Marcus Croom

As a race critical researcher and an experienced educator, my mission is to cultivate more human fulfillment and mitigate human suffering. I launched my research career through the Literacy, Language and Culture program, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. My dissertation study (Croom, 2018) investigated teachers’ conceptualization(s) of race in literacy instruction with Black children. This work makes a theoretical and empirical contribution to the fields of Education and Literacy.

Within my broader inquiries of race and literacies, I continue to document teachers’ understandings of race and examine the influence these understandings may have on teacher efficacy, student identification, pedagogical reasoning, and teaching practices in literacy. Typically, I generate knowledge through case study and qualitative methods using post-White vindicationist philosophy, practice of race theory (PRT), and race critical practice analysis. Still, counts and comparison of averages can also be meaningful in this orientation to data analysis.

Concisely, I use research and experience to help individuals and groups develop racial literacies and thereby advance the justice, antiracism, diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts of schools, universities, businesses, organizations, and communities.

Publications from my scholarship include: Real talk? How to discuss race, racism, and politics in 21st century American schools published by Brio Education Consulting, LLC (2021); Black Lives Matter panel: A generous invitation to The Archive, co-authored and published in Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice (2021); A case study from "Barracoon: The story of the last 'Black Cargo'" with practice of race theory, published in The Journal of Negro Education (2020); If "Black Lives Matter in Literacy Research," then take this racial turn: Developing racial literacies, published in Journal of Literacy Research (2020); Literacies of interrogation and vulnerability: Reimagining preservice teacher preparation designed to promote social justice in education, co-authored and published in Springer Handbook on Promoting Social Justice in Education (2019); “Sometimes things get worse before they get better”: A counter-narrative of White suburban school leadership for racial equity, co-authored and published in Leadership and Policy in Schools (2019); Meet me at the corner: The intersection of literacy instruction and race for urban education, published in Urban Education (2018); Reading ‘The Crisis in Black Education’ from a post-White orientation, published in the Black History Bulletin (2016).