Mixed Race Studies

Multiracial Identity Development

Arlington County Public Schools
Arlington County, Virginia
Clarendon Education Center
2011-11-30
28 pages/ 55 slides

Ms. Eleanor Lewis, M.A., CAGS, School Psychologist
Arlington Public Schools

Ms. Veronica Sanjines, M.A., CAG, School Psychologist
Arlington Public Schools

Dr. Ricia Weiner, Ph.D., School Psychologist
Arlington Public Schools

Special Education Parent Resource Center: Workshop Handouts

View the entire presentation here.

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Multiracial Americans: Racial Identity Choices and Implications for the Collection of Race Data

Sociology Compass
Volume 6, Issue 6 (June 2012)
pages 519–525
DOI: 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2012.00463.x

Nikki Khanna, Associate Professor of Sociology
University of Vermont

This guide accompanies the following article: Nikki Khanna, ‘Multiracial Americans: Racial Identity Choices and Implications for the Collection of Race Data’, Sociology Compass 6/4 (2012): 316–331, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2011.00454.x.

Author’s introduction

In 2010, approximately nine million Americans self-identified with two or more races on the United States Census – a 32 percent increase in the last decade. President Barack Obama, the son of a white Kansas-born mother and Kenyan father, was not one of these self-identified multiracial Americans. In fact, Obama chose only to check the ‘black’ box, illustrating that multiracial ancestry does not always translate to multiracial identity. Since the 1990s, there has been a growing body of research examining the multiracial population and key questions have included: How do multiracial Americans identify themselves? And why? This paper reviews this research, with a focus on the factors shaping racial identity and the implications regarding the collection of race data in the US Census.

Author recommends

Khanna, Nikki. 2011. Biracial in America: Forming and Performing Race. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

Looking at black-white biracial Americans, this book examines the influencing factors and underlying social psychological processes shaping their multidimensional racial identities. This book also investigates the ways in which biracial Americans perform race in their day-to-day lives…

Online materials

Race: Are We So Different?

http://understandingrace.org/

This website explores the common misconceptions about race through several interactive activities.

Race: The Power of an Illusion

http://www.pbs.org/race/000_General/000_00-Home.htm

This website explores the question ‘What is Race?’ through several interactive activities.

Mixed-Race Studies

http://www.mixedracestudies.org/

This website is a useful resource for anyone interested in mixed-race studies. Included here is information about articles, books, dissertations, videos, multimedia, and other resources related to multiracial people…

Read the (entire?) guide here.

‘It is a peculiar feeling, this multiple-consciousness:’ Putting the Multiracial Experience Into Multicultural Education

McNair Scholars Research Journal
Eastern Michigan University
Volume 4, Issue 1 (2012-01-26)
Article 2
21 pages

Jennifer Alexander

Alexis is the product of miscegenation. Her mother is White and her father is Black. Her appearance blends both races so that, at a glance, she might be described as light brown with slim, European facial features. Growing up, Alexis faced many stereotypical situations mixed-race individuals face. She was constantly asked, “What are you?” and told she looked exotic. When others tried to guess her racial makeup, she was called Hispanic, Arabic, or Filipino, rarely ever identified with her correct racial ancestry. Even though Alexis may not be a living person, her experience is one to which many mixed-race individuals can relate.

The year 2000 marked a milestone for the mixed-race population in the United States. This was the first year any person of mixed race was allowed to identify as such on the U.S. Census. As a result, the population of non-Hispanic, multiracial persons jumped from 0 in 1990 to 4,602,146 in 2000 (“Population by race,” 2000). Where did all these people of mixed race come from? The simple answer: they were always here.

Despite persons of mixed-race existing well before 2000, research on this portion of the United States’ population is lacking. This literature review begins to connect mixed-race history and theory to educational theory and practice. The purpose of this connection is to examine the mixed-race experience in multicultural education and why it is underreported in current research. Bridging the gap between multiracial experiences and multicultural education might possibly make education more inclusive, not just for mixed-race students but for all students, because it will bring to the forefront similarities and differences that students, parents, and teachers should understand.

