Race, Curriculum, and the Politics of Educational Justice

This one-of-a-kind collection will help today’s educators feel and understand the power that communities can harness through organizing and solidarity.

This volume highlights some of Wayne Au’s most impactful essays and articles across his 25 years as an educator, activist, and scholar. In this carefully curated collection, Au traces the development of his politics and analyses of schooling, education policy, curriculum, and racialization. Featuring concrete examples, chapters address antiracist education and the politics of knowledge; the racial politics of high-stakes testing and neoliberal education reforms; and the racialization of Asian Americans as a model minority and its connection to anti-Blackness. Importantly, this book illustrates the power of writing for different audiences by placing scholarly essays alongside those written for teachers, parents, and community members, while also linking educational activism with educational research. In addition to providing a broad examination of the politics of curriculum and educational policy in America,

Book Features:

• Written by an internationally known scholar in the areas of curriculum, multicultural and antiracist education, high-stakes testing and neoliberal reforms, racial justice, and critical education.
• Provides a model for how to translate educational research and analysis between academic and public discourses, embodying the intersections of theory, practice, and justice.
• Combines searing political analysis of education with the hope offered through activism, solidarity, and educational justice.

Wayne Au is a professor in the school of educational studies at the University of Washington Bothell. A long-time educational activist and scholar, his work critically examines issues of power and justice in educational policy and practice. He is coauthor of Reclaiming the Multicultural Roots of U.S. Curriculum.

“Wayne Au unapologetically provides us permission to stare fascism and white supremacy in the face, reminding them both that we have been prepared for this fight on the battlefield of education. Without question, his book is the hammer we need in these turbulent times.”
—David Stovall, professor, University of Illinois at Chicago