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Identifying Dysfunctional Education Ecologies: A DisCrit Analysis of Bias in

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Identifying Dysfunctional Education Ecologies: A

DisCrit Analysis of Bias in the Classroom

Subini Annamma & Deb Morrison

To cite this article: Subini Annamma & Deb Morrison (2018): Identifying Dysfunctional Education
Ecologies: A DisCrit Analysis of Bias in the Classroom, Equity & Excellence in Education

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EQUITY & EXCELLENCE IN EDUCATION
https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2018.1496047

Identifying Dysfunctional Education Ecologies: A DisCrit

Analysis of Bias in the Classroom
Subini Annammaa and Deb Morrisonb
a
University of Kansas; bUniversity of Washington

ABSTRACT
In this critical theoretical conceptualization situated in Disability Critical
Race Theory (Annamma, Connor, & Ferri, 2013), we identify the current
education system as a series of dysfunctional education ecologies. We next
analyze how dysfunctional education ecologies are maintained through
implicit bias, consider how these biases may impact classroom interactions,
and reframe bias as dysconscious racism (King, 1991). Finally, we explore
how school personnel can use transformative praxis (Freire, 1970) to
actively dismantle these dysfunctional education ecologies through a shift
in both their epistemological and axiological commitments to develop
functional ecologies of learning by enacting a DisCrit Classroom Ecology.

In the United States, education1 settings are not currently fostering the growth and development
of all children. Students of Color2, particularly those with intersectional identities, often lack
access to education opportunities–which nourish intellectual growth. Drawing from the field of
functional ecology, we frame the current education system as a web of dysfunctional ecologies3
where something has gone wrong for many multiply-marginalized Students of Color4. Functional
ecology not only considers the interactions of individuals within ecologies, but also is concerned,
more expansively, with the “function, or at least functioning, of organisms within communities”
(Calow, 1987, p. 60). Tongway and Ludwig (1996) imagine dysfunctional spaces as ones that “lose
an excessive amount of system inputs … as outflows” whereas fully functional ones “efficiently
capture, retain, and utilize scarce resources … Thus compared with dysfunctional … fully func-
tional lose few resources from the local system.” Drawing from Tongway and Ludwig, we believe
that many education settings are dysfunctional education ecologies, wherein multiply-marginalized
Students of Color are not imagined as valuable natural resources. This results in students as
outflows of these dysfunctional education ecologies (e.g., underrepresented in high school gradu-
ation, and overrepresented in special education and disciplinary actions–all of which are linked to
incarceration, and limited college access). Valenzuela (2010) has written on how schooling divests,
or subtracts, the resources (e.g., language, culture) of marginalized youth. We would add that dys-
functional education ecologies subtract, or remove, the students themselves because they are not
imagined as valuable natural resources therefore pushing many of them to become outflows.
We argue this ecological metaphor promotes an epistemological shift in our ways of knowing,
or understanding, education. Consequently, we use the term education ecologies purposefully and
believe it differs from the way education systems are often thought of in terms of economic
inputs and outputs, with students as resources or products. When viewing students as a cost or

CONTACT: Subini Annamma, Ph.D. subiniannamma@ku.edu Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow 2018-2019, Assistant
Professor, Department of Special Education Affiliate Faculty, Department of American Studies, University of Kansas, Joseph R.
Pearson Hall, Rm. 537, 1122 West Campus Rd. Lawrence, Kansas 66045-3101, USA.
ß 2018 University of Massachusetts Amherst College of Education
2 S. ANNAMMA AND D. MORRISON

benefit to an economic system—an economic perspective—differences in lived experiences that

govern how students may interact with historically established power dynamics in a system
become ignored. Said differently, economic perspectives of education often ignore the context
and imagine students as products to be molded or shaped into desirable commodities. However,
when taking an ecologies perspective to education systems, we can see that any change in one
part of the system impacts any other part of the system, both the individual and the community.
We specifically draw on the way in which Gutierrez (2016) framed ecology in designing resilient
learning environments. She characterized education ecologies not as simple relationships between
isolated parts of a system, but instead as complex, interconnected, and dynamic systems.
Additionally, we are rooted in Lee’s (2010) conceptualization of human ecologies in which she
describes the adaptive nature of organisms to shifting environmental pressures. The significance
of this conceptual article lies in our expansion of Lee (2010) and Gutierrez’s (2016) ecological
metaphor to explicitly name the racism, ableism, and intersecting oppressions that animate dys-
functional learning ecologies. Thus, if we frame the removal of multiply-marginalized Students of
Color in education settings as outflows of valuable natural resources from education ecologies,
then we can understand that all other factors within the ecologies are impacted by this loss.
In this critical theoretical conceptualization, we begin by exploring useful tenets of Disability
Critical Race Theory (DisCrit; Annamma, Connor, & Ferri, 2013), and reviewing why education
has become a system of dysfunctional ecologies, within larger societal ecologies. We move next to
analyzing how dysfunctional education ecologies are maintained through implicit bias, consider-
ing how these biases may impact classroom interactions, and reframing that bias as dysconscious
racism (King, 1991). Finally, we discuss how school personnel and teacher education programs
can use praxis (Freire, 1970) to actively dismantle these dysfunctional education ecologies through
a shift in both their epistemological and axiological commitments to develop functional ecologies
of learning by enacting a DisCrit Classroom Ecology (Annamma & Morrison, 2018).

DisCrit as a lens for bias

Our appeal for consciously including discussions of race, racism, and white supremacy in educa-
tion is rooted in an intellectual tradition of Critical Race Theory (Bell, 1976). Born from the
weakness within Critical Legal Studies to articulate issues of race, Critical Race Theory was devel-
oped to center race within the law (Crenshaw, Gotanda, Peller, & Thomas, 1995). Specifically,
since CRT was conceptualized in education, scholars have called for the field to articulate how
race impacts education systems (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). However, school personnel,
teacher educators, education researchers, and others still demonstrate a serious reluctance to
discuss race, racism, and racial injustices openly (Milner, 2010). Instead, poverty is often offered
as a rationale for these disparities. Yet, poverty alone cannot explain the inequities multiply-
marginalized Students of Color experience in achievement (Ladson-Billings, 2006), special educa-
tion (Harry & Klingner, 2006), and disciplinary actions (Losen & Skiba, 2010). Therefore, when
conceptualizing ways to address dysfunctional education ecologies, we argue that racism–and its
intersections with other oppressions–must be explicitly centered.

