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Coaching for equity: deconstructing whiteness in suburban classrooms
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Coaching for equity: deconstructing whiteness in suburban classrooms
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Content
Running head: COACHING FOR EQUITY 1
Coaching for equity: Deconstructing whiteness in suburban classrooms
by
Rebecca Harrison
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION
MAY 2019
Copyright 2019 Rebecca LaMoyne Harrison
COACHING FOR EQUITY 2
Acknowledgements
First and foremost I’d like to thank my family for their encouragement and support;
specifically my siblings, Jack, Steven, Alicia, Heather, David, Laura, Mat, Jeffrey, and Crystal for
getting me out of the house and feeding me on writing weekends and for always asking questions
to understand what my work was about. You are my best friends and I could not do anything in life
without you. Also, I’d like to thank my parents. Mom, you never doubted I’d get here and that
makes me strong. Dad, I hope we find one another in all of this.
I would also like to thank the participants of this study, I wish I could thank you by name
because you mean so much to me. This project and my depth of learning could not have been
possible without you, but more importantly I would not be the same without you, so thank you
seems insufficient.
Thank you Dr. Hinga for your guidance, leadership, and friendship throughout this process.
In being authentically yourself as our professor, you allowed those of us in your group the freedom
to be authentic and tell our own stories through our work; for me that has made all the difference.
Lastly, I would like to thank the Avett Brothers. Your lyrics inspired me to begin this
journey and your music kept me going throughout.
This paper is dedicated to my daughters Natalie and Olivia, I live every day of my life for
you. You are my heart and soul and you are the strongest, wisest, and bravest women I know.
COACHING FOR EQUITY 3
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements 2
CHAPTER ONE: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 5
Background of the Problem 5
Statement of the Problem 7
Purpose of the Study 8
Significance of the Study 9
Organization of the Study 9
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 12
Introduction 12
Theoretical Framework 13
Introduction to Literature Review and Conceptual Framework 18
Review of Literature: Part One 20
Review of Literature: Part Two 35
Review of Literature: Part Three 48
Conclusion 53
CHAPTER THREE: METHODS 54
Introduction 54
Positionality 54
Methodology 56
Participants 58
Context 59
Data Analysis 60
Data Collection and Instrument Protocols 62
Limitations and Delimitations 68
Credibility and Trustworthiness 69
COACHING FOR EQUITY 4
Ethics 71
CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS 74
Introduction 74
The Process 75
The Journeys 105
Summary 143
CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION 144
Introduction 144
Implications for Practice 145
Recommendations for Research 156
Conclusions 159
References 161
COACHING FOR EQUITY 5
CHAPTER ONE: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY
Background of the Problem
Since its inception, public education has been instituted based on the beliefs and values of
the white eurocentric dominant culture in order to educate, deculturate, and enculturate the
inhabitants of the land, which has created disparities in success between upper or middle class
white students and their Hispanic, African American, socioeconomically disadvantaged, and
second language counterparts (Ladson-Billings, 2006). From the dominant perspective, this
disparity is most commonly referred to as the “achievement gap”; however, other non-dominant
voices refer to the disparity as the “education debt” (Ladson-Billings, 2006), suggesting that the
root of the problem lies within the systems and structures that privilege groups of people over
others.
As of 2017, African American students in the United States were underperforming their
white peers by 25 points in fourth grade math, 26 points in fourth grade reading, 32 points in
eighth grade math, and 25 points in eighth grade reading. Latinx students in the United States fared
only slightly better, scoring below their white peers by 19 points in fourth grade math, 23 points in
fourth grade reading, 24 points in eighth grade math, and 19 points in eighth grade reading. In
California, where the present study was conducted, the numbers are even more bleak: African
American students underperformed their white peers by 28 points in fourth grade math, 33 points
in fourth grade reading, 38 points in eighth grade math, and 28 points in eighth grade reading.
Similarly, Latinx students underperformed their white peers by 23 points in fourth grade math, 27
points in fourth grade reading, 31 points in eighth grade math, and 27 points in eighth grade
reading (Education Commission of the States, 2017).
COACHING FOR EQUITY 6
From the dominant perspective, attempts have been made to fill the “gap” (Jeynes, 2007;
Rury, 2013) in the six decades since the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of integrated
and equitable education for all in the Brown vs. The Board of Education decision. Policies
included extra funding for districts most impacted by these “special populations”, standardized
testing and data collection to track academic achievement, state and local accountability for
underperforming schools, and two national standards reforms to systematize the rigor and
progression of public education from kindergarten through twelfth grade (Jeynes, 2007; Rury,
2013). However, despite these best efforts, the disparity still persists.
Ladson-Billings (2006) suggests that instead of focusing on cultural deficit theories to
explain the disparity, the academy should instead draw its attention to the education debt created by
the long-term underlying problems within the socio-political system that created and maintains the
inequity of education between middle class white students and everyone else. Ladson-Billings
(2006) argues that such a shift of attention would reveal that our nation's historical, economic,
socio-political, and moral decisions characterize our society and continually influence our
education system and, in turn, maintain disparities in achievement. From an economic standpoint, a
thriving community cannot be built upon a foundation of debt; work must be done to continually
reduce the debt in order for the community to begin to thrive (Ladson-Billings, 2006). As such, the
disparities in academic achievement will persist so long as we continue to ignore the education debt
created and maintained by the historical, and current, socio-political climate of cultural hierarchy
that dominates our systems (Ladson-Billings, 2006). Though the disparity exists in the data, trying
to fix it within a racially stratified system is to only treat the symptoms and not cure the root of the
COACHING FOR EQUITY 7
problem. Further research must focus on the education debt‒the systems and structures that
privilege groups of people over others (Ladson-Billings, 2006).
Ladson-Billings (2006) narrows this focus specifically to the pedagogical practices of
teachers, especially in culturally mismatched states such as New York, Michigan, Illinois, and
California, where teachers are predominantly white middle class, while students are predominately
Black and Latinx. Consequently, the most beneficial ongoing public investment to reduce the
education debt, and in time narrow racial disparities in academic achievement, lies in educating our
teachers in cultural relevance and responsivity.
Statement of the Problem
The problem that this study addresses is that which Ladson-Billings (2006) suggests, that
the pedagogical practices of California’s teachers are not culturally relevant to the students that are
in California’s classrooms. This incongruence undergirds the education debt and prevents efforts at
creating equal access for all students from being successful. Ladson-Billings identifies California as
one of the most culturally mismatched states between teachers and students. Recent statistics show
that 63% of California’s teachers are white, while only 24% of the student population is white; the
rest are 54% Latinx, 6% African American, 9% Asian, 3% multi-racial, and 3% Filipinx, Pacific
Islander, or Native American (CDE, 2017). This cultural mismatch between teachers and students
may explain why California’s disparity in academic achievement is larger than the national
disparity between white and black or Latinx students (Ladson-Billings, 2006). Moreover,
in-service teachers who have been teaching for several years have not had adequate training in
culturally and linguistically relevant teaching (CLRT), and often feel uncomfortable and
ill-prepared to teach students whose cultural identity is different than their own ( Bhopal & Rhamie,
COACHING FOR EQUITY 8
2014 ). As Ladson-Billings (2006) posits, teacher pedagogy that is not culturally relevant leads to a
deficit approach to educating students of color, which perpetuates social deficit mindsets toward
minorities and exacerbates the education debt. One major hindrance to the development of cultural
relevance for white educators is a lack of awareness of what it means to be white, historically and
presently, amongst white people and people of color (Helms, 1990; McIntosh, 1988; Maxwell,
2004; Wade, 1998).
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this research project is to deconstruct whiteness in urban classrooms in
order for teachers to begin to employ culturally relevant pedagogy in their classrooms. Specifically,
this study will describe the journey(s), and various entry points, in deconstructing whiteness,
identifying bias, and establishing cultural relevance among elementary school educators.
While CLRT is widely accepted as one of the best approaches to critical and liberatory
education practices for diverse populations of students, it is often difficult to develop because it is
built upon underlying beliefs and attitudes the teacher holds toward students that manifests in the
way teachers interact with, instruct, and hold expectations for various populations of students
(Boyko, 2016; Freire, 2000; Gay, 2010; Hammond, 2015; Milner, 2011; Milner, 2008; Pelayo, et
al., 2012; State Board of Education, 2015).
The current study will explore the ways in which elementary instructional coaching, one
model of in-service teacher professional development, can be the starting point for reflective
conversations that bring to the surface the underlying biases and assumptions about students from
historically marginalized populations, and make way for culturally relevant pedagogy in
elementary classrooms.
COACHING FOR EQUITY 9
Significance of the Study
When students are not achieving as expected, one response is teacher professional
development to improve instructional practices (Pelayo, et al., 2012); one research-supported
approach to teacher professional development is instructional coaching. Tompkins and Ward (n.d.)
assert that coaching for equity, though difficult to manage due to the contentiousness of the topics
of race and racism, raises teachers’ awareness of students’ needs, and develops action steps to meet
those needs. However, Freire (2000) stipulates that for liberation and transformation to take place,
the teacher must be made aware of their position of power, identify their own biases, and work
with their students to co-create understandings and action steps. Tompkins and Ward’s (n.d.) model
for coaching for equity begins to touch on the concept of systematic racism, and encourages the
coach and teacher to focus on what is within their locus of control. This study posits that, for
teachers, deconstructing whiteness, understanding bias, and establishing personal and professional
cultural relevance is what needs to be professionally co-created, is one of the only things within
one's control, and is the best actionable step that can be taken toward equity in the classroom. This
study was designed as the first step in understanding how to deconstruct whiteness, understand
bias, and establish personal and professional cultural relevance among in-service teachers by
partnering with them in research conversations about their racial identity.
Organization of the Study
The goal of this study is to share the personal and professional experiences of elementary
instructional coaches in learning about race, acknowledging privilege, and enacting transformative
resistance in order to begin the process of change within the context of their sphere of influence in
COACHING FOR EQUITY 10
order to illuminate a path for the larger audience to find their own way to personal and professional
transformation toward cultural relevance.
This is based on a theory of change that places meaningful interaction at the center of
transformation. Theory of change is a model in which actionable steps are being taken to fill an
identified gap toward a defined goal (Tuck, 2009). The actionable steps are backward mapped
from the goal, and include inquiry into how and why the gap exists and what can be done to fill it
in (Tuck, 2009). This inquiry into the “how” and “why” addresses the social, cultural, and
historical contexts of the problem, including previous attempts to fill, or maintain, the gap (Tuck,
2009). The theory of change that drives the methodology of the study is based upon concepts of
Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds, by Adrienne Maree Brown (2017),
particularly, the author’s repeated reference to Nick Obolensky’s definition of emergence as “the
way complex systems and patterns arise out of multiplicity of relatively simple interactions.”
The coaching model of professional development is built upon these same ideas of high
impact changes through simple interactions (Knight & van Nieuwerburgh, 2012; Teemant, Wink &
Tyra, 2011).
The research questions that this study explores are:
1. How does an affinity group of white elementary instructional coaches navigate the process
of deconstructing whiteness in preparation for supporting teachers in the process?
2. What do the various journeys toward a positive white anti-racist identity look like for these
elementary instructional coaches?
The next chapter is a review of literature that will cover the ways in which the
socio-political climate at different time periods played a pivotal role in the establishment and
COACHING FOR EQUITY 11
evolution of the public educational system in the United States; define and describe culturally and
linguistically relevant teaching pedagogy and highlight current practices in K-12 classrooms,
teacher preparation programs, and in-service teacher professional development; explain
developmental perspectives on the formation of identity, specifically in terms of racial identity;
characterize the role of instructional coaches in professional development; and connect the
relevance of self-study to decolonial participatory action research.
Chapter Three describes in detail the methodology used to design the study. Chapter Four
is a presentation of the findings of the study that includes a sharing of the journeys of the research
participants and a description of the process traversed together. Finally, Chapter Five concludes this
paper with a discussion of the findings, implications for inservice teachers, coaches, and
administrators, as well as recommendations for further research.
COACHING FOR EQUITY 12
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
This chapter summarizes recent and relevant research to the study. It begins with an
explanation of the theoretical framework that serves as a lens through which the literature is
reviewed and the study was designed, including the theory of change. Following the theoretical
framework, a concept map is presented to illustrate the outline of the literature review, the
relationship between key concepts, and the position of the current study within the larger context of
the body of literature. The concept map is an adaptation of Bronfenbrenner’s (1994) social
ecological model in which concentric circles represent the layers of cultural contexts that influence
identity development and behavior.
The literature review follows in three parts. The first part is situated in the outer layers of
the concept map, and describes how policy and community have been historically influenced by
race and racism leading many to name the problem in education as “the achievement gap,” while
blaming communities of color for their own children’s school failure (Ladson-Billings, 2006;
Porfilio & Malott, 2011). The second part of the literature review, situated in the inner layers of the
social ecological model, describes how cultural identity development in schools-that of students
of color and white teachers-is a microcosm of the larger social inequalities in entitlement and
privilege that have created a system in which communities of color are systematically oppressed,
thus calling for renaming the problem in education as the “education debt” (Ladson-Billings, 2006;
Porfilio & Malott, 2011) rather than the “achievement gap.” The final section of the literature
review covers current practices in deconstructing whiteness, coaching for in-service teacher
COACHING FOR EQUITY 13
professional development, and self-study decolonial research as a foundation for the design of the
study.
Theoretical Framework
The theoretical framework (pictured below) represents how the study’s theory of change—
emergent strategy (Brown, 2017)—fits together with self-authorship theory (Magolda, 2014),
transformative resistance theory (Bernal & Solorzano, 2001), and cultural-historical activity theory
(Foot, 2014; Vygotsky, 1978) to illustrate and describe the process(es) one must work through to
deconstruct and reconstruct their white racial identity and move toward a critical examination of
social institutions and unjust practices, in order to begin to transform the structures that breed social
inequalities in school and society (Porfilio & Malott, 2011). This theoretical framework serves as
the lens through which the literature was reviewed and the study designed.
COACHING FOR EQUITY 14
Theory of change: Emergent strategy. Emergent strategy, represented above as a
geometric dandelion, is based upon the ways in which complex systems and patterns spiral and
grow out of small network of interactions, similar to fractal formations (Brown, A., 2017).
According to the Fractal Foundation (2018), fractals are a mathematical pattern that are infinitely
complex and self-similar across different scales. They are created by repeating a simple process
over and over in an ongoing feedback loop. Fractals are present in biological, ecological,
astronomical, and geological branches of science, math, and art (Fractal Foundation, 2018). A
dandelion is one example of an organically occurring fractal formation that is poised to produce a
field of dandelions with every passing breeze (Brown, A., 2017).
Emergent strategy applies this concept to social constructs such as ethnic bias (Brown, A.,
2017). Racial ideas emerge through interactions between individuals; those interactions either
perpetuate the pattern the individual was raised to believe in an ongoing feedback loop, or they
provide a counter experience that causes the individual to begin to question the social construct and
their own biases (Brown, 2017).
The Fractal Foundation (2018) describes one basic fractal formula as D= log N/log s where
“D” represents the dimension of the fractal, “N” represents the network created, and “s” represents
the size of the fractal. The pattern of the fractal can be altered if one of the starting conditions is
changed. While it may appear chaotic at first, over time the fractal will spiral into a new pattern,
becoming larger and more complex as it continues to loop. In fractal study, this is referred to as
chaos theory in which even a simple deterministic system can sometimes produce completely
different results if it has sensitivity to foundational conditions (Fractal Foundation, 2018).
COACHING FOR EQUITY 15
The theory of change for this study is based upon this concept of making small changes to
the foundations of the social constructs of race and racism through intentional interpersonal
interactions that will, over time, change patterns at a grassroots level that have the potential to spiral
upward to larger scales of transformation (Brown, A., 2017). These small changes start with an
individual’s cultural identity development so that we can combine our individual knowledge to
achieve larger social change (Brown, A., 2017). The cultural identity development theory for this
study is self-authorship theory.
Self-Authorship theory. Self-authorship theory (Magolda, 2014) describes how
individuals develop an internal authority over thoughts, beliefs, and identity. In this theory of
identity development, individuals move between three stages. This is represented with the
three-part stem of the dandelion in the theoretical framework above. The first is uncritically
following the external formulas acquired from authority figures such as parents and/or teachers
(Magolda, 2014). The second stage is when an individual begins to question these formulas and
finds themselves at a crossroads in which they attempt to reconcile what they have been told to be
true (about themselves and others) with what they have experienced to be true (Magolda, 2014).
There is tension between the external formula and the emerging inner voice. At this point the
individual transitions to self-authorship in which they internally construct their beliefs and identity
for themselves (Magolda, 2014). These transitions from uncritically accepting external formulas,
through crossroads, to self-authorship usually take place with the support of learning partnerships
with peers or mentors who are going, or have gone, through a similar process themselves
(Magolda, 2014). The hope of emergent strategy (Brown, 2017) is that these small intra and
interpersonal interactions alter the conditions of the fractal formula, and begin to lead individuals
COACHING FOR EQUITY 16
toward a critical stance on changing the dominant formulas: in this case, a move toward
transformational resistance (Solorzano & Bernal, 2001).
Transformational resistance. In Solorzano and Bernal’s (2001) study, they define
transformational resistance as the optimal condition of oppositional behavior an activist can take to
enact the greatest possibility for social change. In this quadrant a person has both a desire for social
justice and a critical perspective on social oppression. It is through negotiation and struggle with
social structures that individuals learn and create meaning and begin to develop the desire for social
change and critique of social oppression (Solorzano & Bernal, 2001).
The dandelion in the theoretical framework grows toward this quadrant as the individual
moves toward self-authorship, and hopefully the transformational resistance tenets. There is an
acknowledgement in the theoretical framework that while, through education, all dandelions will
grow out of ignorance to social issues and reactionary behavior, some may grow either toward
self-defeating resistance, in which they are only critical of their own social oppression and not
motivated by social change, or into conformist resistance, in which they are motivated by social
change but have no critique of the structures that perpetuate oppression (Solorzano & Bernal,
2001). However, through intentional learning partnerships, the hope is that no one can continually
claim ignorance to racism. Furthermore, emergent strategy (Brown, A., 2017) suggests that part of
this transformational resistance is the need to reimagine how we prioritize and use people and
resources. The framework this study uses for this reimagining is cultural-historical activity theory
(Foot, 2014).
Cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT). Cultural-historical activity theory,
represented above as a magnification of one triangular dandelion seed, intentionally uses each of
COACHING FOR EQUITY 17
these words to describe interactions between individuals, especially professionals and their clients
(Foot, 2014). Culture shapes the values that dictate everything humans do, and typically has deep
historical roots that have evolved over time. It is upon this cultural-historical foundation that we act
in certain ways with certain individuals as it pertains to our situatedness in a personal or
professional relationship (Foot, 2014). CHAT has three functional components that are based on
the work of Lev Vygotsky (1978): humans learn collectively and by doing, they create tools for
learning and communicating, and this collectively communicating community is central to meaning
making and action direction. These concepts are present in the CHAT triangle model that places
“subject” (person), “object” (goal), and “tool” (means to achieve object) in the upper formation of
the triangle which are supported by ideas of community, rules, and division of labor (Foot, 2014).
This can be summarized by answering the questions: Who (subject) needs what (tool) in order to
achieve the goal? Who (community) will do the work to get it done (division of labor) and why
that person or group (rules)?
The theoretical framework for this study suggests that out of a critical re-evaluation of the
interplay between the subject (person) and the social rules in which they participate, combined with
a transformational resistance perspective, can grow a new crop that questions the formulas of the
dominant culture and sprout new paths toward self-authorship that increase the network, the size,
and the dimension of the fractal dandelion.
This study endeavors to be the breeze that births a field of dandelions by creating learning
partnerships that promote socio-culture learning and transformational self-authorship. In the words
of Octavia Butler (as quoted by Brown, 2017), “All that you touch you change, all that you change
changes you.”
COACHING FOR EQUITY 18
Introduction to Literature Review and Conceptual Framework
The purpose of the literature review is to frame the context for the dialogue taking place in
the current study, much as an author would describe the setting in which a story takes place in the
early pages of a novel. This project is grounded in Freirean (2000) problem posing methods in
which knowledge is co-constructed by a group of participants that are engaging in transformative
discourse to arrive at solutions together ( Smith-Maddox & Solórzano, 2002). In this research
approach, discourse is both the methodology and the method; in other words, the dialogues are
both the object being investigated and the method by which the investigation takes place (Milner,
2007). The dialogues in this project are made up of current educators’ personal and professional
journeys toward positive white anti-racist identity and culturally relevant teaching pedagogies. The
literature review will serve as a historical and cultural backdrop for these current dialogues, as well
as a justification for the design of the study.
This concept map, illustrating the relationship between the theory of change, the key
concepts, and their connection to the current study, is based on Bronfenbrenner’s (1994) social
ecological model. Bronfenbrenner’s model illustrates how the context of multiple environments
influences an individual’s identity development and consequent behavior (Ettekal & Mahoney,
2017). It is used here to illustrate the organization of the literature review (down the left hand
arrow) as well as the starting point and trajectory of this and future research projects (up the right
hand fractal).
COACHING FOR EQUITY 19
The literature review will follow in three parts. The downward left arrow of the concept
map guides the first two sections of the literature review through the layers of what
Ladson-Billings (2006) describes as a focus on the cultural deficits of underperforming populations
of students. The first part of the literature review details the historical approach to education reform
that is characterized by programs and policies created from a cultural mindset of bias and deficit to
“fix” the problems of underperforming populations, which are then legislated downward, bringing
racism and bias into our classrooms and curricula, while ignoring the long-term underlying
problems within the socio-political system (Ladson-Billings, 2006). The second part of the
literature review connects current and historical legislation practices with the oppressive contexts in
COACHING FOR EQUITY 20
which teachers and students interact in a vertical pattern of banking education, and in which the
student begins to develop a sense of personal identity (Freire, 2000). This section describes the
cultural and contextual influences on racial identity development and describes current practices in
deconstructing whiteness.
The upward right fractal represents the theory of change that guides this study and situates
the current study in the intra and interpersonal layers of the social ecology model. It is here that the
teacher can be repositioned as not only the one who teaches, but also the one who learns (Freire,
2000). This third section of the literature review will cover coaching for in-service teacher
professional development, and self-study decolonial research as a foundation for the design of the
study. Using the coaching model described in the literature review, this study will use the
theoretical framework as a guide to coach educators into a new understanding of the salience of
race (their own and that of their students) in their classrooms, and initiate dialogue that will begin a
new fractal process of enacting transformative resistance upward through the layers of the social
ecological model to create a more equitable, responsive, and co-created educational system.
Review of Literature: Part One
This section of the literature review will explore the ways in which the socio-political
climate at different time periods played a pivotal role in the establishment and evolution of the
public educational system in the United States, as well as describe current practices in teaching
multiculturalism in K-12 classrooms and teacher preparation programs. Writing about history is a
process of putting the fragmented pieces of information back together to tell a story about what
took place and why (Swartz, 2007). Describing the establishment and evolution of the public
education system in the United States is wrought with different perspectives because it deals with
COACHING FOR EQUITY 21
the development of our nation’s children, is a means through which knowledge and values are
transmitted from one generation to the next, is linked to power and social status, and is a
multi-billion dollar undertaking (Rury, 2013). All of this is compounded by individual or group
epistemologies about race, gender, religion, equality, and equity (Rury, 2013). The purpose of this
study is to begin to poke at all of these ways of knowing; we cannot truly understand what we
know or how we know it unless we also understand how history shapes the current context in
which words and actions have meaning (Tochluk, 2010). As such, the purpose of this section of
the literature review is to give a general description of how and why different decisions were made
in regards to the public education system; to begin to expose the deficit mindset employed when
legislating and educating people of color—a practice that has led to the misnaming of the
educational problem as the “achievement gap” (Ladson-Billings, 2006); and to describe the context
in which our current white educators came to know what they know.
Historical socio-political climates and their influences on the American educational
system.
The colonization of America originated in the 1400s with the Roanoke and Jamestown
Colonies (Jeynes, 2007). As semantics would suggest, Colonial America was founded upon a
colonial worldview, in which European civilizations view human relations, land and resources as
ownable and conquerable. This worldview shaped the development of our nation’s cultural ethics
and values—values that explicitly place white, Christian, middle and upper class men above all
others (Patel, 2016). These colonial cultural ethics and values are the ground floor upon which our
first schooling systems in the United States were built.
COACHING FOR EQUITY 22
Although the earliest British colonies in North America paid some attention to the
education of its citizens, early efforts were neither coordinated nor consistent across colonies.
Schools were usually founded by the religious leader of the colony to teach theology and literacy,
and typically only included indigenous people and African slaves as means of evangelism, moral
discipline, and the maintenance of authority (Lauderdale, 1975; Jeynes, 2007; Rury, 2013). As
colonies grew and stabilized in the 1600s, there began to emerge an attention to the education of
the population and the colonies saw the establishment of Harvard and Yale Universities, the Boston
Latin Secondary School, Dame Schools, and the Massachusetts Compulsory Education Law in
which the head of every household was responsible for the literacy education of its inhabitants
(Jeynes, 2007). As a whole, the social structure of the colonies was built largely upon British ideals
of social stratification between the rich and the poor, and the economy was largely carried by slave
labor in cotton and rice production in the south (Lauderdale, 1975; Brown, 2011).
It wasn’t until the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the late 1700s that the young
America began to systematize education in response to economic and social changes, and to further
the country’s economic growth (Rury, 2013). It was during this time that the establishment of the
Common School occurred. This was a take on the European idea of school for the common
people, but was translated, to mean common school to all people (Lauderdale, 1975). Throughout
this period, there was a continued rise in both the European settler population and the African slave
population and a decline in the indigenous population as tribes were killed off or driven west
(Rury, 2013). In response, there were also several legal barriers erected between the white settlers
and the African slaves that established slaves as property and outlined the boundaries of their
educational opportunities (Rury, 2013). As a result, a duality in the Common School emerged. The
COACHING FOR EQUITY 23
rich had access to private and higher education with trajectories of becoming religious and state
leaders, the poor had access to common school for salvation and apprenticeship, and non-whites
had access to education in labor and moral discipline (Lauderdale, 1975; Rury, 2013)
Just prior to the Civil War, Massachusetts Secretary of the State Board of Education Horace
Mann led a movement to reform the Common School. Mann and his supporters were troubled by
social divisions between class, race, and gender, and proposed that the education system was one
way to begin to equalize the social fabric. To remedy the disparity, he championed the ideas of a
school system supported by property taxes, uniformity in study, non-sectarianism, six to ten months
of schooling in a year, and teacher professional training. While Mann received majority support,
especially in the north where political power resided, he did not receive universal support,
especially in the south or the west where larger populations of non-whites were a threat to the
dominant white culture and laws were in place specifically preventing the education of African
slaves. (Jeynes, 2007; Rury, 2013).
Concurrently, Africans strove to maintain cultural identity and sought alternative avenues to
acquire literacy skills and educate one another on themes of resistance and liberation, while
asserting their humanity (Jeynes, 2007; Rury, 2013). At the culmination of the Civil War, there was
an influx of support from the north for the freed slaves in the south, in which black schools, voting
rights, and political power were established under the protection of the federal government and its
military. Unfortunately, a recession caused a withdrawal of northern support; over time the freed
blacks in the south were once again stripped of their power as schools began to segregate,
resources were inequitably allocated, and poll taxes enforced (Rury, 2013).
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These early colonial educational models, and subsequent reform efforts, are evidence of the
existence of an education debt that resulted from inequitable access to, and opportunity in, public
education between white students, non-white students, and socioeconomically disadvantaged
students from the earliest days of our nation’s history. The Civil War itself is evidence of the
socio-political climate in which these models and reforms were established and attempted.
After the Civil War, industrialization continued to grow; with it came a rise in urbanization
and immigration (Jeynes, 2007; Rury, 2013). Industrialization influenced the educational system in
that education began to operate in a factory model, where input, or curricular content, was made
consistent in the hopes that the output, or learning, would be made more equitable among different
populations (Jeynes, 2007; Rury, 2013). However, this was better implemented in urbanized areas
that had more diverse populations and better access to local quality teachers, while rural areas,
especially in the south, continued to battle segregation and poor access to resources. In urban cities,
immigration brought new perspectives, languages, and an increase in enrollment that birthed the
beginnings of multicultural education (Jeynes, 2007; Rury, 2013). The progressive era, to which
this time in history is referred, also provided a platform for African American educational leaders,
including W.E.B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington, Carter G. Woodson, and Layle Lane, who
advocated for equal access to K-12 schooling and higher education, representation of minorities in
curriculum, education as liberation, collective humanity, and an end to discrimination and
segregation (Jeynes, 2007; Rury, 2013; Swartz, 2007). The progressive era was also notable for
disparities in secondary education among females, African Americans, and Latinx students, as
these populations were denied access, placed on inferior tracks to graduation, or only allowed
coursework as it pertained to their gender roles or blue collar career prospects. Latinxs and African
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Americans were also denied entry to higher education and, as a result, generations of these groups
did not have access to white collar work or middle class status (Rury, 2013).
The industrial period is an important one in our educational history because it established
the model for education that has persisted over time and still exists today (Robinson, 2010). It is
within this model, of standardized inputs and outputs, that all subsequent and current reform efforts
have taken place: reform efforts that focus on the inputs and the outputs versus the model itself
(Ladson-Billings, 2006; Robinson, 2010). The model maintains colonial, or now dominant
American ideals, of what is important to know and be, and how that knowledge and socialization
is acquired (Freire, 2011). Without changing the model, the following reform efforts have done
little to change the disparity in achievement that was intentionally instituted and systematically
maintained over time (Ladson-Billings, 2006).
1954 was the dawn of the Civil Rights movement; with it came some of the most influential
cases and legislation in American educational history. The 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, were a
tumultuous period in which the United States dealt with issues of inequality and social justice in
terms of race, gender, and ability, and many hoped the reform of the social climate would come
from the education of the youth (Rury, 2013). The case of Brown vs. The Board of Education in
1954 established that “separate was not equal” and led to the desegregation of education in the
south and the west (Brown v. Board of Educ., 1954; Jeynes, 2007; Rury, 2013).
Affirmative Action, signed into law in 1961, was designed to ensure equal representation
among majority and minority groups in college admission. This action was interpreted by white
citizens as preferential treatment and became a controversial topic that contributed to already
unstable lines between races. This was followed by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
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(ESEA) of 1965 that guaranteed access to K-12 schooling for all. ESEA addressed concerns about
inequitable funding between urban and rural schools by establishing Title I funding for schools
impacted by larger populations of low income students and second language learners; Head Start,
which provides access to preschool in impoverished communities; and Title IX, which addresses
sex discrimination in access to federally funded programs (Jeynes, 2007; Rury, 2013; P.L. 89-19,
1965). The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), introduced in 1975 as the
“Education of All Handicapped Children Act,” provided for free and appropriate public education
for all children, regardless of disability, in the least restrictive environment with same age peers
(IDEA, 2004; Jeynes, 2007; Rury, 2013). While these changes were enacted in schools across the
United States to various degrees and levels of support, they did little to change the larger
socio-political climate of the United States.
By 1983, it was clear that the American education system was lacking. In a report titled A
Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform , U.S. Secretary of Education Terrance Bell
argued for an increase in rigor of high school graduation requirements and K-12 content standards
to compete in a globalized economy, an extended school day and/or school year to allow more
instructional time, to improve the quality of teaching and the profession of teaching, and establish
accountability for leadership and financial support (Gardner, et al. 1983; Rury, 2007). President
Ronald Reagan responded with the “Back to Basics” movement. The popular belief was that the
decline in academic achievement in the U.S. was due to a trend toward child-centered education,
so six recommendations were given as part of the plan: a focus on essential learning in reading,
writing, and arithmetic; authority given to teachers to administer classroom discipline as they saw
fit; initiate efforts to reduce student drug and alcohol abuse; increase levels of parental involvement;
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and restoring moral and character education (Jeynes, 2007). The parent choice initiative was also
enacted at this time, which allowed parents the freedom to choose which school their child would
attend (Jeynes, 2007).
The Back to Basics movement was followed by two important movements in public
education: the Standards Movement and No Child Left Behind. The Standards Movement came
during the Clinton Administration in the early 1990s as an attempt to streamline what was being
taught in the major content areas of English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, and Social
Studies, as well the development of standardized tests that would measure to what degree students
were meeting these standards (Jeynes, 2007; Rury, 2013). Once again, students in more affluent
areas performed better on the standardized tests than their counterparts in poorer communities and
diverse cities (Rury, 2007). This disparity is often attributed to the large numbers of teachers with
emergency credentials and large class sizes in these communities at that time. This accountability
system became known as “high stakes testing” as many disadvantaged children faced repeated
retention when their scores reflected less than satisfactory standards achievement (Jeynes, 2007;
Rury, 2013).
No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was signed into law in 2002 by President George W. Bush
in response to this epidemic of failure by disadvantaged students. As the name would suggest, the
goal of NCLB was that no child would fall through the cracks of the public school system. NCLB
set out to increase the pool of highly qualified teachers and reduce the amount of teachers on
emergency credentials, increase the literacy rate of all students, and create systems of accountability
for schools that don’t meet the goals. The overarching aim was that 100% of students would meet
proficiency by the year 2014. To monitor progress toward this goal, states would use annual
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standardized test scores from all students in grades three through eight and report progress of
students in categories of poverty, race, ethnicity, disability, and second language learners. Schools
that did not meet the requirements in two, four, and six year benchmarks were put in different
program improvement statuses that included professional development, restaffing, school closure
and/or a requirement to bus students to other schools of the parents’ choosing (Jeynes, 2007; P.L.
107-110, 2002; Rury, 2013). NCLB, again, did little to impact schools in more affluent areas as
many of the requirements were already being met. This placed a heavy burden on already
underachieving schools and states who had little access to fully credentialed teachers, high
populations of categorical students, and a constant influx of new immigrants (Rury, 2013).
Under the Obama administration in 2015, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was
signed. ESSA is a reauthorization of NCLB (2002) and its predecessor ESEA (1965).
Recognizing that the rigid requirements of NCLB were unachievable for many states, ESSA is an
attempt to maintain the goals and rigor laid out by NCLB, while allowing for states to develop their
own comprehensive plans to “close achievement gaps, increase equity, improve the quality of
instruction, and increase outcomes for all students” (P.L. 114-95, 2015).
Concurrently with NCLB and ESSA, 48 U.S. states and two U.S. territories worked to
develop the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). These standards were backward mapped from
standards that defined College and Career readiness and led to the development of curriculum
content standards for K-12 education. The intent is to align education throughout all the U.S. states
and territories to make learning more equitable across the board. Each state is allowed to adopt,
modify, and implement the CCSS state standards as they see fit for their state and are also able to
develop standardized assessment measures and reporting practices in line with federal expectations.
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Currently 42 states, the District of Columbia, four territories, and the Department of Defense
Education Activity have adopted and are implementing the Common Core standards according to
their own timelines (CCSS, 2018).
The reform efforts of the last 30 years have not only ignored the education debt, but they
have also caused their own problems in education and the social structure. By naming the problem
the “achievement gap,” reform efforts have emphasized a deficit perspective toward communities
of color (Ladson-Billings, 2006). This deficit perspective has altered the function of education
reform from using education to diminish social division, for which Mann advocated, toward using
education to maintain a racialized society (Ettekal & Mahoney, 2017; Rhames, 2016). The effects
of the Back to Basics Movement’s focus on discipline and moral character development can be
seen in research on the school to prison pipeline (Martinez, 2018), while the effects of the Back to
Basics Movement and No Child Left Behind’s focus on parent choice and fixing problem schools
can be seen in the trend toward the self-segregation of white communities (Ettekal & Mahoney,
2017; Ladson-Billings, 2006; Rhames, 2016).
As Ladson-Billings (2006) suggests, the debt may be so large that it would require total
bankruptcy and restructuring to fix the underlying powers in our current educational system.
However, such an undertaking may take more than we can afford in time and money; as was seen
in the desegregation of the south where generations of Black Americans were denied any access to
education and subsequent careers (Turner, 2004). Short of total bankruptcy, Ladson-Billings (2006)
suggests multidisciplinary and multiscaled educational research that shifts from asking what is
“wrong” with populations of students to what is “wrong” about the way we have been educating
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populations of students. One such narrowed focus is on developing the cultural responsivity of
teachers (Freire, 2011; Ladson-Billings, 2006).
