Nice to Whom?: How Midwestern Niceness Undermines Educational Equity

Abstract

Although U.S. schools grapple with persistent racial inequities, niceness, a socioemotional way of being that privileges whiteness, regularly impedes equity efforts in K-12 and teacher education settings. In the Midwest, niceness is uniquely rooted in a historical "obsession with public civility" (Cayton & Gray, 2002, p. 159) that advances whiteness through a "demure white supremacy" (Cleveland, 2021, para. 6), particularly in education. Here, the authors theorize Midwestern educational niceness, a regionally produced and enacted phenomenon "nicely" instantiated by the overwhelmingly white, Midwestern teacher workforce that stymies equity efforts. The authors conceptualize the ways whiteness, through niceness, works through other phenomena including color-evasiveness (

Nice for What? The Contradictions and Tensions of an Urban District’s Racial Equity Transformation

“…Whiteness (re)produces institutional and structural racism by masking power and privilege, thus normalizing White innocence that allows people's refusal to acknowledge the depths of violence whiteness inflicts on People of Color [32,33]. (In educational settings, whiteness functions through nice people [6,9,11,34], who tend to privilege comfortable, pleasing [35] acts or discourse in ways that extinguish topics that may be uncomfortable or challenging for many White people to discuss such as antiracism. This paper conceptualizes niceness and its relationship with education as a "shared socioemotional disposition or way of being" [7] p. xiv that maintains whiteness by prioritizing White comfort and fragility.…”

“…Niceness perpetuates White cultural norms and diverts attention from the realities of structural and cultural racism by normalizing talking about race, racism, and equity as not nice [6,8,9]. Specifically, niceness encourages indirect questioning of inequity [10], use of color-evasive solutions [11], and loss of accountability for racially unequal practices and policies [9]. Thus, leaders invested in advancing antiracism in their schools must identify how whiteness as niceness exists in and operates through practices and policies before creating equity-minded organizations [12].…”

The (Im)Possibility of Interrupting Midwest Nice in a Predominantly White, Small-Town School District

“…Niceness is a socialized disposition characterized by acting and speaking in ways that are pleasant and comfortable [4,6,8,40]. Niceness also requires avoiding what is unpleasant and uncomfortable through silence, passivity, and denial [5,6,40,41].…”

“…Although Niceness is practiced throughout the U.S., the Midwest is known as a particularly Nice region [43,44]. Scholars have noted that most teachers and educational leaders in the Midwest are cheerful and positive, have good intentions, and avoid uncomfortable topics, often through passivity and restraint [8,41,45].…”

“…Niceness is a socialized disposition that prioritizes what is pleasant and comfortable [4,5]. Niceness works with whiteness, a constellation of beliefs, practices, policies, and institutional arrangements that perpetuates white supremacy, to produce and maintain racial inequities [6][7][8]. Within education and beyond, Niceness individualizes racism, obscuring the systemic nature of inequities, and emphasizes good intentions over impacts, absolving people and institutions of responsibility for racialized outcomes [4,6,9].…”