DisCrit
We draw from DisCrit, a sibling of CRT, to argue for an epistemological shift to identify and dis-
rupt dysfunctional education ecologies. We begin by recognizing how notions of ability and race
are assembled in tandem, and animated through an ideology of normal (Annamma, Boele,
Moore, & Klingner, 2013). That is, all people are compared to the desired standard (e.g., white,
male, able, middle class). Those that do not meet these requirements are imagined as abnormal,
and often constructed as disabled5. Additionally, as we discuss below, multiply-marginalized
 EQUITY & EXCELLENCE IN EDUCATION 3

Students of Color (e.g., disabled Students of Color) are most at risk in these dysfunctional educa-
tion spaces. There are material realities to being raced and abled because whiteness and ability
have been used as property, historically and into the present day, to secure the rights of some
while keeping others from accessing those benefits (Annamma, 2015; Harris, 1993; Leonardo &
Broderick, 2011). Finally, highlighting the voices of the multiply-marginalized can reveal the ways
they resist entrenched inequities.
We rely on all the tenets of DisCrit described above, but for the purposes of this article will
highlight tenet three which offers that the constructs of race and ability are built in the social con-
sciousness, and that those productions have material consequences. As Annamma, Connor, &
Ferri (2013) state, “DisCrit emphasizes the social constructions of race and ability and yet recog-
nizes the material and psychological impacts of being labeled as raced or dis/abled, which sets
one outside of the western cultural norms” (p. 11). That is, when one is viewed as different from
the ideal normative and that difference is viewed as deficit, there are a plethora of impacts. In
this article, we seek to examine the social processes that situate multiply-marginalized Students of
Color as outflows within education ecologies influenced by broader societal ecologies.
DisCrit animates the framing of this article to its analysis, creating a necessary conceptual
framework (Ravitch & Riggan, 2012) to reposition entrenched inequities. For example, we make
specific language choices and explicitly name them as we move through the article, guided by the
understanding that language is one way that systemic injustices and their underlying ideologies
are ossified or resisted. Overall, this framework reflects our commitments to reject deficit-oriented
explanations of disproportionate negative outcomes for multiply-marginalized Students of Color.
That is, instead of examining how students are failing in schools, we focus on how schools are
failing students.

Diagnosing dysfunctional education ecologies

We have less interest in listing a variety of statistics to evidence that Students of Color are faring
poorly in our nation’s schools, then discussing why this occurs. What we do know is that there
are negative outcomes for Students of Color in academic assignment (overrepresentation in spe-
cial education, underrepresentation in Gifted and Advanced Placement) (Ford, 2012), multiple
measures (underrepresentation in high grades, test scores, and overrepresentation in discipline)
(Annamma, Morrison, & Jackson, 2014), and student outputs (underrepresentation in college
access, employment, and overrepresentation in incarceration) (Gregory, Skiba, & Mediratta,
2017). We use the terms assignment, measures, outputs instead of the more common placement,
achievement, and attainment as the latter group of terms situate these as indicators of what stu-
dents earn instead of things education allocates.
Moreover, it is multiply-marginalized Students of Color that are most targeted in dysfunctional
classroom ecologies. Disabled Children of Color are more likely to be suspended and expelled
than their non-disabled Peers of Color and white peers with and without disabilities (Civil Rights
Data Collection [CRDC], 2016). Moreover, Black students equal less than one fifth of schools’
disabled population, but make up half of incarcerated disabled students (Losen, Hodson, Ee, &
Martinez, 2015). It is multiply-marginalized Students of Color6, like disabled Students of Color,
who are most likely to be outflows in dysfunctional education ecologies. Thus, instead of being
valued as resources to be supported in education settings, multiply-marginalized Students of
Color being are imagined as intractable problems to be discarded.
These dysfunctional education ecologies are situated in white supremacy7 and anti-Blackness8.
Said differently, this connection among schools, prisons, and society not only rewards whiteness,
it rejects, admonishes, and eradicates Blackness. Moreover, since ableism works in tandem with
racism, Students of Color are often positioned as less smart regardless of their performance
(Leonardo & Broderick, 2011). Moreover, it is multiply-marginalized Students of Color that are
4 S. ANNAMMA AND D. MORRISON

most likely to be hyper-surveilled9, labeled, and punished in schools (Annamma, 2018). Thus, the
significance of using DisCrit as a framing is to understand the ways racism and ableism are
mutually constitutive, and understand how other intersecting marginalizations target particular
students for removal.
We use DisCrit to analyze one contributor to these dysfunctional education ecologies that
result in student outflows—the bias, implicit and explicit, school personnel hold about multiply-
marginalized Students of Color (Wald, 2014). Although this micro-interactional focus alone can-
not dismantle these dysfunctional education ecologies, when explicitly situating education interac-
tions within the macro-sociopolitical context in which they occur, this positioning has the power
to change practices (Alim & Reyes, 2011). Said differently, this theoretically informed examination
of bias can re-align the expectations and behaviors of school personnel who can, in turn, provide
increased access to education opportunities and outcomes for multiply-marginalized Students
of Color.

