Rhetoric, K-12 Education Policy, and Whiteness As a Cultural Practice
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CONTESTING THE KEYS TO FREEDOM: RHETORIC, K-12 EDUCATION POLICY, AND WHITENESS AS A CULTURAL PRACTICE Andrew R. Donofrio A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY August 2017 Committee: Alberto González, Advisor Catherine Stein Graduate Faculty Representative John Dowd Ellen Gorsevski © 2017 Andrew R. Donofrio All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Alberto González, Advisor This manuscript attempts to broaden previously explored concepts about the nature of whiteness in order to describe and analyze its influence on past and current K-12 education policy discussions. From an orientation of critical rhetoric, I attempt to advance the critical intercultural communication project by taking seriously Kent Ono’s (2013) notion that assumptions about nation-states as homogeneous entities vastly undertheorize how nations and the people who embody them actually work. That said, my project makes use of Colin Woodard’s (2011) mapping of 11 American nations. These nations, or dominant cultural hearths, as Woodard argues, reflect the embedded attitudes, deep seated preferences, and governing practices of the various EuroAtlantic colonizers who controlled them (p. 2). I assemble discursive fragments into a text directed at demystifying how—within these colonized lands— whiteness operates uniquely as a cultural practice. Taking education as a form of governmentality, as Foucault suggests (Foucault as cited in Lemke, 2002), I analyze deliberation on K-12 education that takes place where the borders of whiteness as a cultural practice meet. My goal is to shed light on rituals and strategies that work to maintain and/or challenge whiteness within these settings. The two overarching research questions guiding this work are: (1) what can critics learn about the connections between place, whiteness and cultural practices by analyzing deliberation about K-12 education at different locales within the U.S.? (2) How does whiteness intersect, influence, and mediate boundaries of civic identity and national belonging? iv Dedicated to my parents for all their love and support. To Sylvia Fusco for teaching me how to write, and to Chuck and Vilma Donofrio for encouraging me to be curious and ask questions. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I owe a debt of gratitude to the many people who helped me bring this project to its completion. Doctoral school is a long and at times arduous journey and one that I could not have hoped to complete without my advisor, Dr. Al González. His willingness to listen and offer fair and positive feedback encouraged me to continue through this process even when I felt lost in the weeds of a confusing theoretical and methodological forest of ideas. I am honored to have worked with him and cannot express enough appreciation for his teaching, guidance, and friendship. I would also like to thank my committee members, Dr. Ellen Gorsevski, Dr. John Dowd, and Dr. Catherine Stein. I feel quite fortunate to have had a committee that worked so well together. Their feedback as this project developed was invaluable. Ellen and John were particularly generous with their time and supplied me with crucial insights as well as many of the readings that informed this project. In addition to their efforts, I am grateful for the conversations and helpful advice that Dr. Tom Mascaro, Dr. Lisa Hanasono, Dr. Clayton Rosati, and Dr. Sandra Faulkner shared with me about this project and more generally about becoming an academic. I would be remiss if I did not also thank my fellow graduate students, my extended academic family. The list here is lengthy but not exhaustive. I want to offer my deepest gratitude to Matt Meier, Fan Zhang, Chad Nelson, Linsay Cramer, Gabriel Cruz, Graeme Wilson, Xinxin Jiang, Julia Largent, Erika Behrmann, Emi Kanemoto, Sasha Allgayer, Dhiman Chattopadhyay, E. Saygin Koc, and Yen-I Lee. Each of these vibrant thinkers helped sustain me as we traveled through the doctoral process together. They were ever-willing sounding boards for my ideas, and I will always appreciate their advice, wit, and kindness. Our conversations in graduate labs, classrooms, and coffee shops truly helped me solidify the direction of this project. vi Finally, I would like to thank my parents whose love, guidance, and warmth carried me through this long process. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER 1: K-12 SCHOOLS, GOVERNMENTALITY, & WHITENESS………………………………………………………………………...... ....... 1 Introduction…………………………………………. ............................................... 1 Metonym & Cultural Borders .................................................................................... 5 Democracy & Deliberation……………………………… ........................................ 10 Overview…………………………………………………………………………. ... 13 Summary of Case Study Sites………………. ............................................... 14 Statement of Critical Inquiry .......………………………………………….. 16 K-12 Education & Interrogating Whiteness .............................................................. 18 Preview: Critical Method & Procedures………………… ........................................ 20 Summary of Chapters ................................................................................................ 23 CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF LITERATURE: CRITICS, CULTURES, BELIEFS, & BORDERS………………. .................................................................................................... 28 Reflexivity .............................................................................................……………. 28 Place, Positionality, & Intersectionality ................................................……………. 29 Boundaries of Family………………. ............................................................ 33 “I” as the Critic………………. ..................................................................... 34 The Critic, Voice, and the Other………………. ........................................... 35 Explanation of Key Descriptive Terms .................................................……………. 38 Critical Intercultural Communication ...................................................……………. 40 Critique of Dominant Ideologies………………. .......................................... 41 vii Rhetoric & Ideological Criticism ..........................................................……………. 42 Ideological Criticism………………. ............................................................. 44 Whiteness as Strategic Rhetoric ................................................……………. 51 The Local and the Critical Turn ............................................................……………. 52 What is Community? ................................................................……………. 53 K-12 Schools & Education Reform ......................................................……………. 54 Neoliberalism, Class, and Race ................................................……………. 57 Encounter & the Public Sphere .............................................................……………. 63 Regional Cultures & the Borders with(in) the United States ................……………. 65 CHAPTER 3: K-12 SCHOOLS & RACE: DISCURSIVE SHIFTS & SEDIMENTED LAYERS……………………………… ................................................................................ 67 Whiteness, Education & the “Problem” of Brown Bodies in Public Space ............................................................................................... 72 Contestations of “Separate and Equal” K-12 Public Schools ...............……………. 76 Fear & the Legality of State Imposed Racialized Borders ...................……………. 79 Eisenhower and Brown v. Board ..........................................................……………. 84 Eisenhower and Operation Wetback .....................................................……………. 91 Cold War & the Rise of the Model Minority ........................................……………. 94 Kennedy & the Emergence of the Discourse of Opportunity ...............……………. 95 LBJ and Opportunity Discourse ................................................……………. 96 From Opportunity to Standards & Accountability ................................……………. 99 Education Reform as Privatization ..........................................……………. 103 Dimming the Flame, Raising the Bar ......................................……………. 106 viii The Technocratic Project & Education Policy ......................................……………. 108 Big Think & Performances of Whiteness .............................................……………. 110 The Techne & the Discourse of Standards and Accountability……………. 113 Education Ideological State Apparatuses ..............................................……………. 117 Discussion ......……………........................................................................................ 119 Conclusion .....……………........................................................................................ 123 CHAPTER 4: CASE STUDY ONE: JEFFCO SCHOOLS, ORDINARY DEMOCRACY, & RITUAL: EL NORTE & THE FAR WEST ...................................................................... 125 Projects in New Racism ............................................................................................. 125 Whiteness, Media, & the Public Screen ..................................................................... 128 Governing & the Present-Future / History-past Dialectic .......................................... 132 El Norte ........................................................................................................ 136 The Far West ...............................................................................................