ABSTRACT
The cited works laid the foundation for critical race theory in education. The field was in its infancy and like any new movement it was attracting many young scholars who were looking for new ways to think about their work and new methodologies for race scholarship. Race has been a constitutive element, an organizational principle, a “praxis” and structure that has constructed and reconstructed world society since the emergence of modernity, the enormous historical shift represented by the rise of Europe, the founding of modern nation-states and empires, the “conquista,” the onset of Africa slavery, and the subjugation of much of Asia. Critical race theory scholarship decries essentialism. Essentialism is a belief that all people perceived to be in a single group think, act, and believe the same things in the same ways. Critical race theorists use storytelling as a way to illustrate and underscore broad legal principles regarding race and racial/social justice.
