The (White) Elephant in the Room: Color-Blind Ideology in Equity-Oriented Professional Development

• In Event: 18.058 - MTCC Roundtable Session Four
  In Roundtable Session: 18.058-3 - Rewriting Dominant Scripts in Educators' Learning for More Equitable Practice

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to highlight how aspects of Whiteness operated through a color-blind ideology among mathematics teachers in a professional development (PD) setting in which privilege and oppression was a major strand. Bonilla-Silva’s (2013) four frames of color-blind ideology is the theoretical framework employed to identify instantiations of Whiteness during a whole group conversation that occurred during a PD session. Color-blind ideology was present in the way that teachers avoided explicit mentions of race, emphasized the role of multiple mathematical representations over other systemic factors that mediate students’ success, and cultivated notions meritocracy. This study highlights the inherent tensions in implementing equity-oriented PD despite the best intentions of mathematics teacher educators to push back against color-blind ideology.

Author

• Brent Jackson, Michigan State University