Director of Men of Color Initiative and Lecturer in the Department of African American Studies at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh
About
Tony Laing is the director of Men of Color Initiative and a lecturer in African American studies at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. He has written several publications that discuss young men of color experiences defining their masculinities inside and outside educational spaces. Tony completed a PhD in educational policy studies (with concentrations in African American studies, gender studies, and community informatics) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2014.
Current Work:
Tony Laing’s specific research offers insights into how contemporary issues of race and gender intersect to explain different perspectives shared by adolescent males regarding their understandings of social constructions of masculinities. His research asks questions related to identity and sexuality awareness of men of African descent in the United States. Specifically, he focus on understanding the intersecting dimensions of race, gender, sexuality and other social categories. Tony’s research has three distinct foci. First, it addresses race/ethnic struggles and institutional inequalities that negatively impact Black lives, especially the lives of young boys, and examines how they navigate different terrains where gender identities intersect. Second, Tony examine racial identification and discuss the racial conflicts that evolve. Third, Tony’s research centers on Black male college students’ reflection on the development of their masculinities over the course of their lives and explores how their perception of that growth is understood in adulthood. This latter work departures from Tony’s previous scholarship that centered on young men, as he is intending to look at masculinity through the reflections of adult Black males. Currently, Tony is working on a manuscript with Dr. Jennifer Y. Hamer at the University of Kansas and Dr. Cory Brown at Murray State University titled, “No Time for Childhood: How Black Boys in Single-sex Schools Make Meaning of Their Boyhood.” In this essay, which is under review, the authors explore how boys and alums from the same single sex Black male school understood (1) the meaning of their childhood within this space, and (2) how they perceived others expectations of them as boys and youth enrolled in this environment. The authors draw on works from scholars such as Lisa Depit (2006), Perdro Noguera (2008), Gloria Ladson Billings (2011) to discuss how manhood is viewed from a cultural lens of young Black males. They are also interested in understanding what this means for young Black males’ identity developments, many of whom are growing up in an age surrounded by restrictive, popular, and decidedly negative cultural images that portray them as thugs and gangsters (Howard 2012).
Research Area Keyword(s):
Black males, brotherhood, masculinities, schools, sexualities
