Other Kids' Teachers: What Children of Color Learn From White Women and What This Says About Race, Whiteness, and Gender

• In Event: Critical Race Theory Perspectives in Teacher Education and Praxis

Abstract

In this presentation, we examine a particular interaction between White women and children of color of any gender. This relationship needs to be understood to explain the concrete and historical dynamics. Ungendered analyses of whiteness and White-absent analyses of gender during the educational interaction will be limited in their scope and effectiveness in shedding light on the development of both children of color and White women teachers.
In recent research on schooling, much attention has been paid to the growing demographic divide between the teaching and student population. According to a 2011 report by the National Center for Education Information, as the number of students of color in public schools rises, the teaching profession develops in the opposite direction as it becomes more White (Feistritzer, 2011). There is a reasonable concern that the gulf between them will grow, spelling greater difficulties for minority students whose culture and experience already mismatch their teachers’ milieu and upbringing, captured by Lisa Delpit’s (1995/2006) symptomatic book title, Other People’s Children. By 2050, it is widely predicted that public schools will boast a majority students of color in trend setting states, like California and Texas (Banks, 2004), their development often represents projected patterns for the future of education. The growing racial divide between White teachers and students of color is worrisome for critical race theorists because it means the implementation of culturally relevant pedagogy (Gay, 2000; Ladson-Billings, 1995; Howard, 2010) faces serious challenges.
However, an important detail rarely makes it into the prognosis. Teachers are not only predominantly White, they are overwhelmingly White women. The National Center for Education Information released a 2011 report stating that over 80 percent of the teaching force in the United States was White and female. Up from 69 percent in 1986, the numbers seem to keep growing. A 2007 National Center for Education Statistics report states, “In 2004, minorities made up 42 percent of public prekindergarten through secondary school enrollment” (KewelRamani, 2007, p. iv). With each of these groups reportedly growing, the interface between White female schoolteachers and students of color has a significant bearing on education policies, outcomes, and teaching practices. Therefore, a specificity to the situation needs to be highlighted and interrogated.
White women’s particular role in the racial formation (Omi and Winant, 2014) becomes an important node of analysis because it forms a basic architecture for the unique interaction between White women teachers and students of color of any gender. White women teachers are abused abusers, simultaneously harmed by patriarchy while doing harm through racism. The specific relationship between White women teachers and their students of color is under-theorized. Yet, this relationship is structural and has strong historical roots that affect the future of education. To create a basis for understanding these roots and the subsequent structures they take on, this presentation draws from historical texts, statistics, literary analysis, film, and social theories pertaining to education. In the spirit of critical race theory, the presentation narrates from these different perspectives to tell a “story” of the White woman teacher’s significant social position and impact in education.

Authors

• Zeus Leonardo, University of California - Berkeley

• Erica Misako Boas, Santa Clara University