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CRITICAL RACE THEORY IN
EDUCATION
Appropriate for both students curious about Critical Race Theory (CRT) and
established scholars, Critical Race Theory in Education is a valuable guide to how
this theoretical lens can help better understand and seek solutions to educational
inequity. While CRT has been established as a vital theoretical framework for
understanding the ways race-neutral policies and laws sustain and promote racial
inequity, questions around how to engage and use CRT remain. This second
edition of Critical Race Theory in Education evaluates the role of CRT in the
field of education, answering important questions about how we should understand
and account for racial disparities in our school systems. Parts I and II trace the
roots of CRT from the legal scholarship in which it originated to the educational
discourse in which it now resides. A much-anticipated Part III examines con-
temporary issues in racial discourse and offers all-important practical methods for
adopting CRT in the classroom.
Adrienne D. Dixson is Associate Professor of Critical Race Theory and

Education at the University of Illinois.
Celia K. Rousseau Anderson is Associate Professor of Instruction and

Curriculum Leadership at the University of Memphis.
Jamel K. Donnor is Associate Professor in the School of Education at the

College of William and Mary.
This page intentionally left blank

CRITICAL RACE THEORY
IN EDUCATION
All God’s Children Got a Song
Edited by Adrienne D. Dixson,

Celia K. Rousseau Anderson,
and Jamel K. Donnor
YORK
LONDON
LONDON
YORK
LONDONLONDON
LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 2017
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
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The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial material,
and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance
with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Dixson, Adrienne D., editor. | Rousseau, Celia K., editor. |
Donner, Jamel K., editor.
Title: Critical race theory in education : all god’s children got a song / edited
by Adrienne Dixson, Celia Rousseau, and Jamel Donner.
Description: 2nd edition. | New York, NY : Routledge is an imprint of the
Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa Business, [2017] | Includes bibliographical
references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016009881 (print) | LCCN 2016021120 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781138891142 (hardback) | ISBN 9781138891159 (pbk.) |
ISBN 9781315709796 (ebk) | ISBN 9781315709796 (eBook)
Subjects: LCSH: Critical pedagogy. | Racism in education. | Discrimination in
education.
Classification: LCC LC196 .D59 2017 (print) | LCC LC196 (ebook) |
DDC 370.89--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016009881
ISBN: 978-1-138-89114-2 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-89115-9 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-70979-6 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Taylor & Francis Books
CONTENTS
Foreword: The Evolving Role of Critical Race Theory in Educational

Scholarship vii
Gloria Ladson-Billings
Introduction: Critical Race Theory and Education: Singing a

“New” Song 1
Adrienne D. Dixson and Celia K. Rousseau Anderson
PART I
Critical Race Theory and Education in Context 9
1 Toward a Critical Race Theory of Education 11
Gloria Ladson-Billings and William F. Tate IV
2 And We Are STILL Not Saved: 20 Years of CRT and
Education 32
PART II
Key Writings on Critical Race Theory in Education 55
3 The First Day of School: A CRT Story 57
vi Contents
4 Critical Race Ethnography in Education: Narrative,

Inequality, and the Problem of Epistemology 65
Garrett Albert Duncan
5 Critical Race Theory beyond North America: Towards a
Trans-Atlantic Dialogue on Racism and Antiracism in
Educational Theory and Praxis 87

David Gillborn
6 Whose Culture Has Capital? A Critical Race Theory
Discussion of Community Cultural Wealth 113
Tara J. Yosso
7 Ethics, Engineering, and the Challenge of Racial Reform in
Education 137
William F. Tate IV
PART III
Critical Race Theory at 20 Years 145
8 A Focus on Higher Education: Fisher v. University of Texas at
Austin and the New White Nationalism 147
Jamel K. Donnor
9 The New Racial Preferences: Rethinking Racial Projects 157
Devon W. Carbado and Cheryl I. Harris
10 Beyond the “Tenets”: Reconsidering Critical Race Theory in
Higher Education Scholarship 182
Lorenzo DuBois Baber
Index 200
FOREWORD
The Evolving Role of Critical Race Theory in

Educational Scholarship
Gloria Ladson-Billings
A majority of the chapters that comprise this book come from a symposium held
at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association
(AERA) in April 2004. The title of the session was “And we are still not saved.”
This title has two sources. One source is critical race theory (CRT) legal scholar,
Derrick Bell (1992), who used it in the title of his book on the “elusive quest for
racial justice.” The other source is its true source—the Biblical passage from the
prophet Jeremiah (Jer. 8: 20) who mourned for his people’s lack of deliverance
with the words, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.”
Bell used this scriptural passage because he felt it appropriately described the plight
of people of color, particularly African-American people, in this present age.
The session organizers amended the title to say, “And we are still not saved” as
an indicator of the limited progress that we have made in educational equity since
William Tate and I raised the issue of critical race theory in education 10 years
ago at AERA and subsequently in a paper published in Teachers College Record
(1995). It seems hard to believe that a decade has gone by since the term “critical
race theory” was introduced into educational scholarship, and at the same time it
is a very appropriate interval at which to take stock of where we are.
The chapters in this book take different approaches to explain where we are
and where we need to go. Two chapters address the state of the literature to this
point—one situated within a US context and the other examining “race” literature
in the UK. Several chapters offer an application of the theory and three represent
extensions of critical race theory concepts. The totality of this text offers a variety
of perspectives on CRT and its usefulness in education. What follows are my
thoughts on a few of the individual chapters.
In her chapter, Yosso reasserts the significance of race in our social science
discourse and pushes us to move past Black–White binaries. This work reminds
me of more complex renderings of race such as that in Howard Winant’s (2001)
viii Foreword
work (particularly, The world is a ghetto: race and democracy since World War II) that
articulates the race-making project in modernity and provides an important historical
and international context in which to understand our present racial predicament.
I find Yosso’s CRT family tree intriguing but caution against the construction of
such lineages because of the possibility of unsubstantiated alliances or unintended
omissions. I am reminded that conversations about the critical theory project
acknowledge the work of the Frankfurt School but omit Du Bois, who was an
intellectual contemporary of the members of the Frankfurt School who not only
asked similar questions but also was studying in Germany at the same moment
these critical formulations were emerging.
It is also important to investigate the genealogy of the Black–White binaries.
Some of the demographic literature (Lee, 1993) indicate that in 1890, when
question four (“What is your race?”) was first included in the census, there were
almost 16 racial categories ranging from White to Black. There were categories
for degrees of Blackness such as “mulatto,” “quadroon,” and “octoroon.” Over
the more than 100-year history of the question on the census form the two stable
categories have been Black and White, and while other groups may not have
been able to take full advantage of the privilege of Whiteness, there are historical
instances where they have been categorized as such.
Asian Indians were phenotypically determined to be White. In the Lemon
Grove School District Incident, Mexican American parents won their suit against
having their children sent to a segregated school because they were categorized as
White, and for a short time the Cherokee Indians were considered White as they
worked hard to assimilate into US society. So the real issue is not necessarily the
Black–White binary as much as it is the way everyone regardless of his/her
declared racial and ethnic identity is positioned in relation to Whiteness. Indeed,
during his US presidential administration Bill Clinton’s class position made his
grip on Whiteness quite tenuous. Scholars like Vijay Prashad (2001) in his book,
Everybody was kung fu fighting: Afro-Asian connections and the myth of cultural purity,
challenge the hegemony of White racial discourses and help us reorganize our
discourses from “us versus them” to a look at both symbolic and structural barriers
that are constructed as a result of White supremacist discourses.
In addition to tracing the lineage of CRT, Yosso also offers an articulation of
cultural capital that departs from tradition. I appreciate Yosso’s re-articulation of
Bourdieu’s (in Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990) notion of cultural capital to include
the notion of “funds of knowledge” found in Moll’s (in Gonzales et al., 2004)
and other Latino scholars’ work and encourage them not to be naïve about the way
capital can be deployed as a way to create hierarchy and inequity, i.e., the institutions
of a capitalist and White supremacist society will happily allow you to have your
new forms of capital as long as they do not infringe on their old established ones.
More insidious, they will appropriate your forms of capital and repackage them to
produce their forms. A great example of this is the Coca-Cola commercial airing
on US television where a brown-skinned young man comes to his apartment and
Foreword ix
finds a plate with empanadas and Coke, ostensibly from his mother. A few min-
utes later as he is finishing the treat, his Black roommate arrives and finds a note
in the kitchen to Tito from Mom and is furious that his roommate ate his
homemade treat. The media in this instance is playing on our immediate tendency
to separate categories of Latino-ness from categories of Blackness as a “twist” in the
commercial—i.e., the Black person could not be the Latino person.
The Dixson and Rousseau Anderson chapters constitute a review of the

