Matching Items (2)
Description
Although racial minorities are heavily represented in student bodies throughout the United States, school administrators who work with minority children have been overwhelmingly White. Previous research by race scholars has demonstrated that systems of racial dominance in the larger society are often replicated in schools. However, the role of White school administrators in perpetuating or disrupting racism has not been documented. This study examined the racial attitudes and resulting professional practices of White school administrators who worked in a unique environment. These administrators lived and practiced their profession in towns that lay just outside the borders of the Navajo Nation, a large Indian reservation in the Four Corners region of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. Termed border towns, these communities were populated by a large majority of Native Americans, with a heavy representation of Hispanics. This placed White school administrators in the uncommon position of living and working in a place where they were a numeric minority, while simultaneously representing the majority culture in the United States. Twelve White border town administrators in four different communities agreed to participate in the interview study, conducted over a two-month period in 2010 and 2011. Using a semi-structured interview format, the researcher gathered data on participants' racial attitudes and analyzed responses to find common themes. Common responses among the interviewees indicated that there were clear racial hierarchies within border town schools and that these hierarchies were sometimes atypical of those found in mainstream American society. These racial hierarchies were characterized by a dichotomy of Native American students based on residence in town or on the reservation, as well as deferential treatment of White administrators by Native American constituents. The intersectionality of race and socioeconomic class was a key finding of the study, with implications for school administrators' professional actions. Racial attitudes also impacted White border town administrators' actions and sometimes reinforced institutionally racist practices. Finally, results of the study supported several established models of race relations and White identity formation.
ContributorsOrr, Kimberly (Author) / Spencer, Dee Ann (Thesis advisor) / Appleton, Nicholas (Committee member) / Hotchkiss, Margaret (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This linguistic landscape (LL) study investigates signs in rural border town of Farmington, New Mexico. It includes neighboring communities and towns: Waterflow, Fruitland, and Kirtland. The study is applied linguistics, more specifically linguistic landscape of rural town in Southwest United States. This field work was conducted during COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis has five sections: billboards, anchor mall retail hub, graffiti along Red Apple transit route, the historic downtown, and the COVID-19 and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women signs. This LL study fills the gap of border town that neighbors Native American reservation. The purpose of this LL study is (1) demonstrate the presence and use of Native American language on signs, (2) capture a board environmental print and artifacts of pragmatic and functional language and semiotic usage, (3) demonstrate the mapping the context surrounding the gestalt to interpret data. The bulk of the fieldwork was complete in one semester. This LL study adopted a number of methods and strategies from LL research literature, particularly De Klerk and Wiley (2010). The significant finding include the bilingual Sweetmeat billboard (Tse’ yaa’ ak’ ahi), monolingual produce vender sign (neeshjizhii), bilingual signs (Tááshoodí slow down and Askii’s Navajo Grill), handwritten COVID-19 sign on drive-through restaurant, Japanese sign with Romanize alphabets, the Yé’ii Bicheii semiotic billboard, and the emoji billboard.
ContributorsMorris, Jeston (Author) / Wiley, Terrence G. (Thesis advisor) / Beaulieu, David (Committee member) / Tohe, Laura (Committee member) / Lee, Lloyd L. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023