Confronting Ourselves: An Autoethnographic Approach to Whiteness in Higher Education

• In Event: U.S. Higher Ed: A Peculiar Institution

Abstract

This chapter seeks to identify how the discourses of Whiteness maintain systems of oppression and dominance that support White supremacy and exacerbate racism and inequity in higher education. By employing critical discourse analysis and critical autoethnography, the authors seek to identify the ways in which the discourses of Whiteness operate and influence the behaviors of White students, faculty and administrators on campus. Specifically, we use our lived experiences as White, middle-class people working in higher education as a means to illuminate the ways Whites can be/are blind to the advantages benefitting them.

Authors

• Richard L Wagoner, Idaho State University

• Hallie Star, College of Southern Idaho