literature in critical race theory that speaks directly to CRT in education. What I
find particularly appealing about this review is that it is genealogical and synthetic.
Perhaps it is my graduate adviser bias but I am pleased to see a review where the
literature is in conversation with itself. Too often, we merely see a litany of work
in an area without any type of scholarly integration. This synthetic approach helps
the reader understand how this project has emerged over the last 10 years in
education. Because the literature is relatively thin in the field, Dixson and
Rousseau Anderson have the opportunity to provide a more robust treatment of
what has happened over the past decade. Like Yosso, Dixson and Rousseau
Anderson present their review through a set of generally agreed-upon features of
CRT. Their work is a more traditional search of the literature that indicates the
field is still in its infancy in education (perhaps because of my stern warning to folks
in education to proceed with caution). Their chapters do a good job of pulling at
thematic strands and highlight Crenshaw’s (1988) notion of restricted and expansive
views of equality (which is one of the more underdeveloped themes of CRT in
education). This is particularly timely as we look at commemorations of landmark
US legal decisions of Brown vs Board of Education and Lau vs Nichols, that addressed
school segregation and bilingual education, respectively.
Dixson and Rousseau Anderson also pay attention to the storytelling aspect of CRT
with their opening vignette. I sometimes worry that scholars who are attracted to
CRT focus on storytelling to the exclusion of the central ideas such stories purport
to illustrate. Thus I clamour for richer, more detailed stories that place our stories
in more robust and powerful contexts. For example, Patricia Williams’ (1991)
discussion of finding the bill of sale for her enslaved great grandmother is a
powerful story to set up the work of students in a contracts law course. The point
here is not the titillation of the story but rather the way notions of contracts are
not sterile or neutral. They are a part of larger social contexts that can be used to
exploit one person or group while simultaneously advantaging another.
The Duncan chapter is also an extension of CRT and represents a fresh cut on
what Tate and I originally proposed. In his use of allochronism and coevalness he
incorporates the anthropological literature into the CRT race project in new and
exciting ways. In particular, he points to the allochronic discourses present in
both historical and contemporary education. In this way, Duncan provides a lens
through which to understand the role of time in the construction of educational
inequity. While Duncan points to the way school creates race for everyone,
regardless of racial and ethnic affiliation, I argue that race is one of those concepts
x Foreword
that is already well established before students even get to school. Duncan’s
assertion is not rejected, however, by my argument. Actually, Duncan demonstrates
how schools take advantage of this pre-school establishment to complete its race-
making project. The power of the Duncan chapter lies in its intellectual daring
and synchronic rendering of the economic, social, cultural, political and educational
moment in which Black students find themselves.
Several of these chapters grew out of a symposium that states “we are still not
saved,” the paraphrase from the prophet Jeremiah, but I would point us toward
Pauline pronouncements that suggest “we have this treasure in earthen vessels,”
that is, CRT is a theoretical treasure—a new scholarly covenant, if you will, that
we as scholars are still parsing, moving toward new exegesis. And about that,
somebody ought to say “Amen.”
References
Bell, D. (1992) And we are not saved: the elusive quest for racial justice (New York, Basic Books).
Bourdieu, P. & Passeron, J. (1990) Reproduction in education, society and culture (Thousand
Oaks, CA, Sage).
Crenshaw, K. W. (1988) Race, reform and retrenchment: transformation and legitimation
in antidiscrimination law, Harvard Law Review, 101, 1331–1387.
Gonzales, N., Moll, C. & Amanti, C. (2004) Funds of knowledge: theorizing practices in
householdsand classrooms (Mawah, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum).
Ladson-Billings, G. & Tate, W. F. (1995) Toward a critical race theory of education,
Teachers College Record, 97, 47–68.
Lee, S. M. (1993) Racial classification in the US census: 1890–1990, Ethnic and Racial
Studies, 16, 75–94.
Prashad, V. (2001) Everybody was kung fu fighting: Afro-Asian connections and the myth of
cultural purity (New York, Beacon Press).
Williams, P. (1991) The alchemy of race and rights: diary of a law professor (Cambridge, MA,
Harvard University Press).
Winant, H. (2001) The world is a ghetto: race and democracy since World War II (New York,
Basic Books).
INTRODUCTION
Critical Race Theory and Education: Singing a

“New” Song
I got a song, you got a song.

All God’s children got a song.
When I get to heaven, gonna sing a new song.
Gonna sing all over God’s heaven.
(African American spiritual)
It was a long time before the masters learned, if they ever did, that the slaves used their
songs as a means of communication; giving warning, conveying information about escapes
planned and carried out, and simply uplifting the spirit and fortifying the soul. It was even
longer before the Spirituals were recognized as theology in song, a new interpretation of
Christianity, one far closer to the original than that practiced by those who hoped the
Bible would serve as a tool of pacification, not enlightenment.
(Bell, 1995, p. 909)
In 1994, Gloria Ladson-Billings and William Tate presented a paper at the annual
meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in which
they demonstrated the relevance of critical race theory (CRT) to education. They
asserted that race remains a salient factor in U.S. society in general and in
education in particular. Moreover, they argued, however, that race at that time
was under-theorized in education. To begin to fill this theoretical gap, they
proposed that CRT, an intellectual movement rooted in American jurisprudence
scholarship, could be employed to examine the role of race and racism in education.
Specifically, building on the work of Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Richard
Delgado, and others, Ladson-Billings and Tate detailed the intersection of race
and persistent educational inequity. Furthermore, they challenged scholars to
examine more closely the ways that seemingly race-neutral policies and practices
2 Dixson and Rousseau Anderson
served to reinforce and reify education inequity. In the first edition of this book,
Critical Race Theory in Education: All God’s Children Got a Song, we highlighted the
first ten years of scholarship on CRT in education. In this edition, we reflect on
the second decade of this new “song.”
According to Derrick Bell (1995), there are several similarities between critical
race theory (CRT) and the African American spirituals. For example, he argued
that both CRT and the spirituals have as their essence the communication
of “understanding and reassurance to needy souls trapped in a hostile world”
(p. 910). Another similarity, according to Bell, is “the use of unorthodox structure,
language, and form to make sense of the senseless” (p. 910). As we noted in the
first edition of this book, the similarities between CRT and the spirituals are not
surprising. The persistence of racism and the institutionalized threats to persons of
color continue to reinforce the hostility of an “unfriendly world.” A decade after
the first edition of this book, we reiterate the relevance of the language of the
spirituals to contemporary analyses of race and racism in the United States.
For this second edition we reflected on feedback from colleagues and students
as well as our observations of the trends in the literature and the field overall. In
particular, we wanted to ensure that this second edition addressed fundamental
concepts and ideas relative to the way that many of our colleagues and students
used the text, which is as a reference on how to engage and use CRT in their
scholarship. We framed the text around one fundamental question: What would
we want those new to CRT to understand? First, CRT challenges the dominant
stories of a racist society. In the lines of the spiritual quoted at the start of this
chapter, the assertion that “all God’s children got a song” was a challenge to the
dominant, dehumanizing message of the time (Jones, 1993). Presently, the need
for these songs affirming our humanity appears to be even more relevant in light
of the racial climate on university campuses across the United States and in several
cities. In both contexts, racial inequities have reached boiling points and have
prompted protests by people of color demanding substantive changes to policies
and practices that seem to justify physical and psychological violence against
people of color as a natural consequence of inherent ineptitude (De Vogue, 2015)
and cultures of criminality and lawlessness.
Another verse of the same song declares:
I got a robe, you got a robe

All God’s children got a robe;
When I get to heaven, gonna put on my robe,
Gonna shout all over God’s Heaven, Heaven, Heaven!
Everybody talkin’ about Heaven ain’t going there,
Heaven, heaven.
Gonna shout all over God’s Heaven!
This radical declaration that, at least in heaven, all will be equal was a belief
that stood in stark contrast to the attitudes of white slaveholders. The songwriter
Introduction 3
pointed to this contrast and to the hypocrisy of white Christian slaveholders with
his assertion that “everybody talking’ about Heaven ain’t going there” (Jones,
1993). In this way, the songwriter offered a counterstory to the dominant
attitudes of the time. Critical race theory offers a similar challenge to the stories of
the majority. Over the two decades since CRT was first introduced to education
(Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995), counterstories challenging the dominant discourse
have characterized much of the educational scholarship in CRT.

