The Unbearable Whiteness of Teacher Education: Theorizing a Decolonizing Framework

Session Type: Invited Speaker Session

Abstract

Toward Decolonizing Theories in Teacher Education

Education of new critically-conscious teacher candidates that aims to be transformative and in-service of social justice must deal with the ‘unbearable whiteness of schooling’ (Leonardo, 2013). This symposium engages four papers that present teachable tensions in the shift from teacher education as hegemonic engine toward professional learning and unlearning of whiteness. The preparation of teachers for complex navigations of structural oppressions mandates individualized development of critically-conscious dispositions that read for intersectional injustices and negotiate leverage for resistance against institutionalized racism (Au, 2012; Patel, 2016). Developing anti-imperialist frameworks for classroom instruction contributes to the reclaiming of public schools from their history of neo-colonialist policies and structured white normativity. Political complexities in enacting transformative teaching frameworks highlight the urgency of ever-developing critical race analyses of ‘public education’ for emerging teachers (Ladson-Billings, 1998; Leonardo, 2012).

Sub Unit

• Social Justice Action Committee

Chair

• Angela Valenzuela, The University of Texas at Austin

Papers

• Reparative Curricula for Decolonizing Teacher Education - Victoria F. Trinder, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Reconstructing Foundations and Recentering Race - Gregory V. Larnell, University of Illinois at Chicago; Torica L. Webb, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Deconstructing Whiteness in Literacy Teacher Education - Kristine M. Schutz, University of Illinois at Chicago; Rebecca L. Woodard, University of Illinois

• Imagining Decolonized Bilingual Education: Unlearning Whiteness in Teacher Education - P. Zitlali Morales, University of Illinois at Chicago; Victoria F. Trinder, University of Illinois at Chicago

Discussant

• Thomas M. Philip, University of California - Berkeley