Tara J. Yosso
University of California, Riverside, Education, Faculty Member
- University of California, Riverside, Graduate School of Education, Faculty Memberadd
- Chicana/o, Latina/o film portrayals, Critical Media Literacy, Educational Inequalities (class; race; gender etc), Race and Racism, Race and Ethnicity, Critical Race Theory, and 7 moreEducational Equity and Justice, Higher Education, Chicana/o, Latina/o education, Chicana/o Studies, Chicano Studies, Qualitative methodology, and Qualitative Researchedit
- My research and teaching examine educational access and opportunity centering on race, history, and culture. I utili... moreMy research and teaching examine educational access and opportunity centering on race, history, and culture. I utilize the frameworks of critical race theory and critical media literacy to challenge the structures, practices, and discourse of racial inequality in education, and to reveal the community cultural wealth Students of Color bring to school. I have authored numerous collaborative and interdisciplinary chapters and articles in publications such as the Harvard Educational Review, Education Administration Quarterly, and The Blackwell Companion to Social Inequalities, and have been awarded a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship for Diversity and Excellence in University Teaching. My article, “Whose Culture has Capital? A Critical Race Theory Discussion of Community Cultural Wealth,” has become the top cited article in Race Ethnicity and Education since its publication in 2005, with over 12,000 citations. The American Educational Studies Association recognized my book, Critical Race Counterstories along the Chicana/Chicano Educational Pipeline (Routledge) with a 2008 Critics’ Choice Book Award. I was honored by the Critical Race Studies in Education Association with a 2017 Derrick Bell Legacy Award, and an American Educational Research Association Division G Distinguished Research Contributions to Social Contexts of Education Lifetime Achievement Award (2023). Previous faculty positions include the School of Education at the University of Michigan and the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. I am a first-generation college student, and earned my PhD in Urban Schooling in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, where I also took cognates in the Department of Film and Television. I am a professor in the School of Education at the University of California, Riverside.edit
In this article, the authors reflect on the methodological tools they used to recover hidden perspectives within two desegregation cases, Karla Galarza v. The Board of Education of Washington D.C., 1947 and Debbie and Doreen Soria, et al.... more
In this article, the authors reflect on the methodological tools they used to recover hidden perspectives within two desegregation cases, Karla Galarza v. The Board of Education of Washington D.C., 1947 and Debbie and Doreen Soria, et al. v. Oxnard School Board of Trustees, 1974. Placing these two narratives in conversation and excavating the stories behind their creation, they add depth and dimension to our understanding of the long struggle for educational equality. They renew calls for educational researchers to consider the utility of a critical historical lens to more fully account for the complexities of race across time and place.
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This article examines the case of Karla Galarza v. Washington, DC Board of Education. On April 3, 1947, Karla Galarza refused to accept the board's directive to withdraw from the Black segregated Margaret Murray Washington Vocational... more
This article examines the case of Karla Galarza v. Washington, DC Board of Education. On April 3, 1947, Karla Galarza refused to accept the board's directive to withdraw from the Black segregated Margaret Murray Washington Vocational School. Her father, Dr. Ernesto Galarza, supported her decision and worked to challenge the expulsion, and the system of segregation, as unconstitutional. The authors analyze materials from regional and national archives, oral accounts, legal documents, and personal collections, focusing on Dr. Galarza's voice in over one hundred pages of correspondence. Dr. Galarza brought together an interracial legal team, including Charles Hamilton Houston, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Jewish Congress, and the National Lawyers Guild. Dr. Galarza lauded the pedagogy of a Black teacher and the pluralism cultivated in a Black school community as evidence of democracy in action. The legal team proposed that Karla's expulsion constituted a violation of the Fifth Amendment, naming education as a property right. However, after extensive research and discussion across ten months, the organizations determined they should not pursue the case in court. The authors assert that this attempted legal intervention is an unnamed forerunner in the attack on Plessy v. Ferguson and complicates previous narratives of the long struggle to end school segregation.
