Alexandra Freidus
Biographic Data
| ID | 3638972 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alexandra Freidus |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alexandra |
| FAMILY NAME | Freidus |
| SIGNATURE | FREIDUS A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Seton Hall University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4452-3247 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 44 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 13 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Justice-Oriented Visions for Public Education in a Multiracial Democracy
Brown v. Board of Education has played a central role in imagining educational justice in the United States. However, the lessons that we should draw from school desegregation is contested terrain, and desegregation efforts have largely failed both to grapple with the country’s multiracial constituency and to offer a positive vision for schools. In this essay, we use theoretical conceptualizations of justice, relational theories of race, and rese…
Unequal Lessons
Unequal Lessons
Aníbal Quijano
White Organizers and White Organizations? Dilemmas of Whiteness in a Youth-Led Movement for School Integration
In this ethnographic study, Alexandra Freidus investigates the dilemmas of whiteness that challenge a youth-led campaign for school integration in New York City. Analyzing field observations, interviews, and internal documents, she illustrates the ways whiteness shaped young people’s identities as allies and activists, contributed to an organizational culture that many members of color considered a “White space,” and operated as both an asset and…
Good Schools, Bad Schools
In this introduction, we outline the scholarly context and research questions that motivate this special issue: In what ways do racialized constructions of school quality open up or foreclose educational opportunity? How do understandings of school quality differ across local social, political, and demographic contexts? And lastly, at what points and in what ways is the school choice process itself racialized? We then introduce the five papers in…
Segregation, Diversity, and Pathology
Discussions of school integration often contrast the perceived deficits of segregated schools with the perceived strengths of schools with diverse student bodies. In this study, I examine the relationships that school community members infer between student demographics and school quality in diversifying areas of New York City. I use portraits of three New Yorkers to examine the ways that school community members reluctantly re-inscribe the stigm…
Looking Smart
Drawing on a year of participant observation in an untracked, diversifying middle school, I examine how sixth graders positioned themselves and were positioned by others as "smart" or "not smart." I focus on peer interactions during cooperative small group instruction, identifying the material, relational, and ideational resources students used to navigate academic and racial hierarchies. I explore implications for researchers and practitioners w…
“I Didn't Have a Lesson”
Background/Context Despite its emphasis on pluralism, empirical research on asset-based pedagogies has typically focused on culturally, linguistically, or racially homogeneous groups of students. The rise of interest in culturally relevant pedagogy in the 1990s coincided with the resegregation of many school districts. As a result, few scholars have considered what it might look like to decenter whiteness in classrooms that include a significant …
“Problem Children” and “Children with Problems”
This article examines the ways Hazel, a white girl entering kindergarten, became known as a child with a problem rather than a problem child in her gentrifying school. Building on a year of classroom observations and interviews with students, school staff, and parents, author Alexandra Freidus identifies the role of racialized discourses related to disposition, medicalization, family, and community in shaping Hazel’s reputation and contrasts Haze…
Modes of Belonging
This article examines the frameworks that stakeholders bring to debates about diversifying schools in gentrifying areas of New York City. Using critical ethnographic methods, I explore stakeholders’ hopes and fears about the effects of shifting school demographics and the relationships between student demographics and school quality. I find that stakeholders use racialized discourses of belonging to discuss whether, why, and how student demograph…
A Great School Benefits Us All
Middle-class, professional, and White families in gentrifying cities are increasingly choosing neighborhood public schools. As critical consumers of public education, these families frequently bring not only new resources to schools but also new demands. This article examines the process of "school gentrification" by analyzing the discourse of a neighborhood parents' listserv. I find that as they worked to make their local public school "great," …
From “Good Will” to “Anachronism”
This article explores the challenges that have made the pursuit of school integration difficult in the contemporary era. Using court records and newspaper archives, we explore how a New York City school desegregation order came to be seen as “unnecessary,” “unfair,” and “anachronistic,” claims that seem to deny the salience of race in one of the most segregated school systems in the nation. In 1974, Mark Twain Junior High School in Coney Island b…
A Great School Benefits Us All
Middle-class, professional, and White families in gentrifying cities are increasingly choosing neighborhood public schools. As critical consumers of public education, these families frequently bring not only new resources to schools but also new demands. This article examines the process of "school gentrification" by analyzing the discourse of a neighborhood parents' listserv. I find that as they worked to make their local public school "great," …
Modes of Belonging
This article examines the frameworks that stakeholders bring to debates about diversifying schools in gentrifying areas of New York City. Using critical ethnographic methods, I explore stakeholders’ hopes and fears about the effects of shifting school demographics and the relationships between student demographics and school quality. I find that stakeholders use racialized discourses of belonging to discuss whether, why, and how student demograph…
