GRDG626
LITERACY, LANGUAGE, &
DIVERSITY IN AMERICAN
EDUCATION
Week 4 – Critical Race Theory
and Community Cultural
Capital
Dr. Gloria E. Jacobs
St. John Fisher College
AGENDA
 Sharing
 Minilecture
 Small
Group Discussion
 Break
 Focused
Discussion
 Next week
 Community & School Analysis
SHARING
CRT & COMMUNITY CULTURAL CAPITAL

Challenges the deficit idea that minority
students and families are at fault for poor
academic performance because of lack of
normative cultural knowledge and skills or that
parents don’t value education.
OVERVIEW OF CRITICAL RACE
THEORY

CRT theorizes and challenges the ways race and
racism impact society
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Intercentricity of race/racism
Challenges dominant ideology, white privilege, race
neutrality
Commitment to social justice
Centrality of lived experience
Interdisciplinary
Racism disguised in normative values
 Schools simultaneously oppress/marginalize, but
hold power to emancipate

OVERVIEW OF COMMUNITY CULTURAL
CAPITAL
 Capital:
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What people have
Economic (money)
Social (who you know)
Cultural (what you know)
Assumes that if you don’t have it, you
are deficient and need to be fixed.

Think about McDermott & Varenne’s message
Community Cultural Capital

Community Cultural Capital
 Aspirational – holding dreams in face of barriers
 Navigational – ability to move through institutions
 Social – networks of people
 Lingusitic – the intellectual and social skills achieved
through facility in more than one language
 Familial – Sense of community history, memory,
cultural intuition
 Resistance – Knowledges and skills fostered through
opposition behaviors that challenge inequality
SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION
Group 1
Abbie
Alyssa
Kit
Melissa
Group 2
Jessie S.
Meghan
Lauren
Jeff
Group 3
Kalina
Kathryn
Emily
Kimberly
Group 4
Julie
Jessica M.
Laura J.
Jennifer J.
Group 5
Laura C.
Amanda
Rachel
Justine
Group 6
Ashley M.
Chelsea
Cassie
Ashley F.
FOCUSED DISCUSSION
 See
Handout (top portion)
Community & School Analysis

Select a partner
Someone who lives or works in the same district as
you
 Pre-service teachers should team up with an inservice teacher or some one who is regularly in a
school and knows that school


Collaboration - Use technology to help you
For instance, use Google Docs to co-author your
paper
 You do not have to meet in person to do this project
 Last 30 minutes of class next week will be workshop
time.
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Contents of Paper


See Syllabus
Use the class texts to help you think about what is
happening in the district/community/school
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Morrison taught us the assumptions WE make
Bronfenbrenner provided a tool for thinking about how the
individual is related to the family, school, community, and
culture
The podcasts and website demonstrated how race is
socially constructed, but has very real societal impact.
McDermott & Varenne explain how difference and
disabilities are constructed are an artifact of culture rather
than existing outside of culture.
Yosso discussed the wealth of knowledge families have so
that we can resist the deficit model.
Sleeter helps us understand how privilege gets in the way
of understanding issues
NEXT WEEK
 Correction
to Course Schedule
 Reading
Compton-Lilly Chapter 5
 Anzaldua (on wiki)
 Christensen (in Au)
 Tateishi (in Au)

 Writing

Reflective Question
BREAK

Reconvene in the Curriculum Library (ground
floor of Lavery Library)