Between Belief and Burnout: The Precarity of Justice Work in Culturally Homogeneous Schools

• In Event: Reimagining Rural Justice: Critical, Cultural, and Historical Perspectives on Education and Belonging

Abstract

This study explores how White educators in a predominantly White, rural Midwestern community navigate the tensions of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) amid structural neglect, racial homogeneity, and political surveillance. Grounded in Ladson-Billings’ (1995, 2021) CRP, Freire’s (2000) critical pedagogy, and Matias’s (2013) work on emotional Whiteness, the study employs interpretive phenomenology with five K–8 educators. Findings reveal superficial enactments of CRP, improvised inclusion without systemic support, resistance to book bans, and emotional exhaustion tied to racialized and politicized fears. Teachers often relied on personal ethics in the absence of professional development, exposing the emotional labor and precarity of justice work in rural spaces. This research calls for reimagined teacher preparation grounded in equity, critical Whiteness, and rural sociopolitical realities.

Author

• Giovanni E. Whyte, University of North Dakota