversity and
heck even when i was at indiana a lot of
institutions are so quick to
you know diversity diversity diversity
recruitment recruitment
and i'm just like yeah you see diversity
but it's all about how you want it
yep you know what i mean it's like how
do you want it and
it's very controlled so i agree with you
i mean even looking at historically
black colleges and universities
i think cheyney university was the first
one in 1837
roughly 200 years after harvard and
when they were allowed to create these
institutions
they didn't have the same curriculum as
harvard why because
the folks who were in these schools were
newly
freed from enslavement where they were
not
empowered to read or write or to do
anything
close to that deemed to be sort of
education like many of these schools
started out hbc
started out as a might as well say the
equivalent to
kindergarten teaching people how to read
and write but
also etiquette and how
to assimilate into a predominantly
all-white
american society right education in this
country is all within
certain parameters and when you you know
bust outside of those parameters
it's trouble it's incredible look at the
curriculum
at any university you can look at our
curriculum
at illinois many of my colleagues here
agree
it's very rooted in western
art music and everything else outside of
that
is not necessarily of importance like a
class is probably deemed an elective
unless you are majoring in a particular
sort of
music so if you're majoring in jazz more
than likely you're going to take jazz
classes
and jazz is a black art form but how
many
other people would actually take that
course right
or be told that they need to take that
course not many
it's unreal but we call ourselves music
school schools are music
but only one music is elevated yes
which is an extremely important point
that i don't think most people realize
one of your comments about how hbcus
were
teaching etiquette and whatnot in order
to like assimilate it's also
not just like the ways that you behave
and interact within
predominantly white society but it's
also just like the natural ways of being
like the embodied things that natural
hair
how workplaces will put a ban on stuff
like that and it's just like
those little things it's like wait so
you're saying my natural way of being
is not allowed here what does that say
about what you think about me and how i
am as a person
or who i am yeah i mean for instance
like my years in the military for black
women
even now there are certain hairstyles we
cannot
wear like cornrows
they have to be a specific size and a
specific
this and that but white women in the
military
they will throw some cornrows in their
hair
easily when i got into the military in
basic training
we were told to wear underwear based off
of my skin
complexion i joined in the military in
black women had to wear certain at least
this is what our dream
sergeant told us black women had to wear
specific
underwear a certain color and then white
women had to wear white
underwear and bras why i don't know
no explanation just this is what you're
doing yeah
no explanation because two none of us
were gonna
push against it because the majority of
folks who enlist in the military are
usually like 17 18 19 years old right at
the time i was
just
how you are like you say your natural
way of being is not acceptable
for the status quo when we look at
colorism
you know skin complexion skin tones and
that is a direct product of racism
yeah how people see themselves and so
even in the black community like my skin
complexion
would be acceptable because my skin
complexion is
considered to be light skinned there was
the brown bag paper test
right and they placed the brown bag next
to your skin and if
if you were that color or lighter then
you were considered to be beautiful and
smart and you had social access and all
these things but if you were darker
then your access to various things were
pretty limited everything is so related
and
interwoven racism is so endemic in
american culture
it's not real yeah i mean another
example it's only in the last few years
that
the so-called skin tone band-aids and
makeup
actually are not just white now like it
includes
other colors other than variations of
shades of white
yeah that's crazy i think it was the
rockets
yeah they just now recently within the
last few years have allowed
women of color to have the same skin
tone
as their bodies with the stockings
and the argument was you know we have to
have uniformity
but it's like okay everybody's legs are
the same but then when you
go up to their face you have white women
and you have
women of color it's crazy the excuses
right to ask someone to not be
themselves
at the beginning you had mentioned that
like two of the primary theories that
you've worked with is critical race
theory and double consciousness
how would you explain both of those to a
novice and like
how they kind of inform your own
understanding of education
that's a good question and i think it's
totally fair and it should be asked all
the time
because i think some of us some scholars
and
academics you know assume that everybody
is going to know what we're talking
about critical race theory
is basically a tool a theoretical
framework
if you will it's the lens that we use to
analyze look at and assess and examine
racialized structures attitudes and
behaviors
so actually critical race theory
it began to emerge through critical
legal studies in the 1970s
and it also served as a response to the
incremental approaches
of the civil rights movement because a
lot of people were saying you know the
civil rights movement
even though that was progress it was
very slow
and through critical legal studies
it was this guy by the name of derek
bell who's no longer with us he's
considered to be the father of critical
race theory
he used things like storytelling
to educate white folks about
the experience of black folks in america
and so
eventually it emerged to an actual
theory
and into education so there are
a few tenets or rationales to support
critical race theory so a couple of them
includes
one racism is real is not abnormal it's
very
much a part of the american culture then
there's another one called
storytelling or naming one's own reality
using storytelling to inform using
storytelling to create counter
narratives
narratives of other folks or dominant
individuals and so for instance decades
ago
when black folks were allowed to speak
in court
their testimonies were often
very much controlled and sometimes they
weren't even allowed to give
testimony but through testimony or
as derek bell in critical race theories
called storytelling
they are able to one identify racist
structures
but also name their origins and the
perpetrators
in other situations they would not be
able to do that and so
this whole push to to look at racism
far beyond the surface i see critical
race theory as a lens
or a high-powered microscope
to look at racism far beyond the surface
because sometimes when people think
about racism even now
they tend to think about racism from
white crazy men on their horses with
hoods
what's funny is that there still are
these white crazy men on horses
in the 21st century riding through
downtown
you know these small towns and whatnot
