Blog # 4 Whiteness



The articles" Why Talk about Whiteness?" and "The unexamined Whiteness of teaching: 


 how White teachers maintain and enact dominant racial ideologies" presented interesting 

 ideas about Whiteness.

 The qualitative study presented in the article"The unexamined Whiteness of teaching: how 

 White teachers maintain and enact dominant racial ideologies"  demonstrated how 

 important it is for teachers and students to explore their beliefs and identities and how it 

 affects teaching and learning.


Although, I was aware of many facts she presented on the study, I learned that religion, life 

experiences and class can affect the way you view your students and your teaching. For 

example: the author argues that due to the stereotype of African Americans being criminals 

and dangerous individuals, the participants feared their students in urban schools. 

Another interesting view she presented was that " Hierarchical relationships" , which is 

based on the idea that whites are always the dominant group and are seen in high positions,

while people of color are always seen as servers or are there to work for white people. This 

research made me go back to my high school days for many reasons. My high school was 

very diverse, yet the majority of the faculty was white. A problem that I observed in my former

high school is that some teachers were not able to relate to students' problems. Many 

teachers found it difficult to relate to students' life experiences because the majority of the 

teachers were white. I completely agree with the author when she mentions that an effort 

should be made to increase the number of teachers of color, but the inability of some 

teachers to relate to students' lives left me wondering if teachers are being well prepared to

work in urban school? 

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