The pervasiveness and impacts of hegemonic whiteness have been extensively documented in education research (e.g., Leonardo, 2009). Whiteness operates visibly and invisibly in education settings through teacher beliefs and attitudes; pedagogical, disciplinary, and family engagement practices; curriculum choices, and more. Despite abundant evidence of whiteness at play, many white teachers, the overwhelming majority of the workforce in the United States, implicitly and explicitly claim racial innocence and cite the nobility of their intentions. While positive intentions are likely, these intentions alone are insufficient to bring about justice (Milner, 2007). Moving beyond good intentions and intellectual knowledge of race and racism has been a challenge for teacher education, especially in the last decade. The complexities of white teacher identities and static approaches to racial equity in teacher education may contribute to these challenges. Additionally, teacher education activities often fall short in terms of fostering white teachers’ critical self-reflection. The limited success of these interventions prompted the call for a new wave of white teacher identity studies within Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS). 

To move from good intentions to antiracist action, CWS scholars emphasise that teacher education activities should reject the notion of white racial innocence. This involves making the invisible aspects of whiteness visible and engaging in critical reflection on racial identities, attitudes, complicity, privilege, and the ways in which everyday practices are not neutral. Scholars argue that opportunities for reflection are crucial for supporting white teachers in understanding and modifying these factors. Critical self-study, extending reflections to connect with research, may enhance awareness and contribute to teacher education scholarship. 

The present paper is one attempt to do that. In this critical self-study, framed through Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS), I explore hidden power dynamics and ideologies in classroom discourse during one of my former lessons.

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS) complement each other in their shared commitment to unveiling and challenging power structures. CDA's focus on language as a tool for understanding and addressing social wrongs aligns seamlessly with CWS' emphasis on exposing the mechanisms through which 'whiteness' conceals its power and privilege. 

Discursive control

One of the most pronounced patterns I noticed related to the power dynamics in this lesson. I noticed myself using numerous commands, including: ‘action,’ ‘go ahead,’ ‘keep trying,’ ‘let’s see’ and close-ended questions. I also granted myself the liberty of vocalising reactions (‘oooh!’ (line 11), but did not afford students the same, thus elevating my perceptions over theirs. As the teacher, my white-knuckled grip enforced the boundaries of turns of talk, ratified responses, or ignored them altogether. While I encouraged students to call on each other (and did not employ a traditional I-R-F pattern (Sinclair & Coulthard, 1975)), I was by no means democratic. 

I began to reflect on how this ‘progressive popcorn’ strategy was still in service of my power as teacher; students’ selections were bound by their adherence to the behavioural norm I desired (sitting quietly with a hand raised). More horrifying, I noticed that, using my illocutionary force, I had coded this compliance as evidence of knowledge (‘Do you see someone who has their hand raised who thinks they know…’ (line 14)). My discourse shaped not only who got to talk, when, and how, but also sent a clear message to the class about what ‘knowledge’ looks like: a student sitting silently, with their hand raised, waiting for validation from the real authority on knowledge (the teacher). Not only by implicitly labelling this practice as such, but also instructing students to take up this labelling through their turn selection, I was actively socialising them into the same white-normative practices I encountered as a student. 

White niceness

I was socialised in a society where, if you ask someone to close their eyes and picture an elementary school teacher, more often than not, the image they see in their mind's eye is a ‘nice white lady.’ I had nice white ladies (NWL) as my teachers; I loved them and felt loved by them (with few exceptions). For me, NWLs made school a safe place where I was seen and buffered from external stressors. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I aspired to be just like them. In this lesson, I was taken aback by the extent to which I embodied an NWL. However, in this situation, the impact of my actions on students of Color was arguably not a protective factor for them; it was disempowering and potentially dangerous. 

My NWL language is evident in line 34, when I instructed, ‘Alright, let’s be respectful for him while he’s doing it.’ While this was an intertextual reference to earlier talk-turn boundary violations, I did not explicitly name it as such. My reliance on the illocutionary force again (‘respectful,’ coded as silent, with hands raised), strategically avoided any negatively connoted words. Instead, I manipulated positive-sounding words and phrases to accomplish my agenda of controlling how students’ bodies were positioned, information was presented, and ‘knowledge’ could be validated by me, the teacher.

Further, when Isaiah transgressed a boundary by echoing Kili’s answer, ‘form,’ I not only did not acknowledge it, but I actively turned my gaze toward Madison, who was sitting silently, and asked her a question. Instead of honest communication, I relied on manipulation. Again, instead of addressing a rapid sequence of students' answers (to the question that I had directed at Madison), I ignored it. Isaiah, again, was one of those students. Though, at the time, I claimed a democratic and empowering stance toward education, my discursive actions privileged my own comfort with a rule-abiding classroom over genuine learning. 

