Anti-racism in White Educators’ Classrooms: a Complicated Journey Toward Conscientization Maturation
Location
Session 3 Presentations - Social Justice & Anti-Racism
Proposal Track
Research Project
Session Format
Presentation
Abstract
In this presentation, two White educators will describe the personal and professional journeys they underwent while embedding anti-racist pedagogy in their instructional methods courses at a large, rural southeastern US university. Both presenters identify as middle class, cisgender, White women. As teacher educators dedicated to anti-racism, presenters established a critical friendship (Tagoonaden et al, 2018) to awaken (Lloyd, 1972) their anti-racist selves by asking the following research question: How do two teacher educators embed anti-racist pedagogy in the wake of the racial and social unrest of 2020? To investigate their question, they inquired about their relationship with Freire’s conscientization while developing anti-racist pedagogy in their classrooms. Presenters will detail their collaborative self-study in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) commons (Gilpin & Liston, 2009; Huber & Hutchings, 2005). Attendees should expect to learn how presenters recognized their enactments of Saad’s (2019) components of white supremacy, such as white silence, privilege, and apathy as well as optical allyship. These enactments made them believe they were doing good because of their “desire to be seen as good” (Saad, 2019, p. 43); however, results revealed the emotional work it took to speak back at their racist intentions and tendencies while embedding anti-racist pedagogy.
Keywords
Anti-racist pedagogy; Conscientization; Critical Friendship; SoTL
Professional Bio
Elizabeth Barrow is an Assistant Professor of Social Studies Education at Georgia Southern University. A former high school history teacher, Dr. Barrow now teaches Social Studies methods, contemporary issues in Social Studies education, introduction to Curriculum and Instruction, and supervises students in the field. Her research interests include Social Studies teacher education, student teaching abroad, and technology in Social Studies education. She recently published a chapter, 1860: The Election That Started the War, in the edited volume Teaching the Causes of the American Civil War. Dr. Barrow has also published in The Social Studies, Social Education, The History Teacher, and CITE. Taylor Norman is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Middle Grades and Secondary Education at Georgia Southern University. After a career as a rural high school English teacher, Taylor attended Purdue University for her graduate degrees in English Education. Taylor’s research stories the identities and practices of preservice and inservice middle grade and secondary teachers in order to build bridges between theory and practice.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Barrow, Elizabeth and Norman, Taylor, "Anti-racism in White Educators’ Classrooms: a Complicated Journey Toward Conscientization Maturation" (2021). Georgia Educational Research Association Conference. 57.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/gera/2021/2021/57
Anti-racism in White Educators’ Classrooms: a Complicated Journey Toward Conscientization Maturation
Session 3 Presentations - Social Justice & Anti-Racism
In this presentation, two White educators will describe the personal and professional journeys they underwent while embedding anti-racist pedagogy in their instructional methods courses at a large, rural southeastern US university. Both presenters identify as middle class, cisgender, White women. As teacher educators dedicated to anti-racism, presenters established a critical friendship (Tagoonaden et al, 2018) to awaken (Lloyd, 1972) their anti-racist selves by asking the following research question: How do two teacher educators embed anti-racist pedagogy in the wake of the racial and social unrest of 2020? To investigate their question, they inquired about their relationship with Freire’s conscientization while developing anti-racist pedagogy in their classrooms. Presenters will detail their collaborative self-study in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) commons (Gilpin & Liston, 2009; Huber & Hutchings, 2005). Attendees should expect to learn how presenters recognized their enactments of Saad’s (2019) components of white supremacy, such as white silence, privilege, and apathy as well as optical allyship. These enactments made them believe they were doing good because of their “desire to be seen as good” (Saad, 2019, p. 43); however, results revealed the emotional work it took to speak back at their racist intentions and tendencies while embedding anti-racist pedagogy.
