A tale of two countries: how Whiteness shaped two women’s educations on race

ABSTRACT

This paper examines how Whiteness has shaped two women’s education on race. Taken from a larger case study on the experiences of a group of Evangelicals in a Bible study that used a multicultural education curriculum, the narratives of Ellen, a White woman in her 70s, and Rose, a Colombian woman in her 20s, are discussed. Despite having vastly different upbringings in different time periods and different countries, the influence of the American Dream, White innocence, and White normativity had similar effects on their beliefs about race. The impact of the null curriculum in their educations is also discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Whiteness
• hegemony
• narrative research
• null curriculum
• Christianity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The names of people and places in this study are pseudonyms.

2. I use the terms African-American and Black interchangeably throughout this piece.

3. I capitalise the B in Black and the W in White to denote that I am discussing a race rather than a colour.