Foregrounding tensions and social context

We, as educators10, have major impacts on the lives of students in our care. It is true that we
cannot undo all harm caused by systemic inequities, but we have power to either dislocate or
reaffirm racism and intersecting oppressions; educators are a powerful part of the learning ecolo-
gies of our students (Gutierrez & Vossoughi, 2010). This means our goals must be that we are
disrupting more than (re)producing racism in education ecologies. As Tongway and Ludwig
(1996) argue, ecologies range on a continuum from fully functional to fully dysfunctional. Thus,
in the context of education, ecologies are not simply either functional or dysfunctional as they
occur on a continuum, with many being partially functional. Our goal is not to name all educa-
tion spaces, or the educators within, as fully dysfunctional, but instead to help educators recog-
nize aspects of ecologies they occupy in terms of functionality and support them to improve
these environments for multiply-marginalized Students of Color. We argue, that theory is closely
connected to the lived realities of Students of Color because education ecologies’ outflows—
grounded in teacher bias—connect to students’ experiences.
Explorations into structural racism often cause cognitive dissonance for many who have been
constructed as white11, as they have often been taught that racism is a series of individual acts
(Gillborn, 2005). Thus, naming education ecologies as dysfunctional and situating educators as
part of that dysfunction leads to fear, defensiveness, or stress for many white teachers; white fra-
gility and emotionality are common issues through which educators often discount evidence to
avoid their own accountability in (re)producing racism, white supremacy, and anti-Blackness
(DiAngelo, 2011; Matias, 2013). Traditionally, teacher education programs have struggled
to incorporate racism, white supremacy, and anti-Blackness into their curricula (Ohito, 2016).
We, as educators and teacher educators, engage these difficult emotions and recognize that stress
and discomfort when learning about racism are, in fact, necessary and should be embraced as
markers of the learning to which we are committed (Matias, 2013). In other words, it is only
within the tensions that we can grow (Mendoza, 2014).
We acknowledge that this is both difficult work and that it is our responsibility to act. In other
words, we must also engage in axiological innovations, “the theories, practices, and structures of
values, ethics, and aesthetics” (Bang, Faber, Gurneau, Marin, & Soto, 2016, p. 1) to dismantle dys-
functional education ecologies. When education ecologies are already dysfunctional for multiply-
marginalized Students of Color, there is no place where educators can be neutral bystanders
(Ladson-Billings, 1998). Thus, we must unsettle our deficit perspectives of our multiply-
marginalized students, their families, and communities (Garcia & Guerra, 2004). As educators,
it is not only our responsibility to disrupt the marginalization of the students in our care, it is
our power; the space where we have the influence to act12.
 EQUITY & EXCELLENCE IN EDUCATION 5

Moreover, the social context in which we situate our work is one where educators’ emotions
cannot be the primary concerns. Instead, we center the reality of our multiply-marginalized
Students of Color informed by Critical Race Praxis; one that, “requires exploring the experiences
of racial communities and locating theory development and application within their antisubordi-
nation struggles” (Yamamoto, 1997, p. 830). The extrajudicial killings of Black and Indigenous
peoples, and those at the intersections, are well documented. Images of murdered Black and
Brown bodies flood our social media as stories of men, women, and children being wounded,
incarcerated, and killed fill the airways. Multiply-marginalized Students of Color face “the talk”
about how to stay alive during police interactions (Coates, 2015). Moreover, age does not protect
multiply-marginalized Children of Color from being harmed by police (Meiners, 2007), just as
gender does not protect multiply-marginalized Girls of Color (Jones, 2009; Morris, 2016).
Multiply-marginalized Students of Color come to school with these highly-profiled arrests and
killings on their minds and hearts (Alvarez, 2017). These incidents require multiply-marginalized
Students of Color to carry additional cognitive and emotional burdens when they come to school,
deeply impacting their learning (Geronimus, Hicken, Keene, & Bound, 2006).
This social context of racialized violence does not stop at the schoolhouse doors. Practices that
regularly target multiply-marginalized Students of Color are rampant in education institutions.
As Adams and Erevelles (2016) note, these marginalizing practices are not all fatal, nor are they
all violent enough to cause an outcry by the public. Yet the school-prison nexus’ socializing
practices are violent in their removal of multiply-marginalized Students of Color from education
ecologies (Annamma, 2016).

Implicit and explicit bias

Bias research is not always situated in education, but still has much to reveal about the ways pre-
conceptions may impact multiply-marginalized Students of Color in schools. Considering the
interdependent set of relationships that ecologies are made of, we must understand the ways
biases can impact the educators’ beliefs about and actions toward multiply-marginalized Students
of Color. Therefore, to understand the connections between the varied lived experiences and edu-
cation opportunities of multiply-marginalized Students of Color we explore bias as a contributor
to dysfunctional education ecologies and link this directly with violent acts, in and out of school,
that make up the social context that surrounds multiply-marginalized Students of Color.

Implicit bias
We all harbor implicit bias and such bias often impacts our actions. Implicit bias is a representa-
tive heuristic, “mental shortcuts or rules of thumb that function well in many settings but lead to
systematic errors” (Jolls & Sunstein, 2006, p. 973). Said differently, when implicit bias is triggered,
an individual uses a characteristic to quickly interpret a person or situation (Casey, Warren,
Cheesman-II, & Elek, 2012). Central to its power is that implicit bias operates outside of our con-
scious awareness. Implicit bias supports the concept that even people with positive intentions
have biases, buried within their subconscious, that cause them to treat people differently (Iyengar,
Hahn, Dial, & Banaji, 2009). Such biases are created from a multitude of sources—families,
schools, media, and workplaces are just a few (Casey et al., 2012). These implicit biases do not
manifest themselves in ways some Americans traditionally expect to see racial animus (e.g., white
sheets, Confederate flags, racial slurs). Instead, implicit bias operates with subtler, yet insidious
actions (Dovidio, Gaertner, Kawakami, & Hodson, 2002). Applying implicit bias research to edu-
cation requires us to ask what mental shortcuts are educators using to judge multiply-marginalized
Students of Color that may lead to systematic errors? This is important to question because, as
6 S. ANNAMMA AND D. MORRISON

we witness in the following discussion, acting on bias is a social process linked with multiply-
marginalized Students of Color being pushed out of education ecologies.