Culturally and linguistically relevant teaching in California. Culturally and
linguistically relevant, or responsive, teaching (CLRT) is an educational approach built upon ideas
of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism is a shift in American identity that began in the 1960s with the
increase of immigration from non-European countries. In the early years of the United States when
the majority of immigrants came to America from European countries, the path to American
identity was in assimilation to the American culture or becoming “Americanized” (Jeynes, 2007;
Rury, 2013). This was an easier transition for early immigrants because much of the American
ideals were built upon European ideologies and America became known as a “melting pot”
(Jeynes, 2007; Rury, 2013); melting in was much easier for light skinned European immigrants and
nearly impossible for non-European immigrants (Jeynes, 2007; Rury, 2013). As immigration from
non-European countries increased, and African Americans, Latinx, and Native Americans began
to gain political voice, a shift toward multiculturalism began. With a multicultural perspective, all
cultures, traditions, and experiences play a part in defining what it means to be American; America
was trying to be less like a melting pot and more like a salad bowl in which all parts are intricately
interwoven but still distinctly identifiable (Jeynes, 2007; Boyko, 2016).
Culturally relevant teaching is a term originated by Ladson-Billings (1994) who defines it
as “pedagogy that empowers students intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically by using
cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes.” It connects students’ cultural
knowledge and experiences to make learning more relevant (Boyko, 2016; Hammond, 2015).
CLRT has been shown to increase minority students’ confidence, foster a growth mindset in
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students and in teachers for their students, elicit pride in cultural identity, build positive
student-student and teacher-student relationships, develop critical thinking skills, and enact positive
socio-political change (Banerjee, Rivas-Drake & Smalls-Glover, 2017; Boyko, 2016; Hammond,
2015; Ladson-Billings, 1994; Milner, 2017).
While the Frameworks for the CCSS outline what CLRT is and why it is important, there is
neither comprehensive strategies for how to implement it, mandate for its implementation, nor a
reflection in the standards on the teaching profession (CSTP) that reflect that this is an expected
shift in pedagogy ( State Board of Education, 2015; CSTP, 2009). In a recent podcast, Zaretta
Hammond explains that this has caused confusion between multiculturalism and culturally relevant
pedagogy that leaves teachers believing that curricular representation is enough (Gonzalez, 2018).
She further explains that while the multicultural approach of curricular representation is a good
place to start, it has little impact on student achievement. Effective culturally relevant pedagogy
focuses on providing students with the skills and knowledge they need to achieve academically
(Gonzalez, 2018).
Still, some researchers and historians tout that multiculturalism and culturally relevant
pedagogy are alive and well in our current educational system, in the form of bilingual education
and CLRT as outlined in the California frameworks of the Common Core State Standards, but a
quick look at recent legislation, curriculum adoption, and teacher efficacy tells another story.
Bilingual legislation in California. In 2008, Californians voted to end bilingual and dual
immersion education with Proposition 227. Under this statute, Limited English Proficient students
(LEP) were expected to learn in English only classrooms with separate classes for English
instruction, and were expected to be proficient in English after one year (CA Prop 227). During
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this time, bilingual and dual immersion classes could only exist if parents signed a waiver allowing
their child to be enrolled in this type of program (CA Prop 227). Eighteen years later, in 2016, this
was repealed with Proposition 58 and Senate Bill 1174 which allowed schools to reinstate bilingual
and dual immersion programs beginning July of 2017 (CA SB-1174). That would make the current
school year, 2017-2018, the first year of the last 20 that schools or districts could offer instruction
in both English and students’ primary language as a school wide approach to developing
bilingualism.
Cultural relevance in California curriculum. In examining current state approved
curricular materials for K-12 adoption in Texas and California, researchers have found several
concerning flaws in the representation of and teaching about race and racism. Brown (2011)
identified that while examples of racism and racial violence were present in the fifth, eighth, and
eleventh grade U.S. History texts, representation of influential minority leaders was minimal or
missing, and the responsibility for acts of violence was placed on a radical few. There was no
discussion about the systematic presence of racism and the effect it has had on generations of
people (Brown, 2011). Swartz (2007) points out that while representation of influential minorities,
namely those of black educational leaders, was present in the narrative of history, the focus was
typically on how these leaders worked against one another and their white counterparts. There is
little narrative about the ways in which influential leaders, of the same race or not, worked together
to affect change. Finally, Bhopal and Rhamie (2014) reiterate Brown’s (2011) warning that leaving
out the systematic and political influences behind racism removes any critical analysis and
challenge that might actually help change the considerable inequalities present in our schools and
our nation. Furthermore, Freire (2000) warns that pedagogy that only teaches reality as static,
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motionless, and predictable removes opportunity for students to think critically, challenge truth,
construct meaning, and create alternatives and thus disables them from liberating themselves from
systematic oppression.
Teacher efficacy in culturally and linguistically relevant teaching. Teacher efficacy is
another major barrier to effective culturally relevant teaching and addressing issues of race and
racism in the classroom. According to the National Center for Education Statistics’ (NCES)
Schools and Staffing Survey (NCES, 2004) the average age of California teachers was 43,
meaning that, on average, teachers in 2004 would have attended K-12 schooling from about
1966-1984; teachers in 2018 attended school from about 1980-1998. This is a significant statistic
because it frames the time period in which current educators received their own K-12 education
and their pre-service teacher preparation. Given the historical references in the previous section,
most educators in California today received their schooling during a time of massive educational
reform efforts that focused on race and diversity but did little to educate the students about their
own position within the socio-political-cultural environment. As Milner (2003, 2007, 2010, 2018)
points out, this has had a profound impact on current teacher’s feelings of efficacy in teaching
about race and dealing with issues of race and racism in the classroom. The problem of low teacher
efficacy is compounded by the fact that, as of 2017, 63% of California’s teachers are white while
only 24% of the student population is white, the rest are 54% Latinx, 6% African American, 9%
Asian, 3% multi-racial, and 3% Filipinx, Pacific Islander, or Native American (CDE, 2017). In a
recent study, Nelson and Guerra (2014) found that a majority of white teacher study participants
(92%) had little to no cultural awareness, which they argue is tied closely to a teacher's value of
cultural differences and deficit mindset toward students of color. This lack of awareness, devaluing,
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and deficit mindset became evident in the way teachers communicated with parents, in what
expectations they held for their diverse students, and even in how they defined success and
achievement. Bhopal and Rhamie (2014) articulate that racial imbalance between teachers and
students, plus a lack of teacher training in race, diversity, and culture, as well as an absence of an
understanding of race as a social construct, lead to the fact many teachers haven’t grappled with
their own racial identity and feel ill prepared to teach students whose ethnicity is different from
their own; they therefore often blame the child’s inability to achieve on home life and cultural
backgrounds (Nelson and Guerra, 2014).
To remedy this and begin CLRT practices, researchers recommend the following strategies
and pedagogical approaches: foster a growth mindset in students and in the teacher for her
students, recognize teacher cultural beliefs and biases, learn about race and culture, create a safe
learning space, develop relational capacity with students, maintain high expectations for all
students, engage principles of universal design for learning, establish home-school-community
connections, adapt, work to remove stereotype threat tasks, give positive standards-based feedback,
practice mindfulness, incorporate collaborative learning, and establish goal orientation (Adams,
2013; Banerjee, Rivas-Drake & Smalls-Glover, 2017; Boyko, 2016; Dweck, 2006; Gay, 2010;
Hammond, 2015; Jensen, 2009; Ladson-Billings, 1994; Milner, 2010; Noguera, 2009).
Part one of the literature review served to keep the relevance of history alive in our current
and ongoing discussions of equity (Tochluk, 2010). Many of these historical decisions have shaped
the way our current white educators were raised, educated, and began their careers, and have
influenced their understanding of their own cultural identity and their perceptions of others
(Tochluk, 2010). To leave this history out of the current conversation would be to assume that it is
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either known or not important. As many researchers have pointed out, many white teachers have
not grappled with the concepts or contexts of race, racial identity, and whiteness, thus affecting
their ability to be culturally relevant educators (Bhopal and Rhamie, 2014; Milner, 2007; Tochluk,
2010).
Review of Literature: Part Two
This section of the literature review will explain developmental perspectives on identity
development, specifically in terms of racial identity, with a narrowed focus on white identity
development. The purpose of this section is to begin to connect current and historical educational
contexts from the previous section to the presence of racial identity development for marginalized
populations, and the palpable absence of white identity development, especially as it applies to
relationships between students of color and their white teachers.
Identity development. The word “identity” comes from the latin root word “idem” which
means sameness; the sameness of an individual that defines who they are continuously throughout
their life (Mio, 1999). The American people began their search for identity during the Civil Rights
Movement of the 1960s which incorporated a concept of identity at both the individual and group
levels (Mio, 1999).
Erick Erickson, a renowned psychologist, proposed that human beings go through several
stages of psychosocial development in which they navigate crises, and the ways in which they are
enabled to do so influences their development of self identity and their place within the community
(Mio, 1999; Santrock, 2011). Although his theory encompasses birth through elder maturity, this
literature review will cover the school age years of early childhood through adolescence.
In early childhood, if a child is allowed to discover new skills and try them out without fear
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of failure or criticism, they are more likely to develop a sense of independence, competence, and
autonomy. On the other hand, children who have everything done for them or are criticized for
mistakes, will likely develop feelings of dependence, incompetence, and shame (Santrock, 2011).
During the play years, children begin to develop their social skills and will try to take the
initiative and assert their ideas. Children who are encouraged to do so, and whose ideas are valued
and supported will continue to take initiative in their lives and will feel confident in their ability to
lead and come up with good ideas. Children whose ideas are thwarted, ignored, or criticized, will
develop a sense of guilt at being a nuisance and will default to following along with what everyone
else is doing (Santrock, 2011).
Throughout the school years, teachers and peers become valuable sources for identity
development. As children learn to read, calculate, communicate, and comprehend during this stage
they are likely to build self concepts of competence or inferiority. Teachers aid in their development
by whether or not they are mastery oriented or achievement oriented in their evaluation and
feedback, and whether or not they monitor individual student progress or compare students to one
another for progress monitoring (Santrock, 2011).
Adolescence is an intense time of identity development in which individuals explore,
evaluate, and develop their own sense of values, beliefs, and goals. It’s a time when they can look
back on their life experiences and decide who they are and what they want to be. This can be a
confusing time for any adolescent, but especially for those who have had some negative influences
on identity development throughout their early years (Santrock, 2011).
James Marcia expanded upon this theory to include four statuses of identity development.
He described individuals who had not experienced crisis and had not committed to an identity were
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in the identity diffusion status and are often uninterested in defining their identity. People who had
not experienced crisis but had committed to their ideologies are thought to be in the identity
foreclosure status and often reach this identity through authoritarian parenting without the freedom
for independent identity exploration. Individuals who are currently experiencing crisis and are still
defining identity are in the identity moratorium status. Finally, people who have experienced crisis
and have independently committed to ideologies and goals through their own approaches to crises
have reached the identity achievement status (Santrock, 2011).
These stages and statuses lay the foundation for all types of identity development; a self
portrait of what a person wants to do with their life, what they are capable of, what they are
interested in, what they value, what they believe, what culture one identifies with and how closely
one identities with culture, as well as personality characteristics (Santrock, 2011). Through this
theoretical lens it is possible to understand how negative stereotypes about race, gender, or
socioeconomic status might influence the ways in which a teacher interacts with her students and
how a child might begin to identify self. White teachers who are, even unknowingly, more critical
of students of color, value dominant norms over cultural norms, are achievement oriented, and
compare students to one another or against a dominant norm throughout the Erickson’s school age
years are more likely to create the crises that Marcia describes. Such crises that create identity
foreclosure for students of color and white students which perpetuates racial imbalances of power
in the classroom and the community; the effects of which can been traced in Martinez’s (2018)
mapping of the school to prison pipeline.
Upon this foundation the next portion of the literature review will focus on the intersection
of identity development and negative stereotypes against low income, minority, and second
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language students, as well the racial identity development of middle class white teachers, as this is
the most common demographic makeup of K-12 public classrooms in California, especially in
urban communities (Milner, 2010).
Ethnic and racial identity development and negative stereotypes. In their study, Way et al.
(2013) define ethnic and racial identity as one’s views of self, relative to their own racial or ethnic
group, and how attached one feels to the group identity. They also noted, from previous related
research, that this facet of identity increases with age, is tied tightly to psychological, academic, and
social adjustment, and is a process by which an individual judges themselves in contrast to how
they are likely perceived by others through the lens of stereotype. Stereotypes are defined by Mio
(1999) as “oversimplified generalizations of characteristics that typify a person, group or situation”,
that are usually developed on the basis of limited interaction with the group being generalized, and
can be very damaging when used to illustrate groups of people as inferior to others.
Way et al. (2013) went on to summarize the literature that describes the common
stereotypes against African American, white, and Latinx students. According to their analysis,
African American youth are stereotyped as having rhythm, being athletic, lazy, dumb, loud and
angry. While whites are stereotyped as being wealthy, successful, physically weak, and gay. Latinx
students are stereotyped as lazy, dumb, criminals, gang members and drug lords. While Asian
students are stereotyped as intelligent and high achieving. There are also intersections of stereotype
and racial identity; for example, an African American student who is smart and works hard is
identified as “trying to be white” (Way et. al., 2013; Milner, 2008). It is within these social
constructs about race, and what it means to identify as one race or another, that people begin to
develop their identities throughout Erikson’s stages of late childhood and adolescence (Santrock,
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2011).
Many students grappling with these stereotypes have to work against them so as not to
appear to conform to the stereotype (Way et al., 2013; Milner, 2008). This is especially true in
academic settings in which students are navigating their own identity development, establishing
peer relationships, and negotiating their teacher’s perception of them (Milner, 2008). This struggle
often manifests itself in stereotype threat—a phenomenon that results in high anxiety about
appearing to conform to a negative stereotype about one’s gender, race, or socioeconomic status,
especially as it applies to educational performance (APA, 2006; Steele, 2010) . This anxiety often
becomes a self fulfilling prophecy on high stakes performance measures and can often reinforce the
stereotype and repeat the patterns that contribute to the education debt (APA, 2006; Mio, 1999;
Steele, 2010).
Another manifestation of the perpetuation of stereotypes is in the deficit mindset approach
that many teachers use in describing the identity and addressing the needs of the impoverished,
minorities, and urban communities (Milner, 2008). Freire (2000) first described this as the banking
model of education in which teachers view their students as containers to be filled; the teacher’s
duty is to fill these empty containers with their knowledge and wisdom. Freire (2000) identifies this
as dangerous because it does not value what the individual student is bringing to the transaction
with their own ways of knowing, understanding and creating. It is especially dangerous when one
considers the implicit teaching of social constructs that the teacher may be depositing into her
students’ schematic composition. This banking model of education views students from a deficit
perspective, especially those who do not derive their identities from the dominant culture; attempts
to “correct” the parts of the student that do not align with the values or norms of the dominant
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culture (Freire, 2000).
Negative interactions such as stereotypes, stereotype threat, deficit mindset, and banking
education are the crises that influence identity development for students of color during the
school-age years (APA, 2006; Freire, 2000; Milner 2008; Way et al., 2013). These negative
interactions often manifest in microaggressions. Microaggressions are “the brief and commonplace
daily verbal, behavioral, and environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that
communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial, gender, sexual orientation, or religious slights,
and insults to target the person or group” (Sue, 2010, p. 6). White student peers and white teachers
are often unaware that these microaggressions are taking place, of the role they play in them, or the
damaging impact they are having on the identity development of students of color in the classroom
because they are all implicitly part of the normal dominant culture (Helms, 1990; Maxwell, 2004;
Sue, 2010; Wade, 1998).
White identity development. White has been defined in many different, but related, ways
throughout the history of civilization. White has meant residents of temperate countries who tend to
have light skin, people who are not descended from the Spanish Moors, the descendants of Seth
who was Adam and Eve’s favored son (as opposed to blacks who are thought to be the
descendants of their murderous son Abel), and finally descendants from the Caucus tribes (hence
the term Caucasian) (Mio, 1999). The terms “white” and “caucasian” have both been in use and
interchangeable since the 1600s. Although “caucasian” has been discredited and other labels based
on color have been discontinued, caucasians themselves have made no effort to find a more
suitable term for their cultural identification (Mio, 1999).
This may be largely due to the phenomenon that white identity development is much
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different than other cultural identity development (Helms, 1990; McIntosh, 1988; Maxwell, 2004).
Initially, to most white people, white identity has no meaning because it is the norm, serving only
to contrast people who are not white; it holds no characteristics of its own (Maxwell, 2004;
Tochluk, 2010). By placing whiteness as the norm, all other racial identities are subverted as
not-the-norm and therefore are less desirable (Maxwell, 2004). Maxwell (2004) uses the analogous
quote, “the fish would be the last creature to discover water” to illustrate this lack of racial
awareness amongst white people. In this analogy, white people are the fish, we exist in water
which is normal, consistent, and comfortable to us; therefore, we do not need to question or define
it (Maxwell, 2004). This normalcy, created by people with historical and political power, makes up
the culture in which we exist—the water (Maxwell, 2004). It is not until the fish has experiences
outside of the water that they are given the opportunity to see it from a different perspective
(Maxwell, 2004). In the case of whiteness, this means having experiences with people of color that
cause us to question and deconstruct whiteness that will lead white people to begin to have an
understanding of what it really means to be white within the entire fabric of society (Helms, 1990;
Magolda, 2014; Maxwell, 2004; Mio, 1999; Tochluk, 2010).
A synthesis of the literature shows a consistency in the phases of deconstructing whiteness.
The four phases consist of naming the problem, acknowledging privilege, abandoning guilt, and
using the power ( Helms, 1990; McIntosh, 1988; Magolda, 2014 ; Maxwell, 2004; Tochluk, 2010).
Although the first phase must come first, the resulting three are not linear and are rarely fully
complete, but rather a lifelong commitment to “witnessing whiteness” and developing a “radical
white identity” ( Helms, 1990; McIntosh, 1988; Maxwell, 2004; Tochluk, 2010).
The first phase is naming the problem or seeing the water (Helms, 1990; Magolda, 2014;
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Maxwell, 2004; Tochluk, 2010). This stage is marked by an awareness and realization that racism
is real, existing at personal and institutional levels (Helms, 1990; Magolda, 2014; Maxwell, 2004;
Tochluk, 2010); laws, policies, systems, media reports, programs, etc., are established, purposefully
and/or indirectly, for the benefit of the dominant culture group (white) to the detriment of other
groups (Helms, 1990; Maxwell, 2004; Tochluk, 2010). This awareness and realization usually
comes about through meaningful and purposeful interactions with people of color (Helms, 1990;
Magolda, 2014; Maxwell, 2004; Tochluk, 2010).
While most are able to articulate the disadvantaging aspects of racism for people of color,
many white people have not yet come to the realization that racism creates certain social
advantages for themselves (McIntosh, 1988). These social advantages of racism are referred to
collectively as white privilege; the second phase of deconstructing whiteness is acknowledging that
privilege (McIntosh, 1988; Tochluk, 2010). McIntosh (1988) summarizes that this phase of white
people's identity development consists largely of realizing that one is part of the dominant culture
and therefore possesses certain privileges that are earned purely by the white color of their skin.
