Nice White Teacher: How Niceness and Whiteness Prevent Antiracist Pedagogy in the Classroom

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: Whiteness: Territoriality, Oppression, and Niceness

Abstract

This study engaged in critical narrative inquiry to to tease out, investigate, and interrogate why white educators, especially white women, may hold on to an ideology of Niceness and to understand how white educators may be called in, or call one another in, to do better and its importance for further dismantling white supremacy and promoting anti-racist pedagogy. This study gave space to sit in discomfort and then move beyond it to break the bonds of Niceness to embracing the joys of being a “feminist killjoy” (Ahmed, 2017) and bringing others along with us. After all, Niceness holds white people hostage, to an ideal that not only is harmful to others but to ourselves as well.

Author

• Megan L Ruby, Oklahoma State University - Stillwater