Exploring White Teachers' Beliefs About Race and Police Violence

• In Event: 43.035 - What Is to Be Done With Curriculum and Educational Foundations' Critical Knowledges? New Qualitative Research on Conscientizing Preservice and In-Service Teachers

Abstract

Objectives
Although centering race is essential for all teachers, research has established the struggle with preparing a majority White teacher population to engage issues of race (Cochran-Smith, 1995). In this paper, we discuss the potential shortcomings and illogicality of raising White teachers’ critical consciousness in a color-blind racist social context. We stress that teacher education programs can (and should) be spaces for building critical knowledge about race. Considering that this study explores White teachers’ views on race and police violence, we appropriately remember and mourn the recent police killing of unarmed Black teen, Antwon Rose.

Analytic Framework
Central to our analyses of how White teachers position themselves in relation to opportunities for students to learn about race, we draw on tenets of Bonilla-Silva’s (2014) color-blind racism framework to explain how some White teachers counter their understandings of race as a site of critical consciousness.

Research Design
In contrast to survey methodology research that attempts to make causal claims using data from large “representative samples,” our use of survey as a mode of inquiry was to explore and uncover broad themes related to White teachers’ sense-making processes about discussing race with their students. Our purposeful sample is comprised of 336 White teachers who are connected to teacher education programs within high research institutions across the U.S. context.

Source of Evidence and Analytic Approach
By identifying patterns in our inductively generated codes (Miles, Huberman & Saldaña, 2013) from open-ended survey responses, we recognized several emergent themes that, after returning to our analytic framework, helped us construct a broader narrative about where some White teachers are (not) in the consciousness-raising process.

Findings and Interpretations
Our thematic findings suggested that the majority of our participants see race as an important topic to discuss with their students, but far fewer feel prepared to do so due to fear; thus, many opt to avoid race to protect their own interests. Most compelling, perhaps, is that the discussion topic of police violence on Black people appeared to reveal participants’ more genuine (color-blind) views on race, as some participants, for instance, described such killings as a natural consequence of not obeying the law.

Scholarly Significance
We discuss implications for advancing critical knowledge about race in teacher education as a site of critical consciousness. We contemplate teachers’ access to the necessary knowledge and skills for building a more race-centered approach to teaching. We consider how dialogues about particular systemic racist macro-realities can expose epistemological contradictions, revealing openings in teachers’ supposed critically conscious positions. Finally, we maintain that color-blindness both mirrors historically bound institutional practices that dehumanize and reiterates an urgency to reshape the conditions and contexts in which teachers are prepared.

Authors

• Adam Alvarez, Rowan University

• Rich Milner, Vanderbilt University