or even
recently like at what the capital of
michigan right
or covet but it's looking at
deep into the structure when i think
about the structure i think of in terms
of a matrix like the movie the matrix
and all these layers of information and
intersections
of identity and discourse and things of
that sort
i'm curious like how does that inform
your approach to education because like
having done some critical analyses of
things
i see so many problems in education and
sometimes it can be overwhelming
like with the pre-service and service
teachers that you're working with
how do you help them understand critical
race theory and like its implications
as educators yeah so i actually
sometimes i'll use case studies you know
stories of others or stories that i
wrote
or i'll actually tell stories or even
allow
give folks in the class to share stories
and we will sit there and we'll pick
apart
or deconstruct these stories and analyze
them
and like i said with my explanation of
critical race theory
you use these rash canals or aspects of
critical race theory
to look very deeply and intently at
each incident in one naming
its origins locating perpetrators but
also coming back and saying well
how can you as a music educator future
teacher
how can you become adept to
being able to identify these things long
before they become
an incident or to identify attitudes
how can you situate your own space
in terms of every student being able
to feel empowered whether that has to do
with how you
decorate your classroom you know if
you're just putting up
these white composers who by the way
have been dead for
centuries or you're elevating a certain
particular sort of music i use stories
or case studies or sometimes i'll
actually pull
research from other scholars like dr
gloria last and billings is one of them
dr adrian dixon she's here at the
university of illinois
kimberly crenshaw victor delgado richard
cerlizano terry oso but
i try to use storytelling
at least to me that seems to be one of
the most accessible ways
you can get people to listen and hone in
on
you know storytelling has always been
one of these
wonderful cultural artifacts for any
culture
to share information to inform to warn
to provide survival techniques and
strategies
we problematize that stuff in the
classroom but
also i create scenarios on the fly
like i'll post something on blackboard
i'll post a scenario
and they will have to immediately
respond within 24 hours
instead of giving them like a whole week
or two weeks to respond
i forced them to respond to a scenario
really quickly i mean essentially that's
how it's gonna happen in the classroom
right it's not gonna happen in slow
motion racism it's always
like at the drop of a hat and two most
people
aren't able to even identify racist
incidents right either one because they
are
on the privileged end of race or
perhaps their understanding of race and
racism is so
limited and so sparse
i try to make it as real as possible
that in itself is a challenge because
two we have a lot of
white students here who are
uncomfortable
with just the word white
let alone engaging in conversations
about race
and so that's actually been one of my
most
challenging experiences as a teacher
educator
in this work is helping or
encouraging white students to get
outside of their box
majority of students we get here from
the chicago suburbs
in terms of like black students for
instance 3.2 percent
of our students here at the school of
music are black
it's very small so what about double
consciousness theory
how would you describe that to somebody
who's unaware of it yeah so double
consciousness theory
is a theory by w.b du bois
some scholars have actually deemed him
as the father of critical race theories
or like the grandfather
du bois actually formed his theory based
off of his own experiences as an african
american in this country and his
observations of
other african americans that theory
suggests
that he says that because of the color
line or because of racism
black folk have to see themselves
through
two different modes of consciousness
through their own eyes
how they see themselves but they also
have to know
how white folks a white america see them
and so you're operating in the worlds
with this double consciousness
so how i would explain that is
some people will say it's code switching
but it's not code switching
at least for me is a byproduct of double
consciousness
it is an act that one uses to negotiate
the color line
but it's like you are aware of
what's going on in the world but you
also have to be super
aware of how the world sees you even
when they don't say anything
i'm curious so like as a kind of a
follow-up question to dive deeper how
does
double consciousness kind of relate to
cultural capital and community cultural
wealth
cultural capital is capital that only a
select few can obtain
it is the information the codes the or
the
objects one acquires or inherits
that they can use to climb the ladder of
social mobility
it is also access so for instance like a
second or third generation college
student might have
more access more access to codes and
means and
cognitive maps and how to negotiate just
applying to go to college whereas if you
look at a first generation college
student
they probably won't have that
information because one their parents
didn't go to college
their grandparents didn't go to college
and so the question becomes well
they go to college they applied and they
did all these things
how were they able to do that because
cultural capital suggested alberto
suggests that only white european
descendants
from middle to upper class majority have
access to cultural capital
so individuals who are not
members of that group terry also
suggests that
those individuals people of color obtain
cultural capital
in a number of ways but also they have
their own culture
i echo her is that people of color we
have our culture
the problem is is that the dominant
space
sees what we bring to the table as
deficient
for instance so i had a student who
could place his butt off he's a
guitarist he actually won a stellar
award
he could play anything and when i say
anything i mean
anything he was raised in the black
baptist church and in the black baptist
church
it's not just about reading music it's
more so about your ears
right it's about responding to
modulations key changes all these things
at the drop of the hat well here's the
thing this student
didn't read music and so
but a lot of black kids were
raised in the black church that was
their music education
right but here you have a student
like i mentioned who played the guitar
who could hear anything and play it back
he wanted to go to college he wanted to
major music he actually wanted to go to
unt
the problem with that is that in order
to get into any institution in this
country
you got to be able to read music and
majority of kiddos who apply to these
schools
are not only white students but they
have that cultural capital
and the cultural capital in this case is
being able to read
notation westernized notation and so
i think going back to the double
consciousness piece
these i believe racist structures
through the use of using certain
pieces of information as a means to keep
people out
and to welcome people in is a form of
