Constructing the color-blind classroom: teachers’ perspectives on race and schooling

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore teachers’ attitudes towards race and schooling, and the ways in which they ‘do’ race in contemporary ‘color-blind’ learning environments where social location is not believed to exert any meaningful influence on students’ potential for success. Data for this study were gathered through observations and in-depth interviews of teachers in a primarily white elementary school, a primarily Hispanic elementary school, and a primarily African American elementary school, all within the same school district north of Chicago. This research finds that in an era of post-racial politics, teachers regularly make use of color-blind ideologies in order to support their understandings of race and schooling. Further, these ideologies underlie the widespread adoption of the social equality maxim, and reflect and sustain the creation of color-blind classrooms.

Keywords:

• color-blind racism
• teacher bias
• anti-racism

Acknowledgement

The research presented in this article was supported in part by a dissertation fellowship from the Arthur J. Schmitt Foundation.

Notes

An earlier version of this article was presented at the Association for Humanist Sociology Annual Meeting, in Evanston, Illinois, October 2011.