Ch 7: Decolonizing Knowledge through High School Ethnic Studies by Jeff Beaudry https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg Jennifer Chace, Dan Leclair, Victoria Forkus, Will Putnam, Abdullahi Ali en-us 2022-01-24 19:41:19 UTC 2026-02-12 18:46:31 UTC hello@padlet.com Jennifer's response https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2019520529 According to the authors, decolonizing research sits under, and as a part of, the larger critical race theory. Critical race theory is used to analyze how the social construct of race influences all manner of social and political systems and everyday realities for all people in a radicalized society like the U.S. The decolonization lens, as the authors use it, focuses on the "racialized production of knowledge in schooling" as well as its dissemination and normalized acceptance as truth. The authors argue that while a certain type of physical colonialism may have ended, colonialism is still a powerful force specifically being acted out through public education. Decolonialism research, in schooling, explores both ways of knowing and ways of being known other than those of the dominant white culture. ]]> 2022-01-29 22:50:50 UTC https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2019520529 Jennifer's response https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2019529457 Similarities: Both assume the silent and implicit delegitimization and disempowerment of racialized people who are not white. Both understand the systemic and intersectional nature of the issue.
Differences: CRT encompasses a broader set of issues and does not limit its view to knowledge specifically, while decolonial analysis, specifically as these authors are using it, is limited to the (post)colonial impulse to own the other through producing and defining knowledge of the other. In other words, CRT appears to be even more intersectional than decolonial analysis, which drills deeply into epistemological issues specifically. CRT could be applied to most any topic of social science research, it would appear, while decolonial analysis seems more limited. Second, decolonial analysis seems to be less concerned with economic and legal implications and more concerned with the way accepted ways of knowing create an accepted reality.]]> 2022-01-29 23:14:13 UTC https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2019529457 Jennifer's response https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2019533721 YPAR: Action research undertaken with youth as co-researchers, in which the problem is one experienced personally by the youth and the solution is one that once found will improve their and their community's lives in multiple ways. It is essentially collaborative research tied to social action.
The authors propose using YPAR in ethnic studies courses to prove the effectiveness of the courses in promoting academic achievement and "social values" (pg 166). ]]> 2022-01-29 23:26:27 UTC https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2019533721 Jennifer's response https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2019534889 YPAR: Research undertaken with youth as co-researchers investigating an issue that effects them personally, whose solution benefits the whole community. 
The authors suggest using YPAR in ethnic studies classes in order for the classes to serve not only to decolonize the self-knowledge of the students but to prove that doing so has positive social and academic impacts.]]> 2022-01-29 23:30:25 UTC https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2019534889 Jennifer's response https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2019535201 sdfdfdf]]> 2022-01-29 23:31:26 UTC https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2019535201 Jennifer's response https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2019535281 Previous question: (I've written it now eight times and it just won't stick under the other heading, so I am posting it here.)
YPAR: Action research that involved youth as co-researchers investigating issues that impact them personally whose solutions will provide benefit to the whole community. Essentially it is concerned with social action.
The authors propose using it to affirm the benefits for ethnics studies classes not only for the decolonization of self it could allow students, but also to prove the academic and social benefits. ]]> 2022-01-29 23:31:37 UTC https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2019535281 Jennifer's response https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2019535322 sdfdsfsdfs]]> 2022-01-29 23:31:46 UTC https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2019535322 Jennifer's response https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2019537068 Current question:
I am not entirely sure that I understand the question, but I will interpret it to mean that we are meant to design a study to ascertain the effectiveness of the ethnic studies classes impacts on individuals and their social contexts.
Groups: I would want to study at least a few separate teachers and their classes of students. This would allow a bit more of a look into how the methods might vary and be more or less successful. I'd also want to interview the principal and parents.
Teacher: I might start by interviewing the teacher, asking what their motivation for teaching the class is, what their goals are for the students as individuals, and what if they considered the broader social impact of the course, and if so what it might be. I would also ask them to describe their understanding of decolonization of schooling and their course's relationship to it. I would interview them during the course to ask if their thoughts on those questions had evolved and then afterward to understand how they saw the students and community benefitting from the course. The reason for interviewing the teacher would be due to my assumption that one could teach this type of class effectively or ineffectively.
Students: I would interview the students before and after to hear how and how much they understand their own culture, it's level of important to them, the degree to which they believe its ways of knowing are self-evidently meaningful. Afterward I would also ask about their feelings of agency in terms of using this new knowledge to make decisions and determine their future actions.
Principal: I'd ask how they see the broader impact of the class on the school culture. Are the students more or less engaged? Has there been a change in attendance patterns, engagement in other activities, or any other noticeable cultural shift?
Parents: I'd ask what they are hearing from their child about the class, if anything. Have parents been involved in sharing cultural elements and if so, assuming it was meaningful, how so? Did they see any changes in their child and their feelings about school, grades, social life, mental health?
Artifacts: I might look at the academic grades of the students in the year before the course, or in the first semester if the ethnic studies class is in the second semester and compare that will grades the following semester. I might also look at writing and artwork the students create during the course to better understand their levels of personal engagement and understanding. 

