The Ban on Mexican American Studies in Arizona: Scapegoating Education (81411)
Session Chair: Mark Beeman
Monday, 27 May 2024 12:45
Session: Session 2
Room: Room D (Live Stream)
Presentation Type: Live-Stream Presentation
In 2010 the Arizona State Legislature passed legislation effectively banning the Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican American Studies Program. State officials charged that the critical pedagogy program was divisive, immoral, hate-based, and seditious. Seven years later the courts overturned the ban finding that it was politically motivated. The ban was the first of several recent attempts to eliminate various aspects of diversity education in the United States. This paper analyzes the Arizona ban as a case study to advance ethnic scapegoating theory. The psychological focus of contemporary scapegoating theory is designed to explain individual acts of aggression, but it is not equipped to incorporate historical and structural factors that sociologists find necessary for understanding social problems. Case study methodology provides two important analytical strengths of central concern to the present study. First, it allows for historical and structural factors to be incorporated into the research, thus complying with the sociological imagination approach. Second, the case study provides empirical evidence independent from prior research making it effective in theory building, especially in developing new theoretical frameworks. The present case study historically contextualizes the Arizona ban by examining educational policy, audits, court records, legislative records, and media reports. The documents indicate that effective educational practices faced sustained organized political opposition in Arizona. Analysis of the empirical evidence shows that the scapegoating process involves normative and structural arrangements that lie outside the explanatory purview of existing psychologically grounded scapegoating theory. The findings provide a foundation for developing a structural-normative framework for scapegoating theory.
Authors:
Mark Beeman, Northern Arizona University, United States
About the Presenter(s)
Professor Mark Beeman is a University Professor/Principal Lecturer at in United States
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