Avoiding personal or social discomfort, I ignored what were quite valid student responses being co-constructed (‘A ball,’ ‘A soccer ball,’ ‘Yeah,’ ‘Or a person,’ (lines 18-22)), and returned to the comfort of rules. Swallowing my urge to yell, and ‘rewarding’ adherents, I turned again to Madison, who was sitting quietly, and began to ask, ‘What was…’ This discursive move, I believe, was made to safeguard my ego and uphold the code of the NWL; I did not send a child of Colour out of the room or yell at them like the ‘bad, racist white’ teachers I read about in Urban Education. After all, I was smiling – I may have been anxious and frustrated, but I smiled. (Of course, over-smiling, in the CWS literature, is discussed as a strategy to protect the white ego in the face of racial anxiety.)

Some, including my guiding teacher at the time, might have called my demeanour calm and caring, not cowardly. They would have noted this behaviourist strategy as standard classroom management (‘extinguishing’ an undesired behaviour by ignoring it). At the time, I likely believed that. Through the lens of CWS, however, the truest strategy at play might have been one that aimed to preserve my self delusion of ‘white morality’ and evade discomfort (i.e. being accused of prejudice or meanness). White folks, as CWS scholars note, employ discursive strategies (sometimes referred to as ‘white talk’ (Bailey, 2015), to bolster our sense of virtue, for ourselves and for listeners. When we sense conversation approaching a discursive space that could reveal our anxieties, vulnerabilities, or fears, we redirect it toward a discursive space that reifies our perceived goodness (Applebaum, 2010). While I may have avoided an overt display of ‘meanness’ (honesty), a close analysis of my speech reveals my anxiety. After the runaway series of responses, I attempted to force closure and regain control. ‘So she formed her body,’ I began, and then rapidly mumbled, ‘she made her body in a certain way. Very good’ (line 27). ‘Very good,’ were the words I uttered, though I was frustrated, and peripherally felt Jeremiah’s gaze. 

Student identity-agency

With a fond memory of Jeremiah, I approached the analysis. During and after the analysis, I was hard pressed to find evidence in this lesson of this fondness I had remembered. The third finding I wanted to, but could not ignore, was the whiteness and harm I enacted through my interactions with Jeremiah. Unfortunately, my discursive moves discouraged other students from seeing the value of Jeremiah’s contributions, and reinforced his identity as a disruptive student who should be disregarded. 

Characteristic of Jeremiah’s enthusiasm, his response ([Gasp], ‘A mouse!’ line 13), was the first response to my opening question of the lesson. While he did have his hand raised, he spoke before I ratified his turn. Instead of acknowledging his perfectly valid guess, I ignored it, turned away from him, and asked silently-sitting Madison to help me reinforce the social order I had imposed, saying, ‘Do you see someone who has their hand raised..?’ (line 14). The discussion proceeded, and Jeremiah’s suggestion of ‘a mouse’ (line 13) went unacknowledged. By contrast, when Shenea later called out (‘The same thing,’ line 38), I validated her response by repeating it in the form of a question directed at Isaiah (‘The same thing? Were you doing the same thing?’ line 39). Shortly after, Jeremiah raised his hand and said ‘uh uh uh uh!’ (line 45) after I asked what vocab word the student had represented. Despite his raised hand and eagerness, I again, flouted this bid, and turned to a silent student. Using discursive moves, I silenced Jeremiah and signalled to the class that he was not a legitimate contributor. He was not key to our collective learning – he was a distraction, and he could be ignored.  

In an interesting move later in the lesson, Jeremiah initiated a speech act, directed toward me. He was the only student in the entire lesson to do so. Asserting his power, and flouting mine, he declared, ‘I get to pick someone’ (line 32). In this intertextual act, he reminded me that I had agreed (prior to the lesson) that he could select a student to be the actor. Furthermore, instead of asking me for permission to select someone, he used the assertive form, ‘I get to pick’ that gave himself permission. While I now appreciate his self-advocacy, at the time, I feared I was losing control of the classroom and moved toward my white comfort zone: rules. 

Subsequently, I walked closer to Jeremiah and squatted down, two students away from him. This move of proximity signalled that I was still the authority monitoring his compliance to the class order. Then, without looking at Jeremiah, I turned to the class and said, ‘Ok, I told Jeremiah he could pick someone’ (line 32). I then turned to Jeremiah, and said, ‘go ahead’ (line 32). These two words (and moving closer to monitor him) were the only direct acknowledgement I gave him throughout the entire lesson. What is more, the illocutionary force of this was to reiterate that I, as the teacher, was the ultimate authority to grant him the permission to pick someone. 

 Despite his hands being raised other times, he was uniquely surveilled and ignored. Perhaps in the shadows of my consciousness, I felt the white saviourist urge to control him so that he could be more palatable for others; I paternalistically believed that I had to silence and suppress behaviours that did not align with the white norm in order for him to succeed. Whether it was driven from a white saviour complex or not, I perpetuated well-documented over-policing and invalidation of Brown boys.

