White Racial Consciousness Research Articles

Grappling with Whiteness: Latent Profiles of White Racial Consciousness and Affect’s Impact on Critical Reflection

Grappling with Whiteness: Latent Profiles of White Racial Consciousness and Affect’s Impact on Critical Reflection

Undergraduate Learning Assistants’ Understanding and Practices of Equity

Undergraduate learning assistants (LAs) are near-peer instructors that facilitate learning by engaging in student-centered, active pedagogies, and often engage in more direct contact with students than faculty. Despite their important role in STEM classes, little is known about how ULAs understand and practice equity. Instructors’ understanding of ‘equity’ directly impacts their teaching practices. Instructors with ‘equality’ based conceptions of equity that prioritize fairness and treating each student the same are more likely to adopt didactic, instructor-centered teaching practices that have been shown to less effective than other approaches, with disproportionate impacts on students from minoritized backgrounds. Further, in making sense of racial disparities in their classes or disciplines, STEM faculty often draw on color-evasive narratives that explain racial phenomena without explicitly naming race or racism as a cause of oppression and these beliefs are associated with a reduced ability to notice racist events in the classroom and with the adoption of harmful equality-based approached to teaching and mentoring. STEM faculty are not alone in drawing on color-evasive narratives. Undergraduates also hold these beliefs, and those that do are less likely to recognize microaggressions or to find them problematic. Thus, we ask (a) How do STEM ULAs at a Mid-Western primarily white institution conceptualize equity in their role as educators? (b) How do ULAs conceptions of equity influence their self-reported teaching practices? We hypothesized that a majority of LAs will draw on color-evasive ideologies, and those that do will be less likely to notice racist events in classes, more likely to perpetuate inaccurate descriptions of their classes as neutral and objective and more likely to endorse teacher-centered practices. Drawing on frameworks of color-evasive racism, Haynes’ White Racial Consciousness and Faculty Behavior model and the four approaches to equity proposed by NASEM, we qualitatively coded the data from surveys and interviews to assess LAs’ understanding and practices of equity. We find that LAs engage with color-evasive in several ways: They explain racist classroom events without naming race or racism, ascribe to equality-based understandings and practices of equity or inclusion-based understandings and practices that focus on individuals’ characteristics and needs while ignoring historical, sociopolitical and systemic causes of inequities. By delving deeply into how STEM ULAs perceive and implement equity, our work informs future interventions and training programs to enhance equitable teaching practices in STEM education. This work is supported by a Creating Inclusive Excellent Grant from Michigan State University. This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2024 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.

Whiteness and damage in the education classroom

ABSTRACT This paper analyses relationships between whiteness and damage in the university classroom through a focus on two contemporary areas of critical education in Canada: raising white racial consciousness and truth and reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. First, whiteness is damage-producing – it orients anti-racist education towards white students and their needs, there by harming the well-being and constraining the education of non-white students. Second, whiteness gravitates towards what Unangax scholar Eve Tuck calls “damage-centred approaches,” which objectify non-white suffering, pathologising Indigenous peoples whilst obfuscating the ongoing reproduction of racism and colonialism. As such, white educators must remain assiduously vigilant about a key tension regarding whiteness and damage: that our pedagogical focus on racial and colonial oppression can simultaneously raise critical consciousness and divert attention away from more fundamental interrogations of whiteness, agency, and relationality within a systemically racist social order. The article closes with some considerations for educators in terms of addressing complicity in their institutions.

White Atlantic: Counterfeiting Race in France

This article proposes that a new white racial consciousness is emerging in France. Camouflaged as the default universal, unraced and unmarked, against which racial difference is measured, whiteness turns racelessness into power. We know as much from the critical race and whiteness studies that have dissected the normative apparatus at work in white pretentions to color-blindness. But if such a critique remains relevant in France—where color-blindness is the legally mandated norm—it also isn’t enough. Examining recent polemics against le racisme anti-blanc, or anti-white racism, I document how white color-consciousness is taking hold in the French mainstream. The new white identity revolves around a central premise: the victimization of white people by the forces of antiracism. Advancing a diasporic vision of beleaguered whiteness, French architects of what I call the white Atlantic issue dark warnings about the “genocidal” consequences for white people of Black Lives Matter and related social movements. In so doing, I argue, they counterfeit the collective historical experience that gives race meaning—in particular the experience of Black people, whose history of transatlantic suffering the new white identity simulates and exploits.

