Practicing Professional Discomfort as Self-Location: White Teacher Experiences With Race Bias Mitigation

• In Event: Interrogating and Responding to Oppression in Teacher and Teacher Education

Abstract

Working with critical race theory, second wave White teacher identity studies, anticolonial theory and social psychology literature, this paper presents findings from a small qualitative study of 12 Ontario teachers. Over one school year, teachers engaged in critical reading on race and racism, completed unconscious bias awareness training, used a variety of conscious and unconscious bias mitigation techniques, and provided ongoing reflections on these activities. This paper centers on two themes emerging from the data: first, the limitations of unconscious bias work in the absence of critical learning around the broader historical, institutional and systemic elements of racism; and second, teachers’ productive experiences of raced discomfort as part of their professional learning and self-location in a raced world.

Authors

• Arlo Kempf, University of Toronto, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

• Preeti Nayak, University of Toronto