Carl E. James is a professor in the Faculty of Education and in the Graduate Program in Sociology; and is currently the Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community & Diaspora at York University, Toronto. He is also the Senior Advisor in Equity and Representation in the Office of the VP Equity, People, and Culture. He holds a Ph.D. in sociology and an honorary doctorate from Uppsala University, Sweden, where he also taught. His scholarly interests pertain to questions of equity, access, and social justice for marginalized and racialized people. Specifically, in his research he examines the schooling experiences, educational performance, career trajectories, employment opportunities, and social achievements of marginalized and racialized people—particularly Black youth. His recent publications include: “Colour Matters”: Essays on the Experiences, Education and Pursuits of Black Youth (2021).
Below is a full transcript of the podcast.
Dr. Kelly Torres 00:01
This episode of EdTech Hour is brought to you by the Educational Psychology and Technology program at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. The Chicago School’s mission is integrating the values of education, innovation, service, and community. The Chicago School provides students innovative and practitioner-based learning experiences in which they’re able to positively impact others around the world and address issues faced by underserved populations through collaboration with university administration, faculty, and students. The EdTech Hour was created in order to pursue our vision of innovation and global outreach. This monthly podcast series will include thought leaders from around the world who will discuss relevant issues centered not only on technology, but also the impact of technology on humanity. Speakers will provide listeners with stories of how they have impacted learners, employees, and communities through their pursuit of understanding how individuals learn and use technology to improve performance. This show provides a global medium to share and promote various issues and developments in learning and how professionals are utilizing technology. By listening to this show, I hope that you’re able to develop a unique insight into how you can incorporate similar topics and trends into your own professional settings. I look forward to learning more about our topic with you throughout this episode.
Dr. Kelly Torres 01:18
Today’s guest is Dr. Charles James. Dr. James is a professor in the Faculty of Education. He holds cross appointments in Sociology, Social and Political Thought, and Social Work at York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Dr. James is widely recognized for his research contributions on race, gender, class, and citizenship. He recently released his new book, “Color Matters: Essays on the Experiences, Education and Pursuits of Black Kids.” Thank you for being here.
Dr. Charles James 01:51
Thanks for having me.
Dr. Kelly Torres 01:53
So, Dr. James, to start off, could you talk a little bit about your experiences as a youth and community worker in your early career?
Dr. Charles James 02:01
Oh, that’s very interesting. In my early career, I think that’s what set me into looking at issues of Black youth. I worked in a low-income area in downtown. Many of the youth would come and they were very, very interested in basketball. I would facilitate their work in basketball and also would facilitate the interest in whatever other occupation or career they might have. One of the curiosities I’ve always had is, how are they doing in school? I would talk to them. At that time, many of them were recent immigrants to Canada, and, therefore, they were experiencing that adjustment to Canada. Research at that time would account for their situation in school as due to the adjustment to the new Canadian situation and joining their parents. I challenged that because I don’t think it was merely an adjustment, I thought it would have also something to do with the racism and discrimination that might have been experienced in school and the assumption that teachers might have about their potential to do academic work.
So, when I saw them play basketball, yes, that might have been an interest. But it was also, I think, one of the ways in which teachers might have encouraged them to do that, rather than enabling and supporting them as they pursue academic work. What I actually did was play basketball, which was much of what they were interested in. Many of them were Black males. I would also have education sessions as part of the basketball team to come to workshops pertaining to academic work, etc. And in the meantime, I would have discussions with the parents. I was a young person at the time, but I could have been their big brother—so to speak—at the same time. I also went to the schools, made myself known to the teachers. That set me up into looking at youth experience and academic trajectory of young people and the ways we’ve come to make assumptions about the potential of young people, academically and socially.
Dr. Kelly Torres 04:43
Yeah, and that’s nice because when you don’t look at a student, when you only see him in one way, that’s how you peg them. You have that perception of, “Okay, I’m only focused on this kid playing basketball. So let’s just push on that, and I’m not going to worry about academics. I’m going to figure out a way to get this kid through even a bit.” They have the skills; we’re not really pushing for it. So it’s good that you saw that in the students, and you were making them, you know, come out and you’re trying to pull that out of them, to get them to see the other side of things.
