Race and Pedagogy Project - Research Archive

Race and Globalization

August 18, 2005

Mohanty, Chandra Talpade, Ann Russo, and Lourdes Torres, eds. Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism. Indianapolis: Indiana UP, 1991.

August 18th 2005 Posted to Race and the Academic Institution, Race, Gender and Sexuality, Race and Globalization

A compilation edited by Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Ann Russo, and Lourdes Torres, Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism is comprised of essays generated by the 1983 international academic conference on “Common Differences: Third World Women and Feminist Perspectives.” The primary issues addressed in the collection include the troubling representation of a monolithic “Third World Woman” by Western feminists, the tension between cultural specificity and political alliance across cultures, and the role of activism and “real” women’s experiences in academic discourse. Organized into four parts, “Power, Representation, and Feminist Critique,” “Public Policy, the State, and Ideologies of Gender,” “National Liberation and Sexual Politics,” and “Race, Identity, and Feminist Struggles,” the book includes essays from fifteen authors who differ in their opinions about but who each address feminism in terms of multiple oppressions and identities such as gender, sexuality, race, and class. It is only by acknowledging each individual’s or each individual culture’s specific multiple and often contradictory identities that feminism can theorize effectively and succeed politically. The book as a whole, then, levies a critique of a more traditional, gender-based Western feminism. At the level of the academy, a revision of feminism would demand greater attention to the multiplicity of voices; more of an experiential, activist approach to academic work; and, implicitly, a rethinking of teaching practices along these more inclusive and rigorously critiqued feminist lines. (Read the article)

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August 10, 2005

Darder, Antonia and Rodolfo D. Torres. After Race: Racism After Multiculturalism. New York: New York UP, 2004.

August 10th 2005 Posted to Race and the Academic Institution, Critical Race Theory and Pedagogy, Race and Globalization, Pedagogy and Mixed Race, Race, Class and Pedagogy, Latina/o American, The Academy

In this book, Darder and Torres critique the concept of “race” in contemporary political and academic rhetoric as a mask for the class oppression that underlies late capitalist American society. “The problem of the twenty-first century is the problem of “race”—an ideology that has served well to successfully obscure and disguise class interests behind the smokescreen of multiculturalism, diversity, difference, and more recently, whiteness,” write Darder and Torres (1). Darder and Torres focus their Marxist analysis on the United States education system, and specifically on the key issues of bilingual education, standardized testing, critical race theory and Latino studies departments. They argue that if any real changes are going to be made in educational policy, the concept of ‘race’ must be dismantled and the underlying class issues revealed and critiqued. (Read the article)

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August 3, 2005

Portes, Alejandro and Dag McLeod, “Educational Progress of Children of Immigrants: The Roles of Class, Ethnicity and School Context,” Sociology of Education, 69.4 (1996): 255-75.

August 03rd 2005 Posted to Race and Globalization, Pedagogy and Mixed Race, Race, Class and Pedagogy, Latina/o American, Asian American

This article addresses two major factors that contribute to the success or failure of students from immigrant families: socioeconomic status and the social influence exerted by ethnic communities on students. As Portes and McLeod write in their abstract,

“Recent immigration to the United States has spawned a rapidly growing second generation, most of whom are of school age. This article reports the findings of a study of 5,255 second-generation high school students in Florida and California, who were children of Cuban and Vietnamese immigrants (representative of relatively advantaged groups) and of Haitian and Mexican immigrants (representative of relatively disadvantaged groups). The study found that parents’ socioeconomic status (SES), length of U.S. residence, and hours spent on homework significantly affected the students’ academic performance, but did not eliminate the effects of ethnic community. Attendance at higher-SES schools increased the average academic performance and the positive effect of parents’ SES, whereas attendance at inner-city schools flattened the negative effect of ethnic disadvantage. However, school context had no appreciable effect on children from advantaged ethnic backgrounds” (255). (Read the article)

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July 25, 2005

Pérez Sonia and Denise De La Rosa Salazar. “Economic, Labor Force and Social Implications of Latino Educational and Population Trends,” Latinos and Education: A Critical Reader, Eds. Antonia Darder, Rodolfo D. Torres and Henry Gutíerrez. New York: Routledge, 1997, 47-79.

July 25th 2005 Posted to Race, Literacy and Pedagogy, Race and Globalization, Race, Class and Pedagogy, Latina/o American

Pérez and Salazar’s analysis of socio-economic and educational trends in Latino populations uses a variety of data from studies conducted throughout the 1980s and 1990s to understand why the rapid increase in the Latino population has not been accompanied by a proportionate increase in educational attainment. Their analysis not only highlights the historic and self-perpetuating connection between the low socioeconomic status of Latino populations and low levels of educational attainment; it also points to specific problems contributing to these problems and suggests possible changes in educational policy. (Read the article)

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