Shifting the Trajectory of the Social Studies Classroom Activity System: A Case Study and Design-Based Research Project on Whiteness (Poster 22)

• In Event: AERA Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: Evaluating Social Studies Teaching and Learning (San Diego)

Abstract

In this study, we analyzed what happened in a classroom activity system (Engeström, 2001) when the learning objectives aligned with antiracism. We grounded our study in activity theory, design research, and critical theories of race to help us explore how whiteness operates as ideology in secondary social studies classrooms and to consider the optimal design characteristics for social studies instructional tools rooted in an antiracist paradigm of thought and speech. We argue that building opportunities into instruction for students to transgress white racial knowledge (Crowley, 2016) and develop solidarity with others sets the classroom activity system on a more ideologically transformational trajectory.

Authors

• Tori Smith, University of Alabama

• Kevin R. Magill, Baylor University

• Brooke Blevins, University of Idaho