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

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This symposium features studies that engage in critical and intersectional analyses of race across geopolitical contexts (rural, urban, suburban) to understand the moment we are in and the impact of this political climate on educators and schooling. By putting different methodologies (qualitative interviews, case studies, questionnaires) and theoretical frameworks (critical race theory, critical whiteness studies, antiracism, intersectional feminism) into conversation with one another, these papers will critically interrogate how whiteness is operating. In particular, we will interrogate how inservice counselors, teachers, and school leaders are responding within their contexts and what preservice teachers are being prepared for, and, thus, what continued work is necessary to best equip educators to take action toward equitable change within their educational spaces.

Sub Unit

• Division K - Teaching and Teacher Education / Division K - Section 03: Teachers’ Lives, Identities, and Journeys

Chair

• Sarah D. Lent, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Papers

• Politics and Identity: White Teachers' Decision Making in Efforts to Adopt Antiracist-Centered Teaching - Sarah D. Lent, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Layers of Whiteness: Preservice Teachers' Racial and Professional Identities - Sarah Chase, Iowa State University

• Rural Teachers and Whiteness: Silencing, Evasiveness, and the Consequences of Resistance - Missy Springsteen-Haupt, Iowa State University

• Whiteness in Blue Bubbles: Testimonies of Antiracist Teachers in Liberal Spaces - Pete M. Newlove, University of Colorado - Denver

• Unsettling Calm and Order: Resisting While Reinforcing White Supremacy in a Humanizing Social Emotional Praxis - Riley Drake, University of Wisconsin - Stout