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The Urban Review

, Volume 47, Issue 3, pp 393–412 | Cite as

Critical Race Feminism and the Complex Challenges of Educational Reform

  • Cherese D. Childers-McKee
  • Kathy Hytten
Article
First Online:

Abstract

Throughout the past several decades, there has been an abundance of research about school reform, particularly in schools predominated by students of color and students experiencing poverty. Critics acknowledge that many reform efforts have failed and comprehensive solutions to school change remain elusive. In this article, we provide an overview of prominent school reform efforts and describe some of the ideological problems inherent in these dominant approaches—particularly the abstract, one-size-fits-all vision of reform that they are premised upon. Then, we explore the potential of critical race feminism (CRF) as a framework through which we might cultivate transformative social justice-oriented change in schools. We suggest that CRF is a relatively untapped resource in school reform efforts that may help us to rethink reform in general, specifically by dislodging some of our taken-for-granted assumptions and offering us principles for school change. Finally, we give examples of counternarratives based on CRF principles that reflect the kind of critical, fluid, nonhierarchical approach to change needed to disrupt the status quo of inequitable, reproductive schooling.

Keywords

Critical race feminism School reform Social justice Turnaround School policy 
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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of Educational Leadership and Cultural FoundationsUniversity of North Carolina at GreensboroGreensboroUSA

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