ERIC Number: EJ1027119
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2013
Pages: 15
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1755-2273
EISSN: N/A
Critical Race Ethnography of Higher Education: Racial Risk and Counter-Storytelling
Ramos, Teresa
Learning and Teaching: The International Journal of Higher Education in the Social Sciences, v6 n3 p64-78 Win 2013
The Ethnography of the University Initiative (EUI) joins a long history of critique, challenge and transformation of higher education. EUI courses are an important site for the creation of non-traditional narratives in which students challenge "business-as-usual" in higher education. For under-represented students, this includes inquiry and analysis of the racial status quo at the University. In this article, I provide a student's perspective on EUI through my own experiences with EUI research as both an undergraduate and later graduate student investigating race and racism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (U of I). Using ethnographic methods and drawing on critical race theory, I provide two examples of EUI research that critiqued the University's management of race. The first example is a collaborative ethnography of the Brown versus Board of Education Commemoration at U of I--a project that I joined as an undergraduate (Abelmann et al. 2007); and the second is my own dissertation on "racial risk management", a project that emerged from my encounter with EUI. I discuss both projects as examples of Critical Race Ethnography, namely works based on empirical research that challenge institutions' racial composition, structure and climate.
Descriptors: Critical Theory, Race, Ethnography, Higher Education, Racial Bias, Universities, Racial Composition, Risk Management, Student Attitudes, Personal Narratives
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: N/A
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Illinois
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A