James C. Jupp

Second-Wave White Teacher Identity Studies A Review of White Teacher Identity Literatures From 2004 Through 2014

In this study of White teacher identity literatures, we historicize, define, and advance second-wave White teacher identity studies in education research and teacher education. First, we provide a discussion of methodology used to conduct this study called the synoptic text. Second, we provide an historical account of White teacher identity studies that situates our review of literatures. Third, using the methodology of the synoptic text, we provide a systematic review of White teacher identity studies between 2004 and 2014. Situated within an account of a developing field, we develop the notion of second-wave White teacher identity studies. In our discussion and conclusion, we articulate the pedagogical implications of second-wave White teacher identity studies for education research and teacher education.

Second-wave white teacher identity studies: toward complexity and reflexivity in the racial conscientization of white teachers

Abstract In this article, we introduce our special issue, ‘Second-Wave White Teacher Identity Studies: Toward Complexity and Reflexivity in the Racial Conscientization of White Teachers.’ We characterize white teacher identity studies as a developing field with important implications for education research and teacher education. Early work in this field focused on documenting, how white teachers denied and evaded the significance of race and white privilege in their work and lives. The articles in this special issue exemplify a second wave of white teacher identity studies which builds on and responds critically to this earlier work. Crucial concerns of this second-wave work include attending to the nuances and complexities of white racial identities, as well as examining the pedagogical, curricular, and institutional contexts within which these identities are taken up.

On the elephant in the room: toward a generative politics of place on race in academic discourse

Abstract In our conceptual essay, we draw on an exchange between a White scholar and a group of panelists on Critical Race Theory at an international conference. Taking up this exchange as our point of departure, we work in dialectical and multidimensional ways between the essentialized politics of place on race and critical anti-essentializing foundations in recent Critical Race Feminism and Critical White Studies’ literatures. Working the dialectics and multidimensionality of the place that race makes in academic discourse, we recognize and ethically work through the essentialized politics of place in advancing anti-essentializing understandings of race. In articulating these anti-essentializing understandings, our conceptual essay drives at the notion of a generative politics of place on race in academic discourse. A generative politics of place holds essentialized realities and anti-essentializing foundations of race in dialectical and multidimensional tension for teaching, learning, and discussing race in local, national, and international contexts.

Advancing Testimonio Traditions in Educational Research: A Synoptic Rendering

ABSTRACT Through our understanding of decolonizing Hispanophone curriculum, our synoptic rendering seeks to better situate US-based research on testimonio within Latin American literary traditions. Specifically, we provide a synoptic rendering that outlines the testimonio tradition’s literary criticism and an analysis of key testimonio texts. Of particular emphasis in our analysis, we provide representations from Latin American testimonio traditions’ sociological, journalistic, fictionalized, and poetic dimensions. Our synoptic rendering concludes with implications for the advancement of testimonio traditions in education research with emphasis on testimonio resources for Latin@ graduate students.

Weaving Cultural Past into the Present in Multicultural Education

Perhaps more than any other scholar, Christine Sleeter has consistently advanced a body of critical multicultural research for teaching and learning across differences in public schools. As a Professor Emerita at California State University Monterey Bay, Sleeter has provided another breakthrough for critical multicultural research with her pedagogical novel,White Bread: Weaving the Cultural Past into the Present. This novel has two distinct features. First, the novel provides personal narrative that inspires preservice and in-service teachers to trudge toward cultural competence and political advocacy in public schools. Second, the novel provides a composite representation for the most up to date research in White teacher identity studies that helps advance critical multicultural education research in the field. Before reviewing Sleeter’s novel, it is important to situate the novel within her on-going contributions to critical multicultural research literatures. Given the trajectory of Sleeter’s contributions over the last three decades, it is impossible to provide a complete overview of her contributions to the multicultural research literatures. Her early works help theorize multicultural education (Grant & Sleeter, 1986; Sleeter & Grant, 1987/2008), foundational research in White teacher identity studies (Sleeter, 1992, 1993, 1995), understandings of the narrowing and Whitening effects of curriculum standards (Sleeter, 2002, 2004), and comprehensive literature reviews on multicultural teacher education (Sleeter, 2001, 2007, 2008b). Her more recent works emphasize social justice education (Sleeter, 2009, 2010), theorizations of ethnic studies (Sleeter, 2011b), and understandings of White identity through critical family history (Sleeter, 2008a, 2011a, 2014). Sleeter has published twenty books that expand the multicultural inquiries and her textbook Turning on Learning (Grant & Sleeter, 2009) has gone through five editions in the last 15 years. Sleeter’sWhite Bread emerges from her recent critical research on White identity through family history. Correspondence should be sent to James C. Jupp, Department of Teaching and Learning, College of Education at Georgia Southern University, PO Box 8134, Statesboro, GA 30460-8134. E-mail: jcjupp@georgiasouthern.edu Opinions expressed in this column do not represent views or official positions of the National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME). Similarly, reviewed resources carry no “official endorsement” by NAME. The authors are solely responsible for selecting and reviewing the resources featured in the column and we strongly encourage readers to examine resources prior to purchasing. Materials submitted for review in this column should be submitted directly to: Ming Fang He, Department of Curriculum, Foundations and Reading, College of Education, Georgia Southern University, P. O. Box 8144, Statesboro, GA 30460–8144.

White Progressive Masculinities

The over-arching narrative of committed White male teachers’ life stories recounted a self-distantiation from the Conservative Restoration and its received privileges. This over-arching narrative emphasized teachers’ counternarrative identifications to White male privileges re-established in the Conservative Restoration of the 1970s and 1980s (Apple, 1993; Apple, 2000) that continues through the present (Reynolds & Webber, 2009).

On White Double-Consiousness

Johansen’s professional identification, as evinced in this story clip on student differences, begins with an assertion that reinforces deficit understandings of students’ families as “problem.” Contradictorily, the statement changes direction mid-thought and indicates structural understandings of student differences. Deficit understandings emphasize students’ “home life” (Johansen, Interview 4b, p. 7), and structural understandings emphasize “White middle class” (Johansen, Interview 4b, p. 7) perspectives.

West’s Self-Creation

I don’t think I really understood it when one of the administrators who hired me (I can’t remember his name) in Raymondville, Texas told me: “It takes five years to make an English teacher.” For me, it took four – or – after four I finally understood the pleasures of public school teaching. Though even after those four years, I still struggled and had to immerse myself in the community and students’ lives to achieve that pleasure.

Race-Visible Professional Identifications

David: One of my goals is to be a White man in their [students’] lives, older, straight [Al Anon] again because I went straight, uh, who’s not a cop, a lawyer, a bill collector, a probation officer, a guard, a salesman, uh, what other jobs can I think, you know, the banker, lawyer, uh yeah, whatever, that I’m their teacher and I’ve gotten better and better at it over the years …I mean I think not recognizing race as a fact or an issue is discounting the values and experiences of what the kids bring to the classroom.