N. Aveling

'Hacking at our very roots': rearticulating White racial identity within the context of teacher education

When teaching about race and racism and how we as ‘Whites’ are implicated in the discursive practices that sustain racism, we are indeed ‘hacking at the very roots’ of the ways in which students have conceptualized their identity in terms of being non‐racialized and at the same time non‐racist. In this paper I focus on the challenges and possibilities of working with teacher education students—most of whom are White—to critically deconstruct Whiteness as part of the larger project of anti‐racism. While I draw on students’ comments, in quite fundamental ways this paper is about my own—rather than students’—learning experiences. After a decade of re‐evaluating my pedagogy, the anecdotal evidence as well as results from more formal evaluations would suggest that my strategies have become increasingly effective in assisting students to work through their resistances. It is the paper’s conclusion that ‘teaching against the grain’ is likely to continue to be unpopular with some students but that education that purports to have an anti‐racism focus must incorporate an experiential component despite the discomfort this may cause.

Anti-racism in Schools: A question of leadership?

Between 1999 and 2003 a number of principals (n=35) from a range of schools in Western Australia were interviewed to investigate the extent to which the states Antiracism policy and guidelines for complaint resolution (1998) had impacted on the day-to-day management of schools. These principals overwhelmingly reported that racism was not a problem within their schools. At the same time they constructed racism in terms of individual pathologies and suggested that any racist incidents, should these arise, could be dealt with more than adequately under various school-based behaviour management or anti-bullying policies. There were no real differences in responses over time, nor were there any discernible patterns according to type of school. The findings suggest that the majority of these school managers did not understand the nature and extent of racism and were ill-equipped to deal with the more covert expressions of racism.

'Where Do You Come from?': Critical storytelling as a teaching strategy within the context of teacher education

To use the notion of a positioned speaker may be to invoke essentialist assumptions of identity, or it may involve locating a discursively and institutionally situated subject; many recent projects historicise subjectivity, politicise representation, and trace the emergence and development of discursive and cultural formations. All of which is to say that various positions maybe adopted in relation to the term speaking positions. (van Toorn & English, 1995, p.1)

‘Don't talk about what you don't know’: on (not) conducting research with/in Indigenous contexts

This article raises the recurrent question whether non-indigenous researchers should attempt to research with/in Indigenous communities. If research is indeed a metaphor of colonization, then we have two choices: we have to learn to conduct research in ways that meet the needs of Indigenous communities and are non-exploitative, culturally appropriate and inclusive, or we need to relinquish our roles as researchers within Indigenous contexts and make way for Indigenous researchers. Both of these alternatives are complex. Hence in this article I trace my learning journey; a journey that has culminated in the realization that it is not my place to conduct research within Indigenous contexts, but that I can use ‘what I know’ – rather than imagining that I know about Indigenous epistemologies or Indigenous experiences under colonialism – to work as an ally with Indigenous researchers. Coming as I do, from a position of relative power, I can also contribute in some small way to the project of decolonizing methodologies by speaking ‘to my own mob’.

Being the Descendant of Colonialists: White Identity in Context.

In this paper I take as given that whiteness refers to a set of locations that are historically, socially, politically, and culturally produced, as I explore the question of ‘being white’ with a small group of young, well‐educated Australian women. Despite the fact that it has become almost axiomatic that as whites, we do not define ourselves by our skin colour and subsequently experience ourselves as non‐racialised, when I interviewed these women in 2000 and asked if they had ever thought about the fact that they were ‘white’, all reported that they had given the matter some thought. Key issues that emerged during these interviews related to issues of unearned privilege, guilt, fear and alienation. I conclude the paper by suggesting that becoming aware of our racial positionality is not quite enough and as a teacher educator I take up the implications of this for my professional praxis.In this paper I take as given that whiteness refers to a set of locations that are historically, socially, politically, and culturally produced, as I explore the question of ‘being white’ with a small group of young, well‐educated Australian women. Despite the fact that it has become almost axiomatic that as whites, we do not define ourselves by our skin colour and subsequently experience ourselves as non‐racialised, when I interviewed these women in 2000 and asked if they had ever thought about the fact that they were ‘white’, all reported that they had given the matter some thought. Key issues that emerged during these interviews related to issues of unearned privilege, guilt, fear and alienation. I conclude the paper by suggesting that becoming aware of our racial positionality is not quite enough and as a teacher educator I take up the implications of this for my professional praxis.