These privileges are, as McIntosh (1988) describes, “a weightless knapsack of special provisions,
maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools , and blank checks” (p. 1) that enable white
people to remain unconsciously oppressive and dominant over people of color. These two stages
are aligned with both Marcia’s stage of identity moratorium (Santrock, 2011) and Magolda’s (2014)
crossroads stage of self-authorship in which individuals experiencing crises while facing the reality
of the dominant culture narrative, grapple with their identity within it.
While some may reject the notions that white privilege exists, that it is systematically
created and maintained, and that it is based on implicit and explicit ideals of white supremacy,
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others accept these notions, often leading to feelings of guilt or anger about being privileged while
others were oppressed (Helms, 1990; Freire, 2000; Tochluk, 2010). In this phase of deconstructing
whiteness, one must moderate feelings of guilt about recognizing oneself as an oppressor and a
beneficiary of institutional racism (Helms, 1990; Freire, 2000; Tochluk, 2010). Tochluk (2010)
identifies several problematic reactions white people have toward people of color when they are
unable to moderate their feelings of guilt regarding white privilege, what she calls “an incomplete
recovery”. These problematic reactions can take the form of savior complex, superiority complex,
and/or unhealthy sympathy in the form of pity. While often well intended, these oppressive
behaviors can continue to subvert people of color (Tochluk, 2010). This stage is aligned with
Marcia’s stage of identity achievement (Santrock, 2011) and Magolda’s (2014) final stage of
self-authorship in which individuals have committed to their own ideologies and goals based on
their experiences and understandings.
The fourth and final phase of deconstructing whiteness is using the power of white
privilege. McIntosh (1998) identifies that one of the privileges is the ability to control one’s own
“cultural turf”, to criticize it, and question it freely. This is the critical stance that white people are
empowered to take in committing themselves to antiracist tenets (McIntosh, 1998; Maxwell, 2004).
Tochluk (2010) gives practical applications for this stance in what she calls “ally witnessing”. A
white ally is one who works purposefully with the white community and oppressed communities,
rather than on behalf of oppressed communities, to disrupt systems of oppression and abrogate
white privilege (Tochluk, 2010). A witness is one who is open to not only accepting and
understanding their own experiences and perceptions, but also to integrating others’ truths into their
understanding (Tochluk, 2010). In this way, we can begin to link the past with the present and
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work through the trauma and the truths associated with personal and institutional racism to
rehumanize both the oppressed and the oppressor (Freire, 2000; Tochluk, 2010). This phase is
aligned with Solorzano and Bernal’s (2001) stage of transformational resistance in which an
individual is motivated toward social change and a critical perspective of social oppression. This
phase is also aligned with cultural-historical activity theory’s questioning of social rules
surrounding populations of people as individuals and groups (Foot, 2014).
These phases of deconstructing whiteness are aligned with the theoretical framework of the
study in which one acknowledges the implicit bias in the dominant narrative, grapples with the
negative feelings associated with the realization of racism, and redefines their identity and belief
system based on their interactions with people of color (self-authorship), has a desire for social
change, is critical of social oppression (transformational resistance), seeks to change the power
dynamics between people groups and the social rules that dictate their privileges (CHAT), and does
so thorough intentional interactions with similar and dissimilar peers (emergent strategy) (Brown,
A., 2017; Foot, 2014; Magolda, 2014; Solorzano & Bernal, 2001).
If a white teacher has not gone through this process it is likely that they will either have no
knowledge of how their belief system is influencing their learning spaces, or they’ll have the power
to ignore it (Maxwell, 2004; Milner, 2007).
The implications for teachers of white identity development. A white teachers’ racial
identity development has many classroom implications including influences on a teacher’s attitude
about the importance of race, their approach to racial issues, their knowledge, and their mindset
toward students of color.
First, a teacher’s stage of racial identity development plays a role in a teacher’s attitude
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about the importance of race (Maxwell, 2004; Milner 2007; Milner, 2008; Wade, 1998). Milner’s
(2007, 2008) discoveries about white teacher identity development are aligned with the above
research on white identity development. In one study, Milner (2007) discovered that white teacher
participants were more likely to identify their own race, and that of others, by biological indicators
such as skin tone, while African American teacher participants were more likely to view their race
as a cultural identity. Many white teachers may not have had enough experiences with diverse
cultures to be able to effectively understand and strive for equity (Maxwell, 2004; Milner 2007;
Milner, 2008; Wade, 1998). Because of this, many white teacher participants in Milner’s studies
(2008) were initially skeptical about the salience of race in their classrooms. He quoted Kerl (2002)
in saying, “we cannot necessarily know what is true or even real outside of our own understanding
of it, our own worldview, our own meanings that are embedded in who we are” (p. 5).
Second, a white teacher’s racial identity development may influence their approach to
handling issues of race in the classroom (Maxwell, 2004; Milner 2007; Milner, 2008; Wade, 1998).
Milner (2008) identifies that a lack of racial identity in white teachers may be the cause of why
many teachers feel uncomfortable talking about race and racism in their classrooms and chose
instead to take a “color blind” approach. The colorblind approach is an attempt to take the words of
Martin Luther King, Jr. literally by treating people as individuals based on the quality of their
character and not by the color of their skin (Williams, 2011) but the problem with this approach is
that it does not identify or value the unique experiences, perspectives, and ways of knowing that
define rich cultures (Milner, 2017; Tochluk, 2010). Wade (1998) echoed similar responses in her
work with pre-service teachers who expressed that they either did not have prejudices at all, or that
they were aware of their prejudices and would not let them affect the way they treated their
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students in the classroom. Teachers who take these stances are in the first phase of white identity
development, in that they have not yet begun to become aware of the implicit influences of attitude
on word choice, body language, and curricular selection (Wade, 1998). Maxwell (2004) further
articulates that the colorblind approach taken by many white teachers communicates to all students
that race is not important, it is a taboo subject, and should be ignored. This communicates to white
students that discussions about race are “bad” or off limits, and it communicates to students of color
that their differences from the “norm” are negative and unimportant to the fabric of the classroom
(Maxwell, 2004).
Third, a teacher’s stage of racial identity influences their knowledge. Milner (2017)
identifies that teacher knowledge plays a large part in their development of curriculum and
pedagogy. Teachers need practical knowledge, personal practical knowledge, content knowledge,
as well as and racial, cultural, socio-cultural, and socio-political knowledge (Milner, 2017). Given
that many teachers lack experiences or training in this last category of knowledge, it’s easy to see
how their curriculum, or what they teach to students, explicitly or implicitly, can be culturally
irrelevant or even support ideas of the supremacy of the dominant culture (Milner, 2007; Wade,
1998). The most common form of multicultural education that takes place in classrooms is
curricular units on countries and cultures (Wade, 1998). These units, focusing on cultural traditions
of communities long ago or far away, are often taught through a western theoretical lens in which
traditions are compared to the normative here and now (Brown, 2011; Swartz, 2007; Wade, 1998).
This type of teaching continues to subvert other cultures to the dominant American norm without
addressing current issues of how we treat and relate to one another in the current and present
community (Bhopal & Rhamie, 2014; Freire, 2000; Wade, 1999)
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Finally, a white teacher’s own racial identity development influences their mindset toward
their students (Boyko, 2016; Freire, 2000; Helms, 19990; Milner, 2008; Ramkellawan & Bell,
2017, Tochluk, 2010; Wade 1998). Freire (2000) argues that the banking model of education that is
currently in wide use in American classrooms places students below the teacher in power,
knowledge, and authority. This is dangerous, especially in culturally mismatched classrooms in
states such as California, because it allows the norms of the dominant culture to shape the transfer
of knowledge from the teacher to the student, placing the student at a deficit to the teacher,
especially in terms of cultural value when the teacher is white and the student is not (Freire, 2000;
Ladson-Billings, 2006). Many white teachers, because they are unaware of the salience of race as
described above, do this unknowingly. Therefore, it is important for white teachers to have a
complete understanding of their own identity, including their own mindsets toward their students,
so that they can develop culturally appropriate growth mindsets for their students (Boyko, 2016).
Additionally, some teachers who have an awareness of race and white privilege, often take on a
deficit mindset towards students by approaching teaching as a way to “save” their students of color
(Helms, 1990; Tochluk, 2010). Either way, a deficit mindset toward students of color often
manifests in low academic and behavior expectations, stereotyped effort expectations, a standard of
performance that is normative to the dominant culture values, blaming the victim, extra chances to
make up for deficits, missionary approach to teaching in which the teacher will save the students
from their community, and/or acting on behalf of students from a perspective of knowing what is
best (Boyko, 2016; Helms, 1990; Milner, 2008; Ramkellawan & Bell, 2017; Tochluk, 2010; Wade
1998). Freire (2000) further argues that to remedy all of these deficit influenced actions, teachers
must take up a problem posing method of education in which students and teachers are equals in
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the co-construction of knowledge and active participants in both teaching and learning.
While much work has been done to counter these classroom implications with pre-service
teachers (Bhopal & Rhamie, 2014; Milner, 2003; Milner, 2007; Milner, 2010, Milner; 2018; Wade,
1998 ) there is minimal research on how to counter these classroom implications through
professional development with in-service teachers (Ramkellawan & Bell, 2017; Thompkins &
Ward, n.d.). Magolda (2014) suggests that this process toward self-authorship and positive white
anti-racist identity is most effectively navigated with a mentor or peer who is going, or has gone,
through the process themselves. In terms of in-service teacher professional development this often
takes on the form of instructional coaching.
Review of Literature: Part Three
This section of the literature review will explain the theory behind the use of instructional
coaching as one model of in-service, peer-to-peer, teacher professional development, and connect it
to decolonial participatory action research as a means to deconstruct, and reconstruct, teacher white
identity as a foundation for the current study.
Instructional Coaching. Instructional coaching has become one of the most integral parts
of many local education agencies’ (LEA’s) school based professional development plans as
encouraged by the Every Student Succeeds Act (Desimone & Pak, 2017; Tompkins & Ward, n.d).
The concept of instructional coaching is based on the work of Lev Vygotsky (1978) in which the
coach (the more knowledgeable other) works collaboratively with teachers (insightful adults) to
improve teaching practices (Averill, Anderson, & Drake, 2015; Knight & van Nieuwerburgh,
2012; Teemant, Wink & Tyra, 2011). In this model of professional development, teachers and
coaches engage in praxis, reflection, and action to improve student learning (Knight & van
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Nieuwerburgh, 2012; Teemant, Wink & Tyra, 2011). Research has shown that this approach has a
positive impact on teacher attitudes, implementation and transfer of skills, teacher efficacy, and
student achievement (Desimone & Pak, 2017; Teemant, Wink & Tyra, 2011). One area of
pedagogy that coaching has the possibility to highly impact is coaching for equity (Averill,
Anderson, and Drake, 2015; Knight & van Nieuwerburgh, 2012; Ramkellawan & Bell, 2017;
Tompkins & Ward, n.d.).
Coaching for equity. Although it has been stated that coaching for equity has high potential
for culturally relevant teaching, it has proven to be one of the most difficult aspects of coaching to
enact (Averill, Anderson, & Drake, 2015; Knight van Nieuwerburgh; 2012; Ramkellawan & Bell,
2017; Tompkins & Ward, n.d.). Averill, Anderson, and Drake (2015) suggest that this is due to the
fact that many teachers lack a deep cultural understanding of behaviors, communication, and
experiences. Ramkellawan and Bell (2017) explore how this might be due to teacher mindsets and
belief systems about race and social stratification, as well as the level of cultural understanding of
the coach who is guiding the praxis. Knight and van Nieuwerburgh (2012) support this notion by
questioning to what extent a coach must be the expert, or more experienced other, in order to
effectively coach for equity. Tompkins and Ward (n.d.) point to an absence of coach development,
in regards to what coaches must know and be able to do, as the genesis for the difficulty in
coaching for equity.
Coach development. In describing the role of coaches in effective professional
development, Desimone and Pak (2017), outline that five features must be in place: content, active
learning, coherence (described as a consistency between goals, teacher knowledge and beliefs, and
students’ needs), sustained duration, and collective participation. Coaching for equity is situated in
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the coherence feature of instructional coaching. Haneda, Teemant, and Sherman (2017) as well as
Ramkellawan and Bell (2017) point to the use of dialogue and discourse between expert and
novice to co-construct understanding about coherence, especially as it applies to cultural relevance.
These researchers explore the use of dialogue and discourse between coach and teacher to examine
asymmetries of power, privilege, culture, emotion, politics, context, psychological orientations,
identity development, cultural relevance, socio-economic experiences, and biases. They also
identify that the more experienced other needs to be equipped to cognitively coach the teacher
through these awarenesses. In addition, coaches need to be metacognizant of their own place,
position, and paradigm in these constructs (Haneda, Teemant, & Sherman, 2017; Ramkellawan &
Bell, 2017).
It can be inferred from the research on sociocultural theory, teacher professional
development, and coaching for equity that a coach must first go through these processes as the
novice in order to become the expert, or more experienced other, to then effectively guide teachers
in their own understanding. As Tochluk (2010) states, “the more we understand ourselves, the
reasons for our actions, and how our cultural explorations might be perceived in relationship to an
oppressive history, the more we are able to navigate our way through challenging conversations,
build authentic relationships, and break down the wounds built up over years of injury” (p. 29).
She further explains that honest exploration and self-questioning are the only true way to
understand oneself. In research, self-questioning and exploration are called self-study (Tochluk,
2010).
Reflexivity and Positionality in Research. The most effective method for evaluating and
understanding our own position, especially in terms of race, is self-study (Milner, 2010). Self study
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is a method of critical action research (Milner, 2007) in which individuals spend time in deep
reflective thinking to come to terms with their identity and position within the socio-political culture
(Milner, 2010). Self study can be categorized as participatory action research in which the
researcher is also an active participant in the context being studied (Merriam & Tisdale, 2015).
Furthermore, self-study is both a methodology and a method in research in that the narrative of the
researcher is both the object being studied and the means of studying (Milner, 2008).
One example of self-study action research is dialogics. Dialogics is the united reflection and
action of individuals expressed to transform and humanize the world (Freire, 2000). This method is
a praxis involving reflection, an examination of ways of thinking, knowing, and being (Milner,
2007), as well as action—in this case, a commitment to transform (Freire, 2000). This form of
critical action research is intended to challenge the power relations within these societal structures
and uses reflection to describe how these power structures influenced the participants own stories
(Merriam & Tisdale, 2015).
Participatory critical action research has its roots in decolonial educational research. As
mentioned previously, a colonial paradigm is one that comes to a new place, attempts to learn about
it through the lens of the colonizer, and often attempts to fix things that do not align with what is
valued by the colonizer (Patel, 2016). This paradigm has its roots in the European colonization of
Africa and America in which the colonists came to a new land, evaluated the people that lived
there as against their own cultural norms, took over control of the land and resources, and
attempted to teach them more “civilized” ways of living (Patel, 2016). In research, a colonial
paradigm follows a similar pattern in which a researcher goes to a new place to fill a gap in
research knowledge, learns all about the new place and/or the people there, attempts to describe
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and explain what is taking place, and often tries to apply a strategy or treatment to fix the
“problem”(Patel, 2016).
A decolonial research perspective is one that questions what it means to know and what is
knowable. Decolonial methodologies, such as participatory action research, challenge the
traditional relationship between the researcher and the researched, along with the power dynamic
that it typically reflects. In doing so, decolonial research deliberately disrupts these power dynamics
to create new paths to transformation (Bang & Vossoughi, 2016). As Wall (2006) explains,
traditional academia is built on one way of knowing that is researched and communicated by an
elite few who have access to, and control over, academia itself. Patel (2014) refers to this as the
colonial ownership of knowledge, explaining that only knowledge that aligns with the beliefs of
the dominant culture are validated. Self study suggests that lived experiences matter, are reflective
of the larger social framework, and hold more liberatory promise than a false belief in universal
truth (Wall, 2006). Self study has the potential to eliminate the risk of misrepresentation, to give
voice to the marginalized, and offer small scale narratives that speak to larger problems and
situations (Wall, 2006). Furthermore, it carries more potential to ignite grassroots transformation
and self-determination for communities than other more traditional colonial research methods
(Zavala, 2013).
Patel (2014) further explains that traditionally in the field of educational research, we study
those who do not achieve comparable to the normative white privileged populations. This often
leaves other populations over researched, yet unseen, in damaged-centered research that maintains
the supremacy of the dominant culture unquestioned (Patel, 2014; Tuck, 2009).
In sum, this led to the design of the study which seeks to understand how instructional
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coaches can use self study and participatory action research to deconstruct whiteness and
reconstruct a radical white identity in order to effectively coach others in the same praxis.
Conclusion
The review of literature traced the ways in which the socio-political climate at different time
periods played a pivotal role in the establishment and evolution of the public educational system in
the United States; described current practices in teaching multiculturalism in K-12 classrooms and
teacher preparation programs; explained developmental perspectives on identity development,
specifically in terms of racial identity; explored the use of instructional coaching for in-service
teacher professional development; and finally connected the relevance of self-study to decolonial
participatory action research.
This review of the literature revealed one significant gap in the body of knowledge that led
to the need for, and design of, this research project. While the literature reviewed the extensive
work that has been done on deconstructing whiteness and effective practices for instructional
coaching, the literature does not say how instructional coaching can be used to deconstruct
whiteness with in-service teachers in order to create appropriate teacher cultural identity and
appreciation so that learning spaces can become more culturally relevant. This gap in the literature
led to the development of the research questions and the design of the study, both of which are
described in detail Chapter Three.
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CHAPTER THREE: METHODS
Introduction
This chapter details the methods used to design the study, collect data, and analyze the data.
It begins with a description of my positionality within the research. Although not traditionally
found at the beginning of the methods section, I feel that immediately linking myself with the
problem posed by the literature and to the conception and design of the study, is the best way to
establish transparency from the onset. After defining my positionality within the study, The format
and rationale of Freirean problem posing methodology is described (Freire, 2000) within a
participatory case study ( Smith-Maddox & Solórzano, 2002) including the context of the study and
the participants. This is followed by a justification for employing constant comparative data
analysis with a description of data collection instruments and protocols. Finally, issues of
limitations, delimitations, credibility, trustworthiness, and ethics are addressed.
