Policy and Practice: A Call to Abandon the Continuation of the Legacy of Educational Inequities

• In Event: Race and Equity Issues in Teaching, Teacher Prepartion, and Educational Experiences

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative project was to explore the invasive nature of Whiteness on educational policies and practices. As teacher educators working with mostly White preservice/inservice teachers, we have repeatedly found structures of inequality standing as barriers to the achievement of ethnically, racially and socioeconomically diverse students. The researchers involved with this project used scholarly personal narratives as a means of self-excavation and a lens in which to critically examine educational policies that serve to widen, rather than narrow, achievement and opportunity gaps for diverse students. One predominant theme present across the narratives suggests that a White supremacist perspective strongly pervades educational policies and practices that shape our thinking and influence our professional roles.

Authors

• Tiffany Renee Wheeler, Transylvania University

• Sherry W. Powers, Asbury University

• Angela J. Cox, Georgetown College

• Miriam Elizabeth Stroder, Asbury University