“Able to Be Heard and Courageous Enough to Deliver”: White School Leaders Refereeing Whiteness

• In Event: Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Navigating Race, Space, and Place

Abstract

Although there has been a significant increase in studies dedicated to critical white studies, whiteness, and white privilege (i.e. whites confronting their own white privileges and white racial knowledge), there is still little discussion within educational discourse pertaining to how within a school context critically conscious white educators confront their fellow white colleagues who are racially dysconscious. Through a theoretical framework of whiteness, this study will examine the tension and discourse surrounding critically conscious white educators and their confrontations with white colleagues in order to create a more equitable school environment in which socially just school improvement initiatives can be sustained.

Authors

• Anjale DeVawn Welton, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Jonathan L. Hamilton, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Joseph Wiemelt, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Tiffany Octavia Harris, University of Illinois

• Montrischa Money Williams, American Institutes for Research