The Southern mind and the savage ideal: deconstructing identities of place in the Cracker State

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study discusses one Southern college of education and its engagement with White supremacy. This research stemmed from the Institution’s publication of an offensive catalog cover and the subsequent reactions to its inherent racism. Following this incident, our institution was dubbed ‘Cracker State’ in the media, informing our decision to analyze the historical connotations of this term for our pre-service educators. Utilizing Critical Whiteness Studies and Southern epistemology frameworks, we reconceptualize White Fragility while pulling from this experience and data collected to advance a strategy for confronting Southern White supremacy. Participants included 154 majority White and female students. Data stemmed from document analysis and two years of empirical data drawn from classroom discussions and student assignments. Due to the demographics and location of our college, we utilize the autobiographical demand of place and pay particular attention to understanding the influence of the South on the development of our students’ ideology. We explore this Southern place utilizing the following themes: (1) romantic fictions, (2) the specter of guilt, (3) God’s chosen people, and (4) the final great tragedy of the South. The goal is to begin a conversation regarding place-based pedagogy.

KEYWORDS:

• White fragility
• critical whiteness studies
• teacher education in the American South
• teacher socialisation
• teacher thinking and knowledge

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Westry Whitaker

Westry Whitaker, Ed.D., is an Assistant Professor of Middle and Secondary Education at the University of North Georgia. A former English/Language Arts teacher, he specializes in content area methods with an emphasis on bridging curriculum theory/studies and the social foundations of education, including critical race theory (CRT) and critical whiteness studies (CWS), to middle grades pedagogy and curriculum. Research interests include curriculum theorizing, young adult literature, civil and social rights education, and qualitative methodology.

Sheri C. Hardee

Sheri C. Hardee is an associate professor and associate dean for the College of Education at the University of North Georgia. She has a Ph.D. in Social Foundations in Education from the University of South Carolina. She utilizes postcolonial and feminist intersectionality frameworks to examine equity and equality in regard to access to and support in institutions of higher education, starting with support provided within middle and high school environments.

Lauren C. Johnson

Lauren C. Johnson is an Assistant Professor and the Coordinator of Diversity and Recruitment Initiatives in the College of Education at the University of North Georgia. She conducts research in the areas of cultural studies, applied anthropology, and the anthropology of education on issues of ethnicity and inequality, gender and sexuality, immigration, and diversity pedagogy.

Kelly L. McFaden

Kelly L. McFaden is an associate professor and coordinator of the Social Foundations of Education program in the College of Education at the University of North Georgia. She has a Ph.D. in Social Foundations of Education with an emphasis in Comparative and International Education from the University of Georgia. She uses critical theory and feminist intersectionality frameworks to analyze systems of oppression and power in her work, which focuses primarily on issues of social justice in formal and informal educational spaces.