In this day long workshop we will be traveling from the RGV-Upper Valley to the Lower Valley and to South Padre Island. We will visit the Brownsville campus, meet with local organizations, engage at the SPI Turttle Center with free time to roaming at the Bay with a Sunset performance at Lobo de Mar. The workshop will be centered on how to do Activism and Scholarship while learning about the USA/Mexico border and Wall. All day of preconference workshop is $90.00 that will include transportation, lunch, and a donation. Dinner will be on your own.
ABSTRACT. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how cooperative gameplay mechanics and design choices can serve as methods to reinforce notions players hold regarding their preferred role(s), or identities, taken up during play of a team-based, cooperative videogame. In this paper, I intend to analyze how different aspects of a videogame—such as how it is constructed and designed—not only influence the ways players spoke about their preferred style(s) of play, but also how they spoke about their understanding of ‘successful play’ and ‘teamwork’ within the context of the videogame Monster Hunter: World.
When the Music Changes, so Does the Dance: Critical Racial Events as Told Through a Narrative Inquiry Beat
ABSTRACT. Palmer (1998) proposes that as teachers "we teach who we are” and that separating ourselves from our instruction is a very unnatural task. This qualitative multi case study explores the lives of two black elementary school teachers through think alouds, written artifacts/ narratives, and interviews as data sources about racialized experiences they have endured. Also, this qualitative study seeks examine the implications of the act of narrative writing and their experiences on the enactment of culturally sustaining teaching in a literacy classroom. Findings revealed that narrative writing as a source of building understanding others and shattering barriers of understanding self.
Identity Formation of Second-Generation Youth of Cameroonian Descent in the United States
ABSTRACT. This essay explores the intricacies of transnational identity development among young Cameroonian-Americans. The paper also examines the intersectionality of socioeconomic and geographic factors influencing the transnational identity development of second-generation Cameroonian-Americans. It argues that cultural identity development among second-generation Cameroonian-Americans is influenced by both. Some of the influential aspects of their cultural identity development as examined in this essay include acculturation during Cameroon’s national days’ celebrations, Cameroonian weddings, wakes, funerals, baby showers, conventions, fundraising, monthly meetings, birthdays, and many other cultural events.
Playing Black as Resistance: African-Descendant Pre-Service Student Teachers Socio-Political Strategies in a White-Mestizo Teacher Education Program
ABSTRACT. This paper characterizes how African-descendant pre-service student teachers mobilize their socio-political identities to navigate a mainstream (white-mestizo) teacher education program in a Colombian public university. The study utilizes a decolonizing framework to analyze how the category “black pre-service student teacher” is created and appropriated in this program. This ethnographic research used data from focal groups, documents, and descriptive statistics to engage with the co-construction of these students’ identity in the said program. Findings point to the epistemic racism that has characterized higher education in Colombia as well as the strategies to adjust and succeed mobilized by African-descendant pre-service student teachers.
Masculinity, Violence, and Moral Education in Contentious Times: Insights from Levinas
ABSTRACT. At the present time, we are confronted with exacerbated violence in and outside schools. In this paper, I am concerned with the kind of violence that has been initiated to avenge challenges to, or simply to demonstrate, one’s masculine dominance and identity. Drawing insights primarily from Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas and gender theorist Bonnie Mann, I argue that redefining masculinity should not be the starting point of addressing the epidemic of the school shooting and other violence because of the loss of the ethical dimension which should be primary.