Dr. Charles James 05:28
Yeah, and importantly too, is for us to constantly think, it’s not just simply looking at the individual, but also understand how the institution and the system itself operate in the lives of these young people. I do not live independent of the messages my institution gives to me. And I do not live independent of the way in which society creates a kind of image of me. That’s why I’m always looking in relation to how this individual’s experiences can be related to the institution and the society in general.
Dr. Kelly Torres 06:11
Wow. So that leads me to your book, because I read that one of your favorite quotes is “Until lions start writing down their own stories, the hunters will always be the heroes.” And I feel like this quote fits this book because you provide so much detail about the experiences of Black Canadians and the challenges that they face in Canada. So could you provide us a brief synopsis of the book and what it’s about?
Dr. Charles James 06:43
The book, essays about these youth experiences, starts off with my early work in the 1980s. My early experiences with the youth as a youth worker gave me questions that I needed to answer, so I used that to influence and inform my Ph.D. dissertation. I worked with them, had interviews with them to find out about their lives, and most of them were of all backgrounds. Many of them had Caribbean backgrounds, but some were born here. Some were immigrants, and some were coming from working class backgrounds and middle-class backgrounds. So, those interviews were some of the early ones.
In the book, you’ll find that early work, and me constantly revisiting their lives. I interviewed many of them in 1986 and again at 19 in the 1990s. Then again from 1999 to the ’20s. I can tell you how they have done in life so far. I also think that when we interview people, we get them at one particular stage in life. We capture their lives, but sometimes revisiting them gives us much more insight because we can quote to them what they said five years ago, 10 years ago, and say, how has that matched up to what you thought?
I can always remember one person whom I interviewed who wanted to get to America to work in the health care field. I interviewed her in the ’90s, when she was going to university, and then I interviewed her when she had completed university maybe about eight years after. She was, at that time, looking for a job as a hospital administrator. I remember her telling me once about an interview; she was sitting in the lobby waiting for the person to come out for the interview and she was the only one sitting in the lobby. I think it was a Sunday morning, when she was waiting to be called in for the interview. And this guy—this white man—came and looked around, and he said “nobody.” Then he said, “Oh, are you …?” and he called her name, not knowing that she was the person. She was in the lobby waiting all the time. So again, when I interviewed her years later, she’s working as a hospital administrator, and she does a lot of work in that area. So, it’s nice to see.
We can trace how the experiences people might have had over time might have impacted their trajectory, and how they’ve managed to get where they are, the kinds of programs and issues they’ve encountered, and how they’ve managed to encounter them. I remember interviewing one guy as he went to university over a 15-year period. I’m very curious about young Black people who go on to live in the suburbs, especially in white suburbs. The title of the book, “Color Matters,” comes out of my work with some Black youths who went with their parents to the suburbs, talking about the experiences there. As one young person said, color matters, because no matter what they did—as they were interacting with the police, and when they go to the store in those suburban areas—color was always a factor in their experiences and with their parents. So, in that essay I talked to their parents about what they saw in the suburbs, why parents would live in the suburbs, the opportunity they thought they’re providing the children to live in the suburbs, and how children saw living in the suburbs—looking at children’s perception versus a parental perception of life in the suburbs. So those are some of the essays, and what I did. You would have noticed that the essays are some of the early years.
Dr. Kelly Torres 11:50
Yes.
Dr. Charles James 11:51
I’ve written essays in the ’90s, I’ve written in the early 2000s, so over the years it gives a historical category of the messages and the situation over time. And I liked that. What they did afterwards, some of them were of course, updated, some of them were dealt with. I edited some in order to update them, but I gave them to colleagues to react to and respond to—colleagues in England, the U.S., and throughout Canada who would talk about the messages that were given in these essays, how they see it operating in their context, whether they live in the U.S., England, or Canada. I always remember Joyce King’s response to one of the essays. She starts her essays by saying “name them.” And remember, she had written that prior to George Floyd.
Dr. Kelly Torres 13:00
Wow, okay.
