What's 'white' got to do with it? Teaching whiteness as a mechanism to promote social justice in education.

摘要

Teaching whiteness has been used effectively in teacher preparation programs as a mechanism to promote social justice. However, there is little documentation on the lives of whiteness educator/scholars or the practice of teaching whiteness. The purpose of this qualitative study was to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the development of whiteness educator/scholars in the United States, their experiences as teachers of whiteness, and how their knowledge can be applied to whiteness pedagogy and the field of higher education.;The participants in this study were five of the most prominent whiteness educator/scholars in the US: Peggy McIntosh, Frances Kendall, Paula Rothenberg, Tim Wise, and Robert Jensen. In-depth interviews with each participant were the main source of data collection. Data were gathered, coded, and assembled into individual narratives that are referred to as portraits. The five individual portraits reflect the life histories as well as the educational and professional experiences of each whiteness educator/scholar. The five individual portraits were then collectively analyzed and used to extract convergent and divergent themes that reveal how they became whiteness educator/scholars and to describe the practice of teaching whiteness as explained by the participants in this study.;The findings revealed a preference by these whiteness educator/scholars to use privilege pedagogy rather than whiteness pedagogy as the most effective mechanism to promote social justice and to work toward the goal of dismantling systems of oppression. Additionally, the whiteness educator/scholars highlighted several methodologies that they utilized in their practice of teaching about race, class, gender, and privilege. These methodologies included the use of Serial Testimony, Teaching Across Privilege, Institutional Analysis, and what was referred to as an Intersections Approach to teaching. The knowledge and insight gained from the experiences of these five educator/scholars has helped to demystify the practice of teaching whiteness as well as offer practical applications of how to effectively teach around issues of race, class, gender, and privilege.