Rural Teachers and Whiteness: Silencing, Evasiveness, and the Consequences of Resistance

• In Event: Commitments Across Contexts: Working Through the Politics of Whiteness With Educators

Abstract

Context and Purpose
In the wake of “divisive concepts” legislation (2021) and anti-trans sports legislation (2022), Iowa has joined many predominantly-conservative states in enacting policies that further marginalize students in K-12 schools (Kim, 2021; Meyer, Leonardi & Keenan, 2022). Along with formal policy, state level politicians have contributed to public rhetoric accusing teachers of having “sinister agendas” in order to “normalize deviant behavior” and comparing LGBTQ+ inclusive practices as synonymous with sexual abuse (Pitt, 2022). In rural spaces, where students can already be reluctant to discuss topics of gender, sexuality, and race (Wagner, 2014), how do teachers approach issues of race, gender, and sexuality in K-12 schools? How do women teachers experience power, marginalization, and oppression in rural schools and communities?

Methodology and Theoretical Framing
This narrative inquiry used semi-structured interviews in order to better understand how women teachers in rural Iowa experience power, marginalization, and oppression in their schools and communities. It includes narratives from 21 participants across a variety of rural contexts from RUCC 7-9 categories (USDA, ERS 2013). This paper utilized an intersectional feminist lens with Hill Collins & Bilge’s (2016) Domains of Power to to examine how teachers’ personal and professional identities interconnect with issues of power, justice, equity, marginalization, and oppression in school and community environments.

Findings and Significance
As white women teachers, many participants clearly mentioned the impacts of racism in their community, while others displayed some level of race evasiveness (Sibbet, 2020; Ferber & O’Reilly Herrera, 2013) by not acknowledging race at all, or labeling it as a “controversial” topic that needed to be avoided in rural climates. Participants mentioned the fear of having any conversations about race or racism in their classes and the need to “be careful” thus using curricular control to avoid topics of race and racism that would potentially put them under fire in their rural schools and communities. Though it went unacknowledged by some participants, their whiteness provided them with the power to decide that talking about race and racism in their classrooms and communities was not worth the risk to their personal positions, especially with the legal threat of House File 802. This self-silencing was often disconnected from participants’ avowed commitments to being allies. Participants who showed acts of resistance, such as hanging pride flags in classrooms or including discussions of race and racism in literature classes, often received threats from students, parents, and fellow teachers, in addition to pressure from administrators and school boards. Six teachers from this study have chosen to leave rural teaching due to community pressure and lack of administrative support. Teachers in this study expressed dire need for rural school administrators to support their commitments to equity in the face of rural social pressure and recent legislation.

Author

• Missy Springsteen-Haupt, Iowa State University
  Presenting Author