racism
and so when when a person like myself or
the young man who i was talking about
the guitars
we come up to apply it's like
not only do we have to not only do we
see ourselves our own culture
but we also see how the world sees our
culture
and minimizes it but i believe that
because
we live in this very racist society
in this country that was actually built
off of
the notion of race we grew up in it
and so we recognize that we've learned
to to see both sides of the world in
order to survive
i think it was andrew hacker he was an
economist
he was actually talking about how
parents have to have a conversation with
their kids
and that's been recent in the news to
talk about racism
to talk about how the world is going to
see you even though if you work hard you
can tell you can be the president of the
united states
and the many many people many occupants
in the world
or social agents in the world are going
to see you as
deficient and there's this quote that he
says it says there will be
the perplexing and equally painful task
of having to explain to your children
why they will not be treated as other
americans
that they will never be altogether
accepted that they will always be
regarded rarely if not with suspicion or
hostility
when they ask whether this happens
because of anything you have done you
must find ways of conveying that no
it is not because of any fault of their
own further for reasons you can barely
explain yourself you must tell them that
much of the world has decided that you
are not and cannot be their equals
that this world wishes to keep you apart
a cast it will neither absorb nor
assimilate you will tell your children
this world is wrong but because
that world is there they will have to
struggle to survive with the
skills weighted against them they'll
have to work harder and do better yet
the results
may be less recognition and reward we
all know that life
is can be unfair for black people this
knowledge is not
an academic theory but a fact of daily
life
i would go on record and say if not all
most
black american kids have been told
early on here's this thing that's going
to happen
you're not going to know why it's going
to be really weird
and it's going to hurt but just know
it's not going to be your fault
and i think black folks in america we
learn to negotiate this thing called
double consciousness
or we anticipate it we just don't know
when it's gonna happen it happens every
day the thousand daily cuts of
it and so if i was talking to somebody
outside of music about this sort of work
double consciousness exists according to
the voice and even according to myself
it exists because racism exists right
the color line exists and and until we
address that uh this this experience
this
two-ness that we experience will
continue on
and it's not just black folk it's all
people of color
experience this in a number of ways
double consciousness is not something
that i
as a white individual like was even
aware of
and like the only similar experience
that i can
think of is like the last 10 years i've
lived in a neighborhood a part of town
that is predominantly latinx and when i
like go grocery shopping or
hang out with my neighbors or whatever
like that is the only time that i'm
aware of like anything that sounds like
double consciousness
and up until that point it just it
wasn't something that i thought about
it's one of those things was like i want
to learn more about this
because i find problems with this and so
i'm wondering
what advice would you give for other
educators who are trying to learn more
about
stuff like double consciousness or just
trying to understand
that there are forms of violence and
oppression kind of like
built into education and like how can
educators like then problematize that
and then seek to change that
i just had a conversation i hosted this
talk on like what are the next steps
towards realizing equality and justice
for all
particularly for the white students and
my white colleagues here at illinois in
the school of music
and one of the things that that is the
most
accessible way of addressing what you
just said
is having conversations with people
right
it seems simple because it is simple
i tell students all the time when you
come into class you know you guys always
act like you're down for the cause and
black lives matter but even in class you
won't even
sit by someone else you've never set by
before my thing is like challenge your
comfort level
have conversations with folks in your
community like where you live
i'm sure you have conversations with
people who either a don't look like you
b probably have a different story
or have a different reality i think it
is in
those moments in those opportunities
where people
can get to know what the reality is
for their fellow neighbor right it's
really
simple and what's really funny is like
when i say that to people they're like
well what else we need to do
i'm like that's what you need to do
silly man
and i think people are afraid to do that
because in this country you know our
culture is very much
like you have to have your own space you
stay over there i stay over here
but if you go to europe even on the
train random people will sit next to you
because they need that seat
they're not going to stand up and say oh
i don't want to sit next to that person
because that's a white person or
that's a person who's muslim no it's
because
i'm going to sit here because this seat
is open but here in this country
you can walk into a starbucks and there
are so many open
chairs but if there's one person at the
table
no one's gonna sit there yeah isn't that
crazy
isn't that like ridiculous but i think
it's about
really and truly if you're in a grocery
store i do this all the time if
somebody's in front of me i'll actually
talk to them
you know i ask questions it's kind of
hard to do that in the midwest because
the midwest is
a little different it's a simple
suggestion and solution but it's also a
complicated one like as an example of
why i think it's complicated especially
online yeah
i it was like a week ago somebody had
posted
something about a political party and
somebody commented the disagreeing
basically suggesting we should have a
civil war to get
rid of that political party and like
when i tried to engage in a conversation
like why do you think it's justifiable
to murder
a significant portion of our population
because we can't have conversations
and they just resorted to name calling
and calling me a wimp and whatnot so
like
on one hand it's very easy to reach out
to people but on the other hand like
even just basic conversations like turn
into forms of violence
well yeah that's true but also
one of the things that i talk about in
even the sophomore class that i teach
here
and we talk about this i say you know
there will be times
where no one whether individual will not
want to hear what you have to say
well actually because they just don't
want to hear it and you either they have
to make a choice like
okay i reach my limit with this person
okay and then move on to another person
right because more than likely there are
more people out there
who are more willing to engage in
conversation
identifying the similarities and
differences between the two of you
