Speaking the unspeakable: the role of speech in a pedagogy of critical whiteness

Abstract

Building on the call to racialise Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of development, this paper examines the role of speech in the development of counter-hegemonic white identity. Through a Vygotskian lens, I argue that naming racism as white supremacy, valuing emotion as knowledge, preparing for discomfort, and designing increased opportunities for student discourse on the subject of race advances students’ and teachers’ critical race consciousness, and provides an initial framework for deconstructing hegemonic white identity. I argue that Vygotsky’s understanding of the unity of speech and thinking, contribute to a pedagogy of critical whiteness, and function foundationally, transculturally and cognitively. While the role of speech and theory of discomfort are formative of critical race consciousness, they are not a panacea, but potentially keys to unlock other possibilities of enacting white identity as a student and as an educator in the context of schooling.

Keywords:

• Critical whiteness studies
• critical pedagogy
• Vygotsky
• speech
• classroom discourse

Notes

1. Vygotsky use of the word ‘speech’ has also been translated to mean speech as any form of language. In some cases speech is translated to ‘languaging’ (Mahn 2003, 2012) Deaf children, for example, would have similar cognitive processes associated with signing as hearing children have with speech.