This chapter reports on a mixed-method study with secondary teachers in Toronto, Canada, centering on race and white supremacy in education. Framed using critical race theory, this chapter argues for the inclusion of critical perspectives and practices in discussions about implicit racism. Rejecting narrow approaches to combating racism through implicit race bias work, which too often fail to consider racism at the systemic and institutional levels, this project seeks a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding and disruption of racism in schools. The chapter reports on white participants’ experiences of the possibilities and limitations of perspective taking race bias mitigation activities as a tool for identifying, contextualizing, and contesting their own knowledge and practices to promote more inclusive classrooms. Findings suggest that adopting different perspectives enabled teachers to gain better understandings of their own racial identities, pedagogy, and experiences with racialized students. Teachers were able to connect the dots between the individual and the systemic, and to recognize racism as not solely the result of individual prejudices, but as reflexively embedded in systems and structures. Additionally, teachers acknowledged that simply changing one’s thinking is insufficient to eradicate racism in classrooms and discussed alternative approaches that may be used in conjunction with perspective taking. As race bias remains a barrier to racial justice in schools, this work is critical in addressing the robust operations of racism and white supremacy in contemporary schooling, as well as for supporting and encouraging white teachers to use different approaches to identify and challenge racial structures and processes.

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Teachers’ Anti-racist Engagements

  • Arlo Kempf,
  • Sevgi Arslan

摘要

This chapter reports on a mixed-method study with secondary teachers in Toronto, Canada, centering on race and white supremacy in education. Framed using critical race theory, this chapter argues for the inclusion of critical perspectives and practices in discussions about implicit racism. Rejecting narrow approaches to combating racism through implicit race bias work, which too often fail to consider racism at the systemic and institutional levels, this project seeks a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding and disruption of racism in schools. The chapter reports on white participants’ experiences of the possibilities and limitations of perspective taking race bias mitigation activities as a tool for identifying, contextualizing, and contesting their own knowledge and practices to promote more inclusive classrooms. Findings suggest that adopting different perspectives enabled teachers to gain better understandings of their own racial identities, pedagogy, and experiences with racialized students. Teachers were able to connect the dots between the individual and the systemic, and to recognize racism as not solely the result of individual prejudices, but as reflexively embedded in systems and structures. Additionally, teachers acknowledged that simply changing one’s thinking is insufficient to eradicate racism in classrooms and discussed alternative approaches that may be used in conjunction with perspective taking. As race bias remains a barrier to racial justice in schools, this work is critical in addressing the robust operations of racism and white supremacy in contemporary schooling, as well as for supporting and encouraging white teachers to use different approaches to identify and challenge racial structures and processes.