then there are people who just want to
be violent and ignorant
that's a great point the example that i
gave was definitely on an extreme end of
the continuum in terms of responses
yeah and there are folks who don't want
to engage because they
seem like the topic is just so cliche
or we've been on this topic forever one
of the things that i have working for me
is like
i'm an army veteran a lot of the
veterans
not all of them some of them are really
staunch
republican so much so they're the people
who are out there with long guns
and m4 carbines protest and covet
some of those individuals i've actually
had the opportunity to have a
conversation with
and because i have the cachet of i'm an
army vet
that capital right yeah i served in the
austin and so i try to find
these pieces of common ground
and sometimes there isn't but i think
those are opportunities to establish
empathy
the other part of your question was well
how do you problematize
those situations or those efforts in the
classroom
i'm all about examining things you know
and then posing more questions well
what would this be like if this happened
just looking at
all sides of it but i think the most
accessible way
is is having conversations with folk but
also challenging yourself
to educate yourself now you're an
individual i don't think i
would ever have to say that to you i'm
assuming that this is your way of life
and
and this is another piece that i tell
people to do this work
to to be empathetic and to be real about
it
it is a way of life like i can sit here
and talk to
white people all day about culturally
relevant pedagogy critical race theory
double consciousness
blah blah blah blah but if their heart
is not there if that's not a part of
their personality
and who they are to their core if it
doesn't happen
i can't be broken up about it
to me it's really simple and i get it
that sometimes you might encounter folks
who will pose questions like the civil
war
thing that you mentioned and i've gotten
into shouting matches with folks
a few years ago particularly when
georgia allowed
when they gave the okay for the
confederate flag
as an option for your license plate what
yeah it was it must have been one two
three maybe four or five years ago
and i post my critique on social media
and one of my fellow well
yeah fellow army buddies chimed in
and she was like well i'm surprised
you're educated and you need to go read
a book
the response usually is oh it's not
about racism the confederate flag is not
about racism
i'm like yeah it is and however the
that flag had several iterations of that
flag prior to the one that
is currently used now that battle flag
so i mean i've gotten into arguments but
now
i don't argue with people if if i see
where
you know we're not jiving
i have to be okay with it and move on
because otherwise it's gonna suck you up
it's gonna discourage you and it's gonna
in many ways it can make you bitter
and work against what you're trying to
do
what about educators like who want to
become
better allies for historically
marginalized and oppressed groups
whether it's based on race
gender religion whatever do you have
suggestions for that
we talk about allyship again in that
course and the two courses that i
that i teach and how does one become an
ally
i'm very much about people standing
alongside
others and helping them to fight
whatever fight they need to fight
because i think sometimes particularly
since we're talking about race
what usually happened with many of our
white allies
they don't know how to balance taking
the initiative
versus seeking counsel that they are
attempting to help
and so i think part of that has to do
with
people just want to jump in and go and
some of that has to do a little bit with
privilege and that
you know white folks can can do a lot
without much consequence but
black folks we have to be strategic and
things of that sort so when we look at
the civil rights movement
even when we look at the black panther
party or the nation of islam
very strategic and when white folk were
welcome to assist they were informed in
how to do that and so i think nowadays
some people tend to just jump out there
and go and that can be very detrimental
to the cause
or you can slow up the process so one of
the things that i
often talk about is saying hey with an
ally it's about standing firm
next to alongside these individuals
and being there for whatever support
they need
and being able to be adaptive
flexible but also the other piece of is
being willing to just listen
yeah and i think that's really hard for
people to do
especially when they've always had voice
yeah
one of the things that i actually sort
of
really tagged into a fellow white
colleague
in music education she's no longer with
us but
i said you know one of the most
frustrating
pieces about social justice work
especially in music education is that
many of the white
academic scholars in music air
they're just talking and talking for us
you never asked us what we wanted
it's like building a playground in the
community
without ever asking the community what
it wants
but yet you go and you put up tennis
courts and
ultimate frisbee frisbee equipment and
things like that so when that's not even
things that they're interested in and
you wonder why those things were
abandoned
it is because you never asked so i would
say
one balance taking initiative
and seeking counsel
to listen and
three i would say which is
even more important is staying
when it becomes uncomfortable and
i'm finding that a lot of my white
colleagues tend to
sort of turn it off when it's
uncomfortable well
white folks have light switches right in
this instance you can turn it off and
turn it on
and you can leave the room and take a
break and
you know press pause but my thing is
like
stay even when it's uncomfortable
even when you feel like dang
what am i here for at the end of the day
you have to understand it's not about
you we're
not here to attack white folks we're
here to attack the system
and to combat the system and a very
thing that has oppressed us and has
created
has allowed racism to be america's most
successful story
yeah but it feels like attacking white
people because the system was designed
to privilege
and elevate white people so like it's
this conflation it's like look we're not
attacking you as an individual we're
attacking the system and yes it's
helping you
but it's also really messing up other
communities
and putting them at disadvantages yeah
so
those are just three things you know
balancing initiative and
seeking counsel two silence
three stay in it do not leave
that's one of the things that killed
michael butera
besides what he said in nafta
i don't know if you recall what he
mentioned in a meeting he was the former
president of nathan yeah which is the
national association for music education
it's like equivalent to csta and
basically he said that
was it a black and latinx kids can't
make music as well on like piano and
guitar i think
as white kids and music theory yeah
when they for him to ask for him to
clarify that and to
engage in conversation about it he got
up and left yeah like physically left
the room
yeah and maybe that's like a totally
different situation but
i guess the point i'm making is that you
know whatever you say
or whatever is said in the space
