Structuring contexts: pathways toward un-obstructing race-consciousness. Issue 8 (13th September 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Berchini, Christina
• Is Part Of: International journal of qualitative studies in education. Volume 29:Issue 8(2016)
• Page Start: 1030
• Page End: 1044
• Publication Date: 2016-09-13
• Subjects: Critical Whiteness Studies -- second-wave White Teacher Identity Studies -- teacher education -- Holocaust curriculum; Education -- Research -- Periodicals; Éducation -- Recherche -- Périodiques; Sciences de l'éducation -- Méthodes qualitatives -- Périodiques; 370.72
• DOI: 10.1080/09518398.2016.1189620
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0951-8398

Abstract

Abstract: This research is situated in second-wave White Teacher Identity studies and investigates the ways context structures a high school English teacher's white identity, practices, and race-consciousness. Working with detailed data and vignettes from a single case study, the author highlights the teaching of a unit on the Holocaust. Using the required Holocaust curriculum as a unit of analysis, the author illustrates how the teacher is structured to minimize and dismiss broader discussions of institutionalized and systemic oppression and violence, and particularly those contributions offered by a student of color in her classroom. The author argues that understanding the role contexts play in obstructing race-consciousness can help fill interpretive gaps between race-conciousness and what, on the surface, might appear to be a teacher's race-evasiveness.