Dr. Charles James 13:02
And the book came out this year, after George Floyd. So, it’s interesting, because she started by listing
people who are killed by people in the U.S. and young people [killed] by police in the U.S. Young people were killed in Canada by the U.S. also suggesting that there wasn’t any difference in what these young people dealt with in the Canadian and American situation with regard to police. Another essay that I always remember—[by] one colleague at McGill University, Adele. I have a book she wrote called “Up to No Good: Black on Black on the Streets and Encountering Police.” That essay was written in 1998. She lives in Montreal, and she says that essay could have been written today. And this was in 2019. So, to me, those [essays] give some very interesting communication about the experiences of Black youth throughout the years.
Dr. Kelly Torres 14:11
And how things maybe have changed or haven’t changed over the years.
Dr. Charles James 14:16
They might be similar or different, based on the context, whether in London, England, or in the U.S., or in Montreal in Canada.
Dr. Kelly Torres 14:25
Right. Because in the book, he provided a historical context of Canada, and I said, wow, it looks very similar. It sounds very similar to here, like some of the same things that we were experiencing in our school system that you’re experiencing as well. I like the fact that I was able to really learn more about the history of Black people in Canada because you have this perception of Canada being this progressive state, and then when you really see things are very similar—and they were recent. You were talking about some of the issues in the Toronto school district and how recent some of these issues are and how they wanted to address them. So, it gives you that perspective, like, okay it’s not different everywhere we go, but we’re starting to see these experiences and we’re really starting to talk about them and bring them to the forefront.
That was one thing that you also mentioned in the book, you were talking about critical race theory. And here in the United States it’s been a big issue with critical race theory, where you have governors who are writing laws to ban it in the school system. Could you give the audience a background about critical race theory? You also talked about cultural analysis. Could you talk about how to use it for a framework for understanding the lives of Black people?
Dr. Charles James 16:10
Yes. I always think of my background in sociology. I always think that culture is not one static thing. We all, constantly, every day—we get up creating culture. The society will lead the people that come in and move out all these things that culture is constantly changing—always in motion and never static. Neither can we put boundaries around culture because people are going to take up points and so forth, and intact, so it’s constantly changing. There are no boundaries around it, and therefore it’s one of these fluid things. I always think it’s important pay attention to the cultural context about which we’re writing or in which we are writing, in order to be able to make sense of the experiences of people. No matter how you put it, race matters, or color matters, you know, in this society, in which we live. To say that color is not a factor, and to say that people neutrally exist, there’s no such thing.
When I think of culture, I’d say the cultural context is to pay attention to culture, and also, to pay attention to race. The idea that race matters means that we live in a society, and from the very creation of the society, we have started paying attention to race. The fact that indigenous people were put aside on reserves once Europeans came, they had to do something with how the Europeans understood their relationship to the land. What mattered to these people could have contributed to the development as they conceived of the society, within Canada or the U.S., and how we would pay it.
We use certain kinds of cues to place people in particular ways in which we’re going to interact with them. So, that’s why with an indigenous person we would use different kinds of cues in order to understand that. And, of course, Derrick Bell and others, with regard to critical race theory, of course, we know that it started. Then we’re in the legal system, but of course, it’s been very, very prominent in education. What it simply says for me, is that whatever is recognizing that we operate in a society where race operates in terms of our interactions and perceptions of each other, the value systems that we might have, etc.
When we think of inequity as it exists in society, justice inequity can be based on gender, sexual identification, any number of things. So, inequities might be related to race as well. To say that we’re bringing a race into discussion, it’s not that we’re not pulling it in. It exists. So what sense are we making of it? How are we using it and how will we make an upgrade to advantage or disadvantage others? And so, to me we’re looking at race or critical race theory as just acknowledging what exists and how we how we operate with it.
Dr. Kelly Torres 19:57
I read in your book, you talked about the colorblind approach that we’re trying to have and where you’re trying to take out race. When you think about that, it kind of takes the power away, because you’re trying to say race doesn’t matter. Whereas if we’re trying to empower people from different cultures and different backgrounds, we do have to address it. So, the idea of taking this approach does more harm than good, and really, no one benefits.
