Wrestling With Whiteness: White Preservice Teachers’ Racial Identity and Social Responsibility for the “Common Good”

• In Event: Poster Session 9
  In Poster Session: Teacher Knowledge and Beliefs in the Context of Schooling

Abstract

This paper describes seven pre-service teachers’ journeys to make sense of their “whiteness” and desire to be “agents of change.” The paper documents how their coursework and participation in a monthly dialogue enables them to create “safe” and yet “challenging” spaces wherein they can honestly wrestle with white privilege and the reality that “race matters” in public schooling. The research documents the uneasy tension the teachers face as they increasingly understand and accept their whiteness and their responsibility to “call out” their white peers. The paper notes how after the initial euphoria of “getting” their whiteness there is a increasing discomfort and willingness to “live out” their white privilege in their college classrooms and public schools.

Authors

• Miguel Guillermo Lopez, California State University - Monterey Bay

• Krysta Bradley, California State University - Monterey Bay

• Erin Barnes, California State University - Monterey Bay