Research in the Teaching of English Nov 2022

“Free License to Communicate”: Licensing Black Language against White Supremacist Language Assessments in a PreK Classroom

Alice Y. Lee University of California, Riverside

Abstract

The policing of Black Language is inextricably tied to the policing of Black people and is entrenched in a long history of white Western European colonization. The legacies of white supremacy pervade schooling in its earliest years, yet Black teachers have consistently mounted a counterforce in battling white hegemony. In this article, I feature one such teacher, Raniya, who licensed Black Language in her preK classroom. Based on three months of classroom observations and interviews, this ethnographic case study explores the institutional architecture that affords white supremacist language assessments, particularly through an epistemology of language as an abstracted entity and through its process of curricularization. A raciolinguistic perspective illuminated how the white teachers at Raniya’s school insisted on broadly dehumanizing students of color through a schoolwide policy based on white monolingual standards. Drawing on notion of “vernacular insurrections,” I juxtapose white teachers’ raciolinguistic ideologies with Raniya’s practices. She claimed her classroom as a critical vernacular site through her approach of student language as a practice, and by subverting the normalcy of white hegemony within the schoolwide assessment process. This article calls for a shift in thinking about skills-based, decontextualized approaches as inherently white supremacist, and excavates how such a language approach supports white supremacy to thrive. I discuss the significance of centering the fight against white supremacy in our analysis of literary practices, which elucidates the potency of even small amounts of white dominance in institutional mechanisms as detrimental for Black students. As a field, the stagnation of Black student equity and commitment to white hegemony by white educators and administrators across preK through higher education persists. Though some white educators diverge from hegemonic practices, we must consider who benefits and what is sustained when exceptions are used to overlook and not interrogate the norm. This work contributes to the mounting rationales for racial diversification in the teacher workforce.

Journal
Research in the Teaching of English
Published
2022-11-15
DOI
10.58680/rte202232152
Open Access
Closed
Topics
writing across the curriculum qualitative research race and writing

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (1)

  1. Autry et al. (2024)
    Annotated Bibliography of Research in the Teaching of English
    Research in the Teaching of English

Cites in this index (0)

No references match articles in this index.

Also cites 15 works outside this index ↓
  1. Alim (2016)
    10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190625696.001.0001
    Raciolinguistics: How language shapes our ideas about race  ↗
  2. Baker-BELL (2020)
    10.4324/9781315147383
    Linguistic justice: Black language, literacy, identity, and pedagogy  ↗
  3. Bowie (1994)
    Influencing future teachers’ attitudes toward Black English: Are we making a difference?
    Journal of Teacher Education  ↗
  4. Emerson (2011)
    Writing ethnographic fieldnotes
     ↗
  5. Flores (2015)
    Undoing appropriateness: Raciolinguistic ideologies and language diversity in education
    Harvard Educational Review  ↗
  6. Kynard (2013)
    Vernacular insurrections: Race, Black protest, and the new century in composition-literac…
     ↗
  7. Lee (2021)
    Embodying culturally responsive care in a fifth-grade classroom
    Profesorado. Revista de Currículum y Formación del Profesorado  ↗
  8. Lee (2018)
    Codemeshing and writing instruction in multilingual classrooms
    The Reading Teacher  ↗
  9. Michaels (2006)
    Narrative presentations: An oral preparation for literacy with first graders
     ↗
  10. Poon (2016)
    A critical review of the model minority myth in selected literature on Asian Americans an…
    Review of Educational Research  ↗
  11. Rosa (2017)
    Unsettling race and language: Toward a raciolinguistic perspective
    Language in Society  ↗
  12. Siddle WALKER (1996)
    10.5149/uncp/9780807845813
    Their highest potential: An African American school community in the segregated South  ↗
  13. Sledd (1969)
    Bi-dialectalism: The linguistics of white supremacy
    English Journal  ↗
  14. Smitherman (2006)
    10.4324/9780203006665
    Word from the mother: Language and African Americans  ↗
  15. Váldes (2015)
    Latin@s and the intergenerational continuity of Spanish: The challenges of curricularizin…
    International Multilingual Research Journal  ↗
CrossRef global citation count: 11 View in citation network →

Related Articles

  1. Research in the Teaching of English Aug 2024
    An Eight-Year Longitudinal Study of an English Language Arts Teacher’s Developmental Path through Multiple Contexts ↗
    Peter Smagorinsky; Stacia L. Long
    writing across the curriculum empirical research qualitative research race and writing affect and writing
  2. Research in the Teaching of English Feb 2023
    All in a Day’s Play: How a Child Resists Linguistic Racism and Constructs Her Identity ↗
    Denise Dávila
    discourse analysis writing across the curriculum qualitative research race and writing multilingual writers
  3. Philosophy & Rhetoric Jun 2019
    Things of the World: Migration, Presence, and the Arts of Presencing ↗
    Ralph Cintrón; Jason Schneider
    rhetorical theory writing across the curriculum qualitative research race and writing
  4. College Composition and Communication Dec 2025
    Contextualizing Reflective Writing for Creating Change: A Cross-Institutional Case Study of First-Year Students’ Reflections ↗
    Jaclyn Fiscus-Cannaday; Lillian Campbell; Jennifer E. Eidum
    writing program administration qualitative research race and writing multilingual writers
  5. Research in the Teaching of English Nov 2025
    Native Youth Re-Learning Their Language to Story the Future Examining Indigenous Language Revitalization, Relationality, and Temporalities ↗
    Robert Petrone; Adrianna González Ybarra; Nicholas Rink
    qualitative research race and writing multilingual writers