you know don't get up and leave because
you're uncomfortable
but you have to remember that people of
color are uncomfortable 24
in a leap year we don't we don't get a
chance to
turn it off or to damn it right and two
a lot of people here even in these
courses
white students it's hard for some reason
it's challenging for many of them to
understand
these simple what i believe to be simple
things
and maybe it's because their privilege
and even their white fragility
gets in the way and i've learned to
address it but i'll say you know what
okay it's not about you
it really isn't about you and
it's tough in the course that i teach
because i'm like
my colleagues and i in this university
we have four to five years
to equip you with as many tools beyond
just teaching music concepts
to guide into the profession and to
provide a socially just
learning space for the students you will
engage
and if i am not on my game and
being as tough on you as possible not
for the sake of being tough
but to create scenarios that forces you
to think
and forces you to be outside of your
comfort zone whatever that might be
if i don't do that then i fail and i'm
just as guilty as the system itself
many students they squirm in the class
a lot because i just i feel like so many
people have waited on us to get this
thing right
for decades for centuries and we have
yet to step
up to the plate to do it and i just
don't want to be a part of the problem
yeah i know there's this interesting
phenomenon that i've kind of
just been aware of in the last decade or
so is
conversations about race typically
happen
from one white person to another white
person but not necessarily
a white person with a person of color
and it is
just it kind of fascinating that like
all of a sudden as soon as
like a black person walks in the room oh
can't talk about that subject area
it's like well why not yeah
why is it all of a sudden that you're
avoiding the topic and you're only
talking to people
who aren't experiencing systemic racism
and whatnot
or it's another way too folks are
looking for
people of color to clean the mess up
you've also mentioned like several
scholars and whatnot do you have any
others in particular that you want to
mention i've really been digging into
adrian dixon's work recently
some of that has to do with the fact
that i've had the opportunity and the
pleasure
of working alongside her she's an
excellent
scholar she does a lot of man wonderful
things in new orleans
she's from new orleans her first degree
was actually in music
she went to an hbcu southern university
but her work has to do with critical
race theory
topics on race racism culturally
relevant pedagogy
she just wrote this well not just wrote
i just discovered
it which i'm kind of mad that i'm just
now
reading it but she's written so much
stuff
it's this uh piece she wrote called
expanding the metaphor
jazz says portraiture or something like
that it was written in 2005
and she uses jazz as a means to
talk about hegemonic structures but she
talks about
jazz as a pool of methodology and
research
on issues of race and racism it's it's a
cool
piece man she's just brilliant and by
the way
most of the things that i'm mentioning
at least for
me as a scholar the work outside of
music education
in places like sociology education
those are the places where i get my
inspiration from
and where i get a lot of resources from
because i feel like even though there's
some good work done in music education
it's no shade to our
profession but it is what it is right a
lot of it seems to be
sort of flushed out or thinned out by
the time it
gets to music ed and by the time it
comes to our profession
it's a day later in a dollar short yeah
same with computer science
okay okay yeah adrian dixon
did i mention kevin brown he's at
indiana university
in the school of law he does some stuff
even though it's within the framing of
law
it's still pretty dog unimpressive and
still
powerful check out amir baraka
i try to read various things outside of
music education those are the things
that seem to
really really get me going yeah i'm the
same way on the podcast i've recommended
several times to read outside of the
field
like you mentioned sociology so when
you're talking about adrian dixon you
mentioned
hegemonic influences or hegemony so for
people who like
haven't read foucault and like don't
know what the structure of structures is
like
what how would you describe hegemony
to me when i look at it's like how
it is a structure that is completely
dominated by
a particular group not just group of
people but how
how they think how they act
so one of the examples that i use when i
go out and i'm talking to like various
music ed students at different
universities
i talk about believe it or not the lord
of the rings
the shire and i promise you i'm going
it's going to make sense
but you know for those of us who have
seen the lord of the rings of the hobbit
you know when we think about the shire
you know
just imagine that place imagine the
people
imagining the sort of interactions that
take place
the buildings the shapes the knobs of
the doors the height of the homes
that space was built with a certain
people
in mind and not just with them in mind
so that they can be successful
in that space well if you recall
them i figured which sequel it was but
gandalf
which was the great wizard he comes to
visit bilbo and bilbo has the ring
well bilbo lives in a home in the shire
and once gandalf enters into his home
what happens gandalf is trying to
situate himself in that very small space
why because it wasn't built with him in
mind right
you know he's walking through he bust
his head on the
ceiling and the chandelier and he's
trying to you know
get some sort of sense of where he is
and how to negotiate it
to me that's what it is not only was it
created with the certain people in mind
by the individuals themselves but it is
maintained in a way so that those
individuals alone
solely will benefit and be successful
anyone else outside of that it's not
built for you
and so i think that's the trouble with
education
when we look at our music programs
whether they be
k through 12 or undergraduate or
graduate
degree programs all these things were
built
with a particular group of people in
mind
right it's funny people like i wonder
why you know certain students just can't
make it in here
and i want to raise my hand every time
and say uh duh
because this was built for people like
you
right and so for like computer science
people an example of this
it's talked about in relation to like
algorithmic bias
so hegemony like in terms of
facial recognition designed by white
people for white people
works for white people but then as soon
as like a black person uses
facial recognition technology the like
the success rate drops to like
the teens or 10 percent in terms of like
how well it can work or even just like
little stuff like
being able to turn on and off like a
water faucet using infrared technology
like
those were all designed for certain
kinds of peoples
and excluded others either intentionally
or unintentionally
through the bias in the algorithm it's
funny you talking about that in terms of
technology and computers
i just started reading this book that
adrian dixon
