School Without Racism? How White Teachers in Germany Practice Anti-Racialism

This qualitative study investigates how white teachers at a German Catholic comprehensive school conceptualize issues of “race” and racism in the context of being a “School without Racism – School with Courage” (SOR-SMC). By collecting signatures and exhibiting yearly projects, more than 3,300 schools in Germany brand their school to be “without racism”. I found the branding of my researched school to be a form of “anti-racialism” that opposed “race” and racism as concepts but did not tackle any underlying racist structures (Goldberg 2009, 10). The teachers I interviewed took the SOR-SMC branding for granted and assumed that the school was racism-free. They thereby engaged in silent racism and reproduced racist connotations and structures without challenging them (Trepagnier 2001). Being anti -racist is not accomplished by declaring a school as racism-free. Instead, white teachers need to understand that anti-racism involves a deeper engagement with the structures that keep “racial” inequality in place (Goldberg 2009, 10).

School Leaders’ Use of Social-Emotional Learning to Disrupt Whiteness

Purpose: This article examines how school leaders connect Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) with anti-racist practices. Current literature has yet to explain how leaders support race conscious approaches to SEL that promote marginalized students’ well-being, particularly with White teachers who often resist learning about race and Whiteness. Research Approach: We conducted a qualitative study of three leaders in one district in the Puget Sound region of Washington state. The first data collection and analysis phase drew from interviews, observations, and artifacts from a larger study to identify anti-racist SEL intersections and the leaders associated with these intersections. In the second phase, we conducted additional interviews with three leaders and performed a critical frame analysis to characterize the frames used by leaders to shape what SEL means and who it serves. Findings: We describe three anti-racist SEL intersections in which leaders made explicit connections between SEL and broader anti-racist goals within their work with White teachers. We found that leaders framed SEL strategically to address White teachers’ emotions, and as tools teachers might use to understand and address students’ racialized classroom experiences Implications: Findings provide illustrative examples of leadership that connects anti-racist practice with SEL and explore how leaders’ novel understanding of SEL and anti-racism undergirds this leadership approach.

Whiteness Interrupted

In Whiteness Interrupted Marcus Bell presents a revealing portrait of white teachers in majority-black schools in which he examines the limitations of understandings of how white racial identity is formed. Through in-depth interviews with dozens of white teachers from a racially segregated, urban school district in Upstate New York, Bell outlines how whiteness is constructed based on localized interactions and takes a different form in predominantly black spaces. He finds that in response to racial stress in a difficult teaching environment, white teachers conceptualized whiteness as a stigmatized category predicated on white victimization. When discussing race outside majority-black spaces, Bell's subjects characterized American society as postracial, in which race seldom affects outcomes. Conversely, in discussing their experiences within predominantly black spaces, they rejected the idea of white privilege, often angrily, and instead focused on what they saw as the racial privilege of blackness. Throughout, Bell underscores the significance of white victimization narratives in black spaces and their repercussions as the United States becomes a majority-minority society.