Toward a Critical Pedagogical Critique of White Privilege in Educational Research

• In Event: Roundtable Session 57
  In Roundtable Session: Educational Slavery and White Supremacy

Abstract

This paper works to better understand the ways in which the dominant approach to teaching and learning with white teachers and teacher candidates about race and racism, white privilege, has limited possible pedagogical responses. I argue that the dominant conception of white privilege in educational research has overemphasized whiteness and white privilege as a cause of structural oppression, rather than as an effect of systemic and intentional exploitation. This paper analyzes a selection of whiteness studies literature in educational research in order to demonstrate this conceptual failure and points to possible alternatives to making white privilege the central concept in teaching and learning about race and racism with white teachers.

Author

• Zachary A. Casey, Rhodes College