The sociology of white America: A teaching and learning guide

The sociology of white America: A teaching and learning guide

From awareness to commitment and action: A longitudinal study of a race‐based counseling course

AbstractResearchers assessed the longitudinal impacts of a master‐level, race‐based counseling course with White, graduate‐level counseling students (N = 35) over a 5‐year period. Impacts were assessed through interview and written data, as well as with the White Racial Consciousness Development Scale‐Revised (Claney & Parker, 1989; Lee et al., 2007). Students expressed an increased sense of responsibility to address racism, with examples of ways they addressed inequities and discrimination across contexts.

Ambivalent White Racial Consciousness: Examining Intersectional Reflection and Complexity in Practitioner Graduate Training

Ambivalent White racial consciousness describes a push toward awareness about racial privilege and a simultaneous pull back from this knowledge into a more comfortable stance of denial. Twenty-nine White community members and undergraduate students participated in focus group discussions on race. Results indicated that participants expressed ambivalent racial consciousness when they talked about: what it means to be White, their non-racial identities, oppression, attributions for racial inequality, and interracial interactions. Deconstructing ambivalent White racial consciousness can help trainers identify points of intervention for White graduate student practitioners to critically reflect on the intersections between White racial identity and systemic oppression.

Whiteness feels good here: interrogating white nationalist rhetoric on Stormfront

ABSTRACT This essay adopts a critical rhetorical perspective attuned to affect to investigate white nationalist rhetoric on Stormfront, a popular white nationalist message board. My analysis illuminates how Stormfront attempts to appeal to mainstream white audiences by resisting normative expectations and affects articulated with white supremacy and (re)constructing white nationalism as a formation of white racial consciousness articulated with communal belonging, common sense, and pride. On Stormfront, affect is mobilized discursively to challenge colorblindness, construct rhetorical distance between white nationalism and white supremacy, and strategically negotiate white (dis)comfort with direct discourse on race to compel affective investments in white nationalism.

White Consciousness and White Prejudice: Two Compounding Forces in Contemporary American Politics

Abstract In recent years, American politics has been defined by party polarization driven in part by Americans’ diverging attitudes toward immigration. In this article, I suggest that Donald Trump was able to capitalize on this polarization and on the way in which race is implicated in the issue of immigration. He did so by appealing to the attitudes held by two distinct groups of white Americans – those who possess a sense of animosity toward members of immigrant groups like Muslims and Latinos, and separately, whites who may demonstrate little out-group hostility, but instead have a strong sense of solidarity with their racial group. I show how white hostility toward Latinos and Muslims and white racial consciousness have become two distinct forces in American politics, driving opposition to immigration and bolstering support for Donald Trump above and beyond other presidential candidates, regardless of their party affiliations.

White folks’ work: digital allyship praxis in the #BlackLivesMatter movement

ABSTRACT#BlackLivesMatter, a social-media-fueled social movement for racial justice in the United States, rose to international prominence between 2014 and 2016. Described by one of its co-creators as a call to collective action in the struggle against racial inequity, the movement’s hashtag (#BlackLivesMatter) was second to only #Ferguson among the most frequently used racial justice hashtags in the first 10 years of Twitter’s existence. This critical case study analyzes the reflective narratives of 14 self-identified White social media users – part of a larger, interracial group of self-identified online social actors – who used the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag as part of their online activism repertoire during the height of the movement. Grounded by the application of Helms’ White Racial Consciousness Development Scale, this research presents a descriptive account of the ways antiracist labor – colloquially described as ‘White folks’ work’ – can be performed via social media. Using an a priori definition of allyship as the processes of affirming and taking informed action on behalf of the subjugated group, this research illustrates that strategic information seeking and sharing on Twitter – particularly the amplification of marginalized voices – were key components in the development of digital allyship praxis within this social-media-fueled movement for racial justice.

From Racial Resistance to Racial Consciousness: Engaging White STEM Faculty in Pedagogical Transformation

Professor Arnie Copper is among the many science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) faculty who view the learning of STEM curriculum as an intellectual exercise that is race-neutral. In this case, the authors use the White Racial Consciousness and Faculty Behavior model to illustrate how racially minoritized students can experience the classrooms of White STEM faculty who fail to see connections between their teaching, course content, and racial justice. Institutional leaders and faculty developers can use this case to generate a timely critique of the enduring racism shaping higher education and fostering hostile learning conditions on college campuses.