suggested it's called race after
technology
abolitionist tools for the new gym code
it's by
ruja benjamin i just started reading
that it's a fascinating book
and it's talking about all these how
these various sorts of computers and
software and social media it's
crazy i'm always into reading stuff
outside of music ed
because it forces me or anybody else to
think about what we're doing in a much
broader
more creative way what other
research do you wish there was out there
that could like help you
or just inform your own practices like
what's missing
it's hard to say because so much is
missing
matter of fact i was talking with a good
buddy of mine
who is the sociologist but she's also a
secret service
she works with the secret service and we
were talking about
missing information or should i say it
was it's not missing it's just
hidden like i'm working on a piece right
now
called straight no chaser and unsung
blues well actually i'm not working on
it i
submitted it to the critical race theory
handbook that adrian dixon and
marvin lynn are editing the second
edition
and i talk about the missing voice and
i talk about how i define an unsung
blues
in that piece it's like people are able
to tell the stories of others
and these stories don't even belong to
them you know and so there's an
injustice in that
and the lack of scholarship period about
people of color
it is unreal of the
lack of just stories
about black folks and other people of
color and music
it is unreal like all the stuff that i'm
talking about and i talked about in this
conversation
i learned in the last few years of my
career
i didn't learn it in k-12 i didn't learn
it in my undergrad
because it wasn't a part of the
curriculum or even my master's
there's so much missing and i think too
all this has to do with ethics it's
hugely unethical
it is hypocritical all those things and
here's the thing too who's gonna do the
work right
i think i'm one of nine black music kid
at any predominantly white institution
in the country
and not all of us do the same work
so there will always be until music
education
and education in general begin to
seriously and intently commit themselves
to
real anti-racist work white folks will
always tell our stories
white people will always do the
anti-racist work to work on race and
racism
and the stories will always come up
short there will always
be lack of nuance yeah i'm working on a
project for the state of wyoming for the
wind river
reservation that has the northern or
april and eastern shoshone
tribes on there and the amount of stuff
that i've learned in the last few months
that i did not learn in school it's
appalling
and to see people online complaining
about oh well you're tearing down
statues you're getting rid of her
history and it's like
you have no idea how ironic that sounds
considering the amount of whitewashing
we have done
and the amount of stories that have been
just like completely erased from
history in the last few hundred years
it's unreal this country has been one of
the most successful colonizers
in modern history i mean i mean really
and like you said people have the
audacity to say why are you tearing down
christopher columbus well first off he
didn't discover anything
well he didn't cover america just the
narrative and the
values and ideals that they supported
contradict what we claim today to be
important
you know this idea of inclusivity and
equality and you know equitable access
so it's it's unreal jared yeah and the
colonization is not just like colonizing
the physical location and people
it's like the epistemological the
ontological
the axiological like sort of the ways of
knowing the ways of being and the
like the values that people have like
that form of colonization
that people don't seem to think about
enough
yeah i'll sing you this clip but it's
it's titled we can't win
and it's an interview of this woman
speaking to the protest the looting and
the writing
and she's talking about she's she's
actually really talking about
agility her example of it she's talking
about rosewood and tulsa and how
you know black wall street was literally
just bombed
to hell and every sort of
big movement if you will on the behalf
of black folks towards
you know justice in this country has
been bombed
or has been put to good put
by white terrorist organizations or even
the government
she talks about this within the context
of the game monopoly
and when i tell you she was brilliant
explaining that and i'm like for anybody
who has
who sees this and if you walk away like
you know completely you have no idea
what she was talking about
you should just go to sleep forever
because
she did an excellent job of explaining
hegemony within america
and she said you know the thing is when
we came to this country
you know we weren't allowed to play the
game matter of fact everything was
was taken away from us our stories our
sense of belonging
our language our means to communicate
our sense
our value our sense of being human
right because it was all to restructure
the frame of mind
for us thinking of ourselves as property
and then
you have the reconstruction the
reconstruction field emancipation
proclamation all that stuff
but then so we are quote-unquote allowed
to play the game
but we don't own anything because we're
essentially playing for other people
and when we win whatever we have in our
pockets we have to give to the people
so we have nothing it's insidious
it was a doctoral student here well not
was he still work i think he's working
on his dissertation and music ed
we were reading i think a piece by
adrian dixon
caused locking the doors before we have
the keys
or something like that but it had to do
with post katrina
and education in new orleans with the
charter schools
and she used critical race theory as a
framework to look at these
events and so on and so forth well
this student white student who's also a
member of the lgbtq plus community
he was so shocked and taken back
after reading it because he had never
really read up on how people use
critical race theory
to really highlight how truly
insidious racism has been used
to suppress people of color he had no
idea
how diabolical people really are and how
people use education
as a means to put money in their pocket
and to further oppress other folks
yeah he was just i wish you could have
seen his face he was
literally speechless in doctoral seminar
yeah it's one of those things where once
your eyes have been opened
to the systems of oppression and
violence just you can't close them again
and you can't unsee what you see and
as somebody who researches this
day in and day out and talks about the
very heavy topics and then
lives a double conscious life like how
do you
take care of yourself and like prevent
that burnout and the
just overwhelm or frustration that can
come with that
listen had i known about the burnout and
about the
sort of hurt or bitterness or
ups and downs that i would have to
endure not to say that i would not do
this work
but i would have tried to plan early on
it's rough i have to say it's one thing
to live it
but then to live it and also research it
and it be on your laptop
in front of you you're living your life
but you're also looking at the lives of
others
and all these injustices when i was
