03/22/2023
It’s time! Lmk if you want the link!
Doctoral Candidate: Micah Griffith
Program: Curriculum & Instruction- Urban Education
Date: April 3, 2023
Time: 1:00 pm
Location: Zoom
Committee Chair: Dr. Erin Miller
Committee Members: Dr. Brittany Anderson, Dr. Greg Wiggan, & Dr. Stephen Hancock
Title: The Intersections of White Identity and the Instructional Practices of Self-Identified Antiracist Educators
Abstract: While there was much research on whiteness, especially the role of whiteness in the classroom and the associated impact of racial mismatch and implicit bias, and also some research surrounding white racial identity development devoid of intersectionality, there was previously no existing research examining the multiplicities of white racial identity in self-identified antiracist educators. This study served to fill the gap within the research and began to analyze how sociopolitical systems potentially serve to replicate and reinforce whiteness and racial bias through intersections of racial identity, and also potentially identify how those intersections can be disrupted in such a way as to foster critical consciousness and antiracist activism within classrooms nationally. This study answers the questions: “How do intersections of identity shape the way teachers view themselves in the classroom?” and “How do the varied intersections of white identity inform teacher experiences, philosophical and pedagogical paradigms, and instructional practice amongst self-identified antiracist educators?” Using interpretive phenomenology and employing the theoretical frameworks of critical whiteness (Roediger, 1994), critical whiteness feminism, and double-imagery (Seidl & Hancock, 2011), the following themes were identified as relevant to forming white teachers’ critical consciousness (Freire, 2018), thus supporting an
antiracist paradigm: gender, religion, proximity to people of color, and education.