Critical Ethnography, Language, Race/Ism and Education - Paperback

by Stephen May (Editor), Blanca Caldas (Editor)

This book provides a contemporary overview of work in critical ethnography that focuses on language and race/ism in education, as well as cutting edge examples of recent critical ethnographic studies addressing these issues. The studies in this book, while centred primarily on the North American context, have wide international significance and interdisciplinary reach and address a range of educational contexts across K-12 education and less formal educational settings. They explore the racialized construction, positioning and experiences of bi/multilingual students, and the implications of this for educational policy, pedagogy and practice. The chapters draw on a range of critical theoretical perspectives, including CRT, LatCrit, Indigenous epistemologies and bilingual education; they also address significant methodological questions that arise when undertaking critical ethnographic work, including the key issues of positionality and critical reflexivity.

Author Biography

Stephen May is Professor of Education in Te Puna Wānanga (School of Māori and Indigenous Education) in the Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. His most recent book is Critical Ethnography and Education: Theory, Methodology and Ethics (2022, Routledge, with Katie Fitzpatrick). Stephen is Editor-in-Chief of the 10-volume Encyclopedia of Language and Education (3rd edn, 2017, Springer), and founding co-editor of the journal Ethnicities (Sage).

Blanca Caldas is Associate Professor in Second Language Education and Elementary Education in the College of Education and Human Development at The University of Minnesota Twin Cities, USA. Her research focuses on bilingual education, preservice and in-service bilingual teacher education, minoritized language practices and pedagogies, and critical pedagogy.