Positionality
Positionality is a researcher’s position within the research (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). There
are different models that range from removed observation to immersed participation (Merriam &
Tisdell, 2016). Positionality also depends upon how much the researcher identifies with the
participants and the context of the study (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). It is important for a researcher
to articulate their positionality because it is a lens through which data is collected and analyzed
(Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). There is no such thing as unbiased research (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016);
researcher as observer can impose a certain kind of bias while researcher as participant brings in
another type of bias. However, this doesn’t mean positionality is a negative consequence of
participatory research. In fact, close positionality is often a benefit to capturing rich narratives—one
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that must be identified and addressed in order to maintain the trustworthiness and credibility of the
study (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). My positionality within this research project is that of participant
and co-researcher as participants of the case study; I co-construct understandings about whiteness
and culturally relevant pedagogy using Freirean problem posing methods.
Patel (2016) explains that the importance of answering W hy this? , W hy me? , and W hy
now? questions as a means to justifiably insert the researcher into the research project.
Traditionally, academic research is built upon identifying, and filling, gaps in previous academic
research. As Patel (2016) points out, the trouble is that traditional academic research is also based
upon dominant culture epistemologies which poses a risk that non-relational research could
potentially contribute to the systems that oppress populations of people. Being able to articulate
your personal W hy this? , W hy me? , and W hy now? questions are a part of understanding,
identifying, and addressing your positionality and avoiding the risk of further misrepresentation.
In his philosophical novel, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into
Values , Robert Pirsig (1974) describes “ A classical understanding sees the world primarily as
underlying form itself. A romantic understanding sees it primarily in terms of immediate
appearance” (p. 61). He further articulates that “feelings rather than facts” predominate the
romantic perspective while the classical perspective analyzes “underlying forms of thought and
behavior” (p.61). For me, my first year as a doctoral student took me on a journey. I entered the
program with a romantic perspective of public education that was built upon an assumption of
equity and equality within the underlying systems and structures. Through my coursework,
research, professional projects, and personal experiences I have come face to face with the reality
of privilege. This has led me to take a more classical look at public education, including how all of
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the intricate parts of the systems and structures are built upon, and in benefit of, those with
privilege while marginalizing those without. This is a perspective that, once realized, cannot be
ignored because its prevalence begins to appear everywhere. This awakening has changed me as a
student, as an educator, as a parent, and as a human being. This transformation has been a struggle,
both internally and externally, as I identify my own privilege, question my contribution to the
system, and challenge what I see happening around me. Throughout the program, I have
contemplated how to use the dissertation process to create meaningful change in my own life and
the lives of others. I believe that the current study is conducive to meeting this goal. I am hopeful
that I will be able to trust the process, engage in meaningful qualitative research, and begin to poke
at the spokes of the educational system. I identify Dr. Hinga, my dissertation chair, as a kindred
spirit in this struggle and as a powerful mentor as I navigate how to use the access I was born into
to empower others to disrupt the structures of a flawed system.
Methodology
A qualitative approach was chosen for this particular research study because the research
questions get at how educators become culturally responsive and how they can influence the
cultural responsivity of their peers. These types of how questions are hallmark of qualitative studies
as they seek to inductively understand a phenomenon (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Furthermore, this
study naturally lends itself to qualitative methods because it seeks to understand how particular
experiences and unique circumstances influence educator understandings, actions, and processes
(Maxwell, 2013). Lastly, a qualitative design has been chosen because of the nature of the
participant group and the relationship of that group to the researcher. Experiences, attitudes, and
subsequent decision making are not attributes that can be generalized, so this study is designed to
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look at these factors with a small group of coaches, in which the researcher played a role, in order
to preserve the true nature and individuality of that group, as described by Maxwell (2013).
This study uses Freirean problem posing methodology (Freire, 2000) within a participatory
case study ( Smith-Maddox & Solórzano, 2002). Freirean problem posing methodology in a case
study is based on critical race theory (CRT) and the work of Paulo Freire (2000). Critical race
theory methodology is employed to identify, examine, and change the systematic aspects of the
educational system that maintain racial positionality in the classroom. Paulo Freire’s (1970, 1973,
2000) problem posing method moves through three phases that identify and define a social
problem, determine the root cause of the problem, and identify solutions to the problem. Critical
race theory and problem posing methods complement one another because they enable educators
an avenue through which to begin discourse that breaks down concepts of race, power, and
privilege in the lives of teachers and in their classrooms. A case study is further complementary to
these methodologies because it is an application of Freire’s (2000) non-banking model of
education, in which a group of participants are engaging in transformative discourse and
co-creating knowledge, understanding, and solutions together ( Smith-Maddox & Solórzano, 2002).
This combination of critical race theory, problem posing methods, and case study fit with
the theoretical framework for the study. These three elements speak to the emergent strategy focus
of changing larger systems through small intentional interactions, they accept participants where
they are, work together toward self-authorship and transformative resistance, and attempt to
redefine social rules and norms for groups of people.
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Participants
The participants in this study are an affinity group of three elementary instructional coaches
who intentionally formed with shared values and purpose in order to personally and professionally
develop ourselves in the area of cultural relevance. A purposeful convenience approach to
participant and setting selection were employed for the purposes of this study. Although Merriam
and Tisdale (2016) warn that this type of convenience sampling may yield “non credible” data, I
feet that due to the nature of the study and the sensitivity of the topic of bias, this type of purposeful
convenience sampling provides more honest, and therefore more reliable, data than if I had chosen
participants unfamiliar with me. Maxwell (2013) validates this by describing how purposeful
convenience sampling may yield the most productive relationships that will allow a researcher to
best answer the research question.
This particular group of coaches was formed because we represent a diversity in ages,
years taught, years coached, and teaching contexts; however we are all white female educators
who have expressed an interest in developing cultural relevance amongst ourselves and the
teachers we coach. Due to the fact that we all identify as white, middle class, female educators, we
are the exact demographic that Ladson-Billings (2017) identifies as critical for transformation in
mismatched states, such as our home state of California. Furthermore, we represent the
demographic of the target audience for this research paper. Additionally, we represent the
demographic of 85% of our community’s teacher population—the population we have the greatest
opportunity to impact.
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Context
The participants in this study are all elementary school coaches who work and reside in
Orange County, California. Orange County has had a consistent student population of 50%
Hispanic or Latinx, 30% white, 15% Asian, 3% two or more races, and <2% Black or Filipinx,
with a consistent teacher population of 75% white, 12% Hispanic or Latinx, 8% Asian, and <1%
Black, Filipinx, or two or more races. Orange County is defined as a suburban community due to
its location on the outskirts of the large metropolitan city of Los Angeles, its current population
growth, and its resulting demographic shift (Pew Research Center, 2018).
According to the California Department of Education’s reports for the 2017 California
Assessment for Student Performance and Progress for English Language Arts (CAASPP-ELA) of
the nearly 500,000 third through eighth grade students in this county, only 58% met or exceeded
the standard. The subgroup reports are consistent with State and National averages for student
performance showing that 74% of white students met or exceeded the standard, 47% of Black
students met or exceeded the standard, and 38% of Hispanic or Latinx students met or exceeded
the standard (California Department of Education, 2017). On the 2017 California Assessment for
Student Performance and Progress in Mathematics (CAASPP-MATH) only 48% of the county’s
500,000 students met or exceeded the standard. The subgroup reports show that 63% of white
students met or exceeded the standard, 31% of Black students met or exceeded the standard, and
28% of Hispanic or Latinx students met or exceeded the standard (California Department of
Education, 2017).
The participant group for this study are aware of the achievement disparity described
above, and have begun to question the role of race and racism in the data. However, this
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community has no known organizations of allied white citizens against racism, such as
AW ARE-LA in Los Angeles, in which white individuals can meet in discourse to deconstruct
whiteness and develop a radical white identity, referred to as a “white space” (AW ARE-LA, n.d.).
Therefore, this group formed in response to their own questioning of race and racism in a
community that not only has a consistent demographic mismatch between teacher and student
cultural identity, which has resulted in inequitable access to achievement for students of color, but
also a lack of formalized white anti-racism organization.
As covered in the review of literature, it is imperative that a coach him/herself be more than
a novice, although not necessarily an expert, in the field in which they are coaching a peer
(Vygotsky, 1978). As such, it would be reasonable to conclude that one must also be
metacognizant of their own positions, power, biases and related experiences in order to effectively
coach a peer toward the same metacognition. A coach needs to not only be aware of their own
positions, power, and biases, but must also be aware of how they came to that awareness in order
to guide teacher partners through a similar transformative process. Therefore, the present study,
which seeks to answer questions about the process elementary instructional coaches take to
deconstruct whiteness in order to become more culturally relevant educators and how they can
effect the same transition to self-authorship and transformative resistance in the teachers they
coach, is the essential starting point for both this research and the work of the affinity group.
Data Analysis
This study uses a constant comparative method of data analysis for grounded theory. In this
analysis method, the theoretical framework of the study drives the initiation of a priori codes that
serve as initial categories for data analysis. These categories can evolve or become more complex
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as the data is compared synchronously with the pacing of the study (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). The
constant comparative method grounds the data in the theoretical framework, seeking to show
alignment, or misalignment, with the hypothesis of the study. In this case, the framework based
hypothesis was that educators develop through the stages of self-authorship via personal
experiences and interactions that lead them toward transformational resistance and that their desire
for social justice and critique of social oppression drive them toward leading others in questioning
social norms and rules as they pertain to particular populations. As such, this study constantly
compared data collected for the a priori codes of self-identified stage of self-authorship, motivation
for social change, critique of social oppression, questioning social rules of subject, and changes in
coach-teacher dialogue. In doing so, the data was able to speak to hypothesis of the study as it
aligned with the framework, but also allowed for transformational pathways to emerge as the study
unfolded and personal narratives were captured.
In order to accomplish this, and answer the research questions, this study collected multiple
sources of data using multiple data collection instruments including interviews, observations, and
documents that were continuously analyzed for connections to the framework, a priori codes, and
initial hypotheses, while also leaving room for the emergence of new categories, codes, and
connective hypotheses. Furthermore, this method of data analysis is consistent with Freirean
problem posing methods in that it relied on inductive codes and connections that arose out of the
work of the participants with some initial guidance of the theoretical framework and a priori codes
as its foundation.
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Data Collection and Instrument Protocols
Process. The data collection process is closely aligned with liberatory dialogue and
Freirean (2000) problem posing methods. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed , Paulo Freire (2000)
describes dialogue as “the encounter in which the united reflection of the dialoguers are addressed
to the world which is to be transformed and humanized” (p. 88) by those who are committed to the
naming of the world and the search for truth. In accordance with this theoretical approach, a
dialoguing process was initiated with the participant group by following the six elements of
problem posing case studies as outlined by Smith-Maddox and Solórzano (2002). The six elements
are: 1. begin with a question, 2. examine assumptions, 3. develop a plan, 4. design data collection
protocols, 5. analyze the data, and 6. narrate the findings.
The first element, begin with a question, was established at the onset of the study in the
design of the research questions. These questions were the foundation upon which five a priori
codes were formed. The five a priori codes were: self-identifying stages of self-authorship,
motivation toward social change, critiques of social oppression, instances of questioning social
rules of subject, and changes in coach-teacher dialogues. These research questions, and a priori
codes, were developed prior to the commencement of the study as a means to keep the trajectory of
the project aligned with the theoretical framework of the study.
The second element, examine assumptions, was the first phase of participant dialogue as
we laid the foundation for the third element, developing a plan. These two phases made up the
bulk of the work of the participant group. To guide the examination of assumptions, the group
read, reflected, and began dialogue around personal thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes about banking
versus problem posing education using Freire’s (2000) second chapter of Pedagogy of the
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Oppressed . This particular reading was chosen because it is aligned with the methodological
framework of the study, and provides rich contrasts between the two pedagogies that allowed for
deep reflection, understanding, and development of common language. Following this, the
participant group used the first six pages of Freire’s (2000) third chapter on dialogics to establish
group norms around Freire’s (2000) themes of love, humility, faith, trust, hope, and critical
thinking. This reading was chosen because it defines transformational work as that of collaboration
and co-creation by participants, and outlines the mindset behind each theme for the group norms.
Once common language and group norms were established in alignment with Freirean methods, a
plan for how to continue the dialogue and answer the questions was established by the participant
group. The establishment of the plan included choosing texts, planning experiences, and defining
expectations for reflections, meeting times and agendas.
The fourth element, developing data collection protocols, had been determined prior to the
start of the project as part of both the limitations and delimitations of the study, and described in
subsequent sections of this chapter. The data collections protocols, including the use of interviews,
observations, and researcher generated documents as instruments, are described in detail below.
The fifth element, data analysis, was completed throughout the project by the researcher, as defined
previously in this chapter, and makes up the body of Chapter Four. Finally, the sixth element, a
narration of the findings, provides the structure for Chapter Five of this project.
Interviews. This study followed a semi-structured series of phenomenological interviews
with a focus group. A semi-structured interview protocol begins with a set of questions that guide
the discussion, can be posed in any order that suits the flow of the conversation, are flexible, and
formulate questions or talking points for future interviews (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
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Phenomenological interviews attempt to uncover the meaning making process of lived experiences
for the participant, including the researcher as participant, and how those meanings influence
actions and interactions (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Focus group interviews are built upon the same
theoretical foundation as this study, that understanding is socially constructed within the interaction
of a group (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Therefore, a semi-structured series of phenomenological
interviews with a focus group was the best avenue through which to answer the research questions
in alignment with the theoretical framework for the study.
The protocol began with a series of reflective questions and group conversations about
personal identity development to establish self-identified stage of self-authorship. This was
followed by a series of focus group interviews and discussions based on readings, experiences, and
guiding questions that were decided upon by the group as part of the problem posing method
described above. A few guiding questions remained a consistent thread throughout the sessions to
keep the focus on the purpose of the research project. These guiding questions are consistent with
the established a priori codes and are aligned with each aspect of the theoretical framework.
The first guiding question, aligned with self-authorship theory, asked participants to reflect
upon their current position within the self-authorship continuum, uncritically following external
formulas, crossroads, or self-authorship. The second and third guiding questions, aligned with
transformative resistance, asked the participant how a particular experience, reading, reflection, or
conversation did/is causing them to become motivated toward social change or critical of social
oppression. The fourth guiding question is aligned with cultural-historical theory; the question
asked participants to reflect upon the way in which an experience, reading, reflection, or
conversation caused them to begin/continue questioning social rules of subjects. Finally, the fifth
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guiding question, tied to the emergent strategy theory of change, asked the participants how the
current project was simultaneously beginning to transform their coaching conversations with
teachers.
This series of semi-structured interviews, sewn together with the thread of questioning
outlined above, was chosen for several reasons. First, the semi-structured interview protocol
allowed for the focus of the series to remain consistent with the purpose of the research project by
means of a few constant guiding questions. This consistency made it easier to trace transformation
for each participant throughout the study. Further, a semi-structured interview protocol allowed for
additional relevant questions and discussion topics to arise out of the experiences, readings,
observations, documents, and interview conversations that might not have otherwise come up
(Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
A group interview was decided upon and conducted for several reasons. First, consistent
with Freirean (2000) problem posing methods, knowledge and understanding should be
co-constructed through interaction and dialogue; individual interviews would not meet this critical
piece of collaboration. Equally important, a group interview method was utilized because it created
more of a comfortable conversational atmosphere in which coach participants felt more apt to share
as compared to a one on one interview that may have felt more like an interrogation. Finally, the
collaborative nature of the focus group interview/discussions allowed participants a brave space in
which to begin to engage in discourse around race, power, identity, bias, and whiteness; topics that
are typically difficult to discuss (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). A brave space is where individuals can
engage in controversial dialogue while maintaining civility; where participants can acknowledge
and own the impact own their words and actions on others, regardless of intention; where people
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can step in and out of challenging conversations; where humanity and respect are upheld; and
where there is mutual agreement to do no harm to one another (Ali, 2017).
Observations This study utilized video recorded, participant as observer, observational
data during aforementioned interviews, and professional learning described in the process section.
Merriam and Tisdell (2016) describe that observations as a data collection method can be valuable
as a means of triangulation, an insight into contextual and behavioral factors that may not come up
during interviews, and a way to create a brave space to discuss difficult topics such as race and
power. However, they also warn that this instrument of data collection can be highly subjective,
especially in the case of observer as participant. In order to maximize the benefits of this data
collection method, and reduce its subjectivity, video recorded observations were utilized. After
each recorded observation session, observational notes were taken from the video recordings.
In addition to the previously mentioned advantages of observational data collection, video
recorded observations enabled me to focus on participation over observation in the co-creation of
knowledge discussions and learning opportunities, without the task of taking observational notes
synchronously getting in the way. By taking asynchronous notes from the video recordings
afterward, I was better able to capture different elements of the observation I may have missed
during the live discussion, such as subtle behavioral or contextual factors, specific quotations, and
most importantly, my own behavior (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
This qualitative measure helped answer the research questions because, as mentioned
earlier, coaches must be metacognizant of their own understandings in order to guide others into
similar understanding. As such, the participants of the study, depending upon their stage of
self-authorship, and metacognitive awareness of this stage, may or may not be able to articulate
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verbally the answers to the research questions. However, subtle observed behavioral, contextual,
and interactive clues brought about a triangulation of information, links to a priori codes, as well as
topics for future discussion. For example, a coach participant may not have been able to articulate
the ways in which they were becoming more culturally relevant, but gave clues that answered this
research question by the way they interacted with one another, discussed related topics, and
presented documents to the group.
Document analysis. This study collected documents that can be classified under Merriam
and Tisdell’s (2016) categories of researcher generated artifacts, personal documents, pop-culture
documents, and visual documents. Researcher generated artifacts are any documents or objects that
are generated specifically for the project by the researcher or the participants. While Merriam and
Tisdell (2016) define researcher generated artifacts as one category among the others, this study
will use it as the overarching description for all documents collected while personal documents,
pop culture documents, and visual documents become the subcategories. This is due, again, to the
fact that all knowledge, learning, and trajectory of Freirean (2000) problem-posing case study
methods are co-constructed by the participants throughout the study (Freire, 2000; Smith-Maddox
& Solórzano, 2002).
This study incorporated the use of researcher generated personal documents. Personal
documents are any personal description of beliefs, actions, experiences, or understandings that are
written by the research participant themselves (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). For the purposes of this
study, personal documents included reflective writings, journal entries, event narratives, personal
communications such as letters or emails, and/or notes. These are important pieces of data to collect
because they contain explicit statements that address the research questions and a priori codes; they
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also contain implicit connections to research questions and a priori codes according to what the
participant chose to record and conveyed as important (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
This study incorporated the use of visual documents, which can be classified as either
personal documents or pop-culture documents depending upon the type or purpose (Merriam &
Tisdell, 2016). For example, visual documents were created throughout the study as personal
reflections, personal perspectives on images of importance, and to represent understandings or
ideas to be communicated. In this case, visual aids are still classified separately because, like the
observations, they represent an implicit insight into participants’ thoughts, beliefs, values, and
understandings that may not be explicitly expressed in personal documents or pop-culture
documents alone, and will be analyzed as such.
