A Youth Participatory Action Research, Theatrical Inquiry Into Whiteness

• In Event: 28.036 - Four Recent Books' Contributions to White Teacher Identity Studies: A Discussion With the Authors

Abstract

Objectives or purposes
This presentation will report on a teacher-researcher installment of second wave, critical whiteness pedagogy at a large, suburban public high school near a major city in the Midwest. This purpose of this talk is to consider how a second-wave of critical whiteness pedagogy might be used to engage white students in the work of anti-racism. Further, this talk will provoke the audience to consider how to conceptualize white racial identities with nuance and complexity.

Perspective(s) or theoretical framework
Critical whiteness studies in education has become an increasingly accepted field (see Jupp, Berry, and Lensmire [2016] for an exhaustive review of whiteness scholarship in education over the last twenty years). Still, there is a surprising lack of research documenting implementations of critical whiteness pedagogies in school contexts. Much of what has been written about teaching and learning on white identities in education over-relies on McIntosh’s (1988) white privilege framework, an approach that simply documents white color-blind identities (see McIntyre, 1997, Levine-Rasky, 2000; Sleeter, 1993 for examples of this method). Lensmire et al. (2013) suggested a new direction by worrying that this focus on white privilege has led to confessional pedagogies that actually impede the efforts of anti-racism work with white people. Jupp (2013) has since called for (and identified emergent examples of) a second-wave of white teacher identity studies.

Methods, Techniques, or Modes of Inquiry and Data sources
Nearly forty, mostly white 9th-12th grade students voluntarily participated in The Whiteness Project during the 2012-2013 school year. In the fall, students participated in a YPAR collective to create research projects, reflect on whiteness, and discuss their thinking. During the winter, students presented their findings to the group. This thinking became the inspiration for a collaboratively written play (see Boal, 1979; Norris, 2009 for compelling examples of play-building practice). This play was performed five times during a weekend in May of 2013. This performance received both local and national media attention. Critical ethnographic practices were used to collect data that included interviews, student work, field notes, and video recordings. The constant comparative approach to analysis (see Fram, 2013) was used to both test and confirm assertions against an enormous data corpus.

Findings
Findings suggest that anti-racist, whiteness pedagogy needs to move beyond the simple answers predicated by traditional white privilege pedagogy. Using practices of YPAR and playbuilding allowed for a more nuanced deployment of critical whiteness pedagogy. That nuance came through the sharing of power between teacher and student, the generative confusion about whiteness that the facilitator allowed, mindfulness of what Thandeka and Morrison theorized as the neurosis of whiteness, and an improvisational negotiation of attempting critical disruptions in a school setting.

Scholarly Significance
More work is needed to engage white people in the work of anti-racism. This talk will highlight potentials and pitfalls of using a second-wave of critical whiteness studies to approach white students with the nuance and complexity that Lensmire (2010) argued is needed in anti-racist pedagogy.

Author

• Samuel Jaye Tanner, The Pennsylvania State University - Altoona