writing my dissertation
it was one of the most challenging
things i had done in my life and i've
done a lot of
stuff my dissertation was qualitative so
i had a lot of interviews so it's one
thing to sit there
and to engage in conversation with the
participants in the study
but it's another thing to constantly sit
there with the data
and it's in your hands and it's it's
also a part of you
it's like living a bad dream over and
over i've found some
ways to deal with it one is that
when i'm done for the day i'm done for
the day and i've just recently
been doing this within the last two
years
i think being organized and having a set
schedule
helps and also you know
getting sleep exercising and these would
seem like
pretty standard things to do but some of
this work is so crippling
that you don't even want to wake up and
do it some of my colleagues through
nafme national association for music
education
their organization some people contacted
me about doing some work this summer
like webinars i'm talking racing music
education
and i turned down every last one of
those
for my health because i needed a break
in some way shape or form it's real like
this work is heavy yeah and you don't
have like you said you don't have that
light switch because
one you live it and then two it's your
career like
it's just a constant thing yeah it
really is
and you know i'm actually pretty new
i'm quote unquote a young scholar in
comparison to
others who have been in the field for a
while or junior scholar
in comparison to someone like dr gloria
lackson billings or
delgado or sterlizano and so
one of the things i've been doing is
surrounding myself with
folks who do this work but who also
who negotiate similar obstacles daily
so that i can ask questions like how is
it that you are able to do this and
surprisingly i'm still able to smile
you know what i'm saying like and
especially now every day
every day is something every day is
this black person over here was hung or
you know this person was shot and killed
shots in the back and or you got
you know a university who has hidden
away has protected this particular
professor
who is a racist and yada yada yada but
that's part of the reason why i truly am
so honored to know somebody like adrian
dixon
because she intentionally and
purposefully
makes it so that scholars like myself
can be supported by folks like her
like she'll have weekend writing
workshops and she'll invite me over
or like she's inviting me to do projects
with her and it's just nice because i
can ask questions and say how do you do
this
how is it how is it that you're able to
crack jokes
i mean i still crack jokes and i'm not
trying to say that
no one should do this work but it is
tough and it's hard
to really do the self-care thing or to
even
share what it's like with your
colleagues i'm the only black person in
my department and
one of five in the school of music here
one of the reasons why i love to ask
this question on the podcast because
it's something that people need to talk
about more and it's something that we
need to get comfortable with like my
wife is a
music therapist in a children's hospital
and like maybe on average one or two
kids a week
die and she's in the room and provides
therapy to the family
after the death etc so like to kind of
have that kind of heaviness
you need to have some methods or tools
to
kind of process emotions or stress
or whatever and i just think it's an
important thing that more people need to
talk about
so i'm grateful that you shared that
yeah absolutely
every day is a shock to me that i'm
still
here not to say that i'm gonna you know
take my life because
i know there are people who struggle
with that reality
every day i'm just shocked that i'm
still
doing this because the reality of it
is racism is going to exist for a very
very long time
for centuries after we have departed
this world
and i know that to be true but yet i'm
still
here doing the work and so there's no
end goal for me
there are scientists who can actually
create the cure for cancer
right but racism there's no end goal
right now
and so it's all about doing what we can
in however many ways we can
to one really stand up to it and call it
for what it is but to also
start really attacking this thing
so i that's why i'm shocked i'm still
here because there are days that
jared i do want to give up there are
some days where i'm like man i wish i
could write about
quarter notes and
and note vibrations and intonation
you know but but then i tell myself
either i found this or this work found
me i don't know
which one it is but i'm here nonetheless
it's a hard road man so thinking broadly
are there any questions either for
myself or for other educators or
researchers that you have
you know i'm always curious and maybe
this is not a question for you maybe
it's a question for
all of us what are people's true
motivations
for for what they do every day
and that's one of the things that has
helped me
to to sort of stick around is to
understand people's motivations
for doing what they do and the work that
they do
and so i'm just wondering how people
manage how people stay afloat
in all this and maybe that's like a
question for us to think about
sometimes i feel like i have nothing to
suggest
except just hold on everybody just hold
on
yeah no that's that's definitely a good
question to reflect on
so where might people go to connect with
you in the organizations that you work
with
okay i've been working on this chair
because people have been asking me how
do i connect with you
and i've been terrible about having you
know
things online so i actually have a
website
if you want to check out my website it's
joyce mccall.com
i just started putting things up
eventually i'll start a podcast
my email address here at the university
is
jmmccal
illinois.edu if you go to my website
you know bear with me don't laugh
it looks okay but it's coming along and
i actually have a tab on there that says
part of my progress so
bear with me and with that that
concludes this week's episode of the
cska podcast
i hope you enjoyed listening to this
episode and just as a friendly reminder
go to the show notes
and you will find plenty of links to
papers and scholars
who are writing more about critical race
theory double consciousness
and many other topics that were
discussed in this particular episode
stay tuned next week for
another unpacking scholarship episode
where i will talk about
cs education research and its
implications in the classroom
and then two weeks from now which will
be another interview i hope you're all
staying safe and are having a wonderful
week
Guest Bio
Joyce McCall was appointed to the faculty of the University of Illinois in 2018. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses including transformative topics in music education, social transformation, technology, and music, social foundations in music education, and jazz methods. Prior to her appointment, she served as a postdoctoral resident scholar and visiting assistant professor in music education at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. McCall also served as an assistant band director at MacArthur High School in Houston, Texas, and a woodwind and marching band specialist in Alabama, Arizona, and Mississippi.
