Thursday, June 3
10:30-12:00pm EST
Qualitative Track
Title: good kid, m.A.A.d research: Culturally Sustaining Research and Calling Out the White Gaze in Our Epistemologies
Abstract: One of the central principles of culturally sustaining pedagogy is the need to decenter the White gaze. H. Samy Alim and Django Paris have invoked the “White gaze” in the tradition of Toni Morrison and James Baldwin. They have invoked the White gaze to theorize how systemic processes of White Supremacy enact influence by methodically and forcefully projecting European-rooted epistemologies and ontologies as the way we should “see” and “be” in the world. In this interactive workshop, each participant will question and reflect upon how they know what they know, and consider how they can call out the White gaze and other hegemonic gazes in their own research. We will interrogate the current regime of knowledge production, and investigate what it means to engage in educational research outside of the politics of knowing normalized within prominent guides like the AERA’s “Standards for Reporting on Empirical Social Science Research” and “Standards for Reporting on Humanities-Oriented Research.” Signifying on how rapper Kendrick Lamar accomplishes this epistemic labor in his Hip Hop classic good kid, m.A.A.d city, in this workshop, we will collectively apply Hip Hop approaches to gathering, assessing and disseminating knowledge outside of the White gaze, and come out with new understandings of how our epistemologies are bound to systemic processes of injustice and with strategies for engaging Hip Hop to conduct research ‘otherwise’.
This will ultimately lead to exploring how researchers from Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, Pacific Islander and intersecting and overlapping communities of color have developed frameworks outside of the “White gaze” to define and conduct educational research “otherwise.” Within these multifaceted and complex intellectual traditions, scholars challenge genealogies of what can and ought to be education. They confront how European-rooted traditions have determined the metrics of quality and centered what is valuable for educational research. They confront the assumption that ideal research should contribute to knowledge relevant to improving nation-state schools as conduits for producing productive workers for racial capitalism and ongoing processes of colonialism. With variations in priorities and approach, scholars in these traditions consider high-quality education research as being able to rigorously capture and assess how processes of teaching and learning can support youth to live, question, and contribute to building pluralistic, socially-just societies.
Presenter:
Dr. Casey Philip Wong
Postdoctoral Scholar, UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools
Research Associate, Center for Race, Ethnicity, and Language
Biography:
Casey Philip Wong, PhD (he/him) is currently a Postdoctoral Scholar in the UCLA Department of Anthropology, as well as a Visiting Scholar within the USC Rossier School of Education. In 2019, Dr. Wong received his PhD from the Race, Inequality, and Language in Education program at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, with a concurrent Master’s in Linguistics. Recently recognized with the 2021 UCLA Chancellor’s Award for Postdoctoral Research, Dr. Wong’s qualitative research blends the multiple lenses of critical race studies, linguistic anthropology, and Black Feminism to examine how historically and institutionally marginalized students are provided opportunities to engage in authentic learning experiences that sustain their cultures, languages, and communities (i.e. culturally sustaining pedagogy). He was most recently an invited panelist for a Presidential Session at the American Educational Research Association on creating expansive and equitable learning environments (virtual), and an invited presenter for a Presidential Session on Hip Hop Pedagogies at the American Association of Applied Linguistics (Chicago), as well as a speaker at the International James Baldwin Conference (Paris). His dissertation was a finalist for the 2019 NWSA/UIP First Book Prize and is entitled Pray You Catch Me: A Critical Feminist and Ethnographic Study of Love as Pedagogy and Politics for Social Justice. Dr. Wong’s most recent publication, “The Wretched of the Research: Disenchanting Man2-as-Educational Researcher and Entering the 36th Chamber of Education Research,” appeared in the Review of Research in Education in March 2021. He synthesized how educational researchers from overlapping and interconnected Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, and Pacific Islander communities have gathered, interpreted, and shared educational knowledge, and theorized how the field of education might more broadly integrate these understandings to conduct research for collective liberation. Dr. Wong has worked with activists in Hip Hop Education to organize four Think Tank gatherings, as well as a Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy (CSP) conference that brought together leaders working for educational justice. He is working alongside H. Samy Alim and Django Paris to organize a follow-up convening which will take place in July 2021, and to conduct research as a part of a Lyle Spencer-funded project exploring CSPs across the world. Dr. Wong has been working inside and outside of schools to heal, cultivate critical thinking, and educate for collective liberation with K-16 youth, from Oakland to NYC, for over 12 years.