A second point that is instructive to those new to CRT is the importance of
historical context. As Bell (1995) points out in the section quoted at the start of this
chapter, the spirituals conveyed not only messages about a transcendent future in
heaven, but also about immediate events on earth. For example, the singing of
the song “Steal Away to Jesus” is thought to have been a signal for slaves to
assemble for a secret meeting (Cone, 1972; Jones, 1993). Similarly, Cone (1972)
notes the double meaning of other songs for those who were enslaved. In the
historical context of slavery and the possibility of escape, Canaan could signify
the North or Canada. Crossing the Jordan could represent the Ohio River. And a
heavenly chariot could refer to a means or method of escape. In this context, the
meaning of the songs can be viewed in a different light:
I looked over Jordan and what did I see

Comin’ for to carry me home?
A band of angels comin’ after me,
Comin’ for to carry me home.
As this example illustrates, a full understanding of the multiple levels of

meaning of the spirituals is lost when we fail to situate them historically. In the
same way, critical race theory argues for the need to examine contemporary
events with the historical context in mind. For example, the recent appropriation
of the civil rights era discourse by contemporary education reformers and even
Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, fails to fully contextualize the racial climate
in the 1960s and the contemporary racial climate. Moreover, the refashioning of this
contemporary era as a “new Civil Rights” moment obscures the role that neoliberal
and wealthy elites play in constructing the terms of the discourse and the policies
proposed to redress real educational inequity. For scholars who attempt to study
this moment of education reform, contending with this façade of progressive
political intervention that presumes to be a racial equity project requires that we
pay particular attention to historical context relative to the failures of civil rights
era legislation, including Brown.
Another similarity between CRT and the spirituals is the combination of
struggle and hope. Cone (1972) notes that the despair of the spirituals was
“usually intertwined with confidence and joy that ‘trouble don’t last always’” (p. 57).
Many of the spirituals reflect the despair and suffering of life under slavery (e.g.,
“Sometimes I feel like a motherless child” and “I’ve been ’buked and I’ve been
scored”). However, there were also songs (even phrases within the same songs of
despair) that asserted hope in the midst of the struggle (e.g., “There is a balm in
Gilead”). According to Jones (1993), such songs reflected the “tension between
awareness of painful oppressive circumstances and the simultaneous envisioning of
a hopeful future” (p. 127). The same combination of struggle and hope is found in
the writings of CRT. Critical race theory scholars acknowledge the permanence
of racism while, at the same time, arguing that this recognition should not lead to
despair and surrender but to greater resolve in the struggle. This is an important
point for those new to CRT to keep in mind. The assertion that racism is a
permanent and pervasive part of the American landscape is not a defeatist position.
It is an acknowledgment of the “trouble of the world.” But it is coupled with a
vision of hope for the future. A hope also, that as people of color, we do not have
to accept our oppression and racial inequity. “Stealing away,” the racial foments
of the 1900s through the 1960s, and the contemporary protests in Minneapolis,
St. Louis and Baltimore and on several university campuses, also illustrate hope.
This struggle for a better future is reflected in the liberation theme in spirituals.
As Cone (1972) notes, the liberation referred to in song was not only a spiritual
liberation from sin. It was also a physical liberation from earthly bondage.
O freedom! O freedom!
O freedom over me!
An’ befo’ I’d be a slave,
I’ll be buried in my grave and go home to my Lord and be free.
According to Jones (1993), the meaning of heaven in the spirituals “interacted

actively with religious faith and hopes for freedom as well as with actions in the
service of earthly liberation in the present” (p. 89). He further argues that one of
the distinguishing features of the spirituals is the balance between inner faith and
social action. This balance is one that CRT scholars also seek. There is a focus in
CRT on praxis, a commitment not only to scholarship but also to social action
towards liberation and the end of oppression. That is, it is not enough to just
document and analyze inequity, CRT requires that scholars utilize their insight
and knowledge to work on the ground to resist and disrupt racism and inequity.
A growing number of scholars, including the contributors to this volume, are a
part of efforts by local grassroots and community groups to protest education
reform policies that have reified racial educational inequity.
The final aspect of CRT that we seek to highlight to those who are CRT
novices is the need to “listen” to this song with a new ear. Bell (1995) notes that
at some point, white scholars must have heard the Spirituals. It is easy to
imagine their reaction. Even the most hostile would have had to admit that
the sometimes joyous and often plaintive melodies had a surface attraction.
The scholars would have concluded, though, that the basically primitive
Introduction 5
song-chants were not capable of complex development and were certainly

too simplistic to convey sophisticated musical ideas. The music, moreover,
was not in classical form, likely deemed a fatal defect…. Whatever they
were, the critics would conclude, these songs were not art.
(p. 909)
As Bell argues, the spirituals cannot be heard and fully appreciated with a classical
ear. Moreover, it is not only the melody but also the words that require a different
level of “hearing.” According to Cone (1972), the songs reflect a “complex world
of thought” that requires analysis for full understanding. In fact, he asserts that
there are important theological insights reflected in the spirituals. However, these
insights are not ones that can be understood from a traditional theological per-
spective (Cone, 1972). So, in order to “hear” the spirituals in the fullness of their
beauty and meaning, the listener must abandon preconceptions based on classical
paradigms. The same can be said of CRT. If the reader is not willing or able to
put aside preconceptions and traditional paradigms and “hear” the counterstories
and challenges to the dominant discourse reflected in this work, he/she is likely to
miss the point. Working with people “on the bottom” (Matsuda, 1987) requires
that CRT scholars exercise humility and reject internalized white supremacist
ideology. That is, as a researcher, how do we understand and work within a
context where people are both experiencing racialized inequity, but must also rely
on the very system in order to maintain their lives? For example, after 10 years of
education reform in New Orleans, the reforms and reformers are now the status
quo. Although teachers, students, parents and communities who are critical of the
reforms protest and fight for relief, they must do so within a system that is now so
firmly entrenched that undoing it would require a rebuilding of a fractured
infrastructure. This rebuilding, although important, consigns another generation of
students to schools that are unstable and in flux. How parents and families make
sense of that requires an ear that can hear and understand complexity, nuance,
tension and even hope. It requires a sophistication and patience on the part of the
researcher to listen for consonance in what may sound at first like discordant
cacophonies of disharmony.
It is clear that, in many ways, critical race theory does not represent a “new”
song—if we think of “new” in a chronological sense. In fact, it is a very old song,
one that originated centuries ago during the enslavement of African Americans in
this country through the challenges of granting citizenship to Asian and Native
Americans (Anderson, 2007). In the era of slavery, the songwriter challenged the
superiority of white slaveholders by offering a different perspective on heaven and
on who would be there, arguing that “ALL God’s children got a song.” Insofar as
the perspectives and experiences of persons of color are still challenges to the
dominant discourse, CRT represents a “new”—as in “different”—song. As will
be demonstrated in the chapters of this volume, it is necessary for scholars in
education to sing a different song. Racism is still a pervasive part of the American
landscape. It is, therefore, important for CRT scholars in education to tell

these counterstories as a means to challenge the story of white supremacy. Thus,
despite roots that go back to the origins of this country, we are still singing a
new song.
Critical Race Theory: Still a “New” Song

