‘The Feeling in my Chest’: Unblocking space for people of colour in critical whiteness studies

2021 ◽  
pp. 307-316
Author(s):  
Amanpreet Ahluwalia
2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 39-50
Author(s):  
Annette Sprung

This paper discusses organisational development in institutions of adult education aimed at enhancing diversity and preventing the discrimination of migrants. A critical analysis of three approaches, inter- cultural opening, managing diversity and fighting institutional racism, will be presented and amplified in the light of critical whiteness studies. The concepts differ in terms of their main goals, traditions, fields of practice and discourses of legitimation. The paper is based on the theoretical and empirical results of an Austrian applied research project, which explored how adult education institutions deal with migrant-related diversity. Finally, a strategic approach for opening up Austrian adult education for migrants, which was developed as part of the project, is presented.


2018 ◽  
Vol 70 (4) ◽  
pp. 306-318
Author(s):  
Stephanie Behm Cross ◽  
Nermin Tosmur-Bayazit ◽  
Alyssa Hadley Dunn

Studies on student teaching continue to suggest that preservice teachers’ feelings of dissonance are related to disparate views of teaching and learning between universities and schools. Drawing on interview, artifact, and observation data, the authors utilize Cognitive Dissonance and Critical Whiteness Studies to make different sense of the experiences of one White student teacher (Brett). Results indicate that Brett experienced dissonance related to fractured relationships, misaligned teaching strategies, and disengagement as he taught youth of color. Importantly, the use of Critical Whiteness Studies helped to additionally reveal the way Whiteness affected Brett’s movements toward consonance—mainly through rationalization and problematic notions of perseverance. The authors suggest that Whiteness itself is a dissonant state, and argue that conversations focused on dissonance from misaligned university theory and K-12 schooling practices is dangerously incomplete. Implications for research and practice are included.


Author(s):  
Barbara Applebaum

In 1903, standing at the dawn of the 20th century, W. E. B. Du Bois wrote that the color line is the defining characteristic of American society. Well into the 21st century, Du Bois’s prescience sadly still rings true. Even when a society is built on a commitment to equality, and even with the election of its first black president, the United States has been unsuccessful in bringing about an end to the rampant and violent effects of racism, as numerous acts of racial violence in the media have shown. For generations, scholars of color, among them Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and Franz Fanon, have maintained that whiteness lies at the center of the problem of racism. It is only relatively recently that the critical study of whiteness has become an academic field, committed to disrupting racism by problematizing whiteness as a corrective to the traditional exclusive focus on the racialized “other.” Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS) is a growing field of scholarship whose aim is to reveal the invisible structures that produce and reproduce white supremacy and privilege. CWS presumes a certain conception of racism that is connected to white supremacy. In advancing the importance of vigilance among white people, CWS examines the meaning of white privilege and white privilege pedagogy, as well as how white privilege is connected to complicity in racism. Unless white people learn to acknowledge, rather than deny, how whites are complicit in racism, and until white people develop an awareness that critically questions the frames of truth and conceptions of the “good” through which they understand their social world, Du Bois’s insight will continue to ring true.


2007 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 425-430 ◽  
Author(s):  
Garth Stevens

Green, Sonn, and Matsebula (2007) offer critical whiteness studies as a potential form of resistance against the strategic relations of power that constitute racism. While there may be utility in applying and extending international work on whiteness in the South African and Australian contexts, it is important to observe some cautions. First, whiteness manifests differently across contexts, and the type of comparison performed by Green et al. may at times elide important differences between, for example, contexts where whiteness has historically always been on the defensive versus contexts where it has not. Second, whiteness studies runs the risk of uncritically accepting white identity self-articulations. Third, whiteness studies may be incorrectly perceived as a ‘silver bullet’ for understanding and combating racism, rather than as a complementary and often secondary critical tool for anti-racist praxis.


2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 14-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Cole Perry

Camp staff have hope that summer camp plays a role in helping youth bridge differences. Educational research, though, raises concerns about preparing youth workers to combat racism (Jupp, Berry, & Lensmire, 2016). This study draws on prior school research and critical Whiteness studies to examine race-evasiveness among camp staff. Grounded theory analysis resulted in two major thematic categories of discursive strategies by which camp staff evaded critical engagement with antiracist discussion. First, camp staff upheld dominant racial understandings by invoking discourses of colorblindness and humanist caring. Second, they prioritized White comfort by neglecting youth of color and employing self-protective emotional tools of Whiteness (Picower, 2009). The research suggests areas of attention for scholars and camp staff trainers with regard to White staff’s race-evasiveness.


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