Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

Files

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Black, white, or whatever: Examining racial identity and profession with white pre-service teachers

Abstract Details

2009, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, ED Teaching and Learning (Columbus campus).

White educators comprise between 85-92% of the current teaching force in the United States. Often contemporary research in education investigates aspects of education without examining the nature of those who do the work of educating the nation’s public school children. When educational researchers examine teachers, the research is often related to the pedagogical practices of teachers, and is void of earnest discussion of the identity of the teachers, how that identity impacts teacher beliefs about students and families, and ultimately how teachers frame their work educating students. Far less research exists that attempts to look at pre-service teachers’ identity, although pre-service teachers go on to do the work of teachers after their training.

Fasching-Varner's study explores the nature of pre-service teacher’s narratives as a means of understanding teachers’ identity in general, and the nature of teacher White Racial Identity specifically. I conducted a series of interviews with nine white pre-service teachers to understand the nature of their identity and beliefs and I also examined my auto-ethnographic self. Findings were derived from layered data analysis that included transcription, open coding, case writing, and cross-case coding.

Findings revealed that participants in the study used semantic moves and discourse structures to present beliefs about race, have underdeveloped understandings of their choice to be teachers, and used a variety of techniques in explaining their own white racial development; the techniques included linking diversity to race, attaching identity to racial “others,” and exhibiting a lack of coherence with respect to discussing their own white racial identity. Findings and their respective sub-findings are presented with discussion. Implications of the research focus on how to help white pre-service educators better understand their whiteness and the implications of white supremacy and racism. The aim of the implications is to help teacher educators and pre-service teacher candidates work against the privileges of whiteness and to engage students in culturally relevant ways.

Adrienne Dixson, PhD (Committee Chair)
Cynthia Tyson, PhD (Committee Member)
Valerie Kinloch, PhD (Committee Member)
Amanda Rodewald, PhD (Committee Member)
244 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Fasching-Varner, K. J. (2009). Black, white, or whatever: Examining racial identity and profession with white pre-service teachers [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1254778739

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Fasching-Varner, Kenneth. Black, white, or whatever: Examining racial identity and profession with white pre-service teachers. 2009. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1254778739.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Fasching-Varner, Kenneth. "Black, white, or whatever: Examining racial identity and profession with white pre-service teachers." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1254778739

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)