Skip to content
2018
Volume 50, Issue 3
  • ISSN: 0007-8204
  • E-ISSN: 1943-2216

Abstract

This study presents a portrait of a White high school English teacher in an effort to understand the relationship between her White racial identity and her teaching about racism within a unit on in a predominantly White teaching context. The author argues that the teacher’s ambivalent White racial identity contributed to lack of clarity and conviction in terms of purpose, which presented a pedagogical dilemma that ultimately undermined her practice. Acknowledging ambivalent identity and compensating for ambivalence in practice could provide pedagogical support for English teachers when they strive to teach about racism in secondary English classrooms.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.58680/ee201829578
2018-04-01
2024-12-10
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Asher N. (2007) Made in the (multicultural) USA: Unpacking tensions of race, culture, gender, and sexuality in education. Educational Researcher, 36(2), 65–73.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Berchini C. (2016) Structuring contexts: Pathways toward un-obstructing raceconsciousness. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 29(8), 1030–1044.
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Borsheim-Black C. (2012) “Not as multicultural as I’d like”: White English teachers’ uses of literature for multicultural education in predominantly white contexts. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Michigan State University: East Lansing, MI.
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Borsheim-Black C. (2015) “It’s pretty much White”: Challenges and opportunities of an antiracist approach to literature instruction in a multilayered White context. Research in the Teaching of English, 49(4), 407.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Gee J. P. (2008) Sociolinguistics and literacies: Ideologies in discourses. (3rd ed.). New York: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Haviland V. (2008) Things get glossed over: Rearticulating the silencing power of Whiteness in education. Journal of Teacher Education, 59(1), 40–54.
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Johnson E. (2013) Embodying English: Performing and positioning the White teacher in a high school English class. English Education, 46(1), 5.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Jupp J. C. Berry T. R. Lensmire T. J. (2016) Second-wave White teacher identity studies: A review of White teacher identity literatures from 2004 through 2014. Review of Educational Research, 28(8), 1–41 10.58680/0034654316629798
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Jupp J. C. Slattery P. (2010) Committed White male teachers and identifications: Toward creative identifications and a “second-wave” of White identity studies. Curriculum Inquiry, 40, 454–474 10.1111/j.1467‑873X.2010.00493.x
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Kennedy R. (2008) Nigger: The strange career of a troublesome word. New York: Vintage.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. LaDuke A. (2009) Resistance and renegotiation: Preservice teacher interactions with and reactions to multicultural education course content. Multicultural Education, 16(3), 37–44.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Leer E. (2010) Multicultural literature in monocultural classrooms: White teachers explore diverse texts with White students. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Lensmire T. J. Snaza N. (2010) What teacher education can learn from blackface minstrelsy. Educational Researcher, 39(5), 413–422.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Lewis C. Ketter J. Fabos B. (2001) Reading race in a rural context. Qualitative Studies in Education, 14(3), 317–350.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Lowenstein K. L. (2009) The work of multicultural teacher education: Reconceptualizing white teacher candidates as learners. Review of Educational Research, 79(1), 163–196.
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Mason A. M. (2016) Taking time, breaking codes: Moments in White teacher candidates’ exploration of racism and teacher identity. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 29(8), 1045–1058 10.1080/09518398.2016.1174899
    [Google Scholar]
  17. McIntyre A. (1997) Making meaning of Whiteness: Exploring racial identity with White teachers. Albany: State University of New York Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Savoy E. (1995) The signifying rabbit. Narrative, 3(2), 188–209.
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Segall A. Garrett J. (2013) White teachers talking race. Teaching Education, 24, 265–291.
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Seidl B. Hancock S. D. (2011) Acquiring double images: White preservice teachers locating themselves in a raced world. Harvard Educational Review, 81, 687–709.
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Sleeter C. (1993) How White teachers construct race. InCrichlow W. McCarthy C. Eds Race, identity, and representation in education (pp.157–171). New York: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Sleeter C. (2016) Wrestling with the problematics of Whiteness in teacher education. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 28(8), 1065–1068.
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Stake R. E. (1995) The art of case study research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Thomas E. E. (2015) “We always talk about race”: Navigating race talk dilemmas in the teaching of literature. Research in the Teaching of English, 50(2), 154.
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Thompson A. (2003) Tiffany, friend of people of color: White investments in antiracism. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 16(1), 7–29.
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Trainor J. S. (2008) Rethinking racism: Emotion, persuasion, and literacy education in an all-White high school. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Wenner J. (2008, November27). How Obama won. Rolling Stone Magazine. Retrieved fromhttp://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-obama-won-20081127
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Wolfe B. (1990) Uncle Remus and the malevolent rabbit. InDundas A. Ed Mother wit from the laughing barrel: Readings in the interpretation of Afro-American Folklore (pp.524–540). Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press. (Original work published 1949.
    [Google Scholar]
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journals/10.58680/ee201829578
Loading
/content/journals/10.58680/ee201829578
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Research Article
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error