Exploring Whiteness and Multicultural Education with Prospective Teachers

Abstract

In this article, I describe how I initiate an examination of whiteness with predominantly white students in teacher preparation programs by the use of group collages—a pedagogical tool that combines visual, textual, and oral representations of subject matter. In doing so, I illustrate one of the ways teacher educators can provide students with opportunities to (1) “see” whiteness as an integral aspect of educational discourse, (2) fix their gaze on themselves as a collective racial group, and (3) engage in processes aimed at changing beliefs, stereotypes, and practices that reproduce social and educational injustice.