1st Edition
Building Racial Competency in White Educators through the Transformative Act of Writing Writing through Whiteness
This book argues that the transformative act of writing can be used to strengthen the racial competency of White educators in profound ways, leading them to a more comprehensive consciousness regarding the way their racial identity impacts them personally and professionally.
Through detailing the experiences of two White educators who engaged in a practice of deeply reflective personal narrative writing about their racial identity, this book presents written data from the participants and discusses the theoretical and practical implications of the participants’ written work. It also provides a strong, evidence-informed case for using reflective writing as a tool for strengthening the racial competency of White educators in order to positively impact their students, their classrooms, and their greater school communities. Lastly, the book offers writing exercises that can be applied to contexts within and outside the field of education so that readers can start the important work of further developing their racial competency.
It will appeal to researchers, teacher educators, faculty, and scholars with interest in whiteness studies and advancing antiracist pedagogies, as well as literacy education and diversity and equity in education.
Introduction 1. The Puzzle of Practice: The Necessity for White Educators to Reflect on Their Racial Lens 2. Theoretical Underpinnings: Whiteness, Antiracist Education, and The Transformative Power of Writing 3. The Study: Alex and Anna’s Racially Reflective Journey 4. Whiteness as a Barrier to Developing Racial Competency in One’s Personal Life 5. Whiteness as a Barrier to Creating Antiracist Educational Spaces 6. Combatting the Whiteness of Education through Teacher Development and through Classroom Instruction 7. Writing as a Way of Seeing and Being 8. Theoretical Implications and Implications for Teacher Development 9. A Lifetime of Critically Reflective Work: Swimming Upstream
Biography
Paul F. Walsh is a high school English instructor, professor of education at Lehigh University, and professor of education at Moravian University, USA.
“Dr. Walsh’s book is important. This current moment continues to police educators in the ways that they can talk, think, and teach about race. Dr. Walsh tells the story of a thoughtful, complicated project that invited white people to do the thing that so many Black and Brown thinkers having been asking white people to do for hundreds of years in the United States—grapple with whiteness. Dr. Walsh did this work in schools and this book provides a model for how such work can be approached that does not feed the scripted vitriol of the current iteration of the culture wars. Dr. Walsh’s writing, much like his teaching, invites the reader into a relationship in which they might get smarter about race. Such work is urgently needed.” - Dr. Samuel Jaye Tanner, The University of Iowa, USA
