Step into the discomfort: (re)orienting the white gaze and strategies to disrupt whiteness in educational spaces

ABSTRACT

This paper reports the findings of a dialogical narrative analysis conducted by two white academics in distinct higher education contexts – one based in the United States and the other in South Africa. Through the retelling of actual classroom scenarios, the authors assess their own teaching methods, responses, and classroom practices in order to examine how whiteness has shaped their classroom and teaching practices. As a result of this critical examination, the authors present strategies that centre around reorienting ‘habits of mind’ (vulnerability, flipping curriculum, collective buy-in, challenging safety, and inter-racial collaborations) to break the cycle of pervasive whiteness that exists in classroom environments and curricular endeavours. In an effort to work against reifying the colonial wound and move towards decolonising teaching practices, the findings of this analysis and the discussion that follows is our attempt of ‘stepping back’ in order to travel forward in our professional lives.

KEYWORDS:

• Critical whiteness studies
• higher education
• white privilege
• decolonising the curriculum
• digital storytelling

Disclosure statement

There are no potential conflicts of interest associated with this paper or its authors.

Notes

1. All names changed.

2. In South Africa official racial categories were defined under Apartheid (and still are) as African, Coloured, Asian, White and Other. Coloured identity refers to a multiracial ethnic group in Southern Africa who have ancestry from more than one of the various populations inhabiting the region, including Khoisan, Bantu, Afrikaner, English, Austronesian, East Asian or South Asian.