Blog

ASSIGNMENT: Term Paper     PROMPT: Dismantling Fallacies: Illuminating Systemic Education Inequity Media, politicians, and K-12 educators often suggest that the American Dream is achievable for anyone with the “grit” to pursue it. Although these messages told to children from folks in power and/or influence may have come from a good place, the obsession with Black Excellence, Model Minorities, and Token Students, amongst others, often obscure the flawed logic of such exceptionalism among BIPOC students.    The hypervisibility of such narratives can redirect blame, shame, and accountability onto Black, Indigenous, and Students of Color instead of addressing systemic education inequity at its roots. Understanding how to impact underserved students’ educational outcomes positively and meaningfully requires critically analyzing underserved students’ experiences.   KEY TERMS: Racially Minoritized Students: Black, Indigenous, and Student of Color identifying. Non-White groups and communities that historically experience institutional discrimination and exclusion because of unequal power across economic, political, and cultural dimensions.   Secondary Sources: Secondary sources are works that analyze, assess, or interpret an historical event, trend, or phenomenon, generally utilizing primary sources to do so (e.g., textbooks, edited works, and articles).   NOTE: for the purposes of our term paper, we will only utilize scholarly peer-review articles. All articles must be from the LBCC library databases. No outside articles.   PURPOSE: This assignment aims to provide an opportunity for you to research scholarly secondary sources on the topic of racially minoritized student groups in education. Secondly, it’s a chance to practice your skills in interpreting research findings and implications.    SKILLS:  A research paper will provide you with foundational skills in learning to survey the literature on a chosen topic, which includes learning to interpret secondary sources and get familiar with keywords and concepts in the field of education studies. Learn to examine and explain trends and phenomena related to the experiences of racially minoritized student groups in education. Lastly, you will learn to articulate your analysis in writing.    KNOWLEDGE: By doing this research, you will better understand the inequity and achievement gap of racially minoritized student groups in education. More specifically, you will gain insight into structural and institutional variables perpetuating inequity and education disparity among racially minoritized student groups. Above all, you will learn to dismantle fallacies about education achievement that do more harm than good.   TASKS: I am asking you to research the barriers that have shaped the educational experiences of racially minoritized student groups: Mexican American, Southeast Asian American, African American, and Native Indian American.You will choose one and only one of these student groups on the highlighted list, and you will search for three scholarly (peer-review) articles that center on the impact of minoritized students’ educational barriers. Again, you are not allowed to research any other student groups. It must be one of these four groups.   INTERCHANGEABLE TERMS: Terminology changes overtime, so if one key term limit the results of your research for scholarly peer-review articles, please try a few terms when searching the library databases. Here are a few examples:   a) Mexican American: Mexican American students, Chicano students, Chicana students, Chicanx students, Hispanic students, Latino Students, Latina Students, Latinx Students. b) Southeast Asian American: Southeast Asian American students, Cambodian American students, Laotian American students, Hmong American students, Vietnamese American students. c) African American: African American students, Black students. d) Native American: Native American students, Native Indian American students, Indigenous students in the United States.   NOTE:  All students’ groups should be based in the United States. You should not be using articles based on students outside of the United States.   What to look for when researching the group, you have chosen:  a) high school graduation rate, high school retention, high school persistence b) college graduation rate, college retention, college persistence c) Barriers and challenges to their education/graduation studies (e.g., citizenship status, deportation, language, refugeeexperience, violence, financial hardships).   NOTE: List of barriers and challenges are not exhausted. If you find others in your research that is not listed above, feel free to save those sources to support your thesis.