Dr. Charles James 20:37
Absolutely, yeah. There’s no such thing as a colorblind society.
Dr. Kelly Torres 20:43
Right.
Dr. Charles James 20:45
We operate based on these things. So that’s not to say that we aren’t important, something that doesn’t exist. When Africans were brought into North America and were enslaved, there were some kinds of assumptions made of their potential and the way that they’re going to be able to exist in society. And if you look back at the immigration laws, if you were bought in Canada or the U.S., you’ll be able to see what sense we made of these people who we’re bringing from Africa.
Dr. Kelly Torres 21:23
Wow, that’s powerful. It’s very powerful. Wow, wow. So how would a teacher go about using critical race theory in the classroom? How could they incorporate that or teach, to empower?
Dr. Charles James 21:44
I don’t know if the way in which I hear critical race theory being discussed, I find it interesting. Because I teach in the classroom, teachers in the classroom use a framework to make it relate to students. I’m not necessarily sure that the teacher goes into the classroom and says “I’m using critical race theory.” So, if the teacher is in the classroom and the teacher is to pay attention to the gender of the students, the teacher should pay attention to the race of the students. And the teacher should pay attention to the class backgrounds. We pay attention because we structure our lessons in relation to who is in the classroom, and if we can incorporate them in the lessons, in the curriculum, etc., then they might be engaged with this, and I might be able to build a relationship. Therefore, I make the learning process quite easy because students are engaged, and they will see themselves in what we’re doing. To me, that’s what a teacher does. Therefore, it’s not saying I’m coming in planning on doing this. I’m coming in because I’m teaching a class.
I’m interested in the students’ success and need to understand the backgrounds from which they come, and how the background might influence what they might want to learn the interest and the opportunities they might have. A teacher must prepare them to be able to do that effectively once they leave class, once they go to another class, or once they leave to university. Therefore, I have to take in who the student is, and the student is a composition of everything. The student is not just a Black student, the student is also gendered with sexual identification, and all these other concepts. So, I’m taking into account all those things. And in knowing that, I should think that I’m being an important educator for that student.
Dr. Kelly Torres 24:08
I like that because it leads into what else I wanted to talk about. You mentioned the term at-risk. I’m a behavior analyst and I work in the school system, so when I go into the classrooms, the majority of the students who are identified with emotional behavior disorder are primarily Black and Hispanic. And so, you had mentioned in the book, the term at-risk is dangerous because we’re not looking at the interventions to help the students, but to place the students, and that’s what I see. What you’re talking about now is how when you go into the classroom, we need to really focus on the student and providing them those skills. Could you elaborate a little bit more about that issue of Black stereotypes that play into the schooling of Black kids?
Dr. Charles James 25:07
I’m always curious, because it’s very long, that history of creating the term “at-risk” or thinking of the student as at-risk. I also think that it’s the conditions we provide that make a student at-risk. When you think, “that student is at-risk” you’re placing risk into the student. Whereas if you take a different stance, and say, ‘I, that student, and the student might be at-risk, but therefore, I need to understand what are the social conditions that might have contributed to this student being at-risk: the family situation, the schooling situation. Therefore, for me, it’s not the student I must look at. I must look at the conditions that contribute to the student being at-risk, and therefore my role there is to minimize or to help address so that student does not end up being the casualty of the system, or the society that that he or she or they must survive in. That’s when I want us to stop and to not say “Oh, the at-risk student,” but move from that.
The other thing that I wrote in that essay to think about is how we create at-riskness in our attempts to reach students. I want to get away from that, from constantly creating, because sometimes we might be able to get more funds because we have at-risk students, or we might not be able to deal with the students because they are at-risk. I also think of how disability might increase at-riskness, you know, not that the student is disabled, but that we assign that at-risk label because that’s what we know. So, I don’t necessarily think it just is the students are at-risk or the teachers. But again, I constantly get back [to] how is the system of education creating these kinds of labels, for us to just take off and really work with the students? It’s not just looking at the teacher doing these things, or the psychologists doing these things, but how the society will create these kinds of labels because that’s the only way we think that we can work with and enable and support these students. So it’s, again, looking more broadly beyond just the individual.