Research Interests: History, Chicano Studies, Jurisprudence, Race and Racism, Critical Race Theory, and 14 moreCivil Rights, Qualitative Research Methods, History of Race and Ethnicity, School Desegregation, Black Studies, NAACP, Brown V. Board of Education, ACLU, Mexican American History, Legal narratives, Ernesto Galarza, National Lawyers Guild, American Jewish Congress, and Charles Hamilton Houston
Guided by a critical race theory framework, this study tested W.E.B. DuBois’ hypothesis that Black students need not attend integrated schools to succeed academically. DuBois offered this controversial hypothesis nineteen years before... more
Guided by a critical race theory framework, this study tested W.E.B. DuBois’ hypothesis that Black students need not attend integrated schools to succeed academically. DuBois offered this controversial hypothesis nineteen years before Brown v Board of Education, in his 1935 essay, “Does the Negro Need Separate Schools?” His concern
focused on the hostility and aversion toward Blacks evident in integrated school settings. In the landmark Brown case, the integration rationale successfully convinced the Court to rule for desegregating schools. However, it also positioned Black students as the source of the problem instead of the racially unequal distribution of educational resources. Unfortunately, instead of finding a remedy
for inferior schooling conditions, U.S. Supreme Court decisions on school desegregation, such as Seattle/Louisville (2007), continue to perpetuate this troubling message. We analyzed African American
students’ math achievement scores from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study to test DuBois’ hypothesis and challenge the underlying inferences of the integration rationale. In our discussion of the study findings, we also considered the need to redefine the racial ‘‘tipping point’’ in schools.
focused on the hostility and aversion toward Blacks evident in integrated school settings. In the landmark Brown case, the integration rationale successfully convinced the Court to rule for desegregating schools. However, it also positioned Black students as the source of the problem instead of the racially unequal distribution of educational resources. Unfortunately, instead of finding a remedy
for inferior schooling conditions, U.S. Supreme Court decisions on school desegregation, such as Seattle/Louisville (2007), continue to perpetuate this troubling message. We analyzed African American
students’ math achievement scores from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study to test DuBois’ hypothesis and challenge the underlying inferences of the integration rationale. In our discussion of the study findings, we also considered the need to redefine the racial ‘‘tipping point’’ in schools.
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Guided by a critical race theory framework, this study tested W.E.B. DuBois’ hypothesis that Black students need not attend integrated schools to succeed academically. DuBois offered this controversial hypothesis nineteen years before... more
Guided by a critical race theory framework, this study tested W.E.B. DuBois’ hypothesis that Black students need not attend integrated schools to succeed academically. DuBois offered this controversial hypothesis nineteen years before Brown v Board of Education, in his 1935 essay, “Does the Negro Need Separate Schools?” His concern focused on the hostility and aversion toward Blacks evident in integrated school settings. In the landmark Brown case, the integration rationale successfully convinced the Court to rule for desegregating schools. However, it also positioned Black students as the source of the problem instead of the racially unequal distribution of educational resources. Unfortunately, instead of finding a remedy for inferior schooling conditions, U.S. Supreme Court decisions on school desegregation, such as Seattle/Louisville (2007), continue to perpetuate this troubling message. We analyzed African American students’ math achievement scores from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study to test DuBois’ hypothesis and challenge the underlying inferences of the integration rationale. In our discussion of the study findings, we also considered the need to redefine the racial ‘‘tipping point’’ in schools.
Research Interests: Teacher Education, Student Achievement Motivation, Critical Race Theory, Elementary Education, School Climate, and 10 moreStudent Achievement, K-12 Education, school culture and the acheivement gap of African American middle school students, School Segregation, Opportunity Gap, Critical Race Theory (CRT & LatCrit) Educational Access & Equity Campus Racial and Gender Climate Critical Media Literacy Racial and Gender Microaggressions, Racial Battle Fatigue, Racial Microaggressions, racial microagressions in K-12, and Academic Integration
Tara J. Yosso reflects on the genealogies of her research on visual microaggressions and the future directions for critical race media literacy scholarship. She identifies a need for sustained attention in three areas: (1) the... more
Tara J. Yosso reflects on the genealogies of her research on visual microaggressions and the future directions for critical race media literacy scholarship. She identifies a need for sustained attention in three areas: (1) the intentionality of racial imagery, and recognition of media as pedagogy; (2) the role of history and the continuities of racial scripts applied against different groups; and (3) contestations of majoritarian narratives across generations.
