White Shame, White Ambivalence, and Learning to be a White Anti-racist Ambitious Science Teacher
Open Access
- Author:
- Mc Causland, Jonathan
- Graduate Program:
- Curriculum and Instruction
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- March 18, 2022
- Committee Members:
- Scott Mcdonald, Chair & Dissertation Advisor
Tanner Vea, Outside Unit & Field Member
Samuel Tanner, Major Field Member
Greg Kelly, Major Field Member
Andrea Mccloskey, Professor in Charge/Director of Graduate Studies - Keywords:
- science education
white supremacy
whiteness
practice-based teacher education
teacher learning
critical whiteness pedagogy
critical whiteness studies
design-based research
storytelling
teacher education - Abstract:
- Science education has a white supremacy problem. With all the research pertaining to advancing social justice and achieving equity in science education, few studies explicitly explore how science education resists and embraces white supremacy (Le & Matias, 2019; Ridgeway, 2019). Given this reality, I used design-based research to create a learning environment for secondary science interns to help them learn about whiteness, white supremacy, and Ambitious Science Teaching using an amalgamation of critical whiteness pedagogy and practice-based teacher education. For over two years, I collected data of the nearly five-year design to understand how White science interns learned to be anti-racist educators and how combining critical whiteness pedagogy and practice-based teacher education supported science interns in adopting anti-racist practices. This study draws upon critical whiteness studies and practice-based teacher education to tell the story of one White science intern’s learning during the 2020-2021 iteration of the design. The narrative below draws upon Reverend Thandeka’s (1999) theorizing about white shame, Ralph Ellison’s (1995) unpacking of white ambivalence, and sociocultural thinking about how teachers learn. The story reveals the role white shame and white ambivalence played in the White science intern’s and their peers’ learning about their White identity and anti-racist science teaching. In the narrative, I also demonstrate how critical whiteness pedagogy and practice-based teacher education work together to create a learning environment that provides White science interns opportunities to take on more nuanced and dynamic White identities as they practice and try-out “being” White anti-racists and White anti-racist science teachers. This study’s findings indicate the need to create learning environments for teachers that have opportunities for teachers to practice “being” anti-racist. In particular, this study shows the constant presence of white shame and white ambivalence throughout White teachers’ learning about white supremacy, whiteness, White identity, and science teaching. These findings point toward the need to create opportunities for White people to take on complex and dynamic identities, design learning environments where White people grapple with shame and ambivalence, and the potential behind critical whiteness practice-based teacher education to contribute towards helping interns learn anti-racist teaching.