Leveraging Qualitative Case Study Methodology to Critically Study Whiteness

• In Event: Thursday Roundtable Session 10:50 am
  In Roundtable Session: Spatial Innovations in Grounded Theory, Case Study, and Ethnography (Table 23)

Abstract

Qualitative case study methodology is particularly well suited for studying, interrogating, and disrupting whiteness in education. By drawing on two recent case studies of whiteness, the authors demonstrate how scholars can leverage case study methodology to highlight the predictability and unique manifestations of whiteness across contexts. Specifically, this paper illustrates how case study (1) contributes to critical studies of whiteness by highlighting particular local, geographical, and institutional contexts that influence how whiteness functions; (2) documents how particular policies or organizational arrangements reproduce or resist whiteness; (3) takes whiteness’ spatial dimensions seriously, including how people experience physical spaces within each case; and (4) illuminates multiple, sometimes conflicting, perspectives, assumptions, and ideas about the nature of race within each case.

Authors

• Lauren N. Irwin, University of Tennessee

• Zak Foste, University of Kansas