Race permeates American culture, acting as a “fundamental organizing principle of human affairs” (Spickard, 1992, p. 12). It is most often associated with individual physique, such as skin tone and facial features, as a form of biology. However, Wardle and Cruz-Janzen (2004) distinguish between genotype, “the genetic code each person carries in his or her chromosomes”, and phenotype, “the physical characteristics an individual displays” (p. 28). They acknowledge the general public belief that individuals with the same genotype carry the same phenotype, and, yet, argue this is not fact. Harrison (2010) shares a statement on race from the American Anthropological Association: “Evidence from the analysis of genetics (e.g., DNA) indicates that most physical variation, about 94%, lies within so-called racial groups. Conventional geographic “racial” groups differ from one another only in about 6%” (p. 23). To use another example, this understanding of genetics among races is analogous to comparing granulated sugar, table salt, and corn syrup. While granulated sugar may look like table salt, chemically it has more in common with corn syrup. This analogy begins to break down the argument of race as biology.

Some scholars view race as a social construct (Spickard, 1992; Harrison, 2010). As a social construct, race becomes a way to maintain boundaries (Spickard, 2010), commonly referred to as the color line. Wardle and Cruz-Janzen (2004) claim that “maintaining the color line truly translates to maintaining the power line” (p. 97). Power, especially in the United States, feeds the stratification system that creates racial group division, placing Whites at the top. As a result, oppressed racial groups “fight for numbers” to “fight against the institutional structure designed to perpetuate their dehumanization and oppression,” in addition to fighting against other oppressed racial groups for “limited resources” (p. 98).

Further support viewing race as a social construct is the “flexibility” of race. Views on race have changed throughout history. Race has “been defined and used in different ways by different cultures in different time periods” (Harrison, 2010, p. 21). However, if race is to be seen as a biological occurrence, the understanding of it should follow suit. The fact that the understanding of race varies between groups and over time leads me to define it as a social construct.

Additionally, the concepts of monoracial and mixed race need to be defined. In our common understanding of race, an individual is identified by a single racial category. These categories include Caucasian, African American, Native American, Asian-Pacific Islander, Arab and Hispanic/Latino. When introducing persons who represent a mix of any of these labels, a distinction must be made between those persons, and individuals who are represented by only one group. Therefore, a monoracial individual has parents who fall into the same socially-constructed racial group, while a mixed-race individual has parents who fall into two or more racial groups.

To begin to understand how race, and specifically mixed-race individuals, fit into educational studies, the changes that mixed-race categorization has gone through must also be examined. Just as Harrison believes, racial categorization is not a stagnant concept, and this rings true for descriptions of mixed-race individuals.

Read the entire article here.

The use of popular media in multicultural education: Stressing implications for the Black/non-Black biracial North American student

Syracuse University
1999
206 pages

Wendy Cecille Thompson

Instructor usage of popular media in the classroom has spawned studies on the impact of the visual image on minority populations. These studies range from examining the effects of films as role models on the self-concepts of Black elementary school children (Dimas, 1970), to Black college women’s persistence in viewing a popular television show in which none of the cast members were Black (Strother, 1994). This study is the first to examine the effects of classroom usage of popular media on populations that are racially “in the middle”—biracial individuals. Moreover, it is believed that popular media recommended for use with Blacks may be used with these individuals to reify the notion that the world’s population can be categorized into five socially-constructed groups called race. Lastly, a thorough examination of the relevant literature reveals that no models or paradigms of multicultural education specifically address the educational needs of biracial persons.

This study, through the use of unstructured and semi-structured qualitative interviews with 15 informants, seeks to discover how parental and cultural influences aid in the formation of a racial identity. The study is also concerned with the informants’ views on whether or how multicultural education served their educational needs. This study also attempts to discover how this marginalized population has responded to the use of popular media in multicultural education.

This study concludes that, although biracial persons have their own process of racial self-definition that is unique to them, society views them as Blacks. Parents and cultural influences greatly affect the biracial process of racial identification. Such influences minimize the effects of media on the biracial formation of a self-image. Media images, however, enable others to harbor perceptions of biracial persons based on essentialized notions of race and culture.

Such essentialized notions permeate educational structures, and thwart efforts at multicultural education. These efforts further marginalize biracial people by forcing them into rigid racial categories and by providing stereotypical images of those races when using popular media to further instructional goals.

This study should provide recommendations for popular media use in diverse fields, such as education, communication, and media studies.

Log in to read the dissertation here.

