EDU 703 · American University Ed.D.

Positionality Memo #1Critical Racial Experiences

A scaffolded workspace that personalizes the assignment around what you bring, so the writing stays yours.

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Format
1 page, single-spaced
Font
Times New Roman 12pt
Due
Thu Jun 11, 2026
Points
200 points
EDU 703 · Memo #1 · Critical Racial Experiences
Thu Jun 11, 2026 · 200 points

A one-page, first-person reflection on a critical racial moment from your schooling, anchored in the culture of racism, not the systems.

Your memo, in four answers.

Step 1 of 5Frame the assignment
Step 1 of 5 · Frame
Three skills sit under this memo. The personalization protects all three.
Objective 1
Reflexive awareness
Surface a critical racial moment from your own schooling and name the disposition or bias it produced in you.
Objective 2
Culture-of-racism analysis
Analyze the culture of racism you experienced (the norms, expectations, and everyday treatment), distinct from formal systems or policy.
Objective 3
Lens-to-inquiry
Articulate how that lens shapes your view of the purpose of education and how you will interpret data in your environmental scan and Dissertation of Practice.
Culture, not systems. The norms and everyday treatment, distinct from formal policy. The prompt's hinge.
Connect it to your course

Where this lives in the bigger arc.

The memo is one early step in a longer line: the dispositions you name here are the ones your Environmental Scan and Dissertation of Practice will rely on. The pieces below show what this builds toward, and a few companion tools and readings you can bring with you.

1.1 / 1.3
Personal Awareness & Mastery
1.1 understanding self; 1.3 operate as a reflective practitioner aware of biases and willing to name them.
3.3
Social Justice, Antiracist Beliefs & Action
Develop culturally responsive practices that confront and alter personal and institutional biases.
5.5
Research Methods, Practice, and Knowledge
Develop and evaluate research for dimensions of cultural responsiveness and antiracism. Positionality shapes data interpretation.
Companion reflexivity tools

The Social Identity Map (Jacobson and Mustafa, 2019) and the Positionality Diagram used in EDU 703 Assignment 1 pair well with this memo. They surface different cuts of positionality and they keep cross-referencing each other in your research notes.

Optional readings (the assignment welcomes citation)
  • Milner, H. R. (2007). Race, culture, and researcher positionality: Working through dangers seen, unseen, and unforeseen. Educational Researcher, 36(7), 388–400.
  • Jacobson, D., & Mustafa, N. (2019). Social Identity Map: A reflexivity tool for practicing explicit positionality in critical qualitative research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 18.
  • Dei, G. J. S. (2005). Critical issues in anti-racist research methodologies: An introduction.
  • Dei, G. J. S. (2013). Reframing critical anti-racist theory (CART) for contemporary times.
  • Rabaka, R. (2013). Du Bois's contributions to critical race studies in education (from Handbook of Critical Race Theory in Education).
  • Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2017). Self-determination theory: Basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness. Guilford Press.
  • Hammond, Z. (2015). Culturally responsive teaching and the brain. Corwin.
  • American University School of Education. Ed.D. Program Competencies (Handbook, pp. 8–9).

These are drawn from Daniel's EDU 703 folder. The assignment notes that literature is welcomed but not required.