]]> 2022-01-29 23:37:55 UTC https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2019537068 Jennifer's response https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2019545040 Previous question: (I've written it now eight times and it just won't stick under the other heading, so I am posting it here.)
YPAR: Action research that involved youth as co-researchers investigating issues that impact them personally whose solutions will provide benefit to the whole community. Essentially it is concerned with social action.
The authors propose using it to affirm the benefits for ethnics studies classes not only for the decolonization of self it could allow students, but also to prove the academic and social benefits. ]]> 2022-01-30 00:04:50 UTC https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2019545040 Will's Response https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2020326954 Critical race theory is study of how race has been a kay factor in understanding how culture and social institutions have developed over the years.  The process of decolonization, as I understand it from Leonardo and Sacramento's writing, is the reorientation of a particular perspective that divorces it from knowledge contruction based in colonial assumptions to ones based in indigienous thinking.  For schools, this might be a reorientation of the curriculum not around units of study focused on the prerogatives of a colonial mindset (with the orientation of White at the center and keeper of knowledge), but rather around the philosophical perspective of an ethnic group. Decolonial analysis, research, scholarship, or curriculum might push individuals to "think from, with, and alongside ethnic/racial groups within their communities" (Leonardo and Sacramento 2020, p. 158). ]]> 2022-01-30 21:54:59 UTC https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2020326954 Will's response https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2020334443 Similarities:
1) challenge to the traditional assumptions and perspectives on social, cultural, and systemic development of societies
2) both acknowledge race as a complicating factor in making decisions about policy or approaches to institutions

Differences:
1) decolonization may not focus on race a a sole issue impacting social institutions, but may also acknowledge broader cultural realities or perspectives that have been suppressed as a result of the colonial assertion of power
2) focuses on the removal of colonial orientation of ideas from the organization of institutions like education (and policy) and an acknowledgment that there are other perspectives worth integrating, as opposed to rooting this reorientation entirely in race (or racism)]]> 2022-01-30 22:07:00 UTC https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2020334443 Will's response https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2020339766 Leonardo and Sacramento put forward the idea that learning is not only about building knowledge, but it is also about the process of taking action, "ultimately transforming one's way of being and participating in the world" (p. 164). Students, as a matter of their standard high school experience, should investigate matters that are important to them. By extention, they could be an integral and indeed an interative mechanism for deepening schools' approach to ethnic studies. For many schools, this may be an investigation into what we are currently doing and where the currciulum could be improved by being reorgnized around decolonized ideas. Each year, students themselves may investigate these kinds of changes to curriculum that currently is at best stagnant and at worst antithetical to a modern, decolonizing world. ]]> 2022-01-30 22:16:03 UTC https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2020339766 Will's response https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2020346086 Mine also disappeared and I'm choosing not to rewrite it here.  It was kind of a lot of work.  

In response to this question, I would be interested in both students' and teachers' perspectives on the current organization of the curriculum and the potential benefits of the integration of more action-oriented and decolonized perspectives.  It would be important to hear from students about whether the voices of their cultural backgrounds were represented in the current curriculum, but it would also be important to hear both teachers and studens consider ways that decolonized perspectives could be an improved approach to the way certain material is taught.  We could hear from them about ways to reorgnize what is currently being done in order to broaden students' understanding of the changing world, as well as how to be effective within it.  Of course, the written curriculum itself would also be an important set of artifacts in understanding to what extent ethnic studies are currently integrated and where it could serve to imporve the experience of students across the board. ]]> 2022-01-30 22:25:57 UTC https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2020346086 Dan's Response https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2020493303 2022-01-31 02:33:22 UTC https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2020493303 Dan Response https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2020494530 2022-01-31 02:35:20 UTC https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2020494530 Dan Response https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2020495679 2022-01-31 02:37:12 UTC https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2020495679 Dan Response https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2020498102 2022-01-31 02:40:44 UTC https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2020498102 Victoria's Response https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2028617487  
In decolonial analysis there is an emphasis on the explanatory power of colonialism in relation to current educational inequities. “The decolonial, ethnic studies perspective critiques subtractive schooling strategies that require students to shed their cultural identity in order to fulfill Eurocentric, colonial agendas of assimilation” (pg.159). In addition, it highlights the importance of students as co-creators and contributors to ethnic studies curriculum. 
 