The Biracial and Multiracial Student Experience: A Journey to Racial Literacy

SAGE Publications
2009-06-30
168 pages
Paperback ISBN: 9781412975063
Hardcover ISBN: 9781412975056

Bonnie M. Davis

What does it mean to be “in between”?

As more biracial and multiracial students enter the classroom, educators have begun to critically examine the concept of race. Through compelling student and teacher narratives, best-selling author Bonnie M. Davis gives voice to a frequently mislabeled and misunderstood segment of the population. Filled with research-based instructional strategies and reflective questions, the book supports readers in examining:

• The meaning of race, difference, and ethnicity
• How mixed-identity students develop racial identities
• How to adjust instruction to demonstrate cultural proficiency
• Complex questions to help deepen understanding of bi- and multiracial experiences, white privilege, and the history of race in the U.S.

This sensitively written yet practical guide fills a gap in the professional literature by examining the experiences of biracial/multiracial students in the context of today’s classrooms. The author calls upon readers to take a transformational journey toward racial literacy and, ultimately, become empowered by a real understanding of what it means to be biracial or multiracial and enable all students to experience increased self-confidence and believe in their ability to succeed.

Contents

• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Prologue
• 1. Beginning the Journey
• 2. What Is Race?
• 3. What Are You?
• 4. What Are the Challenges for Multiracial Students?
• 5. How Mixed Identity Students Develop Racial Identities
• 6. Outside the School Walls
• 7. The Impact of Skin Color
• 8. Listening to Parents
• 9. Taking It All to the Classroom: Culturally Proficient Instruction
• 10. Future Voices
• 11. The Journey’s End
• References
• Index

What should Multiracial people learn? Learning goals for anti-(mono)racist education

Paper presented at the Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference
DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois
2012-11-01
6 pages

Eric Hamako
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Political education has played important roles in many social movements. Philosopher Ronald Sundstrom has argued that Multiracial activists and community organizers have a responsibility to set an expressly anti-racist agenda for Multiracial social movements. However, a coherent anti-racist agenda—and the political education curricula needed to support it—has yet to solidly materialize in Multiracial movements. So, I asked Multiracial activists who teach about racism, “What learning goals would you set for Multiracial participants in anti-racist education?” In this paper, based on my dissertation research, I present some of the key learning goals proposed by my participants. Then, I offer my thoughts about those learning goals and suggest new directions for teaching Multiracial people about racism and anti-racism.

Read the entire paper here.

Stories of Multiracial Experiences in Literature for Children, Ages 9–14

Children’s Literature in Education
December 2013, Volume 44, Issue 4
pages 359-376
DOI: 10.1007/s10583-013-9196-5

Amina Chaudhri, Assistant Professor of Teacher Education
Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago

William H. Teale, Professor of Literacy, Language and Culture
University of Illinois, Chicago

This study analyzed 90 realistic novels written and published in the United States between the years 2000 and 2010 and featuring mixed race characters. The researchers examined specific textual features of these works of contemporary and historical fiction and employed Critical Race Theory to contextualize the books within paradigms about multiracial identity. Findings indicated three broad trends in representations of mixed race identity with an almost equal number of novels falling among three descriptive categories. Books in the Mixed Race In/Visibility category depicted stereotypical experiences and provided little or no opportunity for critique of racism. Mixed Race Blending books featured characters whose mixed race identity was descriptive but not functional in their lives. Mixed Race Awareness books represented a range of possible life experiences for biracial characters who responded to social discomfort about their racial identity in complex and credible ways. This study has implications for research and pedagogy in the fields of education and children’s literature as they expand to become more inclusive of this type of diversity.

Introduction

There has long been, and continues to be, debate about what literature “is” and the roles it plays in people’s lives (Garber, 2011; Kant, 1892): Does it serve social ends? Moral ends? Is it fundamentally an aesthetic experience? But no matter what one’s beliefs about literature’s purposes, theory and research in children’s literature make one thing clear: literature can serve as a tool for growth, a significant factor in children’s identity formation (Gee, 2001; Heath, 2011). Thus, the content of what is available for children to read and what teachers select for use in their classrooms can influence the direction of children’s growth.