Indigenous Studies: A Matter of Social Justice; A Matter of Urgency.

It has long been a matter of concern that Indigenous students, as a group, do less well educationally than their non-Indigenous counterparts. Despite the evidence to support the fact that if students and their cultures are not acknowledged, they tend to be less engaged in schooling than those students whose cultures are presented as the norm. Indigenous studies are apt to be at the margins of the curriculum. In this article, therefore, a case is made for teaching Indigenous studies through a comparison of the authors home state of Western Australia with Montana—one of the few states in the United States to have mandated the teaching of Indian culture and history and to tease out lessons that could be learned because the teaching of Indigenous studies is a matter of social justice; indeed, it is a matter of urgency.

Critical engagement with whiteness: Beyond Lecturing on the evils of racism

I would contend that it is only when we are willing to deconstruct the taken-for-grantedness of our own experiences that we begin to understand the ways in which our assumptions are instrumental in preserving the white, western, masculinized experience as the norm. Hence, this chapter tells the story of a group of Australian teacher education students as they explore the workings of prejudice and discrimination through a series of simulation exercises grounded in ‘what-if’ situations. Given that research has extensively documented the presence of diverse manifestations of racism in education and suggested that teachers are not well equipped to deal with its various expressions, future educators need to actively explore how their own racial identities have been shaped within a broader racist culture if, upon graduation, they are to engage their own students in anti-racism in meaningful and constructive ways.

The relationality of race in education research

This edited collection examines the ways in which the local and global are key to understanding race and racism in the intersectional context of contemporary education. Analysing a broad range of examples, it highlights how race and racism is a relational phenomenon, that interconnects local, national and global contexts and ideas. The current educational climate is subject to global influences and the effects of conservative, hyper-nationalist politics and neoliberal economic rationalising in local settings that are creating new formations of race and racism. While focused predominantly on Australia and southern world or settler colonial contexts, the book aims to constructively contribute to broader emerging research and debates about race and education. Through the adoption of a relational framing, it draws the Australian context into the global conversation about race and racism in education in ways that challenge and test current understandings of the operation of race and racism in contemporary social and educational spaces. Importantly, it also pushes debates about race and racism in education and research to the foreground in Australia where such debates are typically dismissed or cursorily engaged. The book will guide readers as they navigate issues of race in education research and practice, and its chapters will serve as provocations designed to assist in critically understanding this challenging field. It reaches beyond education scholarship, as concerns to do with race remain intertwined with wider social justice issues such as access to housing, health, social/economic mobility, and political representation.

Discrimination in an unequal world

This is a fascinating book that addresses the nexus between discrimination and globalization. While perhaps not suitable as a text, it is of value to anyone interested in these fields. As a disparate collection of chapters it attempts to tease out what exactly is meant by discrimination, how it manifests in different cultural contexts, and further, how we can actually assess whether discrimination has occurred. As one of the editors wrote in the introduction to the volume:

Beyond Guilt, Fear and Alienation: Confronting ‘Whiteness’ with Teacher Education students

It is my contention that notions of privilege as well as issues of oppression must be explored if we take the idea of antiracism education seriously. In other words, with my students—most of whom are ‘white’—I endeavour to invert the gaze and to explore the profound social consequences that the construction of whiteness holds for Indigenous peoples and peoples of colour. However, given that whiteness is more than about skin colour and is, moreover, socially, politically and culturally located, how does whiteness manifest itself within different cultural contexts? What are the differences? Where are the similarities? What do they mean? What are the implications for pedagogy? These questions and others have concerned me for some time and form the basis of on-going research with various groups of Teacher Education students, both in Australia and Germany. My findings within these contexts indicate that education has a crucial role to play in anti-racism education but that it is not enough to simply discuss white race privilege and hope for the best. In fact, based on my research I would suggest that such an approach can be counter-productive and lead to ‘guilt, fear and alienation’. As educators what we must be mindful of is to provide hope and critique in equal measure.