De-humanizing youth of color

Implicit bias research finds that Black Americans are “superhumanized,” or viewed as possessing
extraordinary amounts of strength (Waytz, Hoffman, & Trawalter, 2015). This was illustrated in
Officer Darren Wilson’s testimony regarding the shooting of unarmed teenager, Michael Brown.
Though Wilson and Brown were roughly the same height (both were 6’4’’) and weight (both were
over 200 pounds), Wilson stated, “When I grabbed him, the only way I can describe it, is I felt like
a five-year-old holding onto Hulk Hogan” (State of Missouri v. Darren Wilson, 2014, p. 212).
Recall that Brown had graduated high school eight just days before and had turned 18 less than
three months prior to his murder. If a trained officer viewed this Black teenager as superhuman,
could Brown’s teachers view him, and his peers, that way also? The high school Brown attended
was 98% Black and had suspended 45% of its students in 2011 (Goldstein, 2014). Research exposed
that Students of Color are punished more harshly than white children who commit the same act
while in school (Skiba, Michael, Nardo, & Peterson, 2000). Could that be because their bodies are
interpreted as superhuman and therefore more threatening? Implicit bias research seems to indicate
yes, as the same behavior is imagined as more threatening when a Black person does it (Duncan,
1976; Sagar & Schofield, 1980). Specifically, in schools, Students of Color are often disciplined
based on the perceived potential to be dangerous (Vavrus & Cole, 2002).
This superhumanization does not simply apply to Black adults. Black boys were imagined as
older than they actually were at the time (Goff, Jackson, Di Leone, Culotta, & Ditomasso, 2014).
In fact, respondents added an average of 4.53 years to a Black male’s age, assuming that 13.5 year
olds were legal adults. Said differently, participants in this study imagined a young adolescent to
be 18, meaning their expectations about behavior, attitude, and strength would be well beyond
the capabilities of a 13-year-old boy. Furthermore, respondents viewed Black boys past the age of
10 as less innocent than their white peers of the same age (Goff et al., 2014). Additionally, gender
does not protect Black girls. A recent study stated, “That is, beginning as early as 5 years of age,
Black girls were more likely to be viewed as behaving and seeming older than their stated age”
(Epstein, Blake, & Gonzalez, 2017, p. 8). In other words, Black girls had minimal access to inno-
cence and were imagined as more liable for their behavior. Police officers also believed Black and
Latino children to be older than their actual age also (Goff et al., 2014).
This was clearly the case for Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old disabled Black boy that was murdered
by Cleveland police while playing with a toy gun. Rice was shot a mere two seconds after police
arrived. When objections over the murder of a child with a toy gun arose, the Cleveland Police
Patrolmen Association president, Steve Loomis, said, “Tamir Rice is in the wrong. He’s menacing.
He’s 5-feet-7, 191 pounds. He wasn’t that little kid you’re seeing in pictures. He’s a 12-year-old
in an adult body” (Diaz, 2016). Rice’s murder was rationalized through the lens of implicit bias
viewing Black children as more mature and, therefore, more responsible. In other words, Rice’s
size was substituted for responsibility. Consider that this implicit bias can also happen in class-
rooms. This means that educators responsible for them are more likely to view multiply-margi-
nalized Children of Color as older, less innocent, and more culpable for their actions (Ferguson,
2001). Like superhumanization, imagining these Children of Color as adults in small bodies is a
form of dehumanization, which can lead to social protections being removed or reduced—in
schools, this means that multiply-marginalized Children of Color are more likely to be punished
and less likely to be given an opportunity to make amends if they do break rules (Goff,
Eberhardt, Williams, & Jackson, 2008).
 EQUITY & EXCELLENCE IN EDUCATION 7

Minimizing pain of youth of color

In another international study, participants felt less empathy for African victims than their white
counterparts experiencing the same painful stimuli (Forgiarini, Gallucci, & Maravita, 2011).
Moreover, stronger implicit racial bias towards Africans equated to less empathy for their pain
(Forgiarini et al., 2011). This lack of empathy has been witnessed in the field of medicine when
despite comparable pain levels, physicians deny opioid treatment to Patients of Color (Hispanic,
Black, Asian) compared to white patients (Pletcher, Kertesz, Kohn, & Gonzales, 2008). How does
this lack of empathy translate to the social context of the lives of multiply-marginalized Students
of Color? Consider the case of Brehsa Meadows, a then 14-year-old Black girl at the time of her
arrest for murdering her father. Two months prior, Bresha had run away from home “because
her father was beating her mother and threatening to kill the whole family" and yet no one did
anything (Democracy Now, 2016). Meadows’ grades had dropped and she had reported the severe
physical and emotional abuse that her family experienced at the hands of her father (Jeltsen,
2016). Bresha Meadows’ story is one of a young girl in pain, unsafe in her own home, and over-
looked by the adults responsible for her. Could teachers have ignored Bresha’s pain? In general,
could teachers disregard pain of multiply-marginalized Students of Color and, instead, search for
and then react to perceived threats? Again, the implicit bias research indicates yes. Studies have
illustrated that even in preschool, educators spend more time watching Black children for possible
rule breaking (Gilliam, Maupin, Reyes, Accavitti, & Shic, 2016). This hyper-surveillance of Black
and Brown students focuses teachers’ energy on rule breaking, and has the potential to ignore the
pain and strengths of children of color.

Maximizing fear of youth of color

Finally, the deadly ramifications of implicit bias can be witnessed in shooter bias—the decision to
shoot a person whether armed or unarmed, which increases if the subject is Black (Correll, Park,
Judd, & Wittenbrink, 2002). Specifically, respondents in a video game tended to shoot an armed
Black person faster that an armed white person, and were more likely to shoot an unarmed Black
person. Shooter bias also was more likely in groups that recognized stereotypes about Blacks as
dangerous, aggressive, and violent (Correll et al., 2002). In other words, it was not required that
the “shooters” subscribed to stereotypes about Black people to fire; just the fact that the shooters
were aware of stereotypes was enough to increase the likelihood of shooting a Black person.
However “those who do not view prejudice disapprovingly … but nevertheless perceive them-
selves as prejudiced … are more content than others to allow their stereotypes to guide their
behavior” (Glaser & Knowles, 2008, p. 170). In other words, those that admittedly held stereo-
types about Black people were quicker to shoot.
Translating shooter bias into education contexts is essential, as it has several implications.
First, educators may be willing to act on biases to secure their safety, even when their safety may
not actually be in jeopardy. Second, educators do not have to knowingly subscribe to stereotypes,
they just need to be aware of those stereotypes to more rapidly believe the safety of themselves
and others may be in peril and to justify punishing multiply-marginalized Students of Color.
Finally, educators that subscribe to stereotypes about multiply-marginalized Students of Color
will be even quicker to feel threatened and act on those feelings through punishment. What
might this reaction to perceived threat look like in education contexts? Consider the case of the
police assault at Spring Valley High School where Shakara Murphy was sitting quietly refusing to
turn over her cell phone to Ben Fields, a white male police officer. In the video while the young
Black girl is seated, Fields seized her around the neck, pulled her desk over in the process, and
dragged her across the floor. Was the mere act of refusal read as a threat? Again, implicit bias
research suggests yes. Teachers tended to escalate responses to minor misbehavior for Black
8 S. ANNAMMA AND D. MORRISON

