In postsecondary education, ethnic and racial disparities in student academic outcomes have continued to be of urgent concern in the current context of changing demographics, racial injustice, and economic realities. Despite knowing the effects of educators' role on students' sense of belonging and impact of culturally relevant pedagogies on…

The field of English language teaching (ELT) has long centred whiteness without acknowledging as much. Practitioners accept the field's racial disparities under the guise of the search for profit, yet hegemonic whiteness controls our institutions, our curricula, and our pedagogy unless we, as members of this field, consciously seek to counteract…

This article focuses on the experiences of four faculty members engaged in cross-racial mentoring at predominantly White institutions in the United States. Using scholarly personal narratives, the study addresses psychosocial and cultural struggles that both White and Black faculty members experience as they mentor individuals of differing…

Distinct from rurality, the Australian desert has long functioned as a signifier of remoteness in the dominant imagination; a product of spatialised binary relations between "progressive" (white) mainstream or idealised white countryside, and disordered/dangerous Aboriginal periphery. Remoteness constitutes a complex racial dynamic that…

This article aims to help teacher educators consider how to build racial literacy in their White teacher candidates, providing guidance through pedagogical strategies and approaches based on our and others' research. In addition, much of the pedagogy that we developed in working with our White teacher candidates can be translated to teachers…

Rarely do White, middle-class Americans, the population from which most teachers are drawn, have the opportunity to consider themselves as racialized beings. Although personal experience is usually the best teacher, our increasingly homogeneous teaching population oftentimes lacks experience with diversity, and schools of education often struggle…

Background: The persistent gaps between a largely white profession and ethnically diverse school populations have brought renewed calls to support teachers' critical engagement with race. Programmes examining the effects of racism have had limited impact on practice, with student teachers responding with either denial, guilt or fear; they also…

This article details my racialized awakenings as a White kindergarten teacher after being called a racist by a parent of one of my students. I chronicle critical reflections of myself and my school in terms of latent institutional racism and actions. I share the actions that I have begun in my efforts to counter racism and move toward teaching for…

White teachers see racial diversity in the schools as a "necessary evil." Common beliefs are that (1) Black students are saved by nurturing White teachers and well-behaved White children; and (2) White students learn from "disadvantaged" Black children the dual lesson of empathy and gratitude. A pilot project in the fall of…

This essay discusses white innocence as a mechanism that may contribute to perceptions of Mexican Americans as perpetrators. These perceptions are crucial to ways teachers and administrators respond to student actions as the initial steps in the school-to-prison pipeline. Specifically, this work reviews the rhetoric of white innocence in a high…

In this twenty-first century there is a disproportionate amount of African American males in special education in the U.S. This is a factor happening day by day affecting the achievement gap between Black and White students, especially males. The purpose of this study is to point out factors that contribute to the overrepresentation of African…

This article examines whiteness at the intersection of immigration and early childhood education as it was made visible during interviews with 50 preschool teachers in five US cities as part of the Children Crossing Borders (CCB) study. Findings show whiteness acting not only as a construct of privilege but also as an idea that manifests itself in…

Concerns about new teachers' capacity to address diversity in their classrooms are growing in many parts of the West, and there is some consensus that one aspect of the problem is the narrow range of cultural and social backgrounds from which teacher candidates are drawn. Yet a minority of socially aware teachers, from all backgrounds, continue to…

This qualitative study examines 26 White middle school teachers' perceptions of their experiences in a predominantly White middle school with a growing African American student population. Utilizing in-depth focus group interviews, teachers elaborated on their experiences with navigating racial, ethnic and cultural boundaries as they attempted to…

This research reflection explores a narrative pattern that emerged in participants' interviews on student differences. In exploring this narrative pattern, this reflection reveals tensions between participants' "structural" and "deficit" understandings of student differences of race, class, culture, and language. Framing…