Beyond the breach: transforming White identities in the classroom

Abstract

Multicultural discussions in the classroom are often weak and diffident, as if the participants fear divulging their true feelings. But when students are pressed on the subject of race, the conversation otten boils over into anger and frustration. Social drama oil'ers a way to breach the silence about race. Following this approach in a social change class. students kept a journal of their reactions to course discussions and gave anonymous written comments so they could share their feelings without awkwardness. A recursive-loop strategy of feeding the journal entries into the classroom discussion created opportunities for dialogue and allowed Euro American students to see how race matters, leading to a reconsideration of white identity. White identity transformation, as the ultimate goal, means the development of intercultural conimunication competence and transformation through "mindfulness" of alternative realities. (29 ref)-

Critical Race Theory and Education: Racism and anti-racism in educational theory and praxis

“…This approach not only adds essential data and perspective, it can offer a fundamental challenge to the ''common sense'' assumptions through which so much racism operates and the mechanisms by which it is legitimized. Several scholars have written, for example, of the heated, and sometimes emotional, exchanges that occur when the silence about white racism is challenged in university classrooms (see Dlamini, 2002;Leonardo, 2002;Rich & Cargile, 2004). The exchanges by no means guarantee an equitable outcome, but they can dramatically highlight the ways in which notions of ''validity'' and ''objectivity'' operate in racialized ways.…”

Inviting the Breach: Confronting Homophobia in the Name of Social Justice

“…Students were given 10 minutes to silently walk around the exhibit and were then provided a marker and invited to respond (or not respond) to any of the entries positioned around the room. In this step, we detoured from Rich and Cargile's (2004) exercise in order to bring an additional level of discourse into the fray. There was an intense shift in energy as the students grabbed markers and began responding to the stories placed around the room.…”

“…Because our experience seemed to align with critical race scholars, we drew on Rich and Cargile's (2004) "recursive feedback loop" as a redressive strategy. With their class split along racial lines, Rich and Cargile (2004) placed students' personal stories about racism on poster boards throughout the room and asked classmates to walk silently through the exhibit. We modeled our redressive strategy on this technique and added a dimension to provide more immediacy.…”

“…(p. 92) Researchers have used the social drama model to explore conflict in a variety of settings. Social drama has been used in university classroom settings to consider racism and conflict (Rich & Cargile, 2004;Warren, 2001), and with K-12 students to explore classroom interactions (Lewis, 1997) and conflict between teachers and students (McFarland, 2004). Fuoss (1995) examined the relationship between cultural performance and the social drama of an autoworker's strike in Flint, Michigan.…”

Immigration et francophonie dans les écoles ontariennes : comment se structurent les rapports entre les institutions, les parents et le monde communautaire ?

“…De récentes études illustrent bien l'importance de la relation pédagogique dans le développe-ment de pratiques inclusives en salle de classe dans le cadre d'une pédagogie antiraciste (Dei, 1998 ;Fishman et McCarthy, 2005 ;Kanouté, 2004 ;McGee Banks et Banks, 1995 ;Rich et Cargile, 2004).…”