Historicizing Race and Whiteness as a Pedagogical Imperative for Antiracist Teaching

• In Event: The "Wicked Flexibility" of Whiteness in Progressive Educational Reform Initiatives

Abstract

This paper explores the continued limited engagement with whiteness in social studies and history education, even in research and interventions explicitly dealing with race and/or racism. Taking this gap into account, the authors advance a pedagogy of historicizing whiteness, which they implemented during a professional development workshop for history teachers and other educational professionals. Using pre and post workshop surveys and a follow-up focus group as data, this paper explores the efficacy of a pedagogy of historicizing race and surfaces the continued challenges of insinuating whiteness into efforts at antiracism in history teaching.

Studies on how race is taken up in social studies have burgeoned in recent years (Martell, 2018; King & Chandler, 2016), demonstrating that the origins of race is rarely a curricular topic (Nelson & Pang, 2006) and that race is frequently framed as individually enacted via personal animus rather than a structural set of advantages (Wills, 2001, 2019). However, the way that teachers conceptualize and navigate whiteness in their teaching, has only begun to receive attention in research on social studies education (Hawkman & Shear, 2019; Hawkman, 2020).

This paper argues that an explicit understanding and teaching of the history of whiteness is necessary to any antiracist educational effort. Matias & Mackey (2016) reasoned that teachers must first understand the foundations of race before they will be able to work against white supremacy, “for how can one commit to antiracist teaching if one does not understand the underlying reason for why it is needed in the first place?” (p. 35). As Roediger (1994) explained, “An analysis that simply demystifies all conceptions of race without concentrating on critiquing whiteness runs the risk of reinforcing such widely and sincerely held notions” (p. 14). By framing the problem in terms of race and racism without noting the role of whiteness in securing racial domination, whiteness continues un-indicted.

This paper draws upon data from a three-day, nine-hour workshop for 90 educational professionals focused explicitly on the historicization of race and whiteness. Led by a professional development organization that specializes in history and civics education, the workshop explicitly utilized a pedagogy of historicization—introducing the tracing the history of racial categories through primary sources, lectures from whiteness scholars, and collaboration with peers. Data for this study draws from pre and post-workshop surveys and a focus group.

Study findings illustrate some teachers’ ongoing reluctance to center whiteness in their teaching despite reporting enthusiasm for teaching about race and racism. Additionally, multiple teachers reported tempering their teaching about whiteness based on classroom demographics, indicating a view that understanding the origins of whiteness is only relevant for certain students. This continued hesitancy to take on whiteness highlights whiteness’ wiley perseverance, even when explicitly tasked with pinpointing its origins and contemporary workings.

Because racial supremacy is taught (Leonardo, 2004), logic presumes that it can be untaught— unlearned, rejected, or that perhaps what is taught can change. This paper details one such pedagogical intervention into whiteness geared towards dismantling racial supremacy, and raises some of the accompanying challenges.

Authors

• Charley Brooks, University of California - Santa Cruz

• Daisy Martin, University of California - Santa Cruz

• George C. Bunch, University of California - Santa Cruz