From “Good Will” to “Anachronism”
This article explores the challenges that have made the pursuit of school integration difficult in the contemporary era. Using court records and newspaper archives, we explore how a New York City school desegregation order came to be seen as “unnecessary,” “unfair,” and “anachronistic,” claims that seem to deny the salience of race in one of the most segregated school systems in the nation. In 1974, Mark Twain Junior High School in Coney Island b…
Looking Smart
Drawing on a year of participant observation in an untracked, diversifying middle school, I examine how sixth graders positioned themselves and were positioned by others as "smart" or "not smart." I focus on peer interactions during cooperative small group instruction, identifying the material, relational, and ideational resources students used to navigate academic and racial hierarchies. I explore implications for researchers and practitioners w…
From “Good Will” to “Anachronism”
This article explores the challenges that have made the pursuit of school integration difficult in the contemporary era. Using court records and newspaper archives, we explore how a New York City school desegregation order came to be seen as “unnecessary,” “unfair,” and “anachronistic,” claims that seem to deny the salience of race in one of the most segregated school systems in the nation. In 1974, Mark Twain Junior High School in Coney Island b…
A Great School Benefits Us All
Middle-class, professional, and White families in gentrifying cities are increasingly choosing neighborhood public schools. As critical consumers of public education, these families frequently bring not only new resources to schools but also new demands. This article examines the process of "school gentrification" by analyzing the discourse of a neighborhood parents' listserv. I find that as they worked to make their local public school "great," …
“I Didn't Have a Lesson”
Background/Context Despite its emphasis on pluralism, empirical research on asset-based pedagogies has typically focused on culturally, linguistically, or racially homogeneous groups of students. The rise of interest in culturally relevant pedagogy in the 1990s coincided with the resegregation of many school districts. As a result, few scholars have considered what it might look like to decenter whiteness in classrooms that include a significant …
“Problem Children” and “Children with Problems”
This article examines the ways Hazel, a white girl entering kindergarten, became known as a child with a problem rather than a problem child in her gentrifying school. Building on a year of classroom observations and interviews with students, school staff, and parents, author Alexandra Freidus identifies the role of racialized discourses related to disposition, medicalization, family, and community in shaping Hazel’s reputation and contrasts Haze…
Modes of Belonging
This article examines the frameworks that stakeholders bring to debates about diversifying schools in gentrifying areas of New York City. Using critical ethnographic methods, I explore stakeholders’ hopes and fears about the effects of shifting school demographics and the relationships between student demographics and school quality. I find that stakeholders use racialized discourses of belonging to discuss whether, why, and how student demograph…
Good Schools, Bad Schools
In this introduction, we outline the scholarly context and research questions that motivate this special issue: In what ways do racialized constructions of school quality open up or foreclose educational opportunity? How do understandings of school quality differ across local social, political, and demographic contexts? And lastly, at what points and in what ways is the school choice process itself racialized? We then introduce the five papers in…
Segregation, Diversity, and Pathology
Discussions of school integration often contrast the perceived deficits of segregated schools with the perceived strengths of schools with diverse student bodies. In this study, I examine the relationships that school community members infer between student demographics and school quality in diversifying areas of New York City. I use portraits of three New Yorkers to examine the ways that school community members reluctantly re-inscribe the stigm…
Looking Smart
Drawing on a year of participant observation in an untracked, diversifying middle school, I examine how sixth graders positioned themselves and were positioned by others as "smart" or "not smart." I focus on peer interactions during cooperative small group instruction, identifying the material, relational, and ideational resources students used to navigate academic and racial hierarchies. I explore implications for researchers and practitioners w…
White Organizers and White Organizations? Dilemmas of Whiteness in a Youth-Led Movement for School Integration
In this ethnographic study, Alexandra Freidus investigates the dilemmas of whiteness that challenge a youth-led campaign for school integration in New York City. Analyzing field observations, interviews, and internal documents, she illustrates the ways whiteness shaped young people’s identities as allies and activists, contributed to an organizational culture that many members of color considered a “White space,” and operated as both an asset and…
Aníbal Quijano
Unequal Lessons
Unequal Lessons
Justice-Oriented Visions for Public Education in a Multiracial Democracy
Brown v. Board of Education has played a central role in imagining educational justice in the United States. However, the lessons that we should draw from school desegregation is contested terrain, and desegregation efforts have largely failed both to grapple with the country’s multiracial constituency and to offer a positive vision for schools. In this essay, we use theoretical conceptualizations of justice, relational theories of race, and rese…
Critical Race Theory in Education (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Gender Studies (6 works) · Political science (5 works) · Law (4 works) · Pedagogy (4 works) · Psychology (4 works) · School Choice and Performance (4 works) · Teacher Education and Leadership Studies (4 works) · Anthropology (3 works)