Conflicts With Colleagues: White Practicing Teachers and the Challenges of Enacting Antiracism in Schools

• In Event: The Teacher as Student: Creating Social Justice Allies Through Teacher Education

Abstract

This paper focuses on three ways in which white teachers faced serious pushback as they worked to implement antiracist interventions in their schools. Thinking through these examples is important because much of the research literature has stopped at analyzing white privilege and race-evasion on the part of teacher candidates and practicing teachers. As almost no studies of how white teachers enact antiracist pedagogies after professional development exist, there is a need to understand the ways that white practicing teachers respond to antiracist professional development and the challenges of implementing their teacher learning. We focus on the ways these white teachers identified and responded to white supremacy, whether it be attitudes of a colleague, inequitable treatment of students, or racist curriculum

Authors

• Zachary A. Casey, Rhodes College

• Shannon McManimon, SUNY - College at New Paltz