Greeks or Turks, “White” or “Asiatic”: Historicising Castellorizian Racial-Consciousness, 1916–1920

ABSTRACTThis article traces a specific moment when Castellorizian settlers intersected with the racialised and labour-based politics of immigration restriction in the Northern Territory, between 1916 and 1920. Through an examination of a contested labour issue, a political immigration debate and a racialist newspaper dispute, this history aims to demonstrate how a group of ethnically Greek labourers from the Dodecanese island of Castellorizo ushered in a distinctive form of “white” racial preferencing. By examining how Castellorizian labourers were viewed by unionists, politicians and public commentators, this article suggests that confusing, and, at times, porous, national and racial classifications—such as Greek and Turk, and white and Asiatic—predisposed how these distinctive settlers could engage with the society in which they lived. In direct opposition to being classified as, and compared to, Asians, Castellorizians articulated their own distinct attachments to Australia and the white race. An investigation into their articulations offers us a nuanced reading into the making and fluidity of white racial consciousness in Australia. By examining the precarious positioning and self-articulations of Castellorizians in the Northern Territory, we can begin to reflect on how the racialised and labour-based politics of immigration restriction impacted on the making of an early Greek-Australian racial consciousness.

Why Not?—Or How to Home in on the Sound of White Silence: Commentary on Harris's “The House of Difference”

As Adrienne Harris (this issue) highlights in this rich, intersectional analysis of the psychosocial harms sanctioned and perpetuated by “white silence,” a negative speech act shaped by the surgical and subliminal power of white racial consciousness, we, especially today, of “postracial” globality, cannot ignore its “tragic limit,” its pretextual self-verbalization: how white bleaches white actively, preemptively, blocking the liminal voice of acknowledgment. My response further highlights and contextualizes the discursive noise of white silence by linking it to the white “epistemology of ignorance” among others. This way, we can also see, quite vividly, how relational psychoanalytic thinking and postmodern theorizing translate each other. Such is how the inside-outside dyadic and dynamic, common to both strands of thinking, begins to shift its gears in the able hands of Harris, whose microaural attention to primarily visual experiences such as racial encounters remains instructive.

Challenges of Multiracial Antiracist Activism: Racial Consciousness and Chief Wahoo

We explore how white activists’ racial identity struggles might disrupt effective antiracist action in multiracial organizations. Drawing on data collected through participant observation and interviews, we examine the struggles of a small, multiracial antiracist organization that protests the Cleveland baseball franchise’s ‘Indians’ name and Chief Wahoo mascot. White activists’ racial consciousness, or awareness of white racism and white privilege, compels them to participate in the group; their ways of participating, however, ultimately may hamper the organizational effectiveness of the Committee of 500 Years of Dignity and Resistance. Specifically, white activists’ racial consciousness makes them reluctant to adopt necessary leadership roles. Borrowing from literature on white racism, white racial consciousness, and multiracial organizing, we illustrate the complex nature and potential pitfalls of multiracial alliances formed to protest racism in the United States.

Pathways to Critical Consciousness: A First-Year Teacher’s Engagement With Issues of Race and Equity

In this article, the author considers the ways in which a White first-year teacher performs critical racial consciousness in the context of her urban fifth-grade classroom. The process of critical racial consciousness engagement is complex as well as understudied outside of preservice courses. The findings of this study fall into three themes—racial identity reflection, awareness of inequity, and challenges to engagement—and demonstrate that most of the ways in which this teacher engages in critical racial consciousness are subtle. The author asserts that “discourses of possibility” related to White racial consciousness can be encouraged in teacher preparation courses and concludes the article with implications for preservice teacher education and in-service teacher development.

Relational Understanding and White Antiracist Praxis

In this article, we argue that, in order for white racial consciousness and practice to shift toward an antiracist praxis, a relational understanding of racism, the “self,” and society is necessary. We find that such understanding arises from a confluence of propositional, affective, and tacit forms of knowledge about racism and one's own situatedness within it. We consider the claims sociologists have made about transformations in racial consciousness, bringing sociological theories of racism into dialogue with research on whiteness and antiracism. We assert that sociological research on white racism and “whiteness” tends to privilege propositional and tacit/common sense knowledge, respectively, as critical to shifting white racial consciousness. Research on antiracism privileges affective knowledge as the source of antiracist change. We examine some of Perry's recent ethnographic research with white people who attended either multiracial or majority white high schools to argue that the confluence of these three types of knowledge is necessary to transform white racial praxis because it produces a relational understanding of self and “other,” and, by extension, race, racism, and antiracist practice.