Critical Race Theory (CRT) provides a framework for understanding how institutional racism has shaped, and has been shaped by, public policy. The authors argue, “…that in its theoretical varieties colonial analysis takes its seat at the CRT table. However, they also state that decolonial analysis does not detract from racial analysis but expands it by exploring the colonial influences embedded in education. 
]]> 2022-02-04 00:59:08 UTC https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2028617487 Victoria's Response https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2028618128  
“YPAR (Youth-led Participatory Action Research) is an innovative approach to positive youth and community development based in social justice principles in which young people are trained to conduct systematic research to improve their lives, their communities, and the institutions intended to serve them” (http://yparhub.berkeley.edu/). 
 
The authors utilize YPAR to engage students in the ‘transformative nature’ of collective experiences for the purpose of positive social change. The authors suggest that YPAR has the ability to allow students to explore issues related to their ‘lived realities’, which would effectively individualize the ethnic studies experience for all students. In the reading, the example of Tucson (2010) demonstrates the power of collective action. When ethnic studies courses were being questioned politically, students that had participated in YPAR projects advocated at public meetings and press conferences for their continuation.  
]]> 2022-02-04 00:59:46 UTC https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2028618128 Victoria's Response (Question 3!) https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2028620425 (This response is for the prior question -- there is some sort of technical glitch) 
 
“YPAR (Youth-led Participatory Action Research) is an innovative approach to positive youth and community development based in social justice principles in which young people are trained to conduct systematic research to improve their lives, their communities, and the institutions intended to serve them” (http://yparhub.berkeley.edu/). 
 
The authors utilize YPAR to engage students in the ‘transformative nature’ of collective experiences for the purpose of positive social change. The authors suggest that YPAR has the ability to allow students to explore issues related to their ‘lived realities’, which would effectively individualize the ethnic studies experience for all students. In the reading, the example of Tucson (2010) demonstrates the power of collective action. When ethnic studies courses were being questioned politically, students that had participated in YPAR projects advocated at public meetings and press conferences for their continuation.  
]]> 2022-02-04 01:02:04 UTC https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2028620425 Victoria's Response https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2028667911 Similarities: Both frameworks recognize the historical influence of power and social control in the development of public policy which, in turn, lead to the establishment of prejudicial institutions that favored the dominant group. In addition, both have been politically controversial, especially in regard to applying these principles to educational practices. 
 
Differences: Decolonial analysis prioritizes the creation of knowledge as an element of exercising social control, CRT examines institutions of power and how they impact racial justice (arguably, the education system could be an institution of power) but not knowledge explicitly. CRT was developed with a focus on race-analysis within the U.S, whereas decolonial analysis has a much wider scope and can be applied to any country that withstood colonialism. 
]]> 2022-02-04 01:47:09 UTC https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2028667911 Abdullahi's response https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2099315127 De-colonial analysis refers to understanding of the Western colonial use of education to otherize and control non-westerns while at the same time centering the perspective and worldview of non-westerns in understanding them and their experiences. Critical race theory (CRT) on the other hand, refers to understanding how racism in America had influenced educational system and public policy in general. Similarities between CRT and Decolonization theory include analysis on “knowledge” and it’s ownership, continuation of oppression and supremacy through the education system, and the role of the education in the oppressor’s will to dominate. However, CRT focuses on race and history of racism and analyzes the topic through the lens of race. De-colonial research on the other hand, focuses on the relationship and history between the colonizer and the colonized as well as the continuation of colonization in various forms including in the field of education and research. 

]]> 2022-03-17 04:14:06 UTC https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2099315127 Abdullahi- Similarities and differences https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2099317058 Similarities between CRT and Decolonization theory include analysis on “knowledge” and it’s ownership, continuation of oppression and supremacy through the education system, and the role of the education in the oppressor’s will to dominate. However, CRT focuses on race and history of racism and analyzes the topic through the lens of race. Decolonial research on the other hand, focuses on the relationship and history between the colonizer and the colonized as well as the continuation of colonization in various forms including in the field of education and research. ]]> 2022-03-17 04:15:51 UTC https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2099317058 Youth Participatory Action Research https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2099336569 Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) is action research that involves students engaging in collective investigative process on issues pertinent to their lived experiences in order to make “positive social change”. In YPAR students are encouraged and prepared to apply decolonization knowledge outside the classroom and foster commitment to the students’ communities.  

]]> 2022-03-17 04:33:47 UTC https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2099336569 Abdullahi- YPAR https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2099337575 Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) is action research that involves students engaging in collective investigative process on issues pertinent to their lived experiences in order to make “positive social change”. In YPAR students are encouraged and prepared to apply decolonization knowledge outside the classroom and foster commitment to the students’ communities.  

]]> 2022-03-17 04:34:45 UTC https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2099337575 Abdullahi- Q3 YPAR https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2099338552 Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) is action research that involves students engaging in collective investigative process on issues pertinent to their lived experiences in order to make “positive social change”. In YPAR students are encouraged and prepared to apply decolonization knowledge outside the classroom and foster commitment to the students’ communities.  

]]> 2022-03-17 04:35:39 UTC https://padlet.com/jeffreybeaudry/l3644bcqet7j6pjg/wish/2099338552