"I'm Not the One They Need": Teaching Trump and the Construction of Whiteness

• In Event: Critical Readings of Whiteness, Race, Space, and Identities

Abstract

This paper works to understand the impact of Donald Trump’s November 2016 election on four White teachers’ dynamic conceptions of Whiteness. This analyses draws from a year-long participatory action research project with four White women teachers who taught in high schools that serve exclusively students of color, and draws from Critical Whiteness Studies, Critical Discourse Analysis, and critical understandings of teacher subjectivity. This paper examines the ways that the four White women participants talked about their shifting understandings of Whiteness in the days, weeks, and months immediately following Donald Trump’s election --- and, in particular, the teachers’ talk about the consequences of those shifting understandings for their teaching and framing of their roles and responsibilities as White teachers.

Author

• Julia R. Daniels, University of Washington - Seattle