Whiteness and antiracist pedagogy: a critical discourse analysis of two trans* educators’ classroom experiences

ABSTRACT

This study employs critical discourse analysis to understand how two white and trans* postsecondary teachers make sense of ourselves as racialised actors who attempt to utilise critical pedagogy in our classrooms. Our discourse of whiteness was co-constituted with discourses of trans*ness and resisting trans* oppression. Analysis highlighted the relevance of our minoritised gender identities to our race-talk, offering important considerations for imagining news ways to disrupt white supremacy. Specifically, taking up whiteness not as an essentialised, single-axis notion, but as co-entangled with other identity and power formations elucidates how white educators can continue to invest in antiracist pedagogical practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Whiteness
• gender
• transgender
• antiracist pedagogy
• postsecondary education

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. For the purpose of this paper, ‘communities of colour’ refers to a constellation of oppressions that, while effecting various groups in distinct ways, are tethered together by their being focused on/towards those populations racialised as not white. As such, our shorthand of ‘communities of colour’ indexes Black, Indigenous, Latino/a/x, and Asian, Pacific Islander, and Desi American (APIDA) populations, whose life chances are circumscribed by the overlapping realities of anti-Black racism, settler colonialism, xenophobia, jingoism, and white supremacy.

2. When referencing and interpreting verbatim quotes, we switch to speaking about ourselves using the third person in an effort to improve clarity.