Ten years ago, we wrote about the transposition of critical race theory from legal
studies into the study of education. It has now been over 20 years since this
transposition occurred. Although the legal basis for critical race theory is outlined
in greater detail elsewhere in this volume, it is important for those new to CRT in
education to recognize its legal antecedents. In fact, one of the primary warnings
that we would offer to new CRT scholars is to return to the original “songs” of
legal studies (Dixson & Rousseau, 2005; Tate, 1997). It is important that CRT
scholars in education understand the historical context of critical race theory as
well as the tenets and constructs as laid out in the legal literature. In other words,
how do we build upon and contribute to CRT writ large if we do not first
understand the foundation? In our reviews of the larger CRT scholarship in
education, many novice scholars misunderstand and misuse some tenets and
constructs because they have not read the full body of original CRT literature.
The focus on gender and CRT, for example, is not “new.” Kimberlé Crenshaw,
Patricia Williams, Dorothy Roberts, Regina Austin and Linda Greene to name
just a few legal scholars, engaged an analysis of race and gender in their CRT
scholarship. As described elsewhere in this volume, Crenshaw’s Intersectionality is as
fundamental to CRT as Interest-Convergence. Thus, our argument is that CRT
has always been a critique of the gender politics of racism. Scholars in education new
to CRT would do well to engage in a thorough reading of the legal literature.
Changes to the Second Edition

For this second edition of the book, we sought to provide a broad perspective on
how scholars in the U.S. and in the U.K. have engaged CRT across the educational
spectrum. Several of the chapters from the previous edition are also included in
this second edition, but we invited new contributors to address issues that were
missing from the first edition. In particular, we were intentional about including
scholars who could speak more specifically to higher education, an omission in
the first edition. Lorenzo Baber, Devon Carbado and Cheryl Harris and Jamel
Donnor in separate chapters speak more directly to the higher education context.
Baber’s chapter offers an important perspective on CRT and how it can inform
analyses of racism in higher education. This chapter is timely not only for the
current moment given the racial tensions on campuses, but also given the pro-
liferation of CRT scholarship in higher education and the inherent tensions of
examining race in an icon of white privilege and supremacy: the academy.
Introduction 7
Donnor’s chapter examines the racial discourse in the Fisher vs. University of
Texas lawsuit. As we go to press with this second edition, we are waiting for the
Supreme Court to issue their ruling on the second hearing of this case. Donnor
points out the flaws in Fisher’s case given her limits as a viable candidate for
admission into the University of Texas. Although timely, this chapter raises
important arguments about the persistence of racial reasoning in the U.S. that
relies on the logic of inherent Black incompetence and “unworthiness” and white
entitlement to all educational spaces, especially elite educational spaces.
Legal scholars Devon Carbado and Cheryl Harris also address the affirmative
action debate in higher education but from a slightly different angle. They locate
the discussion of affirmative action within discourses that cast equity interventions
as either race conscious or race neutral. Carbado and Harris’s particular angle of
vision on this topic is through the racial formation theory of Omi and Winant
(1994). Specifically, Carbado and Harris seek to “expose and contest colorblind
racial projects” (Omi & Winant, 1994; p. 8) by looking more closely at race
conscious remedies like affirmative action in admissions. This chapter complements
both Donnor’s look at the Fisher case and Baber’s focus on how CRT can inform
scholarship in higher education as a subfield. Taken in total, the additional
chapters in this second edition, including the updated review of CRT literature
since the 2005 publication, provide a broader perspective on the field of education
than the first edition.
We believe this second edition will be a useful guide for early career scholars
and scholars who are newer to critical race theory. With this second edition we
endeavored to be more intentional about selecting scholarship that both illustrates
the how of CRT and education and pushes scholars to go beyond simplistic
analyses that claim to be CRT simply because scholars have a sample that includes
people of color or because they make claims about racism. As is reflected in the
chapters in this volume, we urge scholars to ground their knowledge of critical race
theory with the foundational legal literature, not as a way to limit our understanding
and usage of CRT to only that which is articulated by legal scholars, but to
encourage scholars in education to read outside of the field and locate their analyses
in the broader field of critical race theory. This will certainly help to add com-
plexity to our understanding of how race and racism function as by-products of
U.S. jurisprudence, a system that is pervasive and shapes nearly every aspect
of American life.
References
Anderson, J. D. (2007). Race-conscious educational policies versus a “color-blind
constitution”: A historical perspective. Educational Researcher, 36(5), 249–257.
Bell, D. (1995). Who’s afraid of critical race theory? University of Illinois Law Review, 4,
893–910.
Cone, J. (1972). The spirituals and the blues. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis.
De Vogue, A. (2015). Supreme Court releases audio of Judge Antonin Scalia saying maybe
Black students don’t belong in elite universities. CNN.com, December 11. Retrieved from
http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/11/politics/supreme-court-antonin-scalia-african-america
ns-audio/index.html.
Dixson, A. D. & Rousseau, C. K. (2005). And we are still not saved: Critical Race Theory
in education ten years later. Race, Ethnicity, and Education, 8(1), 7–27.
Jones, A. (1993). Wade in the water: The wisdom of the spirituals. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis.
Ladson-Billings, G. & Tate, W. (1995). Towards a critical race theory of education. Teachers
College Record, 97(1), 47–68.
Matsuda, M. J. (1987) Looking to the bottom: Critical legal studies and reparations. Harvard
Civil Rights—Civil Liberties Law Review, 22, 323.
Omi, M. & Winant, H. (1994). Racial formation in the United States from the 1960s to the
1990s. New York: Routledge.
Tate, W. (1997). Critical race theory and education: History, theory, and implications. In
M. Apple (ed.), Review of research in education (vol. 22). Washington, DC: American
Educational Research Association.
PART I
Education in Context
Critical Race Theory and
This page intentionally left blank

1
TOWARD A CRITICAL RACE THEORY
OF EDUCATION
Gloria Ladson-Billings and William F. Tate IV

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN TEACHERS COLLEGE RECORD, 97(1), FALL 1995, PP. 47–68
The presentation of truth in new forms provokes resistance, confounding

those committed to accepted measures for determining the quality and
validity of statements made and conclusions reached, and making it difficult
for them to respond and adjudge what is acceptable.
—Derrick Bell, Faces at the Bottom of the Well
I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high
independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The bles-
sings in which you this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich
inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence bequeathed by
your fathers, not by me.
—Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom
In 1991 social activist and education critic Jonathan Kozol delineated the great
inequities that exist between the schooling experiences of white middle-class
students and those of poor African-American and Latino students. And, while
Kozol’s graphic descriptions may prompt some to question how it is possible that
we allow these “savage inequalities,” this article suggests that these inequalities are
a logical and predictable result of a racialized society in which discussions of race
and racism continue to be muted and marginalized.1
In this article we attempt to theorize race and use it as an analytic tool for
understanding school inequity.2 We begin with a set of propositions about race
and property and their intersections. We situate our discussion in an explication
of critical race theory and attempt to move beyond the boundaries of the edu-
cational research literature to include arguments and new perspectives from law
and the social sciences. In doing so, we acknowledge and are indebted to a
12 Ladson-Billings and Tate
number of scholars whose work crosses disciplinary boundaries.3 We conclude by

exploring the tensions between our conceptualization of a critical race theory in
education and the educational reform movement identified as multicultural
education.
Understanding Race and Property

Our discussion of social inequity in general, and school inequity in particular, is

based on three central propositions:4
1. Race continues to be a significant factor in determining inequity in the

United States.
2. U.S. society is based on property rights.
3. The intersection of race and property creates an analytic tool through which
we can understand social (and, consequently, school) inequity.
In this section we expand on these propositions and provide supporting “meta-

propositions” to make clear our line of reasoning and relevant application to
educational or school settings.
Race as Factor in Inequity

