Complicating the rhetoric: How racial construction confounds market-based reformers’ civil rights invocations

Authors

  • Laura Elena Hernandez University of California, Berkeley

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.24.2321

Keywords:

rhetoric, race, civil rights, discourse analysis

Abstract

Reformers today maintain the use of civil rights rhetoric when advocating for policies that address educational inequity. While continuing the legacy of earlier civil rights activists, the leaders invoking this rhetoric and the educational platforms they promote differ greatly from previous decades. Not only does this new crop of reformers differ demographically, they also tend to promote market-oriented initiatives like the expansion of charter schools and other school choice initiatives, which embody market logics alongside a sharp retrenchment from the public sphere. While scholars have revealed how these policies generate questionable outcomes for students and communities of color, few have considered the manner in which marginalized racial groups are characterized and framed amidst these reforms and cries for civil rights. In this empirical paper, I use Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to analyze how race-based constructions complicate the use of civil rights rhetoric in today’s increasingly marketized educational context. Specifically, I investigate how two educational leaders discuss race within comments about education and its connection to civil rights. The findings suggest that the leaders allude to race without explicitly naming it in the context of civil rights discourse. In addition, their civil rights invocations exist alongside subtly constructed, negative racial narratives that they articulate in the context of their statements. Given these findings, this paper ends with a discussion of these seemingly incompatible discourses. In particular, I interrogate how these racial constructions reflect the characteristics of colorblindness and how this, in turn, may undermine policies the aim to address racial inequity.

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Author Biography

Laura Elena Hernandez, University of California, Berkeley

Laura E. Hernández is a doctoral candidate in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California at Berkeley. Her research focuses on the racial politics of K-12 reform, particularly those surrounding school choice initiatives, charter school expansion, and community-based reforms.

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Published

2016-10-17

How to Cite

Hernandez, L. E. (2016). Complicating the rhetoric: How racial construction confounds market-based reformers’ civil rights invocations. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 24, 103. https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.24.2321

Issue

Section

Discursive Perspectives Part 1