Disrupting white hegemony: A necessary shift toward adopting critical approaches within the teaching and learning environment

Abstract

Utilizing Yoon’s whiteness-at-work framework, the purpose of this paper is to articulate critical whiteness and anti-racist pedagogical approaches for educators. We specifically offer practical strategies, to be taken up discretely or together, in an effort to disrupt white hegemony, to which the American educational system is seemingly beholden. Currently, the teaching profession, writ large, is predominantly white, and within K-12 the teaching force is mostly (79%) White women, conceivably yielding a number of implications. Hence, it is our hope, that by adopting some or all of these recommendations, educators would begin to improve learning conditions, bolster the effectiveness of long standing culturally-based pedagogies, and strengthen justice efforts.