Over the past two decades in the United States, as issues of multiculturalism and civil and human rights have become more prominent on the cultural landscape, identity-based movements have received increasing attention. One issue in this realm that is currently taking on increased significance is mixed race/multiracial identity. In the 1990s, pressure from groups such as Project RACE and The Association for MultiEthnic Americans forced Congress to urge a change in the U.S. Census standards. Accordingly, the 2000 Census allowed Americans to “mark one or more” racial categories, and 6.8 million people identified as multiracial. In 2010 that number increased to 9 million. These figures suggest a significant shift in the ways Americans view themselves racially.

Parallel to the ways that feminist, civil rights, and LGBTQ movements have impacted the creation of various bodies of literature, the multiracial movement can be viewed as influencing the work being published as children’s literature. Whether young readers are actively seeking racial affirmation or looking for insights into others not like themselves, representation in bcx)ks can explicitly or subliminally influence understanding of racial identity. Accordingly, we examined all the children’s books we were able to identify using various processes (described below) featuring multiracial characters that were deemed appropriate for 9-14 year-olds and were published between 2000 and 2010 in order to get a sense of what young readers might understand about multiracial identity as imagined by the authors of these works.

Stones of Multiracial Experiences

Novels featuring mixed race characters are generally folded into the larger category of multicultural literature and frequently are classified according to the non-white element in the story. In some respects, in the U.S. context, creators are ahead of researchers in addressing the role of mixed race for readers in the 9-14 age group. Authors such as Jacqueline Woodson, Mildred Taylor, Jamie Adoff, Sharon Flake, and Richard Peck, for example, have been including characters of mixed racial heritage and addressing this heritage as a central feature of their stories.

In general, the hotly of research in multicultural literature makes only sporadic or tangential mention of mixed race issues. Yokota and Frost (2002/2003), Smith (2001a), Sands-O’Connor (2001), and Reynolds (2009) have written specifically about multiracial characters in literature, but this work has not comprehensively examined novels written for the intermediate/middle school student. The relative lack…

For the Movement: Community Education Supporting Multiracial Organizing

Equity & Excellence in Education
Volume 38, Issue 2, 2005
pages 145-154
DOI: 10.1080/10665680590935124

Eric Hamako
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

The multiracial people’s movement in the United States has expanded significantly in the last 10 years (Douglass, 2003). Historically, community-based education programs have supported social movements in the United States (Collins & Yeskel, 2000; Sarachild, 1974/1978), yet little has been written about how educational programs might serve the social and political movements of mixed-race people. This case study describes two community-based multiracial education programs by and for mixed-race people and suggests ways that each supports multiracial community organizing. The conclusion offers recommendations for shaping future multiracial education programs for multiracial people.

The 2000 United States Census revealed numerous demography surprises, among them, that there are seven million multiracial people—almost 3% of the total U.S. population (Jones & Smith, 2001). Never before had the Census allowed multiracial people to check one or more boxes to indicate their multiple racial heritages. The Census results also indicate clearly that multiraciality is an issue relevant to educators, as almost half of the multiracial population are of school age (Lopez, 2003). While the U.S. Census Bureau has found ways to account for multiracial people In allowing the option of checking one or more races, multicultural educational efforts continue to flounder when attempting to educate multiracial people or address multiracial issues in school and community settings (Williams, Nakashima, Kich, & Daniel 1996).

In institutional curricula and pedagogy, multicultural educators have given little attention to the existence and needs of multiracial people (Chiong, 1995; Glass & Wallace, 1996, Scholl, 2001; Wardle, 1996). Worse, multicultural education has sometimes distorted, invalidated, or demonized the existence of multiracial people (Wardle, 2000; Williams et. al., 1996). The small amount of literature that exists about teaching to or about multiracial people has been written primanly by and for monoracial educators, often with an inappropriate monoracial bias (Pao, Wong. & Teuben-Rowe, 1997; Schwartz, 1998), while the voices and insights of multiracial people have largely been absent. Recent community organizing and community-based education efforts by multiracial people and multiracial organizations may change this trend of silencing and marginalization. In this article, I examine some ways that community-based multiracial education may support multiracial community organizing.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Historically, community-based education has served an important role in numerous political movements. During the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, Freedom Schools supported community organizing efforts by bringing community members together, helping them name then social problems, and teaching literacy and organizing skills (Howe, 1964/1984; Rachal, 1998). Similarly, consciousness raising groups supported second wave US. feminism, bringing women together to process the systemic nature of sexism and to begin organizing to take action (Evans, 1979; Sarachild, 1974/1978). Internationally, Paolo Freire’s (1970/2003) community-based popular education pedagogy has expanded far beyond its initial application to poor peoples movements in Brazil. As a model for community education, Freirean popular education suggests a series of steps through which community organizers can help community members recognize their common experiences, codify them, analyze their root causes, and take action to resolve common problems (Ferreira & Ferreira, 1997). Community education may support community organizing by politicizing and mobilizing community members, developing analyses and a sense of purpose, and helping to steer political movement (Collins & Yeskel, 2000; Williams et al., 1996)…

Read or purchase the article here.

