This article contextualizes the issues schools face around culturally diverse student bases with majority White teacher bases. Our group sees this as a critical issue within reducing cultural differences in schools.    

 

 

·      This article focuses on the examination of evidence on how preservice teachers are prepared to enter and succeed in schools with significant multicultural student populations.

·      It outlines how the “culture gap” between students and quality teachers is widening and the impact that has on student success, specifically learning outcomes, disengagement and dropping out.

·      Teachers anticipate teaching diverse student groups, yet bring little cross-cultural backgrounds, knowledge or experience. Suggesting preservice teachers are naïve and have stereotypical beliefs. They have little understanding of discrimination.

·      Research suggests teacher of color are more committed to multicultural teaching, social justice and providing challenging curriculum to suit all students.

·      (Those)Teacher education programs are not designed to extend preservice teachers knowledge or prepare them for multicultural classrooms.

·      Promotes a more inclusive recruitment of teachers with culturally diverse backgrounds and experiences. 

·      Concludes with acknowledgement that if we continue in a business as usual approach to the issue, the gap will continue to widen.

 

 

 

 

 

1)    While this article discusses the gaps between preservice teacher training and student’s cultural diversity, many of the principles are relevant to how schools approach the issues of Whiteness and White pedagogy, and gaps between teachers preparedness to address culturally diverse pedagogy, as opposed paying it superficial attention. 

2)    Teachers develop an understanding of the issues associated with having predominantly White teachers and White-centric pedagogical styles throughout multicultural schools.

3)    Author describes/promotes the goal for preservice teachers to shift their pedagogy “from teaching as telling to teaching as engaging students with subject matter, using culturally relevant knowledge”. 

4)    Teachers can develop an awareness of the distinction between inclusive multicultural teaching and what the author terms a “colorblindness” approach to equity and diversity which comes from a position of “fear and ignorance”. 

5)    Students become critical of teachers who pay superficial attention to diversity, leading to futher disengagement. 

6)    Recommends “community-based cross-cultural immersion” or activities/experiences to enhance new teachers knowledge, disposition and understanding of real world experiences of minority cultures, thus supporting students to “match” with teachers who understand their perspectives. 

7)    The author comments, “This way of framing the issue (of cultural differences in schools) draws attention to what actually happens in classrooms when graduates of teacher programs begin to teach. 

 

We are Angus, Chris, Haoling, James and Ken.  

We’ve prepared this Padlet as a resource for pre-service teachers who want to know more about the theory of whiteness as a manifestation of cultural difference in schools.  

Our particular focus is how this theory - which essentially sees power in society as a racialisation process - impacts upon teaching and learning in the classroom.  

The Padlet works like this:

But first, a little context. 

So far this semester we’ve looked at how power plays out in schools - how it is distributed, how it is manifested and how it is contested.  With the help of social theorists like Foucault, Bourdieu and Butler, we’ve come to see that power in schools is largely conditioned by hierarchical understandings of gender, race, sexuality and socio-economic status.  This has meant that the “structure” of schooling has traditionally validated and privileged the experience of certain segments of society at the expense of other, more marginal groups. 

So where does the theory of whiteness fit in to this picture?  Well, scholars of whiteness studies assert that power in “colonial” societies like the United States and Australia is principally centred around discriminatory notions of racial superiority that stretch back centuries into the past. And guess who benefits from these discriminatory notions?  Yup, that’s right - white people. 

As you’ll soon learn, white people enjoy the privilege of not having to think too much about the nature of their racial identity, at least not in the same way that people of colour are forced to each time they are pulled over by the police in the United States.  That's what the meme at the start of the page is getting at - it's almost as if whiteness carries no meaning, is neutral.  For instance, no one ever talks about a “White” historian in the same way as they might talk about an “hispanic” historian.  Whiteness, in this sense, is less to do with the racial characteristics of a white person, and more to do with the ideology that supports the social construction of racial hierarchies.  

And because schools are embedded within society, they cannot escape the "practices" and "discourses" of whiteness.  What follows is a series of resources that will show you how to spot these practices and discourses in schools, as well as providing you with some hints as to how you might - as an inclusive practitioner of diverse students - destabilise their influence.  

Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide if you agree with the theory of whiteness - whether you see it as offering a compelling and accurate account of social life. We’re not going to tell you what to think.  But research has repeatedly shown that structural forms of inequality - particularly those grounded in race - have a direct impact on the learning outcomes of students.  As a future educator, we think that is definitely something you should care about.  

- Something we’ve might have never noticed before. Very predictable and recognisable patterns.

- Developed as an idea of a racial category that is at the apex of the racial hierarchy.

Robin DiAngelo
- Introduces the de-centred and arrogant ideology of ‘whiteness’. It becomes a privilege, causes racial inequity, but society is ignorant to it as it is ‘uncomfortable’. Key points made from the podcast include the following: 

We need racial equity in a society that claims, ‘whiteness doesn’t mean anything.’

“I was taught to treat everyone the same.” This is not humanly possible. We can’t be taught to do that, can be told to do that. 

Our society keeps us ignorant and it doesn’t serve us to be ignorant. 
Add that with arrogance – all our teachers, heroes and leaders are white. Hard on people with colour.

