Black Mentors on White Teachers: Interrogating Whiteness, Growing, and Becoming White Teachers

• In Event: White Teachers, Where Are You Now? New Research on White Teacher Identity: Identifications—Processes—Becoming

Abstract

The purpose of this presentation is to disseminate new research on White teacher identity development under the tutelage of Black mentors in inner-city working conditions. Working from the perspective of critical White studies (e.g., Hall, 1981; Frankenberg, 1993), recent research on White teachers suggests a process orientation in which White teachers learn from teacher education course work, field placements, student teaching, and ultimately mentors in schools in developing race visible professional identities. This presentation focuses on process-oriented professional identity developed in mentoring relationships between Black Mentors and White mentees.

Using discourse analysis as research method (Fairclough, 2010) , this presentation analyzed teachers’ written reflections, transcribed interviews, class assignments, and other texts in ways that moved dialectically between sociological-historical literatures, White teacher literatures, and qualitative interviews with Black Mentor teachers. In the discourse analysis, the following patterns emerged regarding White teachers’ identity development. White teachers’ development, as they emerged in the data:

1.Transcended initial race-resistant strategies and other evasions;

2.Developed process identities that work toward solidarity with “others;”

3.Recognized White privileges that ethically ask what, as a White teacher, should I do?;

4.Developed relationships with culturally different students of color.

Cochran-Smith (2000) explained that interrogation of whiteness through reading first-hand accounts is a crucial component of unlearning racism. In this research, White teachers built relationships of mentoring and solidarity with Black mentees that enhanced White teachers’ ability to build solidarity with African American students. This research found that firsthand accounts provided by Black Mentors in relationships with White teacher mentees provided key process-oriented understanding on becoming committed and effective White teachers in mentoring relationships.

References

Cochran-Smith, M. (2000). Blind vision: Unlearning racism in teacher education. Harvard Educational Review, 70(2), 157-190.

Fairclough, N. (2010). Critical discourse analysis (2nd ed.) New York, NY: Longman.

Frankenberg, R. (1993). The social construction of whiteness: White women, race matters. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Hall, S. (1981). The whites of their eyes: Racist ideologies and the media. In G. Bridges & R. Brunt (Eds.), Silver linings: Some strategies for the eighties (pp. 28-52). London: Lawrence And Wishart.

Author

• Michael L. Boucher, Texas A&M University - San Antonio