Coping with the crickets: a fusion autoethnography of silence, schooling, and the continuum of biracial identity formation

International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education
Published online: 2012-11-07
DOI: 10.1080/09518398.2012.731537

Lynnette Mawhinney, Assistant Professor of Elementary/Early Childhood Education
The College of New Jersey, Ewing, New Jersey

Emery Marc Petchauer, Assistant Professor of Teacher Development & Educational Studies
Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan

This study explores biracial identity development in the adolescent years through fusion autoethnography. Using an ecological model of biracial identity development, this study illustrates how family, peers, and school curricula validate and reject racial self-presentations. We pay specific attention to the different forms of silence (i.e. “crickets”) that teachers and peers deploy as tactics of rejection and how racially coded artifacts such as hip-hop culture and Black Liberation texts function as validations of racial self-presentations. Overall, this study helps researchers and practitioners to understand the fluidity of biracial and multiracial identity development as it relates to everyday school spaces and processes.

Ask any biracial or multiracial person what question makes mem crazy, and 9 times out of 10 the answer will be Ihe question. “What are you?” As a biracial person, even to this day, my response to this question is often physical and visceral: I cringe, clench my jaw, and tense my body. Lewis (2006) writes in his book Fade: My Journeys in Multiracial America that his first thought after this question is, “Here we go again” (3). Ultimately, the question is infuriating because it is provoked by our physical appearance that seems ambiguous or “exotic” according to the insufficient, binary heuristics of race in the USA (Funderburg 1994; Rockquemore and Brunsma 2002; Rockquemore. Brunsma. and Delgado 2009). Though not intending to offend, a person asks the question based upon these narrow heuristics and expects the multiracial person to clearly identify in one category. Some people with multiracial backgrounds do indeed identify as one race, yet instances such as this are problematic, as Lewis (2006, 40) argues, because:

For multiracial people, there is an additional layer in the identity development process. It involves creating a sense of self by assembling pieces of their heritage that others view as incompatible or mutually exclusive.

This additional layer of identity development is inseparable from the process of schooling. Young people spend an enormous amount of their time in schools, thus…

Read or purchase the article here.

Lessons From a Preservice Teacher: Examining Missed Opportunities For Multicultural Education in an English Education Program

Networks: An On-line Journal for Teacher Research
Volume 41, Number 1 (Spring 2012)
10 pages

Amy M. Vetter, Assistant Professor
Department of Teacher Education and Higher Education, School of Education
University of North Carolina, Greensboro

Jeanie Reynolds, Lecturer/Director of English Education
University of North Carolina, Greensboro

I had to get to know them [his students]. Because I am disconnected from Black culture a lot, honestly. You get people who assume I’m Black or I’m not. Before I even started teaching the very first question that I got asked was what color are you? And I never knew how big of deal that would be.

This was one of many experiences that James described in an interview after being asked how his multiracial identities shaped his student teaching experiences. James was one of six preservice teachers that we followed in our program for three semesters in an attempt to learn more about how to better educate future high school English teachers. As his former instructors in undergraduate English Education courses, we viewed our job as providing support, facilitating dialogue, and sharing expertise with James and other teacher candidates to help them deal with the challenges of student teaching, including those related to race, class, gender and sexuality. It was not until this interview after he graduated, however, that we learned about how James’s multiracial identities shaped his student teaching experiences. We realized that as White, middle-class female instructors and researchers, we lacked insight into what it was like for James to be both an insider and outsider within the context of a public high school. In fact, we made assumptions about James and his needs rather than asking him to reflect on how his race and ethnicities shaped his experiences. As a result, James’s described experiences challenged us to transform our teaching practices and curriculum to engage all students in critical examinations about how race and culture shapes teaching and learning (Banks et al., 2005; Cochran-Smith, 1995)…

Read the entire article here.