Dr. Kelly Torres 28:01
Yeah, absolutely. And that opens up a wide array of things like when it comes to interventions as well, because we’re really focusing on what the student needs and how to support that student, versus, “I’m going to work on a behavior because that’s what we do.” They need a behavior plan. We need to change their behavior, but like you said, we’re not really looking at all the other things that come into play into this child’s life. And we’re labeling them at-risk. But yet, we’re not looking at the full picture to see what’s making them at-risk. So, I really enjoyed reading that essay because in my field of work, I hear it all the time. When I heard it in the past, that really didn’t bother me. But as I see more kids being put into the system—and like you said, they’re not being held, they’re just being placed—that really helped me to change my frame of thinking about the term and how to help students. I really enjoyed reading that one, so thank you for that.
Another essay that you talked about is mentorship. As a youth, I participated in the mentorship program, and it helped me tremendously because it provided me with the tools to understand the world. What are some of the ways that we construct mentorship programs, so they’re not about stereotypes of children coming from fatherless homes and struggling mothers?
Dr. Charles James 29:43
There are these kids who need mentors because this Black male doesn’t have a father, therefore, he needs a mentor. We got to look for a Black male mentor for him. This guy wants to become a medical practitioner; therefore, we’re going to look for a Black male doctor for him. My unease with mentorship is, “I have done it therefore you can; I’ve made it therefore you can,” and therefore, you might have made it. But what were the social conditions that were around you at that time to enable you to make it? What were the situations that you experienced that provided that, and therefore, I could work with young people and they might not be making it, not that they don’t try. Because we have a whole lot of young people, we can mentor them. But if sometimes conditions larger beyond them, and you as a mentor, do not open up to enable some of the aspirations, the interests, the dedication, or the effort. If some of those things don’t open up, therefore, they will never get where they want to get. So again, isn’t moving just this, I’m your mentor, therefore, I’m going to do it. But I think the mentor has also [to] understand that I might have made it, but what are the conditions under which I make it? And are my mentee experiences the same conditions or are they different, and what do I have to learn as a mentor, to be able to mentor this person knowing that there’s different conditions that he or she or they have to deal with? You see, just simply I’m a Black male. I’ve made it, therefore I can be I can mentor. It’s much more complicated than that. I also feel that too often when we think of mentorship, we think of mentor as because the Black male therefore I but sometimes it’s not just simply the individual, I might like you as a mentor, because of the way you handle a question, how you talk through issues, etc. So your mentorship for me might be more of what you convey in terms of not as an individual, not the social or political, but also other kinds of things. And therefore, we have to see mentorship as not just simply Black male, but also that mentorship might be other kinds of things, you know, because what about the many single mothers, you know. I remember doing some interviews with some males who were teachers in elementary school or law school, because they think these Black young students needed mentors and their support. Many of these males are starting to think these young Black males needed their support to become successful. They were raised by single parents, single mothers, but yet, and there was a class for they know teachers. So obviously, it’s not just simply the male presence.
Dr. Kelly Torres 33:28
Right.
Dr. Charles James 33:29
It’s something else that we have to start thinking about that might have been supported and enable some of these things. So mentorship is not just simply this easy equation. Yes, I am your mentor, therefore, I commend to you. That is the other important thing, to have mentors open to learning from that person. Because if you don’t have respect for what the person can teach you, what good is the mentorship? I think mentorship should also be two-way, actually. Because that younger person, I think, is inviting you or giving you insights into his own heart or their world that you might not have thought about. But it’s important for you to take [it] into account because we live in an interdependent world, and we adults also interact with young people. So therefore, we have to know about them, we have to know about their lives, and not overshadow their lives because I’m now your mentor. I’m not going to pay attention to social conditions, the way you understand the world, etc. So, let’s have serious good conversations as mentors and mentee. Sharing how we understand the world and respecting where we are coming from. And therefore, through those kinds of interactions, we both build understanding that we can benefit from together.