students, viewing instances of misbehavior as patterns and interpreting them as more problematic
then when the same acts were committed by white students (Okonofua & Eberhardt, 2015).
Overall, implicit bias research suggests that multiply-marginalized Children of Color13, are
likely to be dehumanized through being viewed as stronger, older, and less innocent. At the same
time, the pain of multiply-marginalized Students of Color may be disregarded and they are more
likely to be surveilled and punished for the same behaviors. The results are deadly for some,
while still others experience violence, less direct but still harmful, at the hands of adults in posi-
tions of authority. Therefore, as adults in powerful positions, educators must disrupt the (re)pro-
duction of dysfunctional education ecologies.
One way to disrupt this harm (re)production is through accounting for implicit biases in class-
room practices. Jolls and Sunstein (2006) call for responding to implicit bias through “debiasing
through law” (p. 977). Additionally un-learning bias has been shown to help overcome shooter
bias (Correll et al., 2002) and the malleability of bias overall (Kang & Banaji, 2006). However,
before we explore reducing bias, we must discuss explicit bias as another way education ecologies
are currently dangerous for multiply-marginalized Students of Color.

Contrasting implicit bias to explicit bias

We feel a brief discussion of explicit bias is important to include, as focusing solely on implicit
bias can suggest that there is no explicit bias in education. Unfortunately, we know that is not
true and some educators, like the general population, subscribe to overtly racist beliefs that create
dysfunctional education ecologies. There are teachers being caught on camera ranting about their
students and using racial slurs. For example, a teacher in Baltimore called her students, “idiots”
and “punk ass niXXXs”14 who are “gonna get shot … because you’re stupid” (Bult, 2016).
Disabled Students of Color face increasing dangers of being targeted by outwardly bigoted
teachers in the classroom. This was the case for Shaniaya Hunter, whose eye condition kept her
out of class, and who recorded her teacher telling her, “I have been around for 37 years and
clearly, you are the dumbest girl that I have ever met … You know what your purpose going to
be? To have sex and have children, because you ain’t gonna never be smart” (Blakinger, 2016).
Another Black disabled student recorded his principal, Kevin Murray of Woodland Hills High
School threatening him, “I don’t need the police man. I’ll knock your fucking teeth down your
throat. … I’m going to punch you in your face. You need to know that. Man to man bro. I don’t
give a fuck if you’re 14-years-old or not. I will punch you in your face and when we go down to
court, it’s your word versus mine and mine wins every time” (Berman, 2016). Murray’s case is
particularly egregious, as he was not charged with any crime while the student was charged with
wiretapping (Berman, 2016), furthering the criminalization at the intersections of race
and disability.
Moreover, the candidacy and election of Donald Trump has legitimized hateful discourse, and
this is reflected in the classroom. Before the election, Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) con-
ducted a survey of 2000 teachers and found what they called the Trump Effect (Costello, 2016),
that illustrated “an increase in the bullying, harassment and intimidation of students whose races,
religions or nationalities have been the verbal targets of candidates” (SPLC, 2016). In the weeks
following the election, SPLC recorded 867 incidents of harassment, the majority happening in
K-12 and university classrooms (Costello, 2016). For example, a white teacher told his Black stu-
dents, “Don’t make me call Donald Trump and get you sent back to Africa” (DailyMail.com
Reporter, 2016). In another incident, a student in Los Angeles recorded her teacher saying,
“I have your phone numbers, your address, your mama’s address, your daddy’s address; it’s all in
the system, sweetie” (SPLC, 2016). Though not the majority, it is important to acknowledge that
some educators have explicit biases that create a climate of harassment and fear in the classroom,
of which multiply-marginalized Students of Color are the targets. For students, who have the least
 EQUITY & EXCELLENCE IN EDUCATION 9

power in schools, this is the immense power of educators in their lives—to make the spaces of
schools and classrooms reflective or disruptive of the context outside of school.
What are, perhaps, even more pervasive are explicitly biased beliefs about multiply-marginal-
ized Children of Color masquerading as beliefs about families and culture. That is, some educa-
tors freely admit that they believe multiply-marginalized Children of Color come from
communities and cultures that are lazy, do not support education, or are deficit in other ways
(Garcia & Guerra, 2004; Harry & Klingner, 2006; Valencia, 1997). Though not explicitly racist in
the same ways as the examples above, these types of beliefs are rooted in color-evasive racism—
one where race is specifically evaded yet still invoked in the imagination (Annamma, Jackson, &
Morrison, 2017). When educators equate multiply-marginalized Children of Color, their families,
and communities with less than, they are engaging in deficit discourse that prevents them from
being able to teach children authentically.
Naming unexamined habits of mind as implicit bias can mask the ways racism negatively
impedes our judgment. We argue that both implicit and explicit bias are better understood as
types of dysconcious racism (King, 1991). In fact, “it is not the absence of consciousness (i.e., not
unconsciousness), but a … distorted way of thinking about race” (King, 2004, p. 73). This is an
essential distinction to make because dysconscious racism can be identified and rebuked with a
critical consciousness (King, 2004) which can, in turn, disrupt dysfunctional education ecologies.
In pedagogic spaces of Schools of Education and the K-12 system, this means committing to a
new vision for classrooms—a DisCrit Classroom Ecology (Annamma & Morrison, 2018)

