Naming ourselves and others

My parents gave me the name, María, and when I learned to write, my mother taught me to put a slanted line, not a dot, over the letter, i, in my name. Yet in school, what was a source of ethnic pride was erased. I distinctly remember my kindergarten teacher screaming at me, “That is not how you write the letter, i!” She made me erase the accent mark and replace it with a dot. That was when I became Maria. In school, the daily Pledge of Allegiance and celebrating the United States' Bicentennial in 1976 solidified my identity as a proud, flag-waving American. Around the same time, I learned that I was Hispanic, which was also a source of pride because my father, a member of the New York City Police Department, was President of the Hispanic Society. Later, I learned how controversial the idea of having one group to represent all the Spanish-speaking police officers was at the time. They came from many different countries, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and others, each with their own sense of ethnic pride, but now they were all Hispanic. I am not Hispanic anymore, unless I have to fill out one of those government forms that limits me to a series of bubbles that are somehow supposed to classify or identify me. Instead, I call myself a Latina and a scholar of color, at least for now, until I can claim a better way to represent who I am. My mother said she liked the name Lisa, a character on a soap opera she watched, and she wanted to include a portion of my father's name Phil—thus, Felicia. At home, or with family and friends, I am called “Lisa,” but in the seventh grade, I was called “Phyllis” because my social studies teacher, an older, White, southern woman, could not pronounce my name. I was one of the only African American children in the class, and it was only in this class and with this teacher that I was Phyllis. My story is similar to María's in one way: we were re-named, leaving wounds that have not totally healed. What does it mean to have a name that is not acknowledged by your teacher? As a teacher and scholar, I have become increasingly more aware of the identities of others and the power dynamics inherent in how we name and are named by others. We begin with these two personal stories to show the ways in which naming and identification may be a source of pride, as well as a source of conflict, and even harm, revealing the complex cultural, historical, social, and political ramifications of naming. As the official journal of NARST: A Worldwide Organization for Improving Science Teaching and Learning through Research, the Journal of Research in Science Teaching (JRST) has as its charge the obligation “to publish the highest quality articles that advance the understanding of science teaching and learning and are likely to have a significant impact on the field of science education and science education policy” (www.NARST.org). As such, the journal should reflect and promote the core values of the organization and among them are the pursuit of knowledge, equity in science education for all learners, and respect for all members of the research community (NARST Policy and Procedures Manual, 2012). In the spirit of awakening dialogues (2014 NARST Annual Conference Theme), we raise the issue of how we name ourselves and others and the ways in which identifications related to race, ethnicity, class, gender, disability status, language, nationality, and migration history intersect with issues of power, oppression, and justice. From a Western perspective, naming is about knowing and defining the Other, whereas from an Indigenous perspective, resisting such naming, or insisting on self-naming, stems from “a desire to be free, to escape definition, to be complicated, to develop and change, and to be regarded as fully human” (Smith, 2008 p. 115). In light of this tension, we recognize naming as a political act of ascribing identities to ourselves and others in ways that may liberate, maintain, or dehumanize. Thus, we must be cognizant of the words we choose, particularly if in addition to carrying information, they also convey judgments (Hayakawa & Hayakawa, 1990). “Underrepresented,” “underserved,” and “traditionally marginalized” are terms many, including us, have used to describe research participants. They may be underrepresented or traditionally marginalized in the sciences because they are female, or because of their disability status, or because they are Black or Latino/a. They may be underserved because they attend failing schools. Despite pointing to systems of injustice, these characterizations also position girls, persons with disabilities, and Black and Latino/a youth as deficient or lacking. Terms such as minority, non-dominant, and non-White also carry judgments that position people as inferior. The term non-White categorizes people based upon what or who they are not; it is a term of exclusion, and it reinforces the idea that White is the normative racial standard against which all other races should be measured (Madowitz & Boutelle, 2013). Other seemingly innocent words, such as diverse and urban, have become code words for predominantly Black and Brown neighborhoods which are purportedly laden with crime, poverty, and low-achievement (Watson, 2011). Importantly, our words are symbols and not the persons or things symbolized (Hayakawa & Hayakawa, 1990). Bakhtin (1981, p. 37) explains, “An individual cannot be completely incarnated into the flesh of existing sociohistorical categories.” His imagery of a form never full to the brim yet overflowing positions the individual as always more than and less than any form we might try to give through mere words. Thus, the words we choose will always be insufficient to capture the meaning or essence of whom or what we are representing in the real world and in our research. For instance, when we group people together with different cultural, ethnic, linguistic, and migration histories, we negate the diversity and difference within groups and among individuals. What does it mean when a study reports that 60% of the participants were White, 12% were Black, 8% were Asian, and 20% were Hispanic? Why might these categories be problematic? In a critique of the use of racial/ethnic categories