Dr. Kelly Torres 35:05
I like that. And that was my experience as a mentee. Because there were a lot of things that I had, you know, had these questions, and my mentor, he would listen, and he would help me. And it was like you said it was a two-way street because he would talk about college. And that was something that I wanted. But then he looked at my conditions to say, “Okay, well, how can I, what do you need in order to get to college?” So, it really was, like you said, wasn’t a way of, well, this is what you need to do, and this is how you got to do it, and I’m going to show you. It’s more of let’s work together and see how we could make it work for you.
Dr. Charles James 35:45
Yeah.
Dr. Kelly Torres 35:45
And I like that. I like the approach that you discussed in your book about mentorship programs, because that’s something that I’m interested in doing once I graduate, as well. So, it helps with that framework in thinking about ways of teaching youth to be successful in this world.
Dr. Charles James 36:08
Yeah. And too often, because we are adults, we live in such an adult focused world. And there’s an arrogance as adults we bring to relationships with young people, as if we know everything, and we’re going to tell you what you need to know.
Dr. Kelly Torres 36:26
Yes.
Dr. Charles James 36:31
Therefore, too often the mentorship program is premised on we are adults, and young people, we know we know what you need to know. And we’re going to establish a mentorship program so that we teach you what you need to know. But mentorship program to me can be enhanced if we see it as a two-way street, where we are collectively working on an issue to advance the opportunity for both people.
Dr. Kelly Torres 37:03
Yeah, so it’s good points. But I like that. In your article, When Dreams Take Flight, you discuss the experiences of creating the Afrocentric school and the quest for equity for Black youth. [Could] you talk more about this program and the outcomes of the school?
Dr. Charles James 37:22
Yeah. You know, one of the things I think about when that school was created [is] interesting. I was talking to the principal of that school a few hours ago. When that school was created, we created it because we think that Black students need the kinds of curriculum, the kinds of role models, the kinds of teachers and parents to be able to advance themselves. But is that what they need? You know, we have to always wonder. We create what we think is going to go, but we have to sometimes sit back and say, is this working? So, for that school, then we created the school, and we provide teachers, etc., in that school that would enable and provide a curriculum, to respond to the school. And remember, this is because in many cases, we are paying attention to the fact that Black youth in the school system are not getting the kinds of education that they need; it’s not culturally attuned to them. And we need them to be able to succeed, and also to build on the fact that parents think that public education is the way that they’re going to get social mobility. So there is a big investment in education, because if I have nothing else, I can make sure you go to school, and I can make sure that you’re successful. So, the Afrocentric school was built on that premise, to enable the support and what we did in the research with the Afrocentric school. How was it doing? Was it responding to the needs of the students and the parents? And we worked with the school, we worked with teachers, and that’s what that essay is about: to work with teachers to see how the teachers responded to not only students, but also parents and everybody around them. And one of the things that’s also important is how we understand Afrocentricity. Different people have different interpretations of it. And so that’s what we were trying to say. What is it, how is it understood? And how is it used in that school system in that particular school in order for the students to be successful?
Dr. Kelly Torres 40:11
Wow. So the school is still going today, and this was a part of like the initiative with the public school district, so they wanted to see something, and they were in support of it.
Dr. Charles James 40:27
It has been because for years, parents had been asking for something to address the situation of Black students. Because over and over again, research has been showing, the Black students are not doing as well as their peers. They are more likely to drop out, they’re more likely not to achieve in the same way. And also, to address the fact that teachers would come to them thinking of them as having particular kinds of underperformance academically because of who they are, their background, etc. So, parents were very strong advocates for a school that would center [on] the cultural background of the students and provide them the kinds of education where they can relate both to this material that’s been brought to them and the teachers who teach it.
Dr. Kelly Torres 41:25
Wow, that’s powerful. Now, my last question for you is, what advice would you give an early career researcher like me, who wants to focus on research within the Black community?