All research generated documents were collected and analyzed in an attempt to answer the
research questions and connections to a priori codes. They provided unique information from
interviews and observations because they captured not only explicit and reflective data, but also
implicit and communicative data as described above.
Limitations and Delimitations
No single study can be all encompassing; every study has limitations and delimitations.
Limitations are the uncontrollable boundaries of the international design of the study; in other
words, the things the study cannot control for or take into account. Delimitations are the boundaries
of the study intentionally drawn by the researcher. The main limitation to the study is that it
captures the dialogue of only one group of educators at only one point in time; therefore, it cannot
be representative of the dialogue of many educators at many points in personal, political, or social
chronology. In short, the findings are true, but only for this group in this moment. However, it can
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be a powerful place to begin concurrent or future dialogues with other groups and at other points in
time. Additionally, another limitation of this study is that it is time bound and constrained by
university dissertation guidelines and expectations. Consequentially it must come to an end at a
defined point in time, and cannot take on a path that is not aligned with the defined framework of
the study. This particular limitation can also be seen, from another perspective, as a delimitation, as
an intentionally set boundary to the study as defined by the period of time and the themes of the
theoretical framework. Another delimitation of this study is that it does not yet try to unite the
oppressors with the oppressed in true solidarity. Freire (2000) describes that the process of
rehumanizing both the oppressed and the oppressors starts with each first discovering their identity
as the oppressed or the oppressor and then fighting the systems together in solidarity. This study is
focused only on white teachers acknowledging their positions of power and their role in the
systems of oppression. Further and subsequent projects could focus on building upon that identity
and developing pedagogical practices that unite the teacher with the student in problem posing
rather than banking education practices.
Credibility and Trustworthiness
Typically, in a traditional research study, the researcher must be mindful of, and account for,
the validity and reliability of their study (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). These ratings of validity and
reliability speak to the truthfulness of the study. However, qualitative research, especially that
which is aligned with the methodological ideologies of this study, is built upon the philosophical
foundation of different ways of knowing and the reality of different truths (Merriam & Tisdell,
2016). In light of this, studies such as this must instead account for credibility, transferability,
dependability, and confirmability to validate the truthfulness of the presented findings as proposed
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and defined by Merriam and Tisdell (2016). Credibility is the degree to which the researcher
presents findings that are congruent with reality. Transferability is the likelihood that the findings
would apply to other related contexts or situations. Dependability is the consistency and logic of
the research design and process. Finally, confirmability is the trackability of the research findings
back to the raw data collected. This study addressed each of these areas of trustworthiness in the
following ways.
Credibility. In order to ensure that this project presented findings that are congruent with
reality, this study used the strategy of data triangulation. Merriam and Tisdell (2016) define
triangulation as using multiple methods, sources, researchers, or theories in order to confirm
emergent findings. In this case, the multiple methods strategy of triangulation was used in order to
establish the credibility of findings. This was accomplished by including interviews in which the
participants expressed their own thoughts and attitudes, video recorded observations of these
discussions that were later analyzed from different lenses, and also by including a constant
comparative data analysis method that was cross referenced for any unobserved or unmentioned
patterns that emerged.
The next strategy used to ensure credibility was member checks. Merriam and Tisdell
(2016) define member checks as a solicitation of feedback from the participants. This strategy was
utilized in that interviews were collaborative group discussions that were video recorded and
reviewed as part of the ongoing data analysis and project planning process. Using the constant
comparative data analysis method, preliminary findings and patterns from the interviews and
observations, guided additional decision making and discussion topics for the project.
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Transferability. One of the major goals of this study was not only to capture the narratives
and experiences of the participants, but to do so in such a way that readers of the paper will be able
to identify with stories shared and transformations enacted. This goal speaks directly to the
transferability of a study. While no two experiences are alike, this study attempted to make the
findings applicable to other teachers in similar contexts by richly capturing the narratives,
experiences, ideas, beliefs, and transformations of the participants so that readers may identify with
different participants, at different times or for different reasons, in such a way as to ignite their own
path toward self-authorship and transformational resistance.
Dependability. The dependability of the study lies in the alignment between the theoretical
framework, research questions, a prior codes, and methodology. The tight alignment between these
elements ensures the dependability of the study by making sure that the findings are aligned with
the framework, answer the research questions, and honor the theory of the methodology.
Confirmability. Lastly, audit trails were incorporated into the research as a means of
ensuring confirmability. Audit trails are essentially a paper trail that can be traced and referenced to
check the accuracy of statements made from the data (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). This paper trail
can be traced in interview transcripts, observation notes, and documents collected for analysis and
are included in the appendices.
Ethics
The theory of change for this study, emergent strategy, suggests that systematic change
occurs through small intentional interactions (Brown, A., 2017). The word intentional has been the
foundation for the design of the entire study. Intentional decisions were made in order to remove
authority over the ownership and creation of knowledge, to create a process in which researcher
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and participants are jointly responsible for growth, and to ensure that no one is robbed of their
words (Freire, 2000).
This intentionality is necessary in order to enact a study that is aligned with one’s ethical
stance (Tuck, 2009). My personal ethical stance places people and humanity above academia. Tuck
(2009) and Bang and Vougsini (2016) pose some guiding questions that help maintain this ethical
positioning: What can research do to really improve the situation? Who participates in the research?
Who poses the questions? How are data gathered? Who conducts the analysis? How does the
framing of the research impact the ethics? What are the real short term and long term benefits of the
research on the community (Tuck, 2009)? How do people learn to be in relation through process?
What shifts in individual and collective identity become possible (Bang & Vougsini, (2016)?
These questions were the backbone in the design of the study, as detailed throughout the
methodology and methods sections. As emergent strategy advocates, this research project puts the
intentional interactions of one small group of educators around deconstructing whiteness in the
classroom as the focal point. This focus has the potential to transform the practice of not only the
participant educators, because they were active learners and co-researchers in the project, but also
through careful documentation it has the potential to transform the practice of other educators who
read the research and are inspired to start their own professional dialoguing communities: an
emergent strategy fractal effect.
While the benefits for the community are high, the risks for the participants were equally
high. The topics of race, racism, bias, privilege, power, and oppression are controversial, difficult,
and complex in most communities, while often illicit and off limits in white communities. The
participants of this study engaged in delicate and formidable dialogue under a microscope. To
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maintain humanity over the research, participants had complete control over how much of their
identity and journey were connected and shared with the community through the research.
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CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS
Introduction
The present study was designed to answer questions about the process elementary
instructional coaches take to deconstruct whiteness in order to become more culturally relevant
educators and how they can effect the same transition to self-authorship and transformative
resistance in the teachers they coach. Specifically, the research questions were:
1. How does an affinity group of white elementary instructional coaches navigate the process
of deconstructing whiteness in preparation to supporting teachers in the process?
2. What do the various journeys toward a positive white anti-racist identity look like for these
elementary instructional coaches?
The affinity group was made up of three elementary instructional coaches, of which the
researcher was a participant and co-researcher, who met for six two-hour sessions over the course
of three months. It is important to note that, at the onset of the study, the group consisted of five
elementary instructional coaches. After the first meeting, one member left the group due to time
commitments and another left the group because she was uncomfortable with the subject matter
and felt it was too revealing to discuss openly. This is important to note for several reasons. First, it
reveals what Tochluk (2010) points out, that personal investigation, as an initial step in anti-racist
action, can be really challenging and therefore takes a personal commitment to dealing with our
own discomfort and giving it the time it needs. Second, the loss of these two voices left a group of
three participants who were open, willing, and committed to the process. On one hand, this is good
because it enabled us to engage in deep learning with a committed group of peers, but on the other
hand, we did not meet any resistant thinking within the group as we navigated the process. Finally,
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as group members, the departure of the two members left us constantly wondering how we get
people to take that first leap of faith? In coaching this is of the utmost importance as we will likely
encounter more resistant teachers than willing teachers.
The first section of this chapter chronicles the process through which the group began to
frame their positive white anti-racist identities and roles as instructional leaders working within
transformational resistance. The findings presented in the process section summate the
co-constructed knowledge and understandings that came out of the group meetings as participants
engaged with one another in dialogue. Due to the researcher’s positionality within the group, the
pronoun “we” is used throughout the chapter when referring to the group. The findings presented
in the journeys section reflect the individual ideas, struggles, thoughts, and work of each participant
as they grew through the process. For the sake of anonymity, all journeys are told using
pseudonyms and third person pronouns.
The Process
In allegiance to Freire’s (2000) problem posing methods, the group decided upon the
nuanced direction of their co-construction of knowledge when facing the problem of racism in the
classrooms. In alignment with the theoretical framework, we began with a reflection on our past
experiences that led us to our current state of self-authorship; we dug into how we could continue
that growth, and act in transformational resistance as individuals and as instructional coaches
(Bernal & Solorzano, 2001; Magolda, 2014). Over the course of the six meetings a pattern in our
learning process emerged. We found that we asked one another many questions; then based on our
questions we researched and read intentionally; from there we learned openly without trepidation;
and then we planned how we could change our behavior according to our new understandings. As
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such, in fidelity to Freire’s (2000) methodology and our own organic methods, our learning process
will be shared in this pattern: ask questions, read intentionally, learn openly, act accordingly.
During each week’s discussion, we noted the many questions we were posing to the group, at the
end of each meeting one overarching question that came up continually was decided upon as the
direction for the following meeting. Then, in the days between meetings, the group members
would research information and resources that were shared out with the group to be discussed at
the next meeting in an attempt to answer the question. During the discussion, each member
engaged in sharing their understanding and posed questions to further the discussion and/or reveal
holes in their understanding. Once understanding had been co-constructed in this way, a collective
question was decided upon for the next meeting and, when appropriate, personal or professional
action steps were planned. Due to the fact that this process was to co-construct group knowledge,
quotations will not be attributed to individual members of the group in the proceeding chronology
of group activities; individual learning is reflected in the Journeys section of this chapter.
Meeting One: How did we get here?
Ask questions. As a starting point for our group meetings and conversations, we wanted to
establish a baseline understanding of who we are and how we got to our current state of
self-authorship. The reasons for starting here are three-fold. First, we wanted to engage, from the
beginning, in self-reflective practice. Second, our individual reflections served as learning
opportunities for other group members to learn from another’s experiences. Finally, it provided
content, context, and common language that we could build upon as we grew in the process
together. The questions posed prior to the meeting were: “What have been our different journeys,
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thus far, in starting to question external formulas and what were the different crossroads
experiences that we've had that have lead us to our present state of self-authorship?”
Read intentionally. As a means to ground ourselves, and our conversations, in the
theoretical framework and methodology of the study, we read the literature that these elements
were built upon. We read selections of Adrienne Brown’s (2017) book, Emergent Strategy:
Shaping Change, Changing Worlds , which provided the theory of change we incorporated into our
coaching practice and personal relationships. We also read Chapter Two and the first six pages of
Chapter Three of Paulo Freire’s (2000) book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed , to set our group norms
and differentiate between banking education and problem posing methods, both the methodology
of the study and the process the group would follow. Finally, we read “Learning partnerships:
Theory and Models of Practice to Educate for Self-Authorship” (Magolda & King, 2004) which
provided the road map upon which we could trace our own journeys toward self-authorship.
Learn openly. In sharing our stories with one another we found several commonalities,
and one stark difference. Commonly, we found that the patriarchal make up of our families played
a major role in how we, as women, were implicitly taught about race and the dominance of the
white community over others. We experienced this in the preferential treatment we received from
white male teachers as white female students, in how we chose romantic relationships based on
how our fathers would react, and in how we interact(ed) with our husbands and sons. Luckily, the
latter has now proven to be, for most of us, a forum for which to build our self-authored
worldviews.
We realized, that it is possible that the good-hearted people we love can still be racist. As
Tochluk (2010) puts it, “the majority of people in this country are both well-intentioned and
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disturbed by the inequity in our society” (p.39). We came to understand that our loved ones could
be both “wonderful people” and people who hold unchecked racial biases. However, we also came
to understand that those who are aware of the systems and structures of power that dictate our
culture have a responsibility to disrupt it. We came to understand that that was us.
Additionally, we commiserated over the laundry list of negative emotions we experienced
as we navigated the crossroads: embarrassment, horror, offense, shock, pain, discomfort, guilt,
isolation, anger, frustration and social difficulty. Ultimately, we also validated that, in time, it was
possible to feel comfortable, confident, powerful, and happy in our critical experiences and new
identities.
Finally, because we also agreed that it is easy and tempting to fall back into what is
comfortable and known within the bubble of predominantly white communities, we committed to
resist the temptation and stay engaged in the critical work we had each become engaged in.
Conversely, we found that the disparities in our baccalaureate, post-baccalaureate, and
teacher preparation programs created huge discrepancies in how well prepared we were as teachers
to address the needs of our students of color and second language learners, how aware we were of
the role race played in our classrooms, how versed we were in multicultural studies, and how
culturally relevant we were able to be for our students.
Act accordingly. At this juncture, all we could do was stay committed to our group norm
of maintaining faith in humanity. Thus, we forgave ourselves, and our families, for what we did not
know, we committed to learning more and to giving our learning the time that it needed, and we set
the course for that learning to result in actions to disrupt the systems and structures of power that
we had influence in.
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Meeting Two: What do we do now?
Ask questions. As we shared our crossroads experiences, those pivotal moments when we
became keenly aware of race, racism, and our positions within it, we continually asked ourselves,
and one another, “ What does self-authorship look like? We are all somewhere in the crossroads
headed toward self-authorship but what does that even look like? What does one do when they’ve
arrived?” What undergirded these questions was our desire to own our experiences and knowledge
as truth, to be able to stand up for our truth, and to be able to step out and share that knowledge
with others.
Read intentionally. In order to fully understand, formulate, and communicate our
self-authored ideas, we read and discussed three pieces of literature. These particular readings were
chosen because they were written by white women specifically for the purposes we identified with.
In the first reading, “ Deconstructing Whiteness: Discovering the Water (Maxwell, 2004), the
author describes her experiences with “discovering the water,” or realizing the systems and
structures of white culture that make up the norms we navigate, and benefit from as white people.
The second reading, “White Teacher, Know Thyself: Improving Anti-racist Praxis Through Racial
Identity Development” (Utt & Tochluk, 2016) navigates the development of a positive anti-racist
white identity specifically for white teachers, and outlines six focus areas for getting there. Finally,
the title of Brene Brown’s (2017) book, Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging
and the Courage to Stand Alone , speaks for itself in that it is about finding the courage to speak
your self-authored truth.
Learn openly. Our learning objective for ourselves this week was to begin to more fully
understand the systems and structures of privilege in order to initiate the formation of
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self-authorship, and to be able to identify when and how we could communicate our self-authored
truths. The Maxwell (2004) reading provided common language and common understanding
around our shared experiences in learning what it means to be white. As members of the dominant
white culture, we had previously equated our experiences, values, and opportunities as the norm of
being American; this particular reading helped us frame our crossroads experiences in which we
began to “discover the water” and realize that many of our experiences, values, and opportunities
were a result of being white, and were privileged to us as members of the dominant white culture.
This framing of the dominant culture as “the water” became the foundation upon which we
continued to build our understanding of the systems and structures of privilege.
Utt and Tochluk’s (2016) study outlined six focus areas for developing a positive white
anti-racist identity—the self-authored identity we were all working toward. Three of Utt and
Tochluk’s (2016) focus areas were organically integrated into our subsequent learning process. The
first, building a white-anti racist community was initiated with the forming of this affinity group.
As expressed in Chapter Three, this group was formed out of a need for a local, brave white-space
where we would be able to analyze privilege and microaggressive behavior—the second focus
area we incorporated form Utt and Tochluk (2016). Even at this early juncture, we were beginning
to sense the strength we gained from having this brave space for discourse, as described by each
member throughout their personal journeys. The second and third focus areas of analyzing
privilege and microaggressive behavior, as well as demonstrating accountability across race, are
described in more detail in subsequent meeting accounts (Utt & Tochluk, 2016).
Brene Brown’s (2017) book, Braving the Wilderness: The Quest For True Belonging and
the Courage to Stand Alone, provided the inspiration we needed to begin to use our voice to
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challenge the untruths we heard spoken around us, specifically her chapter “Speak Truth to
Bullshit: Be Civil.” For us, this chapter solidified the difference between lying and bullshitting.
One member summed it up when she said, “Lying is when you know the truth but chose to say
something that is not aligned with it. Bullshitting is when you don’t know the truth but you act like
you do.” In fact, the Merriam-Webster’s (2019) definition of “lie” is “an intentionally false
statement,” and the definition of “bullshit” is “ to talk nonsense to, especially with the intention of
deceiving or misleading.” Although “bullshit” is categorized as “vulgar slang” there is no other
word in the English language that has the same distinction from lies. Therefore, it was maintained
as common language for the group despite its proscribed notoriety. The difference between the two
words is the intention. In lying, the intention is to be false, or to hide the truth. In bullshitting, the
intention is to deceive someone using nonsense, no basis in truth. It’s a subtle, yet profound,
distinction. For the purposes of our group, this was an important distinction both for our personal
journeys and in our work as coaches. In our personal lives, this distinction was relevant because as
we deconstruct our own whiteness, reexamine the things we had previously thought to be true, and
reconstruct a positive white anti-racist identify, we need to be able to distinguish between the
outright lies we may hear, in the media for example, versus the bullshit we hear in our daily
interactions, and take those things into consideration as we self-author our own understanding of
the truth. The media may lie to promote a particular agenda, while people may bullshit to hide the
fact that they don’t understand: there’s an endless stream of both that we have to constantly
navigate in order to get at the heart of the truth. As instructional coaches, this distinction between
lies and bullshit is relevant because, in our experience, most teachers didn’t join the profession
because they don’t like kids, they joined the profession because they want to make a difference in
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kids’ lives. Therefore, we recognize, that teachers who act microaggressively toward individual
students, and/or groups of students, are either acting in response to lies they are hearing regarding
those groups and/or may be bullshitting as a means to disguise the fact that they don’t know why
certain groups of students aren’t succeeding. For example, all of us talked about the deficit mindset
many of our teachers express about second language learners in their classrooms, specifically
Spanish first English Language Learners (ELLs). During coaching conversations about the
achievement disparity between Spanish first ELLs and their English only counterparts, many
teachers have attributed the disparity to: a lack of home support, low IQ, laziness, an inability to
learn English, and no access to resources. Most of this is bullshit, built from the lies and stereotypes
perpetuated in the systems and structures of power. Through coaching conversation questioning,
we have found that most teachers don’t actually know how much home support their students
have, they just assume none because of the stereotype that Latinx parents don’t value education;
most teachers have no idea what their student’s individual IQs are, they just assume they are low
because they are not seeing results; most teachers will actually acknowledge that their ELLs are
hard workers and are eager to please; and most teachers, when pressed, have no idea what
resources the students have access to at home and what resources the school or district can provide
to students when needed. As instructional coaches, our job is to help teachers see the truth behind
what they say and what they believe to be true. This distinction, between lies and bullshit, became
the fulcrum upon which we found balance between forgiving ourselves, and others, for the lies we
had believed in the past and stepping out to speak truth to bullshit.