As I further reflected and analysed the transcript, I became more curious about the context of our micro-exchanges, and returned to the video. Stopping every few milliseconds, I closely froze and examined video frames as I analysed non-verbal cues (See Figure 3). To my surprise, I had omitted a crucial interaction from my original transcript (even after viewing the clip dozens of times): Jeremiah’s actions after I had first ignored him. He lowered his hand and leaned back against the swivel chair behind him. Eyes still on the speaker, he swayed back and forth with the chair, until it hit Madeline, who was sitting on the other side of the chair. She said ‘ow!’ and he stopped, quickly responding ‘sorry’ (line 8). Then, they both turned back to face the student acting in the centre. No other students appeared to notice or react to the exchange. I was amazed that I had completely missed this interaction in real life, and again, throughout the transcription phase. I reflected on how this teacher-oriented format did not support my students, and was stressful for me to perform. I wondered what else I might have missed while I was busy performing niceness amidst my white-socialised duties of control and paternalistic removal of agency from students. Regardless of my intentions, my actions in this lesson (which was perfectly satisfactory in the eyes of my teacher educator), were oppressive, not liberatory. 

Ten years afforded me the psychological distance I needed from my first impressions of this lesson when I filmed it. Had I conducted this analysis earlier, I may not have been able to identify or trouble the status quo practices that I enacted. Just as I had conditioned my students to look to me, the teacher, for validation, I had been conditioned to look to my instructor in my teacher education program, and accept her praise without question. Even as I am still unlearning, I am now able to recognize previously hidden layers of white racial socialisation in my teaching practices, especially with the guidance of CDA tenets. 

Three major CDA tenets that I relied on heavily throughout my self-analysis included the relational-dialectical dynamics of discourse, the critique and disruption of normalised discourses, and righting social wrongs. The relational-dialectical dynamics of discourse made me consider patterns between the flow of power in turn-taking, ratification, and intertextual references. I considered these most intensely in my reflections on how I treated Jeremiah. The critique and disruption of normalised discourses most guided my broader consideration of the classroom culture and norms I created: a self-centred desperation for order. Righting social wrongs was most explored in my personal reflections on the counterfactuals: what would have, could have, this lesson looked like had I known then what I can see now? While I am only beginning to answer that question, I seek to continue reimagining with an aim to disrupt potential future injustices – while also being careful to avoid a narcissistic navel gaze that only feeds ineffectual white shame and guilt. As a white teacher educator, I also have to be careful to remember how, as a white person, I can still benefit from and perpetuate a white supremacist system (i.e. through social or aesthetic capital), even if the content of my critical self-reflection problematizes my own actions. This dynamic struggle points to the need for humility and brutal honesty. Aanerud et al. (2014) describe this humility not as ‘self-effacement or something akin to moral virtue; rather I [as a] conception of the self as accountable, interconnected, and open to cognitive uncertainty and mystery’ (p. 108). 

Aanerud et al.’s (2014) pedagogy of humility to move us collectively through critical self-study and toward justice. They describe, “This pedagogy asks that we learn to welcome and sustain humility in ourselves, our students, and all who we encounter, to resist the desire to reassure ourselves of our benign innocence, and to honour that our very existence and growth is dependent upon each other’ (p. 106). The fundamental interdependency and responsibility we have to each other as humans may help us as we navigate these complexities as those who could never be authorities on race and racism.

Teacher education scholars (e.g., Jupp, 2017; Lensmire et al., 2013; Levine-Rasky, 2000; Matias & Mackey, 2016) have focused their teaching and research on identifying effective ways to train white teachers to enact practices that provide equitable learning opportunities for students from all racial backgrounds. However, to date, the persistence of racial disparities suggests that more needs to be understood about transformative teacher education that illuminates the ways in which white teachers (like myself) can be unknowingly complicit. In order to counter a lifetime of racist socialisation that is continually enforced by larger education structures, we must actively reflect on our past and present investments in systemic racism. By writing about oneself and exploring the past in an effort to prepare for the future, we can attempt to improve upon our practice (Taylor & Coia, 2010). One promising practice is critical self-reflection guided by discourse analysis and critical whiteness. 

In this paper, I shared how I undertook this process to analyse a teaching video from ten years ago, in an effort to increase my critical race consciousness, and arrived at more questions than answers – which leave me curious and desiring to continue to reflect. While facing one's own racism head-on takes as much ‘honesty and clarity as the ego can muster’ (Frankenberg, 2013, p.6), I concur with the authors who have gone before me that it is a more-than-necessary pursuit. I hope this paper encourages similar curiosity that helps us take bolder personal steps to dismantling white supremacy. 

For their feedback, guidance, and critical friendships:

Dr. Shondel Nero (CDA Seminar, Fall 2023)

Dr. Erin Miller (Guidance & Feedback)

Dr. Alyssa Parr (Critical Friendship & Guidance)

Lori Cabacungan (Mentor Teacher)

Dr. Marge Hoctor (Mentor Teacher, In Memoriam)