Dr. Charles James 41:39
I obviously never give advice, but I engage when possible. You know, I think it’s extremely useful. One of the things that I pay attention to, too often over the years that we as a community, we just do things. And sometimes we forget that we should research it, or we should document it. So too often, it’s as if we’re starting all over, because this has never been done before. But of course, people have done it before, just that it was never documented. So I always encourage us, as Black people, to constantly [say], Okay, let’s research this, let’s document it. And so to enable and engage people to think of the value of documenting, or value of research, so what’s important for me so and you’re using Afrocentric school as an example, we started off with, this is what we’re going to do, and we started off research with it. And then a year after we went, did this work, that does not work? And if it worked, why did it work? So we’re constantly questioning and looking into the research necessary in order to see why it worked. And if it didn’t work, what modifications can we put in to make it respond to the students we expected to respond to? And then we constantly documented and building as we documented, because I’m arguing that if you do not methodically examine and do things, you might just simply start. And if it fails, you don’t know why it fails, because you’ve never built research into it.
Dr. Kelly Torres 43:27
Right.
Dr. Charles James 43:28
But if you’re deliberate in methodically researching it, then you become knowledgeable. On another hand, it’s also a way in which others can get a sense of what you tried, and how it worked, and how it might work in their context, and what the differences that they might have to pay attention, their context for it to work for them. So, for me, I always encourage research. I pay attention to how you’re documented and the different ways that the youth action research and the number of scholars in very, very good youth action research in the U.S., youth participatory action research … community participatory action research as well. They’re also there. But you know, one interesting thing about research there, those numbers do not tell us the whole story. So, we have to also move beyond just those numbers or those ideas and those individuals. Those numbers also pay attention to what the qualitative research tells us. We need to capture the voices and the experience beyond just the numbers in order to fully appreciate what the experiences are. So, I like the mixed methods approach. I also like the participatory action research approach. I remember working in one school as a few years ago. I connected with the teacher who was a social science teacher, and I encouraged her to say, let’s turn this social science course into a research course, social sciences research calls for this year. So, the first semester, the students would give them the basics of research, etc. And then the research attempt was for them to do ethnographic research about the community. What they liked about the community, what was attractive, what would they sell to somebody about their community, etc. Documenting that with cameras to take the respective pictures of things. Of course, we have to pay attention so that don’t take people’s pictures, and then, you know, they get cameras to take photographs and so forth. And they were, and so they will build the research. And they might get newspaper articles, everything that they see relevant to that, and they say it’s cool. They come back and they might have done interviews, person interviews, and so when they came back the class, the presentation was the essays of what they took, the photographs, etc., that talk to the researchers, and it’s to have them to think that they’re constantly doing some analysis and researcher—the researcher is not only the scientist who comes in. We have to have the young people think that they constantly engage in those kinds of active ideas as well. So that was one semester. The second semester, we had a different group of students, and we have them do their research. And their research was to also find out about their own lives and where they are in the school and the school system. And so, they had to choose people to interview. They could interview their best friend, they could interview their parents, etc. So, it was kind of an ethnography of themselves that they would present. And, of course, they were for the first time talking to the parents about the parents’ education, because they needed to understand how their parents’ education might be influenced, what the parents expect of them in school, and how that parenting role might help complicate some of the relationship, and why the parents might not have time to come to school, etc.
Dr. Kelly Torres 47:47
Yeah.
Dr. Charles James 47:48
Again, those become very, very good, interesting research. So, you know, youth participatory action research, and that I do a lot with some students. You know, I remember doing this last year, summer, we had about 40 young people—Black young people—and it was online only. They were doing research, and they had to go out and do research. And I was quite intrigued for the entire six weeks or so, that some of the youth would never turn on the camera … but they had to do the research. What surprised me—and I didn’t anticipate one group researched—the mental health issues among young people, etc. And it was that presentation for this guy in our big lesson. He would talk quite a bit, but he never turned his camera on. Never. But when he was presenting his research, for the first time, he turned on his camera … and it was very unusual. You never would have thought that they would have looked at mental health issues among young people. And so the mental health issues, it’s in our research that it’s not always the thing that we come in with the information, but we research to elicit information that people have their own analysis as well in order for us to advance the work that we’re doing. So, I see that as important to the research that we do.
Dr. Kelly Torres 49:45
Wow, that is beautiful right there. And I like that, like you said that it’s not about numbers, but it’s about capturing the lives of the people and truly understanding what makes things work and not just looking at a number to say yes, it was successful or not.