Act accordingly. This meeting laid a thick foundation for our subsequent meetings and our initial
actions in transformational resistance. As explained, the Maxwell (2004) reading gave us the
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analogous language of “seeing the water” to describe one’s growing awareness of the systems and
structures of power. Utt and Tochluk (2016) provided focus areas that aided in group decision
making in subsequent meetings. Finally, and most immediate, Brene Brown (2017) provided a
starting point for us to act in response to our critique of social oppression and motivation for social
justice (Magolda, 2014).
Our first action step, outside of the group space, was to use cognitive coaching strategies to
help teachers begin to separate truth from bullshit. As coaches, we had all been previously trained
through our county office in cognitive coaching. According to Thinking Collaborative (2019)
cognitive coaching is a coaching model that utilizes reflective questioning techniques to help
individuals be self-directed and self-modifying in their learning and behavior. We decided to use
these strategies when addressing teacher comments about students, as in the example above about
Spanish first English language learners.
Meeting Three: What are we saying?
Ask questions. During the previous meetings, as we began to discuss race and racism
openly for the first time, it was noted by the group,
that we do air quotes when we get to certain terminology, and we slow our speech
when we get to certain terminology, and we giggle when we are uncomfortable
with certain topics. Like we are uncomfortable because we aren’t sure if we are
being politically correct or not. It speaks a lot to our awareness of microaggressions.
Are the things we are saying, while they may be coming from a place of wanting to
do and say the right thing, being understood by somebody else, who is not of our
same racial identity, as a microaggression?
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Analyzing microaggressive behaviors was also a suggested focus area in Utt and Tochluk’s (2016)
White Teacher , Know Thyself: Improving Anti-Racist Praxis Through Racial Identity Development
reading from the previous week. Having noticed our own discomfort in using certain terminology,
and understanding that this was caused by a shallow comprehension of microaggressive behaviors,
we connected this concept to our reading from the previous week and we decided to learn more
about this important component of developing a positive white anti-racist identity.
Read intentionally. With a goal of understanding our own microaggressive behaviors, and
the ability to identify them in our daily interactions, we read Chapters Seven and Eleven of Derald
Wing Sue’s (2010) book, Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Race, Gender , and Sexual
Orientation. Chapter Seven describes racial and ethnic microaggressions and their connections to
racism, while chapter Eleven talks specifically about the classroom impact of microaggressions.
Since our affinity group focuses on the deconstruction of whiteness with elementary instructional
coaches, we decided these two chapters would be the most relevant reading at this time and have
reserved the rest of the chapters for future discussion and self-reflection.
Learn openly. Sue (2010) presents the following as a working definition of
microaggressions:
Microaggressions are the brief and commonplace daily, verbal, behavioral, and
environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile,
derogatory, or negative racial, gender, sexual-orientation, and religious slights and insults to
target person or group (p. 5)
In analyzing this definition, we all conceded that we had experienced gender microaggressions as
women, that we were likely exhibiting unintentional microaggressions in our daily interactions, and
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that as instructional coaches it was our responsibility to dismantle our own unchecked biases so we
could coach others through the same process.
Consistent with our previous meetings and guiding questions, we wanted to know how to
accomplish that. Fortunately, Sue (2010) offers concrete strategies specifically for educators to
“seriously explore their own biases and prejudices, confront their own fears and apprehensions,
and actively develop the awareness, knowledge, and skills to successfully facilitate difficult racial
dialogues” (p. 250). In this section, appropriately titled “The Way Forward”, Sue (2010) suggests
that educators must:
1. Possess a working definition and understanding of racial microaggressions and difficult
dialogues
2. Understand self as a racial/cultural being by making the “invisible” visible
3. Intellectually acknowledge one’s own cultural conditioning and biases
4. Be emotionally comfortable in dealing with race and racism
5. Understand and make sense of one’s own emotions
6. Control the process and not the content
7. Not be passive or allow the dialogue to be brewed over in silence
8. Express appreciation to participants (p. 250-254)
For us as a group, we found these strategies to be aligned with both our purposes and our process.
As individuals, we were working to understand ourselves as racial and cultural beings through
intellectually acknowledging our own cultural conditioning and biases We were using the group
discussions to become emotionally comfortable with dealing with race and racism in alignment
with strategies two through five, as described in more detail in the journeys section of this chapter.
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As a group, our goal is to be able to coach teachers through the same, and ultimately engage in
effective dialogue as described in strategies six through eight. At this juncture, our discussion was
positioned within strategy one, understanding microaggressions and the way they manifest in
classrooms.
Prior to this meeting, we had grounded ourselves in Sue’s (2010) definition of
microaggressions, and had committed to noticing and journaling various microaggressive behaviors
we witnessed, experienced, and/or caught ourselves expressing. Our meeting discussion centered
around building our understanding of microaggressions through the situations we had encountered.
The first observation we discussed was one in which a coach and a teacher were analyzing
student reading proficiency,
The teacher had taken her data and sorted her students into quadrants (well below standard,
below standard, meeting standard, exceeding standard) then we had conversation about her
students in the quadrants. She made note of the fact that the students who were in the
bottom portion of the quadrants, she could have predicted who was going to be there, even
without looking at the data, based on the fact that they were all ELLs and that all of the
kids there had no supports at home and all the other kids do. To me, that was a
microaggression because she believes that all these students’ parents, and their culture ,
don’t value school and that the only reason these students were in these quadrants was
because they don’t have support at home.
As noted in the quotation, we discussed that this expression of biased thinking shows the
connection between teacher belief and expectation for student performance. This teacher does not
believe that their ELLs can succeed at reading proficiency because they do not have home support.
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This belief has become a self-fulfilling prophecy as evidenced in the reading proficiency data.
Although this discussion is not categorized as a microaggression, because it was not stated toward
the targeted group, the deficit beliefs displayed by the teacher may manifest in the classroom as
microaggressive comments and/or actions. The coach questioned the teacher on her evidence that
the student didn’t have home support and the teacher was not able to substantiate their claim. The
coach suggested the teacher focus on instructional strategies specifically designed for ELLs in
order to close their gap in reading proficiency.
Another coach had noted during the week that a white monolingual English speaking
colleague who had enrolled their white English speaking children in a dual immersion school was
praised as a forward thinking parent and complimented on their children being highly intelligent.
This was contrasted with the previously discussed, commonly encountered, microaggression that
English language learners are slow to learn and have uninvolved parents. The coach who noted
this microaggression asked an English second bilingual peer about her thoughts on, or experience
with, the dominant white culture valuing English first bilingualism and devaluing English second
bilingualism,
She said that it was absolutely true. She even talked about instances with her family in
which there was a pressure to speak English and “be American”. There was even a sense
that her family devalued their own home language in exchange for being seen as
“American.” She was taught very explicitly by her family, and the school she went to, to
have no accent whatsoever and to speak English very proficiently, to the point where they
didn’t speak Spanish at home anymore.
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Another coach, who had extensive experience working with first generation Korean students had a
different perspective,
I think it depends on the culture though. For example I have had a lot of Korean students
and they were valued because they would go to Korean school after school and they were
doing well and most teachers felt like it was because they were Korean and they obviously
valued school. So they were valued for knowing English and Korean. They were seen as
amazing students. Whereas other populations in our school weren’t seen in the same way.
This contradiction is aligned with literature on stereotypes that Latinx students are lazy and dumb,
while Asian students are intelligent and high achieving (Way et al., 2013). In this case, of the
intersectionality of race and bilingualism, the microaggression was not directly addressed but we
each took the conversation back to our professional coaching cohorts for further discussion and
stereotype deconstruction.
Further, we discussed that not all microaggressions are as obvious, but are just as egregious
in their far reaching effects on student learning. One coach shared that the reading caused her to
think back on some of her former teaching practices,
I remember when I would teach grammar I would say, “just listen to me read each
example sentence, which one sounds right?” Standard English sounded right to me because
I was raised in a household that spoke standard English. There are non-standard English
dialects that are spoken in African-American homes and Hispanic homes, but our whole
academic and professional system is built on standard English. So when I would say things
like that, what sounds right might be different for my students based on what sounds right
at home and what I am saying is right at school. They may have never heard it said in a
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standard English way before so it doesn’t “sound right” to them. Even that is a
microaggression, that instructional practice, not explicitly teaching standard English, not
teaching students to break the code.
This microaggression in instructional practice has far reaching implications for the academic and
professional success of students of color and second language learners. This is what
Ladson-Billings (2016) is talking about when she positions teachers as the most important factor in
paying back the education and raising the success of historically marginalized populations of
students.
Finally, one coach shared a microaggressive discussion in which one teacher was lamenting
that her partner teacher was “so lucky” because she got the “good” class while she herself got the
ELL cluster and all the “behavior problems.” We discussed how this teacher’s equation of second
language learners and students with behavior problems is aligned with research on the school to
prison pipeline in which teacher beliefs that align with the stereotype that Latinxs are criminals,
gang members and drug lords will influence the way in which they discipline Latinx students and
how often (Martinez, 2018; Way et al., 2013). In this instance, to address the microaggression, the
coach who overheard the discussion, asked the teacher what behavior problems she was
experiencing with her students. The teacher replied that the ELLs were off task and having side
conversations in Spanish. The coach suggested building in opportunities for students to have
collaborative conversations in their primary language as well as offering supports, such as language
frames to students who needed them, for participation in collaborative conversations in English.
These are English language development strategies (ELD) that the coach had prior knowledge in
and experience with.
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This initial discussion of microaggressive behaviors lead us to the conclusion that teacher
biases don’t only manifest themselves in classrooms as microaggressive verbal comments, they also
manifest in the expectations teachers hold for their students, disciplinary practices, how we define
basic skills, who we value and who we devalue, and what we teach to students based on
assumptions of prior knowledge.
Act accordingly. As individuals, we accepted that our own learning in this area was
incomplete, and would be a lifelong learning process. We knew that, at this stage in our learning,
we were unable to identify all the microaggressions happening around us; that there were likely
“many we pass over without even realizing it because we are products of the dominant culture and
many of the microaggressions might still appear to us as normal things to say.” Thus, we reaffirmed
our individual and group commitments to work toward self-authorship and enact transformational
resistance. As individuals we agreed to work on understanding ourselves as a racial beings and
products of the dominant culture, to intellectually acknowledge our own cultural conditioning and
biases in order to become more emotionally comfortable in dealing with race and racism.
As coaches, our action step outside of this space was to begin to make the “invisible”
visible for the teachers that we work with through coaching conversations. This includes asking
questions that get at the root of teacher beliefs, and in so doing, exposing the deficit mindset about
student groups, then offering liberatory instructional strategies that build the student’s skill without
reducing the expectation.
Meeting Four: How are we teaching?
Ask questions. The conclusions we came to during our discussion of microaggressions led
us to wanting to take a closer look at equitable and liberatory instructional practices. We decided,
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Maybe as coaches it’s a matter of looking at instructional practices to make sure that
even the way we teach is not oppressive, that it’s equitable. It makes me wonder if
things like learning progressions that move from concrete to representational to
abstract are more equitable?
Read intentionally. As a means to begin to understand instructional practices as equitable
or oppressive, we agreed to read the Equity and Access chapters of the English Language
Arts/English Language Development, Math, and History Social Science Frameworks as well as
the “Silenced Dialogue” chapter of Lisa Delpit’s (2006) book Other People's Children: Cultural
Conflict in the Classroom . The curriculum frameworks were chosen because they outline state
expectations and recommendations for equitable teaching practices. Delpit’s (2006) book was
chosen because she is a Black educator who wrote this book for white teachers after years of
experiencing, participating in, and reforming inequitable teaching practices that were detrimental to
students of color. We deliberately included the voice of a Black educator in response to Utt and
Tochluk’s (2016) call for accountability to people of color which includes listening to the truths
offered by people of color to white people; in this case a Black educator’s recommendations to
white teachers for liberatory instructional practices for students of color.
Learn openly. While we were hoping that these readings would provide the key to
unlocking the instructional practices that would lead to equity in academic achievement, what we
discovered was that there are few specific instructional practices, and one major pedagogical shift,
that pave the way for equitable academic achievement for students of color and second language
learners.
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There is evidence in all of the texts that we read that the instructional practices we
discussed, of explicit instruction in standard English and mathematical learning progressions that
include various access points that are concrete, representational, and abstract, create more equitable
learning opportunities for all students (Delpit, 2006; National Governors Association Center for
Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010). However, all the texts highlight a
shift in teacher pedagogy, toward cultural relevance, as the avenue through which to make
achievement for equitable (Delpit, 2006; National Governors Association Center for Best
Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010). Again, the difference is subtle.
One example that the group discussed further from the previous week was that of teaching
standard English to non-standard English speakers. To explicitly teach standard English to
non-standard English speakers as a means to “correct” their “incorrect” language use is merely an
instructional strategy. However, to explicitly teach standard English to non-standard English
speakers using language registers as a reference point, how we code switch between the way we
speak at home and the way we speak at school or other “formal” settings, is a pedagogical shift that
places value and relevance on the way English is spoken both outside of, and inside of school.
This pedagogical shift validates the knowledge that students are bringing to the classroom and
builds upon it to help them be successful in school (Delpit, 2006; National Governors Association
Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010). This shift can be applied
to not only instruction, but behavior expectations as well.
One microaggressive behavior that had been documented by one coach in the days
between meetings was behavior related. In this incident, a teacher asked her students to be seated.
Most of the children took their seats on the rug and sat cross legged with their hands in their lap.
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One student, a Black boy, sat near the outside edge of the rug with his legs stretched out and his
arms back in support. He was quiet and his eyes were on the teacher, as were the rest of the
students. The teacher proceeded to ask him, “Is that how you are supposed to be sitting? How are
you supposed to be sitting?” The boy just continued to stare at her without changing his sitting
position. The teacher took this as disobedience and had him clip down on his behavior chart. As a
group of educators, we acknowledged that this is a fairly normal occurrence in the classrooms we
observe in. Having read selections of Delpit’s (2006) book, we analyzed this from this new
perspective of explicitly teaching behavior norms as a means to enact culturally relevant pedagogy.
We considered that perhaps the student was not being disobedient, that his staring was in response
to processing her question, and that he was trying to quickly figure out where he had gone wrong.
The teacher had asked the class to sit and the student was sitting in a way that made him
comfortable. We concluded, that in this situation the teacher needs to be made aware, through
coaching conversations, of how their biases and assumptions are influencing the way they
discipline different students in the classroom. As coaches, we would advise the teacher to take one
of two alternate actions in the future. One, the teacher can more clearly state her sitting
expectations in a statement such as, “please sit cross legged in your designated space on the rug.”
This statement is much more explicit in communicating the expectation that all students be seated
in a certain way in a specified place. Alternately, the teacher can more flexible in her sitting
expectations and allow student more freedom in where they sit and how they sit. We argue that the
latter is the more inclusive practice but may not be appropriate for all activities and instructional
tasks. We felt that either alternative would allow for the student to demonstrate obedience toward
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the teacher’s request, thus preventing him from receiving undue punishment or consequences for
misinterpreted behavior.
Act accordingly. The realization that shifts in instruction, without shifts in pedagogy, aren’t
enough to create equitable learning opportunities, led us to the understanding that we needed to
focus our attention on ourselves, not only our own learning but also in where we focused our
efforts at work. As instructional coaches we spend much of our time teaching teachers new ways
to teach content, what we needed to begin to spend much of our time on is teaching teachers to
think about the way they think about their students. To each of us, considering the sheer volume of
teachers we work with, that felt like a daunting task. This action step involves system wide change
that would rely heavily on the support and authority of our administrative leaders. We agreed to
incorporate a focus on mindset shifts into our individual coaching practices and try to increase our
sphere of influence through our relationships with our administrators.
Meeting Five: How can we enact change?
Ask questions. Once we understood how the things educators think about their students
influences the things they say and do in the classroom, which has an impact on the learning of their
students of color and second language students, we sought to understand what would be the best
way to enact change as instructional coaches. We asked, “ How do we as coaches, shift the
practice in the classroom? How do we take who we work with now and move them forward?
Because when we talk about first best teaching, it means for all of our students.” We felt that this
question was crucial to our work as instructional coaches. Furthermore, we felt that this question
could not, and should not, be answered by a group of white educators exclusive of representation
from other voices, as Utt and Tochluk (2016) point out in their call for accountability across race.
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Therefore, we invited a guest participant, who identities as a New Mexico born Xicana, to our
group meeting. This guest participant was invited because she already had some level of relational
intimacy with one or more of the group members which would allow for open dialogue, and she
identifies similarly to one of our most marginalized populations of students, our Spanish first
English language learners of Mexican descent. The guest participant was made aware of the
question being discussed and had the opportunity to contribute to the reading selection for the
meeting.
Read intentionally. The readings chosen came about organically as one member read the
article, “ Where Are Gifted Students of Color? Case Studies Outline Strategies to Increase Diversity
in Gifted Programs” (Lewis, Novak, & Weber; 2018) for work. When the references for the article
were checked, a second article was chosen and shared with the group: “Educator Beliefs and
Cultural Knowledge: Implications for School Improvement Efforts” (Nelson & Guerra, 2014).
Finally, another member recommended a podcast with Zaretta Hammond that she had listen to
recently, and provided a link to the transcript to the group, Cult of Pedagogy Episode 78 : Four
Misconceptions About Culturally Responsive Teaching (Gonzalez, 2018).
Learn openly. During this extended meeting, with the addition of a crucial voice
representative of our county’s most marginalized populations of students, we were able to earnestly
pursue shared understanding about cultural relevance and how we as coaches could build a
foundation of cultural relevance with our teachers. From the readings, our discussion centered on
several overarching themes within cultural relevance: the idea of curricular representation, the
concept of basic skills, intentionally and explicitly modeling the practice of cultural relevance, and
the value of first hand experiences.
