Field‐text process analysis: the Brown v. Board of Education ruling

The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling remains a most prominent and influential event in oneʹs perceptions of educational (in)equality. This research focuses on identity politics in education, paying special attention to whiteness as it manifests in a student‐centered university‐sponsored open‐forum public speaking event centering on the 50th anniversary of this landmark case. To this end, the authors develop and utilize the method of field‐text process analysis. By combining ethnography and rhetorical/textual criticism to form field‐text process analysis, they are able to scrutinize the process and event of the forum for the ways it both perpetuates and works against whiteness in its many manifestations.