Moving forward through praxis

Our DisCrit analysis of the bias literature highlights that when discussions of racism and inter-
secting inequities are absent from education discourse, implicit and explicit bias are infused
throughout dysfunctional education ecologies, and contribute to systemic injustice. The epistem-
ology and axiology that underlie these dysfunctional education ecologies are rooted in deficit
notions about multiply-marginalized Youth of Color (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). It is import-
ant to note that race-neutral policies, pedagogy, and practices have not led to race-neutral
outcomes; instead, the opposite of true. Color-evasion, avoiding discussions about race and
racism, has contributed to multiply-marginalized Students of Color being the outflows of educa-
tion ecologies (Annamma et al., 2017). Dysfunctional education ecologies are ones in which par-
ticipants explicitly evade discussions on racism, white supremacy, and intersecting oppressions
even when they produce inequitable racialized outcomes (Milner, 2010). Thus, to repair such dys-
functional education ecologies there is a need for all involved in education today to actively
engage in praxis. Freire (1970) defined praxis as “reflection and action directed at the structures
to be transformed” (p. 126). In order to engage in praxis, we argue that certain axiological and
epistemological shifts must occur concurrently including shifts in educators: (1) building a critical
consciousness; and (2) reimagining perspectives on learning. These moves will allow practices to
shift, enacting a DisCrit Classroom Ecology to transmute structures.
These axiological and epistemological shifts to transform practice were specifically conceptual-
ized to reject dysconscious racism in the forms of dehumanizing Youth of Color, minimizing the
pain of Youth of Color, and maximizing the fear of Youth of Color. Said differently, these moves
refuse to situate multiply-marginalized Youth of Color as deficit and dangerous and instead, call
on Schools of Education broadly, teacher education specifically, and educators themselves to
address their dysconscious racism and its intersecting oppressions. We believe that these three
shifts inform each other to produce a radical cultural critique and must be all engaged with in
order to shift from dysfunctional to a DisCrit Classroom Ecology, described below. That is,
in order to consciously reject individual bias and dismantle systemic inequities, one must commit
to and consistently engage in critical conscious raising to expand to a systems level approach.
10 S. ANNAMMA AND D. MORRISON

These paradigmatic shifts and their accompanying practices are what animate more functional
learning ecologies.

Shifts through critical consciousness

We begin with the individual educator because without a shift in the axiological commitments of
individual educators, there can be little cultural shift in pedagogic spaces. We center critical con-
sciousness work through examinations of dysconscious racism, an inaccurate way of understand-
ing how racial inequities occur. Joyce King further elaborated in an interview,
What you’re saying when you say someone is dysconscious—you’re saying that they don’t have a complete
analysis of social reality. And their analysis is distorted and missing certain elements, which does not call
into question the status quo, and cannot anticipate or leave any possibility for a change in the status quo.
(Brandon, 2006, p. 199)

In response to dysconscious racism, King suggested a critical consciousness is developed. This

critical consciousness can only be advanced when, “a reengagement with [students’] knowledge
base” (p. 200) occurs.
Though critical conscious raising may seem like a limited individual approach, we argue that
because Schools of Education, and the field of teacher education specifically, have been overly-
focused on reflection, this is actually a radical shift. When educators focus on their own privilege
in the classroom, their reflections become self-centered and this limits their capability to under-
stand how their power is embodied and enacted in their own classrooms, schools, and society.
This centering of the privileged and powerful further erases multiply-marginalized People of
Color, who are already underrepresented in the curriculum (Au, Brown, & Calder on, 2016).
We extend this critical consciousness raising—that King described as reflection—to explicitly
address racism; this conscious raising must explicitly consider racism’s intersections with other
marginalizing oppressions, both in the classroom and society. For educators to engage in a radical
critique, they must understand how societal inequities are (re)produced in dysfunctional learning
ecologies and how shifts in their own consciousness and understanding of learning can disrupt
intersectional injustices. Moreover, educators must link their actions to ways systems are repro-
duced or disrupted in their pedagogic spaces. To facilitate this, teacher education programs must
commit to developing educators’ critical consciousness throughout their curriculum. That is, a
single course (or few classes) that emphasize(s) diversity or even systemic inequities is not enough
to challenge the entrenched views that are supported by ideologies of racism, white supremacy,
and intersecting oppressions (Broderick & Lalvani, 2017; King, 2004). Instead, teacher education,
and Schools of Education more broadly, must redesign curriculum so entire programs, certifica-
tions, and departments engage in developing critical consciousness that recognizes intersectional
systemic inequities.

Shifting perspectives on learning

We must re-imagine our education ecologies to be focused on learning as a process instead of as
a thing to be achieved. Greene (1978) noted,
The point is that learning must be a process of discovery and recovery in response to worthwhile questions
rising out of conscious life in concrete situations. And learning must be in some manner emancipatory, in
the sense that it equips individuals to understand the history of the knowledge structures they are
encountering, the paradigms in use in the sciences, and the relation of all these to human interests and
particular moments of human time. (p. 19)

When learning is imagined as a process then, it is something that both educators and students
engage in daily. The focus on educator as expert is exchanged for educator as co-learner with
 EQUITY & EXCELLENCE IN EDUCATION 11

students (Rogoff, 1994). This epistemological shift requires educators to position multiply-margi-
nalized Students of Color as valuable natural resources whose knowledge must be learned from,
built on, and centered in classrooms. Thus, educators recognize the value of learning as a means
of discovery, seeking out answers to questions that arise from the lives of multiply-marginalized
Students of Color. Shifting perspectives to learning as a process has deep implications for Schools
of Education, including the various departments (e.g., teacher education, special education, cur-
riculum and instruction), such as shifting underlying ideologies from one where the teacher is the
savior of Students of Color to one where the teacher is a learner from and with multiply-margi-
nalized Students of Color. Moreover, it forces a conversation in Schools of Education about the
humility of teacher educators and teachers—shifting their job to learning instead of regurgitating
facts or acting as the sole expert (Annamma, 2018).