in human genetics research, Hunt and Megyesi (2008, p. 351) explain, “[Although] race and ethnicity are widely recognized as highly fluid, social, and cultural categories whose biological basis is tenuous at best, they nonetheless are commonly presumed to provide a useful indication of continental [and genetic] ancestry.” Their critique raises issues regarding how people are grouped, why they are grouped, and the validity of research claims that are derived based on these categorizations. The complex work of naming extends beyond science education to many other fields, such as gender studies, racial/ethnic/postcolonial studies, critical studies, class studies, sociology, and sociology of education, where identity politics raise similar concerns. For instance, Solórzano (1998) and Solórzano, Ceja, and Yosso (2001) have documented the pervasive effects of racial microaggressions on college campuses, or subtle insults, words and acts directed towards people of color and their negative impact on campus racial climate. Solórzano and Yosso (2002) use the term, “people of color” to shift the discussion of race from a “Black-White discourse to one that includes multiple faces, voices, and experiences” (p. 24). Yet, depending on how informed one is to this issue, the effect of microagressions can be even greater, amounting to a macroagression, especially in the case of institutionalized racism embedded within and sanctioned by institutions. How we name ourselves and others in our research may contribute to micro and macroagressions that have a negative impact on the perceived climate in our science education research community. Naming not only relates to racial/ethnic categorizations, which is the initial framing of this piece, but also concerns the intersectionality of other identity markers (Moore, 2008 Rivera Maulucci, 2013), i.e., gender, sexuality, religion, disability status, language, nationality, and social class. In highlighting some aspects of a person's identity, we may also intentionally or unintentionally silence other important intersectionalities at the same time. Silencing also happens in many other aspects of the research process and reporting–such as rarely naming, or not addressing the needs, interests, or capacities of Indigenous youth; or assuming a mere mention that a participant has a disability or a teacher is a member of the LGBTQ community is sufficient. Indeed silencing speaks to larger societal and historical issues as well. Chan (2010) discusses silencing related to gender and race, and asserts, “Silencing is a powerful means of marginalizing racialized women” and “this silencing is also related to visibility as well as invisibility, what is seen and not seen, what is politicized and what is kept ‘underground', and where attempts are made to neutralize and reframe concerns as personal rather than political” (p. 2). Chan's statements reveal the hidden power and politics of naming, including how we represent ourselves in our work, whom we include in our studies, and how we describe our participants and report our findings. As a community of scholars, we must ensure that our words invite, welcome, and respect all members–those within and outside our organization (i.e., NARST Code of Ethical Conduct, 2014). Thus, the conventional wisdom guiding the use of categories and the acknowledgment of their intersectionalities is to do so in “a professional, noncombative manner” (APA, 2011a, 2011b, p. 66). The provides guidelines for unbiased language that can help to ensure that we are not reifying injustices or asserting our power in ways that further the marginalization or invisibility of our participants (See http://supp.apa.org/style/pubman-ch03.00.pdf). These guidelines can help us avoid terms that ascribe negative attributions or those that might misrepresent our participants and reinforce stereotypes or deficit notions. Furthermore, when deemed necessary and useful to the research question, reporting racial, ethnic, or other social markers is encouraged, such as in studies that focus on Black scientists or Latina girls, or studies that address large-scale issues, such as equity or the achievement gap. However, keeping in mind ; Hunt and Megyesi's (2008) critique, collecting and reporting data about the diversity that exists within and among groups, including relevant social, cultural, ethnic, linguistic, national, or migration histories is crucial for adding necessary richness and context to reported categories. When possible, participants' and researchers' self-identifications are preferable. Thus, we feel comfortable with the terminology, “scholars of color,” because of its historical connections to the Civil Rights movement and the ways in which it invokes solidarity with other scholars of color as a positive self-identification. Yet we are aware of the controversy and critique related to this phrasing because it implies that other scholars do not have a color; it claims a common thread of experience that other scholars of similar racial, ethnic, national, or migration histories may not ascribe to; and it excludes other important intersectionalities. We intentionally capitalize “Indigenous” in this article, although APA suggests that indigenous is “correct.” Our intent here is to note the political nature of this word and the role of human rights where Indigenous peoples across the world are concerned. Although we limit our discussion in this article to Indigenous peoples of the United States, we stand in solidarity with Indigenous peoples globally. (p. 983) In this example, the authors' were guided by, but not limited to, published guidelines for naming; yet their clarification was placed in an endnote. We advocate that authors place clarifications in the body of the research paper as a way to bring naming and un-silencing together in a powerful position of respect and acknowledgement. Although the terminology of representation and naming will continue to evolve and shift, as researchers, we can show that we have carefully considered the cultural, historical, social, and political influences and implications of our naming. Thus, we call for more just naming, recognizing the ways in which issues of power infuse how we name, or do not name, ourselves and others.