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Download the Paper (731 K, PDF file) - August 28, 2008 Tell a colleague about it. Printing Tips: Select 'print as image' in the Acrobat print dialog if you have trouble printing.

ABSTRACT:
This paper critiques the claim that shifting demographics since the 1960’s have transcended the American racial binary of blackness and whiteness. The study focuses on urban middle school students’ perceptions of a shift in tracking from a bilingual language model to a monolingual literacy model. Based on interviews with students, this analysis examines the value students assigned to linguistic, racial and academic ‘diversity’ as they tried to rationalize changing school structures. The study found that students reconstituted the racial stigma of ‘blackness’ as academically inferior. Drawing from the theory of racial formation to frame the effects of educational policy on student ‘racial logics,’ the paper suggests that shifting racializations do not fundamentally change the racial binary. Actively contested political/racial projects by both local actors and institutions of the state, rather than simple demographic shifts, explain the evolution of racial ideology.

SUGGESTED CITATION:
Kenzo Sung, "Theorizing Race within the Politics of Culture: The Reconstitution of "Blackness" in Student Discourses" (August 28, 2008). Institute for the Study of Social Change. ISSC Fellows Working Papers. Paper ISSC_WP_30.
http://repositories.cdlib.org/issc/fwp/ISSC_WP_30