The first proposition—that race continues to be a significant factor in deter-
mining inequity in the United States—is easily documented in the statistical and
demographic data. Hacker’s look at educational and life chances such as high
school dropout rates, suspension rates, and incarceration rates echoes earlier
statistics of the Children’s Defense Fund.5 However, in what we now call the
postmodern era, some scholars question the usefulness of race as a category. Omi
and Winant argue that popular notions of race as either an ideological construct
or an objective condition have epistemological limitations.6 Thinking of race
strictly as an ideological construct denies the reality of a racialized society and its
impact on “raced” people in their everyday lives. On the other hand, thinking of
race solely as an objective condition denies the problematic aspects of race—how
do we decide who fits into which racial classifications? How do we categorize
racial mixtures? Indeed, the world of biology has found the concept of race
virtually useless. Geneticist Cavalli-Sforza asserts that “human populations are
sometimes known as ethnic groups, or ‘races.’… They are hard to define in a way
that is both rigorous and useful because human beings group themselves in a
bewildering array of sets, some of them overlapping, all of them in a state
of flux.”7
Nonetheless, even when the concept of race fails to “make sense,” we
continue to employ it. According to Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison:
Toward a Critical Race Theory of Education 13
Race has become metaphorical—a way of referring to and disguising

forces, events, classes, and expressions of social decay and economic
division far more threatening to the body politic than biological “race”
ever was.
Expensively kept, economically unsound, a spurious and useless political
asset in election campaigns, racism is as healthy today as it was during the
Enlightenment. It seems that it has a utility far beyond economy, beyond

the sequestering of classes from one another, and has assumed a metaphorical
life so completely embedded in daily discourse that it is perhaps more
necessary and more on display than ever before.8
Despite the problematic nature of race, we offer as a first meta-proposition that

race, unlike gender and class, remains untheorized.9 Over the past few decades
theoretical and epistemological considerations of gender have proliferated.10
Though the field continues to struggle for legitimacy in academe, interest in
and publications about feminist theories abound. At the same time, Marxist and
Neo-Marxist formulations about class continue to merit consideration as theore-
tical models for understanding social inequity.11 We recognize the importance of
both gender- and class-based analyses while at the same time pointing to their
shortcomings vis-à-vis race. Roediger points out that “the main body of writing
by White Marxists in the United States has both ‘naturalized’ whiteness and
oversimplified race.”12
Omi and Winant have done significant work in providing a sociological
explanation of race in the United States. They argue that the paradigms of race
have been conflated with notions of ethnicity, class, and nation because
theories of race—of its meaning, its transformations, the significance of racial

events—have never been a top priority in social science. In the U.S.,
although the “founding fathers” of American sociology… were explicitly
concerned with the state of domestic race relations, racial theory remained
one of the least developed fields of sociological inquiry.13
To mount a viable challenge to the dominant paradigm of ethnicity (i.e., we

are all ethnic and, consequently, must assimilate and rise socially the same way
European Americans have), Omi and Winant offer a racial formation theory that
they define as “the sociohistorical process by which racial categories are created,
inhabited, transformed and destroyed…. [It] is a process of historically situated
projects in which human bodies and social structures are represented and organized.”
Further, they link “racial formation to the evolution of hegemony, the way in
which society is organized and ruled.” Their analysis suggests that “race is a matter
of both social structure and cultural representation.”14
By arguing that race remains untheorized, we are not suggesting that other
scholars have not looked carefully at race as a powerful tool for explaining social
inequity, but that the intellectual salience of this theorizing has not been sys-
tematically employed in the analysis of educational inequality. Thus, like Omi
and Winant, we are attempting to uncover or decipher the social-structural and
cultural significance of race in education. Our work owes an intellectual debt to both
Carter G. Woodson and W. E. B. Du Bois, who, although marginalized by the
mainstream academic community, used race as a theoretical lens for assessing social
inequity.15
Both Woodson and Du Bois presented cogent arguments for considering race
as the central construct for understanding inequality. In many ways our work is an
attempt to build on the foundation laid by these scholars.16 Briefly, Woodson, as
far back as 1916, began to establish the legitimacy of race (and, in particular,
African Americans) as a subject of scholarly inquiry.17 As founder of the Association
for the Study of Negro Life and History and editor of its Journal of Negro History,
Woodson revolutionized the thinking about African Americans from that of
pathology and inferiority to multitextured analysis of the uniqueness of African
Americans and their situation in the United States. His most notable publication,
The Miseducation of the Negro, identified the school’s role in structuring inequality
and demotivating African-American students:
The same educational process which inspires and stimulates the oppressor
with the thought that he is everything and has accomplished everything
worthwhile depresses and crushes at the same time the spark of genius in the
Negro by making him feel that his race does not amount to much and never
will measure up to the standards of other peoples.18
Du Bois, perhaps better known among mainstream scholars, profoundly impacted

the thinking of many identified as “other” by naming a “double consciousness”
felt by African Americans. According to Du Bois, the African American “everfeels
his two-ness—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled
strivings.”19
In a current biography of Du Bois, Lewis details the intellectual impact of this
concept:
It was a revolutionary concept. It was not just revolutionary; the concept of

the divided self was profoundly mystical, for Du Bois invested this double
consciousness with a capacity to see incomparably further and deeper. The
African American—seventh son after the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and
Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian—possessed the gift of “second sight in
this American world,” an intuitive faculty (prelogical, in a sense) enabling
him/her to see and say things about American society that possessed a
heightened moral validity. Because he dwelt equally in the mind and heart of
his oppressor as in his own beset psyche, the African American embraced a
vision of the commonweal at its best.20
As a prophetic foreshadowing of the centrality of race in U.S. society, Du Bois

reminded us that “the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the
color line.”21
The second meta-proposition that we use to support the proposition that race
continues to be significant in explaining inequity in the United States is that class-
and gender-based explanations are not powerful enough to explain all of the
difference (or variance) in school experience and performance. Although both

class and gender can and do intersect race, as stand-alone variables they do not
explain all of the educational achievement differences apparent between whites
and students of color. Indeed, there is some evidence to suggest that even when
we hold constant for class, middle-class African-American students do not achieve
at the same level as their white counterparts.22 Although Oakes reports that “in
academic tracking, …poor and minority students are most likely to be placed at
the lowest levels of the school’s sorting system,”23 we are less clear as to which
factor—race or class—is causal. Perhaps the larger question of the impact of race
on social class is the more relevant one. Space limitations do not permit us to
examine that question.
Issues of gender bias also figure in inequitable schooling.24 Females receive less
attention from teachers, are counseled away from or out of advanced mathematics and
science courses, and although they receive better grades than their male counterparts,
their grades do not translate into advantages in college admission and/or the
workplace.25
But class and gender, examined alone or together, do not account for the
extraordinarily high rates of school dropout, suspension, expulsion, and failure
among African-American and Latino males.26 In the case of suspension, Majors
and Billson argue that many African-American males are suspended or expelled
from school for what they termed “non-contact violations”—wearing banned items
of clothing such as hats and jackets, or wearing these items in an “unauthorized”
manner such as backwards or inside out.27
The point we strive to make with this meta-proposition is not that class and
gender are insignificant, but rather, as West suggests, that “race matters,” and, as
Smith insists, “blackness matters in more detailed ways.”28
The Property Issue

Our second proposition, that U.S. society is based on property rights, is best
explicated by examining legal scholarship and interpretations of rights. To
develop this proposition it is important to situate it in the context of critical race
theory. Monaghan reports that “critical race legal scholarship developed in the
1970s, in part because minority scholars thought they were being overlooked in
critical legal studies, a better-known movement that examines the way law
encodes cultural norms.”29 However, Delgado argues that despite the diversity
contained within the critical race movement, there are some shared features:
an assumption that racism is not a series of isolated acts, but is endemic in

American life, deeply ingrained legally, culturally, and even psychologically;
a call for a reinterpretation of civil-rights law “in light of its ineffectuality,
showing that laws to remedy racial injustices are often undermined before
they can fulfill their promise”;
a challenge to the “traditional claims of legal neutrality, objectivity, color-
blindness, and meritocracy as camouflages for the self-interest of dominant

groups in American society”;
an insistence on subjectivity and the reformulation of legal doctrine to reflect
the perspectives of those who have experienced and been victimized by
racism firsthand;
the use of stories or first-person accounts.30
In our analysis we add another aspect to this critical paradigm that disentangles
democracy and capitalism. Many discussions of democracy conflate it with capitalism
despite the fact that it is possible to have a democratic government with an economic
system other than capitalism. Discussing the two ideologies as if they were one
masks the pernicious effects of capitalism on those who are relegated to its lowest
ranks. Traditional civil rights approaches to solving inequality have depended on
the “rightness” of democracy while ignoring the structural inequality of capitalism.31
However, democracy in the U.S. context was built on capitalism.
In the early years of the republic only capitalists enjoyed the franchise. Two
hundred years later when civil rights leaders of the 1950s and 1960s built their
pleas for social justice on an appeal to the civil and human rights, they were
ignoring the fact that the society was based on property rights.32 An example from
the 1600s underscores the centrality of property in the Americas from the
beginning of European settlement:
When the Pilgrims came to New England they too were coming not to vacant land
but to territory inhabited by tribes of Indians. The governor of the

Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop, created the excuse to take Indian
land by declaring the area legally a “vacuum.” The Indians, he said, had not
“subdued” the land, and therefore had only a “natural” right to it, but not a
“civil right.” A “natural right” did not have legal standing.33
Bell examined the events leading up to the Constitution’s development and

concluded that there exists a tension between property rights and human rights.34
This tension was greatly exacerbated by the presence of African peoples as slaves
in America. The purpose of the government was to protect the main object of
society—property. The slave status of most African Americans (as well as women
and children) resulted in their being objectified as property. And, a government
constructed to protect the rights of property owners lacked the incentive to
secure human rights for the African American.35
According to Bell “the concept of individual rights, unconnected to property

rights, was totally foreign to these men of property; and thus, despite two decades
of civil rights gains, most Blacks remain disadvantaged and deprived because of
their race.”36
The grand narrative of U.S. history is replete with tensions and struggles over
property—in its various forms. From the removal of Indians (and later Japanese
Americans) from the land, to military conquest of the Mexicans,37 to the con-
struction of Africans as property,38 the ability to define, possess, and own property
has been a central feature of power in America. We do not suggest that other
nations have not fought over and defined themselves by property and land-
ownership.39 However, the contradiction of a reified symbolic individual
juxtaposed to the reality of “real estate” means that emphasis on the centrality of
property can be disguised. Thus, we talk about the importance of the individual,
individual rights, and civil rights while social benefits accrue largely to property
owners.40
Property relates to education in explicit and implicit ways. Recurring discus-
sions about property tax relief indicate that more affluent communities (which
have higher property values, hence higher tax assessments) resent paying for a
public school system whose clientele is largely nonwhite and poor.41 In the simplest
of equations, those with “better” property are entitled to “better” schools. Kozol
illustrates the disparities:
Average expenditures per pupil in the city of New York in 1987 were some
$5,500. In the highest spending suburbs of New York (Great Neck or
Manhasset, for example, on Long Island) funding levels rose above $11,000,
with the highest districts in the state at $15,000.42
But the property differences manifest themselves in other ways. For example,
curriculum represents a form of “intellectual property.”43 The quality and quan-
tity of the curriculum varies with the “property values” of the school. The use of
a critical race story44 appropriately represents this notion:
The teenage son of one of the authors of this article was preparing to attend
high school. A friend had a youngster of similar age who also was preparing
to enter high school. The boys excitedly pored over course offerings in their
respective schools’ catalogues. One boy was planning on attending school in
an upper-middle-class white community. The other would be attending
school in an urban, largely African-American district. The difference between
the course offerings as specified in the catalogues was striking. The boy
attending the white, middle-class school had his choice of many foreign
languages—Spanish, French, German, Latin, Greek, Italian, Chinese, and
Japanese. His mathematics offerings included algebra, geometry, trigonometry,
calculus, statistics, general math, and business math. The science department
at this school offered biology, chemistry, physics, geology, science in society,

biochemistry, and general science. The other boy’s curriculum choices were
not nearly as broad. His foreign language choices were Spanish and French.
His mathematics choices were general math, business math, and algebra
(there were no geometry or trig classes offered). His science choices were
general science, life science, biology, and physical science. The differences in
electives were even more pronounced, with the affluent school offering
courses such as Film as Literature, Asian Studies, computer programming, and
journalism. Very few elective courses were offered at the African-American
school, which had no band, orchestra, or school newspaper.
The availability of “rich” (or enriched) intellectual property delimits what is now
called “opportunity to learn”45—the presumption that along with providing
educational “standards”46 that detail what students should know and be able to
do, they must have the material resources that support their learning. Thus,
intellectual property must be undergirded by “real” property, that is, science labs,
computers and other state-of-the-art technologies, and appropriately certified and
prepared teachers. Of course, Kozol demonstrated that schools that serve poor
students of color are unlikely to have access to these resources and, consequently,
students will have little or no opportunity to learn despite the attempt to mandate
educational standards.47
Critical Race Theory and Education

With this notion of property rights as a defining feature of the society, we proceed
to describe the ways that the features of critical race theory mentioned in the
previous section can be applied to our understanding of educational inequity.
Racism as Endemic and Deeply Ingrained in American Life

If racism were merely isolated, unrelated, individual acts, we would expect to see at
least a few examples of educational excellence and equity together in the nation’s
public schools. Instead, those places where African Americans do experience
educational success tend to be outside of the public schools.48 While some might
argue that poor children, regardless of race, do worse in school, and that the
high proportion of African-American poor contributes to their dismal school
performance, we argue that the cause of their poverty in conjunction with the
condition of their schools and schooling is institutional and structural racism.
Thus, when we speak of racism we refer to Wellman’s definition of “culturally
sanctioned beliefs which, regardless of the intentions involved, defend the
advantages Whites have because of the subordinated positions of racial mino-
rities.” We must therefore contend with the “problem facing White people
[of coming] to grips with the demands made by Blacks and Whites while at the
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Grandfer's
wonderful garden
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Grandfer's wonderful garden
Author: Eleanora H. Stooke
Release date: August 24, 2023 [eBook #71476]
Language: English
Original publication: United Kingdom: R. T. S, 1918
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK

GRANDFER'S WONDERFUL GARDEN ***
Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
IT WAS NOT LONG BEFORE HAROLD AND BILLY WERE

BUSILY
ENGAGED IN MAKING A BONFIRE.
Grandfer's
Wonderful Garden
BY
ELEANORA H. STOOKE
Author of "Little Maid Marigold," "Little Soldiers All,"
"Whilst Father was Fighting," etc., etc.
R.T.S., 4, Bouverie Street, London, E.C.4.

CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
I. TRAVELLING COMPANIONS
II. THE JOURNEY'S END
III. BILLY HAS A FRIGHT
IV. SUNDAY
V. BILLY'S PRESENT
VI. GARDENING
VII. "COME LIFE, COME DEATH, THEY'RE SAFE"
VIII. GRANDFER'S SECRET
IX. THE BIRD PICTURE BOOK
X. SPRING
XI. GRANNY SURPRISES BILLY
XII. CONCLUSION
GRANDFER'S WONDERFUL
GARDEN.
CHAPTER I.
TRAVELLING COMPANIONS.
"OH, do you think the train is running away?"
The startled question came from a little dark-eyed, pale-faced boy of

about ten years of age, who was making the journey from
Paddington to Exeter by the fastest train which runs. He occupied a
corner seat in a third-class compartment, his only companions being
an elderly gentleman and a young soldier at the other end of the
compartment. It was the young soldier who answered him.
"No, sonny," he said, smiling; "it's all right, I assure you. I've been
over this line many times, and the train always puts on speed about
here."
He moved along the carriage as he spoke, and took the place

opposite the little boy. He was quite a lad himself, barely twenty, but
tall and strongly made, with a bronzed complexion and very blue
eyes. He peered out of the window for a minute into the mist—it was
a dull November day—then gave his attention to the little boy again.
"Was that your father who saw you off at Paddington?" he asked
pleasantly.
"Oh, no!" the little boy replied. "My father died years ago. That was
the master of—of the Institution where I've been staying since—
since my mother was killed. She was killed in the Zeppelin raid last
month. She—she—"
He broke off with a choking sob, whilst a tear rolled down his cheek.
He brushed the tear away with the back of his hand, and bit his
quivering lip.
"Oh, I am sorry!" exclaimed the young soldier. "I've a mother myself,

and I know what I should feel—" He stopped abruptly and turned
again to the window. "Poor kiddie!" he muttered to himself.
"What's your name?" he asked, after a brief silence, looking at the

