"But, Is It Really Racism?" Critical Mini-Ethnographies as a Tool for Disrupting Whiteness

• In Event: Emancipatory Practices in Antiracist Classrooms

Abstract

Through emancipatory pedagogy (Freire, 1970; Nieto; 1995; Paul, 2002) and the work of Matias and Lou’s (2015) Critical Race Activism (CRA), this study examines the experiences of 11 white teachers in a rural area enrolled in week-long summer course focused on social justice and equity in education. This study explores the radical “places of possibility” (Goessling, forthcoming) for uprooting white teachers’ deficit views of students of color and moving teachers toward CRA. Findings show how critical mini-ethnographies grounded in CRA moved white teachers from critical self-reflection to critical action to disrupt whiteness in their schools and communities.

Author

• Laura A. Roy, La Salle University