Layers of Whiteness: Preservice Teachers' Racial and Professional Identities

• In Event: Commitments Across Contexts: Working Through the Politics of Whiteness With Educators

Abstract

Context & Purpose
Iowa’s H.F. 802 (2021) is one of many recent “divisive concept” bills (“Educational Gag Orders,” 2022) that tries to ban learning about systemic racism and sexism. As these education policies continue to emerge across the U.S., and teacher populations remain primarily white, female, and middle-class (Leonardo and Boas, 2013; Will, 2020), it is more important than ever to continue research into how white preservice teachers (PSTs) can be better prepared to meet the needs of their students (López, 2006; Leonardo, 2009). In particular, how can we, as educators, interrupt white PSTs’ identification with notions of teaching centered in whiteness by complicating their understanding of their own racial and teacher identities?

Theoretical Framework
As demonstrated by Bell (2016), Ladson-Billings (2016), and others, critical race theory (CRT) scholars have overlapping interests as well as individual areas of exploration, many of whom focused on praxis—connecting theory to practice. Similar to how CRT assumes racism exists, critical whiteness (CW) assumes that whiteness exists in everyday ways (Matias and Boucher, 2021), so both can be useful in conjunction with one another. In particular, CW provides an opportunity to focus on white subjects and their socially constructed racial identities, while disrupting these dominant ways of thinking (Leonardo, 2009).

Data & Findings
This paper focuses on a qualitative analysis of four interviews. These are a part of a larger batch of interviews from a study that is exploring a specific university’s programmatic implementation of case studies across their education preparation program; however, these four included specific questions that asked PSTs to reflect on their personal and professional identities. For example, only one interviewee was aware of education policies like H.F. 802, and while they all identified as teachers, they struggled to move beyond self-identifying as white and connect their racial identity and professional role without prompting. Within these responses, all of the participants demonstrated an interest in developing relationships with students, while also making connections to authority, being “respected,” and/or “professionalism” in the classroom. Thus, while they were starting to see themselves as leaders in the classroom, they were still struggling to navigate how these concepts (steeped in whiteness norms) affect their relationships with students and identify how outside pressures, like H.F. 802, could further impact those choices.

Scholarly Significance
Although these findings are from a small sample, they provide examples that speak to the larger narrative of research about white PSTs and provide a pilot study for future studies to expand on. There is no simple “checklist” to follow; however, by exploring ways that our white PSTs are struggling, we can keep challenging these dominant perspectives and help prepare them to be equity-minded teachers within a “divisive” education context.

Author

• Sarah Chase, Iowa State University
  Presenting Author