Her essay opens the Special Issue on Critical Race Media Literacy in the International Journal of Multicultural Education, Vol 22, No 2 (2020)
Her essay opens the Special Issue on Critical Race Media Literacy in the International Journal of Multicultural Education, Vol 22, No 2 (2020)
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This article analyzes three main legal rationales—color-blind, diversity, and remedial—that attempt to explain the need to eliminate or maintain affirmative action. Conservatives challenge affirmative action based on a color-blind... more
This article analyzes three main legal rationales—color-blind, diversity, and remedial—that attempt to explain the need to eliminate or maintain affirmative action. Conservatives challenge affirmative action based on a color-blind rationale, insisting that race-neutral admission policies ensure meritocratic, fair access to higher education. Liberals defend affirmative action policies based on a diversity rationale, arguing that bringing underrepresented minority students into historically White institutions enriches the learning environment for White students. The third or remedial rationale asserts that universities must take affirmative action and grant members of historically underrepresented racial minority groups access to institutions of higher learning as a partial remedy for past and current discrimination against communities of color in general and students of color in particular.Race, racism, and White privilege shape each of these rationales.
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Critical race theory (CRT) is a dynamic interdisciplinary framework used to identify, analyze, and challenge the ways race and racism intersect with multiple forms of subordination to shape the experiences of People of Color (Delgado &... more
Critical race theory (CRT) is a dynamic interdisciplinary framework used to identify, analyze, and challenge the ways race and racism intersect with multiple forms of subordination to shape the experiences of People of Color (Delgado & Stefancic, 2012). Informed by critical community and academic traditions naming race as a social construction, scholars have applied CRT to the field of education to closely examine and change the very real social consequences of racism within and beyond schools (e.g. Zamudio, et al., 2011; Parker & Stovall, 2004). Collectively, this work has taken up Richard Delgado's (2003) challenge to " consider that race is not merely a matter for abstract analysis, but for struggle. It should expressly address the personal dimensions of that struggle and what they mean for intellectuals " (pp. 151-152). In this brief, we focus on the naming an array of knowledges, skills abilities, and networks of communities of color " not merely for abstract analysis, " but as a part of the larger struggle to survive and resist racism.
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Racial primes are an outgrowth and inculcation of a well-structured, highly developed, racially conservative, “race-neutral” or “color-blind” racial socialization process in which children learn race-specific stereotypes about African... more
Racial primes are an outgrowth and inculcation of a well-structured, highly developed, racially conservative, “race-neutral” or “color-blind” racial socialization process in which children learn race-specific stereotypes about African Americans and other race/ethnic groups. As they get older, they continue to receive—both involuntary and voluntary—corroborating messages of anti-Black stereotypes from adults, friends, games, folklore, music, television, popular media, and the hidden curriculum. A result of this belief system is Black misandry. Black misandry refers to an exaggerated pathological aversion toward Black men created and reinforced in societal, institutional, and individual ideologies, practices, and behaviors.
Research Interests: Black Studies Or African American Studies, Race and Racism, Critical Race Theory, Race and Ethnicity, Ethnic and Racial Studies, and 6 moreAfrican American Studies, Racial and ethnic discrimination, Racial Microaggressions and Health Disparities, Critical Race Theory (CRT & LatCrit) Educational Access & Equity Campus Racial and Gender Climate Critical Media Literacy Racial and Gender Microaggressions, Racial Battle Fatigue, and Racial Microaggressions
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In this article, David G. García, Tara J. Yosso, and Frank P. Barajas examine the early twentieth-century origins of a dual schooling system that facilitated the reproduction of a cheap labor force and the marginalization of Mexicans in... more
In this article, David G. García, Tara J. Yosso, and Frank P. Barajas examine the early twentieth-century origins of a dual schooling system that facilitated the reproduction of a cheap labor force and the marginalization of Mexicans in Oxnard, California. In their analysis of the 1930s Oxnard Elementary School District board minutes, alongside newspapers, maps, scholarly accounts, and oral history interviews, they argue that school segregation privileged Whites and discriminated against Mexicans as a form of mundane racism. The authors build on previous scholarship documenting the pervasiveness of racism in U.S. society to define mundane racism as the systematic subordination of Mexicans that occurred as a commonplace, ordinary way of conducting business within and beyond schools. Their findings complicate narratives that emphasize complete segregation in “Mexican schools,” while acknowledging the resistance of parents and the resilience of their children.
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Using critical race theory as a framework, the article utilizes counter-storytelling to examine the different forms of racial and gender discrimination experienced by Chicana and Chicano graduate students. After describing the critical... more
Using critical race theory as a framework, the article utilizes counter-storytelling to examine the different forms of racial and gender discrimination experienced by Chicana and Chicano graduate students. After describing the critical race theory framework and counter-storytelling method, the article moves to a story of two composite and data-driven characters, Professor Leticia Garcia and graduate student Esperanza Gonzalez. Various theoretical and conceptual issues such as self-doubt, survivor guilt, impostor syndrome, and invisibility are woven into Esperanza’s graduate school and Professor Garcia’s pre-tenure experiences.
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This article addresses how critical race theory can inform a critical race methodology in education. The authors challenge the intercentricity of racism with other forms of subordination and exposes deficit-informed research that silences... more
This article addresses how critical race theory can inform a critical race methodology in education. The authors challenge the intercentricity of racism with other forms of subordination and exposes deficit-informed research that silences and distorts epistemologies of People of Color. Although social scientists tell stories under the guise of “objective” research, these stories actually uphold deficit, racialized notions about People of Color. For the authors, a critical race methodology provides a tool to “counter” deficit storytelling. Specifically, a critical race methodology offers space to conduct and present research grounded in the experiences and knowledge of People of Color. As they describe how they compose counter-stories, the authors discuss how the stories can be used as theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical tools to challenge racism, sexism, and classism and work toward social justice.
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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... more
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.
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Critical Race Theory (CRT) draws on many areas of academic scholarship and centers the experiences of People of Color to document voices and knowledges rarely taken into account in traditional academic spaces or mainstream mass media... more
Critical Race Theory (CRT) draws on many areas of academic scholarship and centers the experiences of People of Color to document voices and knowledges rarely taken into account in traditional academic spaces or mainstream mass media venues. CRT scholarship combines empirical and experiential knowledges, frequently in the form of storytelling, chronicles, or other creative narratives. These counternarratives can often expose traditional educational discourse as racialized, gendered, classed storytelling. Indeed, traditional stories about race do not seem like stories at all. Such “everyday” narratives perpetuate myths that darker skin and poverty correlate with bad neighborhoods and bad schools. This chapter and counterstory utilize CRT in education to challenge the silences of “race-neutral” storytelling in order to discuss the race-related stress faculty of color confront when navigating through historically White universities.
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Academic institutions facilitate the flow of knowledge, skills, and students through the educational pipeline. Yet, no matter how one measures educational outcomes, Chicana/os suffer the lowest educational attainment of any major racial... more
Academic institutions facilitate the flow of knowledge, skills, and students through the educational pipeline. Yet, no matter how one measures educational outcomes, Chicana/os suffer the lowest educational attainment of any major racial or ethnic group in the United States. This brief calls for the repair of the serious and persistent leaks in the Chicana/o educational pipeline.
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Drawing on a critical race theory framework, this article weaves together sociology, education, history, and performance studies to challenge deficit interpretations of Pierre Bourdieu’s cultural capital theory and to analyze Culture... more
Drawing on a critical race theory framework, this article weaves together sociology, education, history, and performance studies to challenge deficit interpretations of Pierre Bourdieu’s cultural capital theory and to analyze Culture Clash’s play Chavez Ravine. The play recounts a decade of Los Angeles history through the perspectives of displaced Mexican American families from three former neighborhoods of Chavez Ravine. Culture Clash’s performance recovers and personifies the community cultural wealth cultivated by these families. This multifaceted portfolio of cultural assets and resources includes aspirational, linguistic, social, navigational, familial, and resistant capital. Chavez Ravine affirms the continuity of Chicana/o communities, utilizing culture as a source of strength that facilitates survival and nurtures resistance.
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In this article, Tara Yosso, William Smith, Miguel Ceja, and Daniel Solórzano expand on their previous work by employing critical race theory to explore and under- stand incidents of racial microaggressions as experienced by Latina/o... more
In this article, Tara Yosso, William Smith, Miguel Ceja, and Daniel Solórzano expand on their previous work by employing critical race theory to explore and under- stand incidents of racial microaggressions as experienced by Latina/o students at three selective universities. The authors explore three types of racial microaggressions—inter- personal microaggressions, racial jokes, and institutional microaggressions—and consider the effects of these racist affronts on Latina/o students. Challenging the applicability of Vincent Tinto’s three stages of passage for college students, the authors explore the processes by which Latinas/os respond to racial microaggressions and confront hostile campus racial climates. The authors find that, through building community and developing critical navigation skills, Latina/o students claim empowerment from the margins.