little boy again.
"William Brown. I was called after my father, and he was called after
his father. Mother always called me Billy."
"I like the name Billy," declared the young soldier. "My name's Tom—
Tom Turpin. I've got leave from 'somewhere in France' for a few
days, and am on my way home—that's a farm some miles from
Exeter. My father's a farmer. I was to have been a farmer too but the
year after I left school on came the war, and I enlisted right away in
the Devons. I've been in several engagements already, and so far
have come off without so much as a scratch."
"How glad you must be!" exclaimed Billy.
Tom Turpin nodded.
"I am," he said simply, "and more grateful to God than I can express.
It would be a blow to my parents if anything happened to me—they
not having another child; but they'd bear it bravely if it came to them,
knowing it was for the best."
"Oh, how could it be for the best?" cried Billy. "Was it for the best that
my mother was killed? I can't think that!"
"Not now, perhaps, but you may some day—though perhaps that
day won't be till you see God face to face and understand—oh, a lot
of things that are just one big mystery now!"
The young soldier looked at Billy very kindly, with a world of

sympathy in his clear blue eyes. When he spoke again it was to say
—
"If I live to see the end of the war I shall most likely lay aside the
sword for the plough, for I love everything to do with the country—
from being country born and bred, I suppose. You're town-bred,
aren't you?"
"Yes," assented Billy, "I've always lived in London; but my father

came from Devonshire, and now I'm to live in Devonshire, too."
"Indeed?"
"Yes, with my grandfather—my father's father. He's going to meet me

at Exeter. I've never seen him, and I've been wondering what I shall
do if I can't find him."
"Oh, he'll find you, I expect. But don't worry—it is always a bad plan
to go to meet trouble. We shall find your grandfather all right, I've no
doubt. Have you any idea what he's like?"
"No. I think he must be kind, for he used to write to mother

sometimes and send her money—I suppose he knew she was very
poor. And he'd always tell mother not to mention the money when
she wrote—because, he said, he particularly didn't wish to be
thanked."
"He must be a rather good sort, I should say."
"Oh, I hope so!"
The train was swaying less now, and Billy was no longer in fear that
it was running away. He grew very confidential with Tom Turpin. By-
and-by he spoke of the Zeppelin raid again.
"I don't remember much about it," he said. "It seems now just like a
dream—a very bad dream. It was in the night, you see. I didn't know
at the time that mother was killed, because I was stunned. I didn't
know anything till I woke up in the hospital. I thought mother might
be there, too, but she wasn't—she was dead. Then they took me to
the Institution—that's the workhouse—and, afterwards, I told them
about grandfather, and now—"
"And now I hope your troubles are nearly over," broke in the young
soldier. "Come, cheer up! By the way, have you any sisters or
brothers?"
Billy shook his head. "There was only mother and me," he replied
with a stifled sob.
The mist was lifting slightly, so that they could see they were
approaching beautifully wooded country. Tom Turpin's eyes smiled
as they noted this.
"Nearing home!" he murmured to himself. Then, hearing the little boy

sigh, he said, "You're nearing home, too, and I hope it's going to be a
very happy home indeed."
"I don't think I shall ever be happy again!" declared Billy.
The young soldier was silent for several minutes, evidently not quite
knowing what to say.
"Look here," he said at length, "there's just one thing I should like to
ask you. Are you a Christian? Do you believe in Jesus Christ?"
"Why, yes," was the surprised answer, "of course I do."
"Well, then, you ought to know that you're only separated from your
mother for a time. 'The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ
our Lord.' You'll be with your mother through all Eternity."
Billy looked at Tom Turpin with a brightening countenance. Why had
he not thought of this before?
"I'd forgotten," he murmured, "quite forgotten."
"Thought you had!" said Tom. "Ah! Here's actually a gleam of

sunshine, and very welcome it is, too. We shall soon reach Exeter
now! You stick by me till you see your grandfather."
This Billy was very glad to do. When, the train having slackened
speed gradually and stopped, he and Tom Turpin alighted on the
platform at Exeter, he kept close to his new-found friend, whilst he
looked about him anxiously. There were not a great many people on
the platform, and in a minute he noticed a middle-sized man of about
sixty, with a ruddy, good-tempered countenance and grizzled hair,
who was clad in corduroy breeches and thick leggings, going from
carriage to carriage, apparently in search of someone. The instant
Tom Turpin caught sight of this individual he stepped up to him and
clapped him on the shoulder, whilst he exclaimed—
"I'm back again like a bad penny, you see! How are you, Brown?"
The ruddy-faced man turned quickly, then caught the young soldier's
hand and wrung it.
"Master Tom!" he cried, evidently delighted. "Ah, how glad your

parents will be!"
"Won't they?" smiled Tom. "But I'm keeping you! Are you going on?"
"No, sir. I'm here to meet my grandson—my dead son's little boy—
who's just lost his mother, poor child!"
"Oh, please, that's me!" cried Billy, stepping forward.
The ruddy-faced man gazed at the boy earnestly a minute, then

gave a satisfied nod.
"Aye," he said, "I see the likeness to your father."

He took one of the little boy's hands in his work-hardened palm, and
pressed it affectionately.
"Well, I never!" exclaimed Tom Turpin. "Now, why didn't I guess who
he was? But he didn't say you lived at Ashleigh! And there are so
many Browns! Why, we've travelled down from Paddington together
and got quite friendly. And, now, how are you going to get home—by
train?"
"No, sir. I've Jenny and the market trap outside the station."
"Oh, I see! Well, I'm going by train—shall be home before you most
likely. Good-bye, both of you! See you again, Billy!"
"Oh, how splendid!" cried Billy. "Good-bye, Mr. Turpin! Good-bye!"
He and his grandfather watched the alert khaki-clad figure run up the
stairs to get to another platform, then they looked for and found
Billy's luggage—a box which William Brown shouldered quite easily.
Three minutes later found them outside the station.
"Here's Jenny!" said William Brown. "Tired of waiting, eh, old girl?"
Jenny was a big white donkey, harnessed to a smart little market

cart. She was very fat and very well groomed, and seemed, Billy
thought, to understand what was said, for she turned her head
slowly, and, having given her master a shrewd glance, fastened her
gaze on his companion.
"We're going now, my beauty," William Brown told her, as he placed

Billy's box in the back of the cart. "She doesn't like boys," he
explained; "they tease her."
"I promise I won't!" exclaimed Billy. "What a fine donkey she is! I
never saw such a large one before. Please, may I stroke her,
Grandfather?"
"If you like. But don't let her nip you—she's quite capable of doing it."
Billy spoke to the donkey softly, and patted her on the side. To his
grandfather's surprise Jenny stood quite still, and allowed herself to
be caressed.
"She knows I won't hurt her," the little boy said. "What a long, grave
face she has! And how thoughtful she looks! I am sure she is very
wise."
"Aye, that she is!" William Brown agreed, taking the reins in his hand
and climbing into the market cart. "Get in, Billy! The afternoons are
short now, and we've nigh seven miles to drive. As it is it'll be dark
before we get home. If we're late for tea the Missus will have a word
to say about it. Here, give me your hand!"
Billy obeyed. The next moment found him seated by his

grandfather's side, a rug thrown across his knees. Jenny gave a toss
of her head and a little pleased snort, then started for home.
CHAPTER II.
THE JOURNEY'S END.
BILLY sat silent and observant by his grandfather's side as he made

his first journey through Exeter. The rain had come on again in a soft
drizzle; but the streets were full of people, for it was market day.
They passed the market and drove into High Street, the principal
street, which surprised Billy by being so narrow and old; and a
quarter of an hour later they had turned their backs on the city, and
Jenny, who had been plodding along at a walk, suddenly began to
trot.
"Why, she goes as fast as a pony!" exclaimed Billy, admiringly.
His grandfather nodded.
"I wouldn't change her for the best pony in Devonshire!" he declared.
"I had her as a foal, and broke her in myself. You'll have to learn to
drive her, Billy."
"Shall I?" cried Billy, his pale face aglow with pleasure.
William Brown smiled, then sighed whilst he brushed his hand

across his eyes, which had suddenly become dim.
"I'm thinking of your father," he said, as the little boy looked at him
inquiringly; "you're like what he was at your age, except that you're
delicate looking and he was the picture of health. I'm real glad to see
you, Billy, but I wish your poor mother'd come with you. Often I've
wanted to invite you both to visit us, but the Missus don't take much
to strangers, and—well, I let the time slip by—" He broke off, a
regretful, troubled expression on his good-natured countenance.
"Who is the Missus?" inquired Billy, rather anxiously.
"My wife," was the brief response.
The little boy looked curious. He knew that his father's mother had
died when his father had been a baby, and that his father had had a
stepmother, but he had been told nothing about his grandfather's
second wife.
"She isn't really my grandmother," he remarked, after a few minutes'

