ABSTRACT
Using the notion of ‘ideology in pieces’ as a guiding concept, this paper presents a case study of one teacher who won his state’s history teacher of the year award. This study uses critical discourse analysis to explore the complex and at-times competing racial logics this teacher expressed regarding what race/racism is, how it operates in society, and its role in his teaching. Ultimately, this paper reveals that this teacher’s racial ideologies emerged ‘in pieces,’ constituted by a range of factors including his perception of the needs of his student population, community context, and his larger epistemological stances on both race/ism and history. While some discourses seemed to be in conflict, ultimately, white supremacy was protected through a lack of systemic analyses of racism and undergirding anti-Black logics.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to recognize Cynthia Lewis, Kim Vachon, Ian Slattery, Fatima Raja, Raul Meneses Semperio, Trevor Brooks, and Melissa Svigelj-Smith for their contributions to this paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.