31.032 - Conflict, Complexity, and Devastation: Whiteness and White Racial Identities in Education

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Multicultural and critical pedagogy scholars have begun to worry that the very way that whiteness and white racial identities have been conceptualized has contributed to our educational failures with white people. The purpose of this symposium is to build nuanced descriptions of, and theoretical insights about, the complexities and conflicts at the heart of whiteness and white racial identities. Our emphasis on complexity and conflict is not meant to distract from the realities of individual white racism and a larger white-supremacist U.S. context. Instead, our work is motivated by the question of what is to be done to work more effectively with white people. We seek to illuminate and remain attentive to the pedagogical possibilities of complexity and conflict.

Sub Unit

• Division G - Social Context of Education / Division G - Section 2: Education in Mulitcultural Contexts Within and Across Subject Areas

Chair

• Timothy J. Lensmire, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

Papers

• A White Principal, a Fantasy of Dirt, and Anxieties of Attraction - Bryan Davis, Columbus School District; Timothy J. Lensmire, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

• Victoria's "Venn Diagram of Fun": The Internal Devastation of Whiteness - Samuel Jaye Tanner, The Pennsylvania State University - Altoona; Audrey Lensmire, Augsburg College

• The Color-Blind Conundrum - Mary Elizabeth Lee-Nichols, University of Wisconsin - Superior; Jessica Dockter Tierney, University of Minnesota

• Uneasy "Experts": White Teachers and Antiracist Action - Shannon McManimon, Science Museum of Minnesota; Zachary A. Casey, Rhodes College

Discussants

• Beverly E. Cross, The University of Memphis

• Decoteau J. Irby, University of Illinois at Chicago