McCall earned a Ph.D. in Music Education from Arizona State University, and a Master of Music Education and Bachelor of Music in Clarinet Performance from The University of Southern Mississippi. Her research—positioned within the context of frameworks like critical race theory and double consciousness theory—centers on how race, class, and culture impact educational equity in music education. Additionally, she examines how certain pedagogies such as culturally relevant teaching influences possibilities to engage among minoritized racial populations in the music classroom and beyond. She has presented sessions and research at the American Educators Research Association, the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic, the National Association for Music Education, and the Society for Music Teacher Education, and published articles in the Journal of Music Teacher Education and the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association News. Her latest book chapter, “Speak No Evil: Talking Race as an African American in Music Education,” has served as a critical tool in music toward empowering scholars of color and inspiring anti-racist work.
McCall has proudly served as a clarinetist and saxophonist in the United States Army Bands from 1999 to 2013. During her service, she was awarded the Army Achievement Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, and the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal. Previous assignments include the 151st Army Band in Montgomery, Alabama; the 41st Army Band in Jackson, Mississippi; the 36th Infantry Division Band in Austin, Texas; and the 108th Army Band in Phoenix, Arizona. She is a member of Sigma Alpha Iota International Music Fraternity for Women.
Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode
Other podcast episodes that were mentioned or are relevant to this episode
In this episode I unpack Yadav and Heath’s (2022) publication titled “Breaking the code: Confronting racism in computer science through community criticality, and citizenship,” which articulates some biases in CS curricular design and pedagogy, then provides three suggestions for teaching CS as an agenda for social reconstruction.
Culturally Responsive-sustaining Computer Science Education: A Framework
In this episode I unpack the Kapor Center’s (2021) publication titled “Culturally responsive-sustaining computer science education: A framework,” which describes multiple courses of action for six core components of culturally responsive-sustaining CS education.
Decolonizing Education through SEL and PBL with Matinga Ragatz
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Depression, Suicide, and Computer Science Education
In honor of national suicide prevention week, in this week’s episode I read a paper I wrote on the topic of depression, suicide, and computer science education. This paper is formatted into the following sections: 1) A vignette on my own experiences coping with depression and suicide; 2) Statistics on depression and suicide as it relates to various populations computer science educators work with; 3) A vignette of a computer science educator helping a student through depression and suicidal thoughts; 4) Risk factors and warning signs; 5) Suggestions for providing support; 6) A vignette from a computer science educator's perspective on a student who committed suicide; and 7) Closing thoughts.
How to Get Started with Computer Science Education
In this episode I provide a framework for how districts and educators can get started with computer science education for free.
Rather than listen to this week’s planned unpacking scholarship episode, please take the time to learn from the anti-racism resources in the show notes, then share and respectfully discuss them with others.
Intersections of Cultural Capital with Kimberly Scott
In this interview with Kimberly Scott, we discuss some of the problems with discourse around grit, students as techno-social change agents, teaching with culturally responsive approaches in communities that are hostile toward culturally responsive pedagogies, unpacking discourse and Discourse, considering both present and future identities when teaching, potential disconnects between theory and practice with intersectional work, comforting the disturbed and disturbing the comforted, and so much more.
Nicki Washington is Unapologetically Dope
In this interview with Nicki Washington, we discuss the importance of cultural competency, expanding beyond “diversity” by focusing on creating inclusive and equitable environments, learning from people and scholarship outside of the field, lessons learned working with CS educators across the country, lessons learned while teaching during a pandemic, focusing on the humanity in computer science education, and much more.
Racial Justice Amidst the Dangers of Computing Creep: A Dialogue
In this episode I unpack Shah and Yadav’s (2023) publication titled “Racial justice amidst the dangers of computer creep: A dialogue,” which presents a dialogue that problematizes issues around racial justice in computing education.
In this episode I unpack Kallia and Cutts’ (2021) publication titled “Re-examining inequalities in computer science participation from a Bourdieusian sociological perspective,” which uses Bourdieu’s discussions of capital, habitus, and field to analyze 147 publications on CS interventions.
Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy
In this episode I unpack Ladson-Billings’ (1995) seminal publication titled “Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy,” which influenced much of the discourse around culturally relevant pedagogy in computer science education.
In this episode I unpack Coppola’s (2021) publication titled “What if Freire had Facebook? A critical interrogation of social media woke culture among privileged voices in music education discourse,” which summarizes Paulo Freire’s works and hypothesizes how Freire may have responded to some forms of woke culture.
When Twice as Good Isn't Enough: The Case for Cultural Competence in Computing
In this episode I unpack Washington's (2020) paper titled "When twice as good isn't enough: The case for cultural competence in computing," which explores the five elements and six stages of cultural competence in relation to undergraduate computing programs.
Examples of oppression in schools for American Indian/Indigenous people
Learn more about Critical Race Theory (CRT)
Wikipedia page on CRT, which includes suggested readings and a bibliography at the bottom
Read publications by other scholars discussing critical race theory (CRT), cultural capital, double consciousness, hegemony, intersectionality, etc.
Connect with Joyce
Find other CS educators and resources by using the #CSK8 hashtag on Twitter
Free CS Resources I Have Created
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