No Longer Bound by Teacher Prep: Journaling and the Emergent White Teacher Social Identity

• In Event: 26.080 - Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: 26.080-9 - Innovative Techniques and Methods for Qualitative Research

Abstract

This paper is an auto-ethnographic study on emerging White teacher social identity. Through journaling and documented conversations via email, the authors of this paper investigate how one’s racial and social identity is developed and/or changed in relation to readings and discussions around issues of racism, classism, heterosexism, religious dominance, and other forms of systemic and institutional oppression. The authors work together in a mentor-mentee, student-teacher, knower-known (James, 1975) relationship to examine knowledge and identity construction of them-selves in relation to each other and Other(s). We hope to lay bare our biases and prejudices, and to surrender ourselves and our stories to the audience (Ellis, 2009) to help further the educational discourse surrounding White teacher identity and development.

Authors

• Amy E. Swain, Illinois State University

• Trisha Wickland, Concordia University - Chicago