White, Male, and “Minority”: Racial Consciousness Among White Male Undergraduates Attending a Historically Black University

Enrollments of non-Black students at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have recently increased (Drummond, 2000; T. Scott, 2004) to the point that 11% of all undergraduate students enrolled in HBCUs in 2001 were White (U. S. Department of Education National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2004). HBCUs with the highest White enrollments tend to be public institutions (Brown, 2002), and court cases such as Adams v. Richardson (1972) and United States v. Fordice (1992) have compelled affected HBCUs to diversify their student bodies. Accelerated transdemographic enrollment patterns (Brown) at a number of public HBCUs have resulted as HBCUs grapple with simultaneous pressures to increase student enrollments (including enrollments of non-Black students), strengthen or maintain institutional quality, and clarify the contemporary functions of the HBCU (Hall & Clossen, 2005). At the same time, White males in the U.S. represent the race and gender group that is most privileged economically and socially; yet White males are arguably more disadvantaged with respect to developing as racial and gendered beings due to the socialization, entitlement, and privilege bestowed upon them within society (D. A. Scott & Robinson, 2001). Very little research examines the racial consciousness aspects of identity development of White students attending HBCUs where issues of race, gender, privilege, and power can intersect for students in ways that have not been systematically explored. The purpose of this study was to explore the White racial consciousness (WRC) among full-time, White male undergraduates attending a public, predominantly Black HBCU. Specifically, this study sought to understand how these students, as temporary students (Hall & Clossen, 2005), made meaning of their collegiate experiences in terms of WRC. Related Literature HBCUs were established to provide education for Black students at a time when segregation prevented their enrollment at many colleges and universities (Sissoko & Shiau, 2005). Although the 105 diverse public and private HBCUs enroll 2% of all college and university students in the U.S., they account for 13% of Black postsecondary enrollment (U. S. Department of Education NCES, 2004). In 2000-01, HBCUs conferred 22% of the baccalaureate degrees, 17% of first professional degrees, 11% of master's degrees, and 10% of doctoral degrees earned by Black individuals (National Center for Education Statistics). Allen (as cited in Brown & Davis, 2001) noted common mission-related characteristics of HBCUs including: provision of social, economic, and leadership opportunities for Blacks and the Black community; maintenance of Black historical and cultural traditions; and education of graduates who are uniquely qualified to articulate and interpret issues between minority and majority population groups (Brown & Davis). In recent years, court rulings (including Adams v. Richardson, 1973 and United States v. Fordice, 1992) that have impacted state systems of higher education focused on remedying lingering racial dicrimination and oppression in the forms of segregated enrollments and disparate institutional funding patterns. Adams v. Richardson exempted public HBCUs from Title VI enforcement of racial desegregation because HBCUs were deemed to play a unique and important role in the education of African Americans (Hobson's College View, n.d.), but the more recent United States v. Fordice did not similarly exempt these institutions. As a result, public universities including HBCUs have subsequently undertaken desegregation initiatives aimed at achieving transdemographic goals, or shifts in the racial composition of enrolled students that mark an institution as desegregated (Brown, 2002). Brown discussed relevant implications for HBCUs, noting that transdemography offers HBCUs the opportunity to both enrich the student campus context and encourage intercultural communication within the academic environment. …

Revising the White Racial Consciousness Development Scale

This article describes the revision of the White Racial Consciousness Development Scale (D. Claney & W. M. Parker, 1989). A multistage approach including item generation, item refinement and selection, and evaluation of score validity and reliability was used to test construction and validation. Implications for theory, practice, and future research are discussed.

The Relationship of Demographic and Experience Variables to White Racial Consciousness Among Student Affairs Practitioners

Using the Oklahoma Racial Attitudes Scale-Preliminary Form (Choney & Behrens, 1996), researchers examined the White racial consciousness (WRC) of 534 White student affairs practitioners. Of particular interest in this study were the demographic and experience variables that were related to WRC. Experience with multicultural issues, self-identification with a socially marginalized group, discussions with supervisors on race and multicultural issues, and interest in working with culturally diverse students and staff were all significantly related to several dimensions of WRC. Suggestions for future research and practice are offered.

The Relationship of Demographic and Experience Variables to White Racial Consciousness Among Student Affairs Practitioners

Using the Oklahoma Racial Attitudes Scale-Preliminary Form (Choney & Behrens, 1996), researchers examined the White racial consciousness (WRC) of 534 White student affairs practitioners. Of particular interest in this study were the demographic and experience variables that were related to WRC. Experience with multicultural issues, self-identification with a socially marginalized group, discussions with supervisors on race and multicultural issues, and interest in working with culturally diverse students and staff were all significantly related to several dimensions of WRC. Suggestions for future research and practice are offered.