Teaching white privilege: an auto-ethnographic approach

ABSTRACT

The teaching of white privilege in Australian tertiary settings is beset by a number of obstacles arising especially from resistance, disbelief and outright obstructionism in white students, and occasionally colleagues. The article summarises the historical and societal context regarding race relations, racism and white hegemony in Australia, then presents the personal accounts of three academics of diverse backgrounds who teach white privilege as components of courses in Social Work and Education. The three accounts make explicit connections between their authors’ personal and ethnic origins and their respective pedagogical and epistemological approaches to teaching the topic, either explicitly, or embedded within other course content or encounters. The article contributes to the growing body of work on effective pedagogy in the area of white privilege, with emphasis on the increasingly urgent need for broad societal understanding of the issue in Australia.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education
• ethnography
• whiteness
• white privilege
• colonialism
• hegemony

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jacqueline Z. Wilson

Jacqueline Z. Wilson is an independent scholar with over 20 years experience as an academic teaching in tertiary settings in Victoria, Australia. She has a BA (Hons) in Sociology and History from La Trobe University, where she was awarded the David Myer University Medal, and a PhD in History from Monash University. She has authored over fifty scholarly publications and is the sole author, editor and/or co-editor of five books, with a research focus on the intersections between critical heritage, institutionalisation, incarceration and sites of suffering and trauma.

Clement Chihota

Clement Chihota is originally from Zimbabwe and has been a social work educator in New Zealand and Australia for the past 8 years. He previously taught into the Bachelor of Social Work at Bethlehem Tertiary Institute in New Zealand before moving to Federation University Australia, where he currently coordinates the Bachelor of Community and Human Services while also teaching the course, ‘Race, ethnicity and identity: Culturally relevant social work practice’ in the Master of Social Work (Qualifying) program.

Genée Marks

Genée Marks has taught for over four decades in primary, secondary, specialist, community and tertiary education in Australia. She has a passionate commitment to social justice, equity and change across a variety of areas, including dis/ability, gender and cultural diversity, and regards transformed policy, pedagogy and curriculum as pivotal to this change. Her research and curriculum development involve a deep engagement with co-design, co-research, co-development and co-presentation, drawing on relevant communities, and is approached with a socially critical edge.