Intellectual Resources for "the Place of Race in the Cracker State": A Synoptic Rendering

• In Event: 66.062 - The Place of Race in the Cracker State: Regional Identities and Whiteness Pedagogies in Context

Abstract

Objectives
To begin our town hall, the first commentary provides a synoptic rendering of curriculum studies resources that is pertinent for the project “Race in the Cracker State.” Understanding the curriculum of southern place (Kincheloe, Pinar, & Slattery, 1994) and the place that race makes in the South (Delany, 2002), this synoptic rendering provides resources for approaching the complicated task of White preservice and in-service teachers’ racial conscientization for working across race, class, culture, language, and other differences in schools.

Perspective(s) or Theoretical Framework
Taking up second-wave White teacher identity studies (Presenter 1) and social-psychoanalysis in the South (Cash, 1941; Kincheloe, Pinar, & Slattery, 1994) as starting points, this synoptic rendering recognizes the confluences of “the complex contexts of White teachers’ identities” (Author 2, p. 986) and the need to understand the nuanced “mind of the South” (Cash, 1941, p. 3) in order to critically intervente. Specifically, the synoptic rendering provides intellectual resources from curriculum studies of southern place to inform instructors’ pedagogical efforts in the racial conscientization of White preservice and in-service teachers.

Methods, Techniques, or Modes of Inquiry
Adapting research methods from intellectual history called the synoptic rendering (Pinar, 2006), we analyze and render key books and peer-reviewed journal articles on the curriculum of southern place. Our synoptic rendering focuses on socio-psychoanalytic conceptual content as it might inform second-wave White teacher identity studies’ efforts for teaching and learning toward White teachers’ racial conscientization.

Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials
Our synoptic rendering approaches key texts as data (Pinar, 2006). Authors whose work focuses on the Southern curriculum place provide textual “data” for analysis. As this abstract is too short for a citations list, we merely list key authors we study as resources that inform the project “The Place of Race in the Cracker State.” We provide an abbreviated list of authors included here: Pinar, Kincheloe, Slattery, Reynolds, Whitlock, Casemore, Guillory, Delaney, and Wray and Newitz. Social psychoanalytic and second-wave White teacher identity studies (Author) provide holistic lenses to drive our analysis and this discussion.

Results and/or Substantiated Conclusions
We emphasize the following findings from our synoptic rendering of key texts:
1.) Master-class and “white trash” or “cracker” identities, despite differences in material-economic interests, provide a single hegemonic block for racialized patriarchy in the South.
2.) Against-the-grain White identities, rather than providing simplistic reversals of “white trash” or “cracker” identities, instead provide complex reconfigurations of Southern identities’ moral bases.

Scholarly Significance of the Study
Overall, we believe that our synoptic rendering provides new antiracist curriculum resources to tackle the problem of southern Whites’ racial resistance. This synoptic text on White antiracist curriculum resources sets the stage for our town hall discussion on addressing race, racism, privilege, and oppression in our classrooms and at our institutions.

Author

• James C. Jupp, University of Texas - Rio Grande Valley