This dissertation links theories of classroom pedagogy, sociocultural learning and racial identity formation, and racial literacy to analyze how a history teacher engaged students with issues of race and racism, and how students constructed meaning about historical and contemporary race and racism in the United States. Three related manuscripts draw on two empirical studies to examine (1) how a Black teacher leveraged cultural asset pedagogies to encourage Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) students to explore historical topics related to their racial/ethnic identities; (2) how a Black student constructed a historical narrative, potentially as a way to negotiate his own racialized identities; and (3) how five youth (mostly BIPOC) sustained a racially literate dialogue about the nature of race and racism in the past and present. Findings point to (1) the challenges of enacting cultural asset pedagogies toward racial consciousness while also honoring students' agency; (2) the persistence of rigidly racialized narratives and their effect on students' ability to negotiate intersectional racialized identities; and (3) the potential for youth to develop racial literacy skills that advance understandings of race and racism beyond the interpersonal to the structural/institutional level. These analyses suggest P-12-in this instance, secondary-educators and students require sustained support and guidance engaging in racial analysis. Each manuscript considers how researchers, teacher educators, and P-12 educators can trouble curricula to disrupt the silence on race and racism and to facilitate students' racial identity formation, racial literacy development, and historical content knowledge.
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