DisCrit classroom ecology as transformative praxis

Ultimately, we believe there is more work to be done on dismantling dysfunctional education
ecologies by reimagining a holistic classroom ecology that explicitly recognizes the role of racism
and intersecting oppressive processes. At present, we believe reframing and analyzing bias allows
us to identify the processes that (re)produces dysfunctional education ecologies through a DisCrit
lens. Consequently, we have illustrated how dysconscious racism and its intersecting oppressions
contribute to dysfunctional ecologies. Using these axiological and epistemological shifts, we hope
to collectively work toward more fully functional ecologies of learning, through developing a crit-
ical consciousness and harnessing students’ knowledge as valuable natural resources. We link
King’s ideas of developing critical consciousness to combat dysconscious racism that contributes
to dysfunctional education ecologies for Students of Color with Maxine Greene’s work on land-
scapes of learning. Greene (1978) stated, “To be in touch with our landscapes is to be conscious
of our evolving experiences, to be aware of the ways in which we encounter the world” (p. 2).
In order to create functional ecologies of learning, we must explicitly name racism, white suprem-
acy, and anti-Blackness and the ways they contribute to intersecting marginalizing processes in
the classroom and beyond. Moreover, we must deeply link this work with what students already
know, and harness the knowledge they bring into the classroom (Love, 2016). That is, we not
only imagine students as valuable natural resources in the classroom, but we “efficiently capture,
retain, and utilize” their knowledge in the curriculum, relationships, and pedagogy in which
we engage.
A DisCrit Classroom Ecology then, rejects the epistemology and axiology rooted in deficit-
oriented tropes about learning and behavior of multiply-marginalized Students of Color that
animate dysfunctional education ecologies (Annamma & Morrison, 2018). Building on the intel-
lectual traditions of ethnic studies, culturally relevant, culturally responsive, culturally sustaining,
critical race pedagogies, a DisCrit Classroom Ecology extends them by:

(1) situating the work in an intersectional theoretical framing to recognize the interlocking
oppressions that Students of Color often face; (2) braiding the components of DisCrit
Curriculum, DisCrit Pedagogy, and DisCrit Solidarity together to create a robust conceptual-
ization of DisCrit Classroom Ecology; and (3) animating the three with DisCrit Resistance, a
conceptual underpinning that runs through each of the constructs (Annamma & Morrison,
2018, p. 71).

Pedagogic spaces entrenched in a DisCrit Classroom Ecology are purposefully designed to rec-
ognize that multiply-marginalized Students of Color have knowledge that educators can excavate
through three essential and intertwined constructs: (1) DisCrit Curriculum—learning the history
and present realities of multiply-marginalized Students of Color, and teaching about ways
12 S. ANNAMMA AND D. MORRISON

historical and structural inequities and opportunities are (re)produced and resisted; (2) DisCrit
Pedagogy—disrupting the status quo perceptions about, and exploring the multidimensional
assets of, multiply-marginalized Students of Color; and (3) DisCrit Solidarity—positioning
students’ actions in the classroom as Strategies of Resistance, responses to interpersonal and state
violence filled with savvy and ingenuity, and teaching them how to channel that resistance to
dismantle the inequities they face (Annamma, 2018). If a DisCrit Classroom Ecology was commit-
ted to within Schools of Education, teacher educators themselves would have to be committed to
a critical understanding of intersectional systemic inequities and be able to translate that informa-
tion to teacher candidates. In K-12, this means that the educators within would have to interro-
gate their classroom and school practices for how intersectional inequities are (re)produced and
disrupted through a DisCrit Classroom Ecology. Thus, the epistemological and axiological shifts
we describe above would be linked with practices in pedagogic spaces, resulting in transformative
praxis (Freire, 1970).
These three shifts then—developing educator critical consciousness, expanding perspectives on
learning, and implementing a DisCrit Classroom Ecology—result in a radical transformation in
pedagogic spaces that have traditionally created dysfunctional education ecologies for multiply-
marginalized Students of Color. These dynamic epistemological and axiological shifts are required
for educators to engage in transformative praxis, one that consciously rejects dysconscious racism
and its intersecting oppressions and disrupts systemic inequities through linking theory
and practice.

Future directions for policy and practice

The work of Lee (2010) and Gutierrez (2016) encourages education researchers and educators to
traverse disciplinary boundaries to understand (re)production of education inequities and possi-
bilities. This commitment stands in contrast to epistemic apartheid, or knowledge that is
“conceptually quarantined along racially gendered, religious, sexual orientation, and class lines,
which ultimately and truculently translates into … disciplinary borders and boundaries”
(Rabaka, 2010, p. 16). We leverage the intellectual lineage of all of these theorists to transgress
artificially constructed disciplinary boundaries—using ecology to conceptualize education dysfunc-
tionality, and several other fields (e.g., law, psychology, health) to understand implicit bias as
what animates dysfunctional ecologies, and infuse these knowledges back into education to create
healthy learning ecologies. Like our intellectual ancestors, we also transcend the physical and psy-
chological boundaries constructed by the academy to center the community cultural wealth held
by our multiply-marginalized students, their families, and communities (Yosso, 2005).
As Looi (2001) stated, “The ecology metaphor of learning views … environments to be seen
from a systemic perspective, and to understand learning at a rich diversity of levels, in which the
participants interact within and between each level” (p. 13). We agree, and believe that the signifi-
cance of this article is recognizing that a systems level approach must be both intersectional and
transdisciplinary in order to remediate dysfunctional education ecologies. This intersectional and
transdisciplinary commitment allows us to (1) center multiply-marginalized Students of Color by
explicitly naming the intersectional oppressions they face and (2) reimagine education ecologies
as ones where multiply-marginalized Students of Color are positioned as valuable natural resour-
ces that we must protect and sustain.
In order to engage this type of praxis, future policy and practice must resist epistemic apart-
heid. That is, policy cannot be unidimensional in its aims to redress systemic oppression; multiple
axis of marginalization must be named and disrupted. In order to improve education practice,
the body of literature we are informed by must transverse disciplinary boundaries. Both must be
informed by knowledge from within and outside the academy. To engage praxis then, future pol-
icy and practice must be driven by an intersectional and transdisciplinary approach that allows
 EQUITY & EXCELLENCE IN EDUCATION 13

multiply-marginalized Children of Color opportunities to survive and thrive by positioning them

as valuable natural resources in education.

