Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism

In the midst of discussions about improving education, teacher education, equity, and diversity, little has been done to make pedagogy a central area of investigation. This article attempts to challenge notions about the intersection of culture and teaching that rely solely on microanalytic or macroanalytic perspectives. Rather, the article attempts to build on the work done in both of these areas and proposes a culturally relevant theory of education. By raising questions about the location of the researcher in pedagogical research, the article attempts to explicate the theoretical framework of the author in the nexus of collaborative and reflexive research. The pedagogical practices of eight exemplary teachers of African-American students serve as the investigative “site.” Their practices and reflections on those practices provide a way to define and recognize culturally relevant pedagogy.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1163320.pdf

Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

This article conceptualizes community cultural wealth as a critical race theory (CRT) challenge to traditional interpretations of cultural capital. CRT shifts the research lens away from a deficit view of Communities of Color as places full of cultural poverty disadvantages, and instead focuses on and learns from the array of cultural knowledge, skills, abilities and contacts possessed by socially marginalized groups that often go unrecognized and unacknowledged. Various forms of capital nurtured through cultural wealth include aspirational, navigational, social, linguistic, familial and resistant capital. These forms of capital draw on the knowledges Students of Color bring with them from their homes and communities into the classroom. This CRT approach to education involves a commitment to develop schools that acknowledge the multiple strengths of Communities of Color in order to serve a larger purpose of struggle toward social and racial justice.

/pdf/whose-culture-has-capital-a-critical-race-theory-discussion-4r42kxnce1.pdf

Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth

Community-based research in public health focuses on social, structural, and physical environmental inequities through active involvement of community members, organizational representatives, and researchers in all aspects of the research process. Partners contribute their expertise to enhance understanding of a given phenomenon and to integrate the knowledge gained with action to benefit the community involved. This review provides a synthesis of key principles of community-based research, examines its place within the context of different scientific paradigms, discusses rationales for its use, and explores major challenges and facilitating factors and their implications for conducting effective community-based research aimed at improving the public’s health.

/pdf/review-of-community-based-research-assessing-partnership-5goidkcn41.pdf

Review of community-based research: assessing partnership approaches to improve public health.

Since critics first allegedthat feminism claimed tospeak universally for all
women, feminist researchers havebeen acutely aware ofthe limitations of 
genderas a single analyticalcategory. In fact, feministsare perhaps alone in
the academy in theextent to which theyhave embraced intersectionality – the 
relationshipsamong multiple dimensions andmodalities of social relations
and subject formations – as itselfa central category ofanalysis. One could 
evensay that intersectionality isthe most important theoreticalcontribution 
that women’s studies,in conjunction with relatedfields, has made sofar.1

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/426800

The Complexity of Intersectionality

In spite of the double burden of racial and gender discrimination, African-American women have developed a rich intellectual tradition that is not widely known. In Black Feminist Thought, Patricia Hill Collins explores the words and ideas of Black feminist intellectuals as well as those African-American women outside academe. She provides an interpretive framework for the work of such prominent Black feminist thinkers as Angela Davis, bell hooks, Alice Walker, and Audre Lorde. The result is a superbly crafted book that provides the first synthetic overview of Black feminist thought.

Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment

Black women have long occupied marginal positions in academic settings. I argue that many Black female intellectuals have made creative use of their marginality—their “outsider within” status–to produce Black feminist thought that reflects a special standpoint on self, family, and society. I describe and explore the sociological significance of three characteristic themes in such thought: (1) Black women's self-definition and self-valuation; (2) the interlocking nature of oppression; and (3) the importance of Afro-American women's culture. After considering how Black women might draw upon these key themes as outsiders within to generate a distinctive standpoint on existing sociological paradigms, I conclude by suggesting that other sociologists would also benefit by placing greater trust in the creative potential of their own personal and cultural biographies.

Learning from the Outsider Within: The Sociological Significance of Black Feminist Thought

Black Feminist Thought

Acknowledgements Introduction: No Turning Back I. African Americans and the New Racism 1. Why Black Sexual Politics? 2. The Past Is Ever Present: Recognizing the New Racism 3.Prisons for Our Bodies, Closets for Our Minds: Racism, Heterosexism, and Black Sexuality II. Rethinking Black Gender Ideology 4. Get Your Freak On: Sex, Babies, and Images of Black Femininity 5. Booty Call: Sex, Violence, and Images of Black Masculinity 6. Very Necessary: Redefining Black Gender Ideology III. Toward a Progressive Black Sexual Politics 7. Assume the Position: The Changing Contours of Sexual Violence 8. No Storybook Romance: How Race and Gender Matter 9. Why We Can't Wait: Black Sexual Politics and the Challenge of HIV/AIDS Afterword: The Power of a Free Mind Notes Glossary Bibliography Index

Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism

The term intersectionality references the critical insight that race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nation, ability, and age operate not as unitary, mutually exclusive entities, but rather as reciprocally constructing phenomena. Despite this general consensus, definitions of what counts as intersectionality are far from clear. In this article, I analyze intersectionality as a knowledge project whose raison d'etre lies in its attentiveness to power relations and social inequalities. I examine three interdependent sets of concerns: (a) intersectionality as a field of study that is situated within the power relations that it studies; (b) intersectionality as an analytical strategy that provides new angles of vision on social phenomena; and (c) intersectionality as critical praxis that informs social justice projects.

https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev-soc-073014-112142

Patricia Hill Collins

Papers

Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment

Learning from the Outsider Within: The Sociological Significance of Black Feminist Thought

Black Feminist Thought

Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism

Intersectionality's Definitional Dilemmas