The Possibility of Low-High Spaces in White Teacher Education

• In Event: What Can White People Do? Whiteness and Education in the Current Moment

Abstract

This talk will advocate for what I refer to as low-high spaces to support white people in learning more about their whiteness. Drawing from the descriptions of low and high spaces from Lensmire (2014; 2017), low-high spaces are contexts where white people can speak candidly about race, in bombastic, convoluted, hypocritical, and potentially racist ways, in order to make sense of their own white identity in white supremacist society. Central to low-high spaces are opportunities for white people to practice participating in a culture that is race-candid, honest, critical, and about restoring relations with self and the white community.

To demonstrate the possibilities of low-high spaces, I will draw upon black theorists, Reverend Thandeka (1999) and Ralph Ellison (1953/1995) to describe the learning of Boaz, a white secondary science intern who participated in a designed low-high space (Sandoval, 2014). Using storytelling as method (Gallagher, 2011; Johnson, 2017), I will show how Boaz was able to make sense of his white identity and whiteness by telling stories and practicing “being” antiracist. The stories I will present will revolve around two instances; Boaz’s reactions to taking a science methods course focused on whiteness and his final project where he theorized white identity and antiracism. By theorizing the possibilities of low-high spaces, I am responding to calls from black scholars (e.g. Baldwin, 1962; Ellison, 1953/1995) and white scholars (e.g. Lensmire, 2022; Tanner, 2019) who suggest whiteness is a white problem and therefore, white people need to examine and restore our humanity and our communities before we, white people, will no longer need white supremacy.

Participants will consider the following questions during the talk:

How do different learning environments support white teachers’ antiracist learning?

What is possible when white people are given the opportunity to honestly, authentically, and meaningfully make sense of their white identities?

References

Baldwin, J. (1962). The Fire Next Time. New York: Vintage Books.

Ellison, R. (1953/1995). Shadow and act. New York, NY: Vintage International.

Gallagher, K. M. (2011). In search of a theoretical basis for storytelling in education research: Story as method. International Journal of Research and Method in Education, 34(1), 49–61. https://doi.org/10.1080/1743727X.2011.552308

Johnson, L. L. (2017). The racial hauntings of one black male professor and the disturbance of
the self(ves): Self-actualization and racial storytelling as pedagogical practices. Journal of Literacy Research, 49(4), 476–502.

Lensmire, T.J. (2014). White Men’s Racial Others. Teachers College Record, 116(3), 1–32.

Lensmire, T. J. (2017). White folks: Race and identity in rural America. New York, NY:
Routledge.

Lensmire, T. J. (2022). How white supremacy is reproduced in the relations of white people to other white people, with some notes on what this means for antiracist education. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 0(0), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2022.2025485

Sandoval, W. (2014). Conjecture mapping: An approach to systematic educational design research. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 23(1), 18–36.

Tanner, S. J. (2019). Whiteness is a white problem : Whiteness in English education. English Education, 51(2), 182–199.

Thandeka. (1999). Learning to be white: Money, race, and God in America. New York, NY: Continuum.

Author

• Jonathan D McCausland, Pennsylvania State University
  Presenting Author