Abstract
In the United States, the history of African American education has long referenced the Booker T. Washington-W.E.B. DuBois debate that put vocational or technical education and liberal education in opposition to each other in the goals for racial uplift. Today there is good reason to be skeptical of centering vocational training in African American education given that racially marginalized students are often regulated to vocational settings that reinforce class stratification. However, our research on broadening the participation of African American children in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) illuminates a much more dynamic image of career and technical education (CTE) than is sometimes assumed. Using a race-positive framework, we show how CTE can be a generative site for moving beyond the liberal-technical dichotomy. We find that race-positive CTE is feasible when teachers seek to flatten hierarchies between the vocational and the liberal in education.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ashcraft, C., Eger, E. K., & Scott, K. A. (2017). Becoming technosocial change agents: Intersectionality and culturally responsive pedagogies as vital resources for increasing girls’ participation in computing. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 48(3), 233–251.
Beauty & Personal Care - Worldwide (2022) Retrieved October 23, 2022, from https://www.statista.com/outlook/cmo/beauty-personal-care/worldwide
Bennett, A. G. (2016). Ethnocomputational creativity in STEAM education: A cultural framework for generative justice. Teknokultura, 13(2), 587–612.
Billett, S. (2014). The standing of vocational education: Sources of its societal esteem and implications for its enactment. Journal of Vocational Education & Training, 66(1), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/13636820.2013.867525
Branigin, A. (2020). Rebels of Black history: How ‘Joy Goddess’ A’Lelia Walker created revolutionary spaces for the artistic and the sensual. The Root. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from https://www.theroot.com/rebels-of-black-history-how-joy-goddess-alelia-walker-1841674535
Brock, Jr., J. A. (2020). Distributed blackness. New York University Press.
Bundles, A. (2015). A’lelia Walker: The Joy Goddess of Harlem. Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art 37, 104–112. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from https://www.muse.jhu.edu/article/605645.
Crenshaw, K. W., Harris, L. C., HoSang, D. M., & Lipsitz, G. (Ed.). (2019). Seeing race again: Countering colorblindness across the disciplines. Univ of California Press.
Cross, W. E., Jr., Parham, T. A., & Helms, J. E. (1991). The stages of Black identity development: Nigrescence models. In R. L. Jones (Ed.), Black Psychology (pp. 319–338). Cobb & Henry Publishers.
Cuypers, S. E. (2018). The existential concern of the humanities R.S. Peters’ justification of liberal education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 50(6–7), 702–711. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2017.1374846
Dossett, K. (2009). “I try to live somewhat in keeping with my reputation as a wealthy woman”: A’Lelia Walker and the Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company. Journal of Women’s History 21(2), 90–114. https://doi.org/10.1353/jowh.0.0082
DuBois, W. E. B. (1897). Strivings of the Negro People. The Atlantic. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1897/08/strivings-of-the-negro-people/305446/
DuBois, W. E. B. (1940). Dusk of dawn: An essay toward an autobiography of a race concept. Franklin Center: Franklin Library.
DuBois, W. E. B. (1999). The Souls of Black Folks. W. W. Norton & Company
Dunn, F. (1993). The educational philosophies of Washington, DuBois, and Houston: Laying the foundations for Afrocentrism and multiculturalism. The Journal of Negro Education, 62(1), 24–34.
Eglash, R., Bennett, A., Lachney, M., & Babbitt, W. (2020). Race-positive design: A generative approach to decolonizing computing. In Human factors in computing systems. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10182458.
Emdin, C. (2016). For White folks who teach in the hood... and the rest of y'all too: Reality pedagogy and urban education. Beacon Press.
Fletcher, E. C., Jr., Warren, N. Q., & Hernández-Gantes, V. M. (2018). Preparing High School Students for a Changing World: College, Career, and Future Ready Learners. Career & Technical Education Research, 43(1), 77–98. https://doi.org/10.5328/cter43.1.77
Hamilton, A. F., Malin, J., & Hackmann, D. (2015). Racial/ethnic and gender equity patterns in Illinois high school career and technical education coursework. Journal of Career and Technical Education, 30(1), 29–52.
Hasan, M. K., Hayek, M. J., Williams Jr, W. A., Pane-Haden, S., & Gelvez, M. P. M. (2020). Activist identity construction of Madam CJ Walker. Journal of Management History. 26(3), 335–351. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMH-09-2019-0063
Hernández-Gantes, V. M. (2016). College and career readiness for all: The role of career and technical education in the US. SAGE Handbook of Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment, 2, 674–689.
Hodges, N. E.(2004). Booker T. Washington: ‘we wear the mask’. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 7(4), 76–110. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369823042000300045
Kagan, D. (1999). What is a liberal education?. In E. Fox-Genovese & E. Lasch-Quinn (Eds.). Reconstructing History: The Emergence of a New Historical Society (1st ed.). History (pp. 214–225). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315786858Reconstructing
Kim, E. H., Flack, C. B., Parham, K., & Wohlstetter, P. (2021). Equity in secondary career and technical education in the United States: A theoretical framework and systematic literature review. Review of Educational Research, 91(3), 356–396.
Krauskopf, K., Foulger, T. S., & Williams, M. K. (2018). Prompting teachers’ reflection of their professional knowledge: A proof-of-concept study of the Graphic Assessment of TPACK Instrument. Teacher Development, 22(2), 153–174.
Lewis-Giggetts, T. M., (2022). Black joy: Stories of resistance, resilience, and restoration. Gallery Books.
Macfadyen, L. P., & Dawson, S. (2010). Mining LMS data to develop an “early warning system” for educators: A proof of concept. Computers & Education, 54(2), 588–599.
Majors, Y. J. (2015). Shoptalk: Lessons in teaching from an African American hair salon. Teachers College Press.
Mertler, C. A. (2017). Action research: Improving schools and empowering educators. Sage Publications.
Mills, Q. T. (2013). Cutting along the color line: black barbers and barber shops in America. University of Pennsylvania Press.
Moodie, G. (2002). Identifying vocational education and training. Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 54(2), 249–266. https://doi.org/10.1080/13636820200200197
Moore, J. M. (2003). Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, and the Struggle for Racial Uplift. Scholarly Resource Press.
Noble, S. U. (2018). Algorithms of oppression. New York University Press.
Ozer, M., & Perc, M. (2020). Dreams and realities of school tracking and vocational education. Palgrave Commun, 6, 34. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-020-0409-4
Payne, C. M., Cobb, C. E., & Strickland, C. S. (2008). Teach freedom: Education for liberation in the African-American tradition. Teachers College Press.
Rivera-Batiz, F. L. (1995). The impact of vocational education on racial and ethnic minorities. ERIC/CUE Digest, Number 108.
Soh, L. K., Jiang, H., & Ansorge, C. (2004, March). Agent-based cooperative learning: a proof-of-concept experiment. In Proceedings of the 35th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education (pp. 368–372)
Span, C. M., & Sanya, B. N. (2019). Education and the African diaspora. In J. L. Rury & E. H. Tamura (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of the history of education (pp. 399–412). OxfordUniversity Press.
Stewart, J. C. (2022). Introduction. In Locke, A. The New Negro Aesthetic: Selected Writings, (pp. xxii - liii). Penguin Classics.
Strauss, L. (1968). Liberalism Ancient & Modern. Chicago University Press.
UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), UIS glossary (2022). TVETipedia Glossary: Vocational education (VE). https://unevoc.unesco.org/home/TVETipedia+Glossary/lang=en/id=544). Accessed 1 Sept 2022
Washington, B. T. (1995). Up From Slavery. Dover Publications.
Winner, L. (1980). Do artifacts have politics?. Daedalus, 121–136
Zakaria, F. (2015). In defense of a liberal education. WW Norton & Company.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the John and Lucy Bates-Byers Educational Technology Endowment from Michigan State University.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Ethical Approval
All procedures in this study that involved human subject research were approved by Michigan State University’s Institutional Review Board and conducted in accordance with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable standards.
Informed Consent
Informed consent was obtained from every individual who participated in this study.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Allen Kuyenga, M.C., Lachney, M. & Green, B. Race-Positive Career and Technical Education: Techno-Social Agency Beyond the Vocational-Liberal Divide. TechTrends 67, 446–455 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-022-00806-w
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-022-00806-w