Reveal the foundation of meaning that’s causing the uncomfortableness:
White fragility –Inability to hold the conversation without getting defensive and hurt. ‘Need to protect my position. To challenge is to question my very identity.’ Stand to benefit from that inequality in society.

Individualism is only granted to white people and therefore becomes a privilege. White people are rarely identified by race. “They are "just an educator," or "just a teacher”. Suggesting that race has meaning is to fundamentally challenge this concept of individualism. 

‘Good neighbourhood, good schools’ is a code for ‘white’. Have set the world up to grant objectivity to white people. This is a very limited worldview. People of colour see ‘race’ everywhere.

Most children understand by age 3 that it is better to be ‘white’. “What message does it give you about yourself?” Need to avoid having these internalised messages of superiority and inferiority in children and in schools.

IMPLICATIONS OF RESOURCE FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING IN SCHOOLS
Shines a light on the societal ignorance and arrogance of this issue.

As teachers, we must consider:
“How does ‘whiteness’ manifest in Australian schools?”.
“How is this going this going to shape teacher’s attitudes going forwards?”

It doesn’t serve us a society to be ignorant to this issue.  

There are taboos when it comes to talking about race.

‘Whiteness’ is not comfortable a topic but we MUST GET UNCOMFORTABLE.

Our objective is to de-centre ‘whiteness’.
One of the ways it remains centred is by being unnamed and unmarked. Need to NAME and ADMIT things that white people will rarely ever name and admit to. By helping other white people surface that deeply embedded unconscious of implicit bias. 

That is, we must name (with teachers, staff, and students) the REALITY,  that this societal inequality is real and it exists. 
---
So we've introduced and clarified some new terms regarding this uncomfortable but dire issue. Moving on from this podcast resource towards academic journal articles, having this understanding will give us the ability to unearth and dive into addressing 'whiteness' and 'white fragility' within the school and educational contexts.

·      The article is motivated by an acknowledgement of Asia's  impact on Australia by a 2016 ACARA document

·      It outlines three main ways in which religious traditions can be incorporated into teaching; through analysis of historical examples of religious difference, through comparison of cultural and religious identities and through the innate knowledge of teachers

·      The article suggests that the connection between religion and ethnic identity is not fixed
·      Religion in Australia is most commonly Christian, and whilst there are number of denominations, the assumed similar teachings have provided a baseline that "inform a shared social order" for Australia. This dominant culture creates a binary that we know as whiteness, and is indicative of not having to think about identity, as James mentioned earlier.
·      The article puts forward that this whiteness causes others people outside of whiteness to be treated as exotics both racially and religiously.
·      This treatment is a symptom of the widening culture gap Chris highlighted

·      It also suggests that the variance of denominations lead to the acceptance of Christian events despite the survey respondents indicating they thought Australia was secular

·      Finally, the article suggests that without considering Asian cultural perspectives, any curriculum movements towards Asia are redundant

Implications of this reading

1)    The author suggests that in order to progress, we need to acknowledge the normalisation of white Christianity in Australian society

2)    Teachers need to move away from considering being white as the norm and anyone else being other

3)    As teachers, we need to avoid overemphasis on white comfort to make meaningful progress

4)    Reflective practice is a powerful tool when considering the religion of people from non-western heritages

5)    Schools should integrate other cultures to build understanding, potentially through festivals and similar activities 

Like Ken said, the podcast features an interview with the American academic Robin DiAngelo. She's nicknamed Dr Whiteness because she specialises in whiteness studies. Whiteness studies is actually a significant field of academic enquiry - it emerged in the second half of the twentieth century as a type of sociological study into the social construction of "whiteness" and its attendant power structures. Dr DiAngelo is one of whiteness studies' leading researchers, so we thought it was important to take a closer look at what she has to say.  

The topic of Dr DiAngelo's article is "white fragility". Ken introduced us to this concept in his commentary.  It's the phenomenon of defensiveness and dismissiveness that commonly accompanies challenges to white privilege. Dr. DiAngelo didn't just come up with this idea out of nowhere; it actually emerged out of her work as a diversity trainer in workplaces.   She observed that questions of white racial privilege were generally uncomfortably experienced by the white members of her workshops. So she set out to study this phenomenon, or more particularly the defensive tactics white people tend to employ when their racial privilege is brought into question.  This is what she means by “white fragility”.  

According to Dr DiAngelo, white fragility can manifest itself in “outward displays of emotions such as anger, fear and guilt, and behaviours such as argumentation, silence and leaving the stress-inducing situation”.  As a result of these practices, she says, the “white racial equilibrium is reinstated”.  White fragility, therefore, serves to reproduce white privilege.  

(Haoling and James have highlighted some of the more interesting and relevant passages out of Dr DiAngelo’s article - take a look if you get a chance, it’s very thought-provoking). 

I guess you’re all thinking, “this is great, but what does it mean for my practice as a teacher?”  Well,  for starters it means that any conversation you have with students about white privilege is likely to be accompanied by expressions of white fragility.  This is fine - at least now you know what it is you’re looking at, and what function it is attempting to serve.  

The second article by Kathy Hytten and John Warren takes a closer look at white fragility in the context of the university classroom. They found that even white students with the best of intentions can revert to defensive manoeuvres when white privilege is called into question.  

Ultimately, the two articles point to the fact that the question of whiteness is pretty fraught terrain because it challenges one of the major systems of power in society.