White "Postures" of Racial Self-Location in Race Talk: Implications for Antiracism Education

• In Event: The (Anti)Racist Education of White Teachers and Students

Abstract

While implicit bias teacher ‘training’ has become increasingly popular, less research exists on how to bridge learning on implicit bias with critical antiracism work. Drawing from a study with secondary teachers in Toronto, Canada, this paper focuses on findings that emerged from a structured dinner with White teachers and racialized parents/students. We identify three distinct but related White ‘postures’ of self-location in race talk: self-consciousness, White self-exceptionalism, and self to system. The focus of this article is on ‘self to system’, which is characterized by participants linking personal discomfort to questions of systemic racism and White supremacy. Teachers were able to move past the internal paralyses of self-location work and identify possibilities for their own participation in antiracism education.

Authors

• Arlo Kempf, University of Toronto - OISE

• Preeti Nayak, University of Toronto

• Sevgi Arslan, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto