Re-imagining griots: investigating the curriculum stories male educators of color tell

Abstract

Intricately weaving an experiential view of curriculum (Dewey, 1922) with the ideologies of literary theorist Rosenblatt (1938), semiotics, and feminist epistemology, this dissertation theorizes curriculum as a unique story. Multidimensional, these stories trace knowledge acquisition and production simultaneously. Furthermore, Gates’ (1983) historiography of signification within the Black literary tradition contextualizes these stories as amalgamations of racially codified signs positioned to mediate agency displacement. Employing qualitative and narrative inquiry-based case study methodology (Connelly & Clanindin, 1990; Stake, 1995; Yin, 2009), whereby narrative (storytelling) is both data and method, this dissertation study analyzes how male educators of color construct curriculum narratives from their professional and lived experiences, how these stories are deconstructed and assigned meaning (or read) by students, and explores the potential impact these stories have on praxis/learning, as well as their ability to perpetuate, subvert, and/or disrupt hegemonic notions of curriculum.