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This descriptive qualitative study used racialized organizations (Ray, 2019) as a lens to examine how 27 faculty, administrators, and postdoctoral fellows in STEM departments at two institutions understood the problems that underlie negative racial climate, the strategies they used to improve racial climate, and the alignment between problems and solutions. Participants did not discuss racism and White supremacy as factors that contribute to negative racial climate. Instead, they indicated a weak STEM pipeline, and lack of faculty engagement created negative climate. Because participants did not attend to how racism and White supremacy fostered negative climate, their strategies (e.g., increased recruitment, committees, workshops) left systemic racism intact and (un)intentionally amplified labor for racially minoritized graduate students and faculty champions who often led change efforts with little support. These findings can help move departments away from intervention-centered models of change and toward more systemic approaches that contest how racialized organizations operate.
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White intellectual alibies in use: A critical analysis of preservice teachers’ rhetoric.
The demographic disconnect in the U.S. between the majority white, female teacher workforce and the diverse students they serve perpetuates white supremacy in various ways. These relationships can be especially problematic in mathematics settings, where race issues are often disguised behind discourses of neutrality, intelligence, and meritocracy. To further understand how white supremacy is enacted in educational spaces, we applied Leonardo’s theory of “white intellectual alibis” to critically analyze interview data involving a pair of white-identifying preservice teachers engaging with novel hypothetical scenarios. Findings show that participants utilized various alibis that reinforced racist narratives and silenced possible antiracist conversations. Implications for teacher education are discussed.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1712493
- PAR ID:
- 10303447
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the Eleventh International Mathematics Education and Society Conference
- Volume:
- 1
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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