The Whiteness Experience: Using Portraiture in Critical Whiteness Studies

• In Event: 15.019 - Unveiling White "Post-Truth": Applying Innovative Methods in Critical Whiteness Work

Abstract

Whiteness in the college classroom has been captured through critical theoretical work (Matias, 2016), through interview-based research (Cabrera, 2014a; 2014b), and through a host of qualitative studies that focus on the impact of whiteness and racism on students of color (Harper, 2013; Martin, 2009; McGee & Martin, 2011). Yet, within educational research, there is still a need to understand what everyday racism or whiteness looks and feels like in the classroom (Martin, 2009; 2013), without ignoring the impact of this whiteness on students of color. Using portraiture to study whiteness can help meet this need. With a theoretical framework rooted in Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS), Critical Race Theory (CRT), and an anti-deficit framework (Harper, 2010), this paper uses portraiture (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997) to paint a narrative of thick description and triangulated perspectives, using observation, in-depth interviewing, and content analysis. Ohito (2017) describes portraiture as a hybrid methodology that draws on ethnography, narrative inquiry, and hermeneutic phenomenology. In portraiture, the researcher, or portraitist, includes herself and her perspective in the resultant portrait. Although portraitists have applied the methodology using CRT (Chapman, 2005; Dixson, Chapman, & Hill, 2005), it has yet to be used to focus on and problematize whiteness and the white performance.

In this paper, I will offer a portrait of whiteness and its impacts in a college algebra classroom at an urban, public university. The focus on algebra is due to the gatekeeper nature of the course for students who want pursue a degree in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). At the university that serves as the site for this research, college algebra has been flagged given the disproportionally large numbers of Black, Latinx, and Native American students receiving grades of D, F, or I (incomplete) in the course.

This study provides a critical analysis of whiteness, thickly describes the experience of students of color impacted by the performances of whiteness, and dissects the methods used, the data collected, coding, and the critical analysis to demonstrate how portraiture can be used in Critical Whiteness Studies work. I will close with self-reflective questions and challenges around CWS and portraiture to interrogate the epistemological and ontological implications of this work. Although this paper will include a brief portrait of whiteness, the focus of the paper will be on the portraiture methodology and how it is used to discover and uniquely convey how whiteness works (Yoon, 2012) in a college classroom and how it feels and is experienced by students of color. In this ‘post truth’ era, the voices that are lost or ignored first and foremost are those that belong to people of color. And the stories that are told are used to justify and promote white supremacy. Using portraiture through a CWS and CRT framework can allow us to poke holes in the dominant narrative of ‘post truth’ and provide space for counter-narratives.

Author

• Naomi Nishi, University of Colorado - Denver