Dr. Charles James 50:08
If you notice one of the essays in the book refers to Color Matters. One guy I interview, I don’t remember, I interviewed him, I say, over a 15-year period. He’s now a teacher in the school. … I interviewed him, wrote up the essay, and I remember the very first time I interviewed him, he said, something I really liked. And I wrote that in the essay because he thought the Canadian education system was good and was responding to Black males. And he was an immigrant, and he thought he had a better education back home, etc. … So I gave him [the essay] to read in order to see my analysis of what he said. He wanted me to take that out. And as a researcher, we have ideas that we know that we want to convey. … And while this person’s name was not going to be on the paper, at least, I felt it was important because he would know what he wants communicated. And he asked me to take that out, and I took it out. But it’s important to pay attention to what people want to know, even though I’m not there. Therefore, the other interesting thing about research, especially with racialized people, and people who never necessarily get a voice to put out into the world, you know, we’re disguised, we use pseudonyms, etc. And there have been times when I interview people, and they say, “No, I want you to use my name, because I want people to know, I’m saying this.” And so those are some of the interesting tensions between what we as researchers do, and how people whom we interviewed want to be known. And again, that essay that I talked about with this young man, that in the book, notice, I wrote up this paper, and at the end of that essay, he wrote his reaction to what I wrote.
Dr. Kelly Torres 52:23
Ah, yeah, okay. So, I have to go back and look at that one there. Absolutely. Because the reactions to the essays were very powerful. And I really liked it, because like you said, it brought up perspective from when you wrote it, or like a certain time period, to where we are today. And there was one essay where I think he wanted to be an athlete—he was a track star. And there were things that as he moved on in life, and he did the same thing, as he reflected on things in the past, he noticed how he had changed so much, because he didn’t feel comfortable in being in Canada, and then all of a sudden, he said, “No, my life has changed.” And like he said, he moved out into the suburbs. And, you know, he started his own family. So, I like the fact that, as an early researcher, we really need to focus on capturing the moments as you collect your data and really have that opportunity to reflect—to see those changes occur within the people. And that the group that you’re studying, and I am with the end being in the process of participatory action research here, you know, you’d like also involved in the research as well.
Dr. Charles James 53:41
Absolutely.
Dr. Kelly Torres 53:42
So, it’s good
Dr. Charles James 53:44
Research, researchers, are not neutral people … and don’t have come in with an unconscious bias. Researchers, your questions that you ask, at the very beginning of the question is informed by your race, your ethnicity, all these experiences of yours of us. How could you have a question to answer unless you know about that question from your experiences? So, we have to admit who we are and how we might be influencing the data we gather, how we gather the data, and the questions we ask. And so, researchers are not neutral.
Dr. Kelly Torres 54:26
And that’s one vein that we need to keep in mind.
Dr. Charles James 54:29
Whether to assume that even the numbers—even though [it’s] quantitative research—and you’re sending out questionnaires, you might think that yes, that’s neutral. Of course not, because the way you construct the questions, and the questions you think that you should be asking are all influenced by your experiences, and that experience comes from a lived experience, or what you have read. And what you’ve read is informed by the places that you traverse, you know, all these kinds of things. So, we’re not, we’re not neutral.
Dr. Kelly Torres 55:03
So I want to thank you for your time today. I want people to go out and pick up the book “Color Matters: Essays on the Experiences, Education in Pursuit of Black Youth.” It is a very good and powerful book, and I recommend it. I’ve been telling my coworkers about it as well. So, it’s really something if you want to know about education, and you want to know about the experiences of Black youth. It’s definitely a book that just because it’s written in Canada, doesn’t just only apply to Canada. So, I want to say thank you for your time. And I look forward to doing this again with you.
Dr. Charles James 55:42
Thank you for having me, and thanks for everything.
Kelly Torres 55:45
Thank you for listening to this edition of that tech hour. I’m Kelly Torres, the department chair of the Educational Psychology and Technology program at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. This podcast was completed by our dedicated faculty, staff, and students. To learn more about the Educational Psychology and Technology program, or if you’re interested in being on the EdTech Hour podcast, please reach out to me at [email protected]