thought.
"But you must try to please her and obey her as much as though she
was," William Brown said quickly.
"Oh, of course I will," Billy agreed.
"She was a widow when I married her, with one little girl," his
grandfather explained. "That little girl's the wife of John Dingle, the
postmaster now—they keep the village shop. They've two children—
Harold, about your age, and poor little May."
"Why do you say 'poor little May?'" asked Billy.
"Because she's rather wanting here," William Brown said, tapping his
forehead meaningly; "not silly exactly, but—well, you'll see for
yourself. Cut along, Jenny!"
There was no need to tell Jenny that. Fast and faster she trotted. By-
and-by her master pulled her up, descended, and lit the lamps of the
market cart. A minute later they were off again.
"I didn't know a donkey could go so well!" cried Billy, who was
enjoying this new experience exceedingly.
"She's thinking of her supper," laughed his grandfather. "She'll have

a good feed as soon as she gets home, and she knows it. Are you
keeping warm, my boy?"
"Oh, yes, indeed, Grandfather! And I don't mind the rain at all! It's so
soft! And so's the wind! Have we much further to go?"
"No. If it wasn't so misty and nearly dark you'd be able to have a

good view of the Teign Valley from here. Ashleigh's in the Teign
Valley, you know; but my little place—Rowley Cottage—is a mile and
a half from Ashleigh Station. We shall soon be home now."
Ten minutes or so later the donkey came to a sudden stop before a

field-gate in a narrow road.
"Here we are!" William Brown said, getting down and opening the
gate; whereupon Jenny passed through the gateway, and began the
descent of a hill.
"Stay where you are!" he commanded. "I'm going to lead Jenny
down—there's a cart track through the field by the hedge which
leads right into our yard. Hold tight!"
Billy, who was secretly rather nervous, did hold tight. Daylight had
quite failed now, but, looking far down into what seemed dense
darkness, he saw a light. As the market cart proceeded, every now
and again jolting over a stone, he held his breath, fearing that it
would upset or that Jenny would stumble and fall. But no accident
happened. The yard was reached in safety, and the donkey came to
a standstill before an open door through which a light was shining
from the kitchen within.
"Here we are!" cried William Brown. "Now then, Billy, my boy!" He

lifted his grandson down from the market cart, and turned to pat a
sheep dog which had come out of the house.
"This is Scout," he said; "I leave him in charge here on market days
when I go to Exeter. Don't be afraid of him—he won't hurt you."
Scout was sniffing Billy's legs. The little boy spoke to him, calling him
by name, then extended his hand to him fearlessly. The dog sniffed
the hand and licked it. At that moment a woman appeared in the
doorway.
"You're later than I expected you'd be, William!" she exclaimed.
"Very sorry, my dear," William Brown answered; "I thought we were

in good time—the train wasn't late."
"Your grandson's there? Yes? Then why doesn't he come in?"
"He's coming, Maria. Go in, please, Billy!"
Billy obeyed, and found himself in a large, comfortable kitchen,

facing his grandfather's wife. She was a tall, handsome woman who
did not look more than fifty, though she was actually much older. She
smiled as she shook hands with Billy, and kissed him, but the smile
was only on her lips, whilst her eyes did not soften. Somehow she
gave him the impression that he was not altogether welcome.
"You can call me 'Granny' as my daughter's children do," she told

him. "I've two grandchildren—that's May, the younger of them."
Billy's eyes followed the direction of her pointing finger, and saw a
little girl seated on a wooden stool near the fire, into which she was
gazing.
"Come here, May!" said Mrs. Brown, in a peremptory tone.
The child rose and came to her. She was a beautiful little creature of
about eight years old, with a fair complexion, fair curly hair, and eyes
so deeply blue that they looked quite purple.
"This boy is going to live with your grandfather and me," her
grandmother said; "his name's Billy. Will you remember?"
May nodded.
"Billy," she said softly, "Billy." She spoke as though trying to impress
the name on her memory.
"He's not a cousin," Mrs. Brown went on to explain, "but he'll be just
like one. He's lost his mother—" She paused as her husband
entered the kitchen, carrying Billy's box, then exclaimed sharply:
"Mind to wipe your boots, William!"
"All right, Maria!" he answered good temperedly, adding: "Please

give Billy a candle; he'll light me upstairs."
"Very well. But be quick, for I'm going to make tea."
Billy found he was to have a good-sized bedroom. It was spotlessly

clean, with a white-curtained window and a white-curtained bed. He
washed his face and hands, whilst his grandfather waited for him;
then they went downstairs together. A stout woman, clad in a
waterproof, the hood of which was pulled over her head, had come

Textbook Critical Race Theory in Education All God S Children Got A Song 2Nd Edition Adrienne D Dixson Ebook All Chapter PDF

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Critical Race Theory in Education All

God s Children Got a Song 2nd Edition

Critical Race Theory and Education: A Marxist Response

Critical Race Theory An Introduction Richard Delgado

Discrit Disability Studies and Critical Race Theory in

Art for Children Experiencing Psychological Trauma A

Critical Race Theory An Introduction 3rd edition

Critical Race Theory An Introduction Third Edition

Perpetual Suspects: A Critical Race Theory of Black and

Race and Racisms A Critical Approach 2nd Edition Tanya

Adrienne D. Dixson is Associate Professor of Critical Race Theory and

Celia K. Rousseau Anderson is Associate Professor of Instruction and

Jamel K. Donnor is Associate Professor in the School of Education at the

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All God’s Children Got a Song

Edited by Adrienne D. Dixson,

LONDON AND NEW YORK

© 2017 Taylor & Francis

ISBN: 978-1-138-89114-2 (hbk)

Foreword: The Evolving Role of Critical Race Theory in Educational

Introduction: Critical Race Theory and Education: Singing a

4 Critical Race Ethnography in Education: Narrative,

Educational Theory and Praxis 87

The Evolving Role of Critical Race Theory in

The Dixson and Rousseau Anderson chapters constitute a review of the

Critical Race Theory and Education: Singing a

Adrienne D. Dixson and Celia K. Rousseau Anderson

I got a song, you got a song.

I got a robe, you got a robe

have characterized much of the educational scholarship in CRT.

I looked over Jordan and what did I see

As this example illustrates, a full understanding of the multiple levels of

According to Jones (1993), the meaning of heaven in the spirituals “interacted

song-chants were not capable of complex development and were certainly

landscape. It is, therefore, important for CRT scholars in education to tell

Critical Race Theory: Still a “New” Song

Changes to the Second Edition

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Gloria Ladson-Billings and William F. Tate IV

The presentation of truth in new forms provokes resistance, confounding

number of scholars whose work crosses disciplinary boundaries.3 We conclude by

Understanding Race and Property

Our discussion of social inequity in general, and school inequity in particular, is

1. Race continues to be a signiﬁcant factor in determining inequity in the

In this section we expand on these propositions and provide supporting “meta-

Race as Factor in Inequity

Race has become metaphorical—a way of referring to and disguising

Enlightenment. It seems that it has a utility far beyond economy, beyond

Despite the problematic nature of race, we oﬀer as a ﬁrst meta-proposition that

theories of race—of its meaning, its transformations, the signiﬁcance of racial

To mount a viable challenge to the dominant paradigm of ethnicity (i.e., we

Du Bois, perhaps better known among mainstream scholars, profoundly impacted

It was a revolutionary concept. It was not just revolutionary; the concept of

As a prophetic foreshadowing of the centrality of race in U.S. society, Du Bois

diﬀerence (or variance) in school experience and performance. Although both

The Property Issue

 an assumption that racism is not a series of isolated acts, but is endemic in

blindness, and meritocracy as camouﬂages for the self-interest of dominant

but to territory inhabited by tribes of Indians. The governor of the

Bell examined the events leading up to the Constitution’s development and

According to Bell “the concept of individual rights, unconnected to property

at this school oﬀered biology, chemistry, physics, geology, science in society,

Critical Race Theory and Education

an assumption that racism is not a series of isolated acts, but is endemic in