Whiteness and social studies teacher education: tensions in the pedagogical task

Addressing racial inequalities within schools: Exploring the potential of teacher education

“…As Crowley and Smith () assert, when White teachers do not recognize the significance of their own racial identities or the implications of whiteness in the racial hierarchy, they “may enact culturally relevant teaching styles in a colonizing fashion or view themselves as ‘White Knights’ (McIntyre, 1997) or ‘White Saviors’ (Titone, 1998), who seek to rescue children of color from their own cultural deprivation” (p. 162). Indeed, well‐intended teacher candidates working with underprivileged youth may espouse paternalism, White savior complexes, racial reification, or a general romanticizing of interactions with non‐White students (Matias & Liou, ; Picower, ).…”

“…Moreover, many scholars have documented how discussions of White privilege in TEPs tend to generate resistance, emotional defensiveness, or denial among candidates, and how lessons on structural racism often are met with White candidates' counterarguments asserting that present‐day racism only manifests at the individual level (Holloway & Gouthro, ; Picower, ; Solomona et al, ). While some may be aggressively opposed to accepting and addressing the realities of racism in society, Crowley and Smith () and others have suggested that it is misguided to label resistant teacher candidates “racists,” arguing for the importance of recognizing that they have been socialized in a society that endorses myths of post‐racialism and meritocracy. The suggestion that education is not the socially or racially neutral enterprise they believe it is can generate great discomfort and make teacher candidates inclined to evade discussing racism (Gordon, ; Holloway & Gouthro, ; Ullucci & Battey, ).…”

‘I love a curry’: student-teacher discourse around ‘race’ and ethnicity at a UK university

“…Educators and studentteachers are caught up in discourse and knowledges developed in schools and are partially influenced by meanings that come from, amongst other things, whiteness, and the silencers referred to earlier -policy, context and practice. The studentteachers spoke from a specific racial location that shaped their engagement with 'race' (Crowley and Smith 2015). Further to this, teachers' reflections are not necessarily authentic 'voices', but are effects or reflections of a reasoning that is formed socially and historically (Foucault 1972) and it is intended to point to this way of reasoning in the following interpretation.…”

“…As teacher educators we must begin with ourselves, place our own pedagogy under scrutiny and reflect upon how our thinking, beliefs, values and approaches play a role in reproducing racial inequality in its many forms (Crowley and Smith 2015), especially when the majority of those who educate teachers in the UK are white (HESA 2016).…”

‘I’m not racist; my high school was diverse!’ white preservice teachers deploydiversityin the classroom

“…Dee and Henkin 2002;Hollins and Guzman 2005;Pohan 1996). Recently, however, a handful of studies have questioned the nature of this link between previous experiences with diverse others and attitudes toward (and interactions with) real students (Castro 2010;Crowley and Smith 2015;Laughter 2011). We lack a theoretical understanding of the link between previous experiences with diverse others and the correlated outcomes listed above.…”