Notes
1. “Education” instead of “educational” is intentionally used as we are specifically concerned here with
activity within school-based K-12 education environments (nouns) not any education experience, setting,
or activity (adverbs) that occurs across a wide range of everyday settings.
2. As per Neil Gotanda (1991), we intentionally choose to capitalize “Black,” while leaving “white” not
capitalized. In the same spirit we also capitalized phrases, such as Students of Color, and others.
Gotanda’s (1991, p. 4) twelfth footnote explains the reasoning for our stylistic choice.
3. Ecology is the study of interactions between organisms and their environment. Ecosystems are the
community of organisms interacting within a specific environment and interacting as a system. We use
the term ecology, which has been taken up more broadly in education literature, but note that it should
include a systems perspective that is indicated within ecosystems.
4. We use the term multiply-marginalized to refer consistently to the intersecting oppressions that impact
students. This is not to smooth over difference, but to recognize that students who experience multiple
oppressions are most in danger in school settings and society. When we use multiply-marginalized
Students of Color, we are centering race while purposefully drawing attention to the fact that those most
vulnerable to individual and systemic oppression are Students of Color at the intersections with other
identities (e.g., disability, gender and sexual diversity, class).
5. Using disabled students instead of students with disabilities is a purposeful language choice, shifting from
the person-first to the identity-first, a change for which many in the disability community have repeatedly
called. They argue that if we imagine disability as a political identity with immense possibilities, instead of
a deficit, then we do not need to say “person with a disability.” Instead disability is an identity to be
claimed, similar to race. There needs to be no euphemisms for disabled (e.g., differently abled) or hiding
from the term disabled. See Brown’s (2011), “Identity and Hypocrisy: A Second Argument Against
Person-First Language.” We also have stopped using the slash in dis/ability due to similar calls that this is
another euphemism for difference. Also, by using the slash to highlight the social construction of
disability to non-disabled people, we were centering non-disabled people (the powerful) as our audience.
Instead, we encourage those who are non-disabled to learn from the Disabled People of Color who have
claimed disability as a social construction AND a political identity such as Patti Berne, Mia Mingus,
Leroy Moore, Alice Wong, T.L. Lewis, and Vilissa Thompson, among others.
6. This is true of other multiply-marginalized Students of Color. Girls of Color are overrepresented in
special education and incarceration (Morris, 2016). LGBTQ Students of Color are overrepresented in
disciplinary actions (Burdge & Licona, 2014). Hence, the point is that students at the intersections of
multiple oppressions are most susceptible to labeling, surveillance, and punishment (Annamma, 2018).
Said differently, multiply-marginalized Students of Color are most likely to be positioned as outflows.
7. We use Gillborn’s (2005) definition of white supremacy, “The most dangerous form of ‘white supremacy’
is not the obvious and extreme fascistic posturing of small Neo-Nazi groups, but rather the taken-for-
granted routine privileging of white interests that goes unremarked in the political mainstream” (p. 2).
We argue that this simple definition should not distract us from the power of white supremacy. Rabaka
(2010) notes, “White supremacy serves as the glue that connects racism to colonialism, and racism to
capitalism” and therefore we must fully recognize its “global, historical, cultural, social, political, legal and
economic influence and impact” (p. 147).
8. Anti-Blackness is the way white supremacy is upheld; white supremacy privileges white interests and
punishes Black humanity. This does not mean that no other racial groups beside Black people are
oppressed. Instead there is a permanent fixture of white on top, and Black on the bottom with other
Groups of Color in the middle (Bonilla-Silva, 2006). These Groups of Color are racialized “at different
times, in response to [the dominant group’s] shifting needs” (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001, p. 8).
9. All students are watched, or under surveillance, in schools (Maguire, Ball, & Braun, 2010). However,
several studies have shown that Students of Color are watched more closely and punished more harshly
for misbehaviors (Emihovich, 1983; Ferguson, 2001; Monroe, 2005), resulting in hyper-surveillance.
10. As former and current educators in the education system, we feel it is necessary to name ourselves as
educators. This is to recognize both the culpability we hold as educators who have reproduced racism and
intersecting marginalizing oppressions, despite our best intentions, and the possibility of doing better.
Therefore, this is not an accusatory discussion focused on “those teachers,” but a “calling in” to all
responsible for educating, in both formal and informal settings, to unlearn oppressive practices. It is clear
that educators are both the marginalized—by education policies and administrative dictates which hyper-
14 S. ANNAMMA AND D. MORRISON

surveil teachers’ pedagogy, curriculum, and disciplinary approaches—and the marginalizing, their power
reverberating in the classroom through interactions with students.
11. This is not to suggest that Teachers of Color do not perpetuate white supremacy. Instead, it is to
recognize that the majority of the teaching force is white (U.S. Department of Education, 2016) and that
white teachers often experience particular types of cognitive dissonance when learning about systemic
racism. Research has indicated that Teachers of Color are more aware of racism infused in society due to
their own experiences (Kohli, 2009).
12. Our goal is not to label people as anti-racist activists or allies, but instead to center our attention on the
actions of disrupting racism. In other words, we emphasize action over labels.
13. It is important to note that the majority of implicit bias research cited here is focused on experiences of
Black people, which makes sense given white supremacy’s use of anti-Blackness. However, other bias
work addresses how particular Groups of Color also experience bias (Dovidio & Fiske, 2012). Differential
racialization means that Bodies of Color are punished for their proximity to Blackness. We find it
important to use the term “Children/Students of Color” to recognize how all non-white appearing
students may experience varying degrees of bias in the classroom, while simultaneously distinguishing the
unique oppression that Black students face due to anti-Blackness.
14. We find it important to share these examples but have no wish to repeat the slurs used by educators in
the various situations. Therefore, we will XX-out racial slurs.

Notes on contributors
Subini Annamma, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at the University of Kansas. Her research focuses on increasing
access to equitable education for multiply-marginalized communities. She critically examines the mutually constitu-
tive nature of racism and ableism, how they interlock with other marginalizing oppressions, and how these inter-
sections impact education in urban schools and youth prisons. Annamma positions students as knowledge
generators, exploring how their resistance disrupts systemic inequities and reimagines education as a libera-
tory space.
Dr. Deb Morrison has a background in ecosystem ecology, science classroom instruction, and learning sciences.
Her work centers along the research-practice boundary to disrupt inequities and foster equitable science learning
activity. She is deeply engaged in praxis to promote environmental justice in all aspects of her life.

Acknowledgments
We thank each of the readers who has offered support in the development of this article. Thank you to Cati de los
Rıos, Felicia Moore Mensah, and David Stovall. Your expertise and feedback strengthened this article. Additionally,
thank you to the reviewers and editors of EEE. We appreciate the time each of you committed in order to grow
the concepts presented in this article.

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