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The topic of curricular representation has been passionately debated recently with passing
of the F.A.I.R. Act in 2011. The F.A.I.R. Act is the common name for Senate Bill 48 that
mandates for fair, accurate, inclusive, and respectful representation of people of color, people with
disabilities, members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) community
(Senate Bill 48, 2011). While the debate mostly centers around the age appropriateness of
representing the LGBTQ community, there are still many white teachers who cannot see the holes
in the stories of our current history books and novels; holes created by the absence of the narratives
of people of color. In the podcast we listened to, Zaretta Hammond differentiated between
multicultural education and culturally relevant teaching. She explained that multiculturalism is what
we see in books as a representation of diversity, while culturally relevant teaching is about
“building the learning capacity of the individual student” (Gonzalez, 2018). Therefore, while
curricular representation is a great place to start to build an equitable climate in the classroom, more
work must be done to ensure that achievement is also equitable. This came up quite a bit in our
conversation because we, as coaches who are critical of social oppression and motivated for social
justice, find it frustrating that our workplaces are still at the infancy stages of creating equitable
education. For white people, curricular representation is a new, and often unimportant, concept
because our story has always been told, and has been told kindly. However, for the groups
identified in the F.A.I.R. Act, curricular representation has been a long time coming. Our Xicana
guest coach shared some personal experiences of people not seeing themselves in their learning
materials.
I was having this conversation with a friend of mine recently. In school I read Island of the
Blue Dolphins and I was like, “This is as good as it’s going to get.” It was about a girl, she
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was responsible, she was on her own. I still remember that and I knew that was close as I
was gonna get to having any reflection of me in a book. Before that it was Where the Red
Fern Grows, Indian in the Cupboard, My Side of the Mountain, Hatchet . [Those books
make] you start thinking, “white men are the ones going out, having adventures, living their
lives” and we just don’t even consider [that there might be another truth], that’s the
dominant culture. Imagine if I had read Esperanza Rising instead?
So this friend I was having this conversation with is gay. He is reading these books
with his students, not in class, but in an after school book club. They are reading Dante and
Aristotle Discover the Universe . He was saying, “Who would I have been, at 13 years old,
if I had read a book about 2 boys being friends, but they develop these intimate feelings?
There’s nothing even remotely sexual in the book. It’s the same as if you had a boy and a
girl, it’s puppy love. They hold hands in the back of a pick up truck. I probably would not
have waited until I was 29 to come out. You know what I mean? But I didn’t see that
reflection of myself anywhere.” How do we start to have those conversations [with our
teachers]. If there were one quick fix, it starts with representation, but then it moves beyond
that. That’s the struggle because we are not even at representation.
In these two snapshots of experience, she was able to capture the plight of being female and not
following gender normative expectations, of grappling with one’s developing sexual orientation,
and of understanding oneself as a racial and ethnic being: identity crises that could have been more
appropriately resolved with curricular representation. However, she also reiterated Zaretta
Hammond’s (2015) assertion that it must move beyond that into a focus on filling holes in student
learning as well.
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One major area where we can move beyond multicultural education and into culturally
relevant teaching is in how we define basic skills (Delpit, 2006). Our group discussion on this
statement by Delpit (2006) sums up the oppressive nature of how we currently define “basic skills”
in our classrooms.
In her book [Delpit, 2006] talks about how the dominant culture defines what is a “basic
skill.” So, to speak to our population, a lot of the teachers feel like the kids should come in
with knowledge and skills around letters, sounds, numbers, writing their names, those are
the “basic skills.” But a lot of what [Delpit, 2006] talks about is that actually our kids from
low socioeconomic status, students in poverty, students of color, however we want to
define them, actually have advanced skills in things like problem solving and reasoning.
There’s a lot of research behind when there’s two parents at home and higher
socioeconomic status, those students tend to be coddled a bit more and parented a bit more,
whereas kids who maybe have a lot of siblings in the home, or parents who are working,
there aren’t situations like “I spilled my juice what do I do?” it’s more like “Oh crap, I
spilled my juice, I gotta clean it up, I gotta put this in the trash…” they have these advanced
reasoning and problem solving skills, but in school we don’t give them the opportunity to
explore that because the dominant culture has defined “basic skills” as can you write your
name? Can you name this letter? From their parents’ perspective, they’re like, “That’s what
I am sending them to school for! I am keeping them alive, making sure they have a bath,
keeping them fed, they’re solving their own problems, they’re taking care of themselves.”
For example, one of my teachers this week had a parent conference where the 16‐year‐old
sister came in to translate that entire parent teacher conference for the mom, that
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16‐year‐old girl is also responsible for filling out the free and reduced lunch application,
and all of those things. So when people complain about students not having “basic skills” I
am like, “are you kidding me? She can fill out medical forms, she can translate, she can
understand complex government forms!” but because it is not the “basic skills” as defined
[by the dominant culture], then there’s an assumption that she doesn't have the aptitude for
it. However, it’s just that she is not expressing those “basic skills” that were predetermined
before she even came to school.
From this reading and discussion, we co-constructed the understanding that in order to be more
culturally relevant, we have to identify and build on the strengths that each student is bringing to
the table and then fill in the gaps of what they do not know yet. For example, the student who
knows all of their letters and sounds should be challenged in problem solving and reasoning tasks
while the student who demonstrates strong reasoning skills but does not possess foundational
reading skills should be explicitly taught phonics and phonemic awareness. What became clear to
us was that this concept begins to transcend racial stereotypes by placing the individual student’s
strengths and opportunities at the forefront of how we approach their education, regardless of their
race, primary language, gender, or socioeconomic status.
From our own personal experiences, we discussed the importance of creating experiences
for teachers to see students of color and second language learners thriving. Each of us identified
that much of our critique of social injustice came from having had critical experiences with diverse
students, and seeing them thrive under shifts in instruction. Short of taking teachers on field trips to
other more diverse locations and immersing them in that environment for a while, we wanted to
know how we could show their own students thriving with instructional and pedagogical shifts.
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We focused on what was within our control, and we identified that the professional development
opportunities we design would be our platform. We resolved that when we plan professional
development that uses recorded lessons or demonstration lessons, we would intentionally use
classrooms that will allow us to showcase students of color and second language students thriving
under good instruction, and that we would explicitly point out who was benefitting from the
intentional lesson design and why.
Finally, we acknowledged that it would be naively utopian to believe that curricular
representation, redefining basic skills, and snapshots of students succeeding would be enough to
pay back centuries of educational debt. At some point, perhaps simultaneously, deficit mindsets
toward students of color and second language learners must be exposed and addressed. We
discussed many strategies on how to break down teacher bias and stereotyped beliefs that ranged
from intense strategies, such as in-depth multi-day professional development opportunities, to more
passive strategies, such as sharing a heart wrenching Ted Talk, and ultimately landed on one
approach we could all see being both manageable and effective. The strategy came out of the
Nelson and Guerra (2014) reading that suggested coaches embed cultural relevance training into all
professional development opportunities. The authors say,
“Creating programs that build cultural competence among educators also requires
integrating cultural knowledge into all program content experiences. Learning of this nature
must become the work of all who are involved in preparation programs and professional
development experiences. This work cannot be left to a select few. Each faculty member
and professional developer must take an honest look and critically assess his or her own
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beliefs about diversity, cultural knowledge, and commitment to equity, and then obtain the
necessary knowledge and skills to facilitate this transformative journey” (p. 91).
We unpacked this quote and really focused on the repeated use of the word “all.” The authors
identify that this is the work of all who are involved in professional development; that it needs to
be a united effort among all teachers, coaches, and administrators; that all members of the
educational team need to grapple with their own beliefs; and that cultural competence needs to
embedded in all professional development opportunities. As coaches we identified with our
position within the structure of change, but we also noted that we are but a piece of that structure
and need support from all the pieces in order to effect systematic change.
In addition to coaching practices that bring about equitable teaching practices, the readings
and the group discussion touched upon system changes that need to take place in order for
culturally relevant teaching to be effective. The three main system implications are the use of
instructional coaches in a professional development model, district vision that focuses on student
identity and achievement, and accountability for equitable teaching.
All of our readings emphasized the importance of incorporating instructional coaching in a
district professional development model. Through our different experiences as teachers and
coaches, we had each encountered various models of how instructional coaches were used,
including some districts who did not incorporate coaches at all. In her book, Culturally Responsive
Teaching and the Brain , Zaretta Hammond (2018), identifies her three main audiences as
classroom teachers, instructional coaches, and educational leaders. We realized, “we are literally in
between, we are the gatekeepers!” and we wondered, “How does it happen in places that don’t
even have coaches?” We feel incredibly lucky to be working in districts that place value on
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instructional coaching as their main professional development model, but we wondered if it could
be better and what that might look like.
The second system wide change we discussed was having one clear and concise vision that
places student identity at the forefront of all conversations at all levels. A couple examples of what
that might look like were shared in conversation. One coach shared,
I met recently with some administrators from another district, what they were saying was
that they have a district wide common language of “name, face, story” so everytime you
are talking about a child you have to say their name, attach their face somehow, and know
their story. Anytime, they talk about data, they have to attach names, faces, and stories.
That’s so simple “Name, face, story” but it is keeping everyone focused on meeting the
needs of every child which was ultimately their goal across the board K-12.
Another coach added,
I saw a video recently about a middle school, and it was a big school, and they
put the kids names up on a wall and the staff tags the kids they know and they tell what
they know about each kid. They they start to identify what kids nobody knows. Then
patterns emerged about the kids nobody knows. The obvious ones, the chatty outgoing kid
is known by all of their teachers. But the quiet kids, the ones who blend in, how can we
know their story and what they are all about? So, they choose certain students to go and
learn more about, and they focus on those kids, so that the next time they met, they have
something to talk about.
These strategies, aimed at being intentionally inclusive of all students, exemplified for us, what
Nelson and Guerra (2014) meant by “all.” Again, as coaches, we are but one piece of that system
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and we wondered how we could better work with administrators to put a single system-wide focus
in place?
Finally, we discussed the importance of accountability. In our experience, both as teachers
and as coaches, when a district decides upon an initiative, the implementation of that initiative is
done with more fidelity when there is a clearly stated expectation that the initiative be carried out
with fidelity. When this is partnered with a compelling reason why the initiative is imperative, the
likelihood that the initiative will be successful is much higher. In this case, we feel that there needs
to a be a clear administrative expectation that culturally relevant teaching practices be put in place
while explicitly connecting the importance of culturally relevant teaching to student achievement.
As coaches, we cannot put that expectation in place, but we can create the opportunity for teachers
to see it through. To Nelson and Guerra’s (2014) point, it is going to take a coordinated effort
between all administrators, coaches, and teachers.
Act accordingly. The focus areas discussed in our learning became the backbone upon
which we each built our next steps in transformational resistance. As a group, we accepted these
focus areas as our collective charge to begin to incorporate into our work as coaches, and to
continue to add to the list as we grow in our experiences and understandings. Individually, we
reflected on these focus areas, along with the rest of our learning, and incorporated them into our
personal next steps in our various journeys toward self-authorship and coaching for equity. The
individual next steps are detailed in the journeys section of this chapter.
Meeting Six: Where are we going?
Ask questions. In the final meeting for the current project, members discussed their own
growth, learning, landing places, and next steps for themselves and for the group. We asked,
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What are we going to do as a result of this group? Or through this group? We are
sitting around having these conversations, which is great, but what is ultimately
going to come out of it? I think it is a matter of looking at our locus of control. Where do
we have influence?”
Read intentionally. In preparation for this final meeting, we read the transcripts of our
conversations from the previous five meetings. We encouraged one another to reflect on our own
learning, comments, and contributions and refer back to any previous reading we had done along
the way.
Learn openly. Our individual learning is reflected, in depth, in the next section of this
chapter. Collectively, as we each shared our individual journeys with one another, we all
emphasized the value that belonging to the group had brought to our personal lives and our
positions as coaches. We attributed the majority of our personal gains to having a brave space to be
vulnerable, admit what we did not know, learn from others, and try out new ways of thinking.
Furthermore, we identified our group membership as a source of confidence when stepping out
into difficult coaching conversations with teachers, knowing that we have that brave space to
return to where we could reflect on and debrief our professional encounters.
Act accordingly. In looking ahead to the future of the group, moving beyond the project
and into our everyday practice, we decided to maintain the methodology and momentum we had
established. We decided to continue with the problem posing methods and letting our own
questions guide the direction of the group learning, to maintain the brave white space when
necessary, but also to include the voices of people of color when making decisions about actions
steps outside of the space. We discussed the need to expand group membership as means to
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incorporate more voices and experiences, to empower other white instructional coaches, to increase
our impact, and to expand our sphere of influence.
The Journeys
This section of the findings shares the narratives of the three affinity group participants as
they reflect on their past, grow in their present, build their social justice platforms, and plan action
for their futures as coaches for equity. In alignment with the theoretical framework of the study, the
participants’ narratives are shared in vignettes that highlight their development through the stages
of self-authorship via personal experiences and interactions that led them toward transformational
resistance, as well as their current platform for personal and professional transformation. The
theoretical framework of the study provides the infrastructure upon which the stories are recounted
as a means to maintain alignment with the purposes of the study and as a thread that sews all of the
stories together. Each story below is built upon that infrastructure; first describing early experiences
with seeing the external formula, working through crossroads, previous and current states of
self-authorship and work within transformational resistance.
As explained previously, the topics of race, racism, bias, privilege, power, and oppression
are controversial, difficult, and complex in most communities, and are often illicit and off limits in
white communities. As such, we, the participants of this study, knowingly engaged in delicate and
formidable dialogue under a microscope. When the group was formed, we used Freire’s (2000)
third chapter on dialogics, the intentional engagement in critical dialogue, to set our group norms in
which we committed to speak and listen from a position of love, humility, faith, trust, hope, and
critique. As we navigated the process, we wondered, worried, and hoped that the readers of our
stories would position themselves similarly with us. So, we ask that as you read, please use Freire’s
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(2000) positioning as a lens through which to read our stories; know that our mistakes and missteps
were born out of love, we learned with humility, we maintained faith in ourselves, each other, and
humanity, we trusted one another and the process, we hope that you find a piece of yourselves in
our stories, and we ask you to think critically about your own position in the structures of power.
Rene: Choosing the Path
For me, I constantly have to keep asking myself, “What path do I want to take?” It’s
almost day by day, or hour by hour, even moment by moment. What path do I want to take
not knowing what the outcome will even be?
Rene’s journey is marked with starts, set backs, and restarts. One would not even call them “false
starts” because they were true, honest, and wholehearted real starts that were sidetracked by an
emerging understanding of the structures of power that she was navigating, or that were, at times,
navigating her. Rene is in her third year in her current position, but it is her fifth year being an
instructional coach. She decided to join the affinity group because she wanted to re-engage in
critical discourse and get back on track toward self-authorship because she sees the need for a
leader in this area amongst the teacher population she currently works with.
Following the external formula. Rene describes her Southern California hometown as,
“majority white, higher upper middle class, affluent, very blonde, that valued religion, and doing
charity work for those less fortunate... everything is pretty. The houses all look the same, there’s
trees, the streets are lined with vegetation , ” and she illustrates her school age days as spent doing,
“all the extra curricular activities like being part of a charity league, going to church, going to
classes, playing sports, tennis, going to the beach on the weekends and sailing...birthday parties at
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the Tennis Club.” As with most who are raised in the dominant culture, she never questioned the
normalcy of these experiences. She explains that,
you knew that you were doing charity work mostly for a certain group of people.
We were helping them because they do not have what we have. Of course, at the
time, I thought we were doing the right thing. We were helping these people who
needed our help. Don’t get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with doing charity
work, but it was always for certain racial groups like Latinos...and it was not
usually towards fellow white people that were Christian and wore nice clothes, that
was important. So it reinforced this idea...that I was of a race that was superior in
my parents’ eyes or my grandparents’ eyes.
Rene’s experiences are conducive with dominant culture ideals when it comes to charity work. As
Tochluk (2010) explains, white people have a tendency to enter communities of color with a savior
complex, a superiority complex, and feelings of pity, rather than empowerment, for the people they
are working with. While well-intentioned, these attitudes, if left constructed, exacerbate the
problem of racism in our communities.
Rene carried her well-intended ideas of wanting to help the “less fortunate” when she
moved to Los Angeles to attend college in a teacher preparation program,
I really wanted to be in education. I really had it in my head that I wanted to help
children, especially the underprivileged children. I had all this knowledge and
a network of privilege and I needed to go out and help children that didn't have as
much as I did.
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Note her use of the word “needed”: she was demonstrating what Solorzano and Bernal (2001) call
“conformist resistance” in which she was critical of social oppression and wanted to do something
about it but lacked an understanding, and therefore critique, of the social structures that create the
oppressive conditions she felt compelled to remedy. This type of resistance usually only produces,
at best, bandaids for the symptoms of the problem or, at worst, contributes to the system of
oppression by masking the microaggressions that undergird the imbalance of power (Solorzano &
Bernal, 2001). In this quote, she uses the word “privilege,” which is a label that she is now able to
place on her position of power. At the time, she was aware she had been born into an advantage,
but was unaware of the underlying systems and structures that gave her that advantage:
the systems and structures of white privilege.
Pivotal crossroads experiences. Rene’s self-authorship crossroads began when she started
her teacher preparation program at a university in Los Angeles.
I didn’t realize what a bubble I was in until I moved away. I went to college in Los
Angeles and was suddenly out of what I call the “OC Bubble” and started being
surrounded by a mixed group of people.
Experiences with people of color. Rene’s first intimate experiences with people of different
ethnic identities was as a college campus resident.
I lived in a dorm and my two roommates were [ethnically] Chinese. One had grown
up in Los Angeles, and the other in Northern California. We would ask each other
questions: Why do you have so many clothes? Why don’t you have this kind of
makeup? How did you grow up? How was your family? We were talking about all
these differences between us, gaining an awareness that there's a whole other
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world. So we kind of had cultural clashes, but not in a negative way, it was more
like an awakening. The whole university experience was like this microcosm of life
of a world community. I had joined this awesome community and I was awakened.
This was the first time that Rene’s worldview had really been challenged. While it took place in an
intimate and friendly setting, and started off light and superficial, talking about clothes and makeup,
for her it was a launching point to have deeper conversations about family and community that
brought her to the realization that there are different ways of knowing based on the many facets of
one’s identity. At this time, however, it did not lead to a deeper understanding of how her identity
as an upper middle class white female positioned her with power and privilege and how that
shaped the choices she made and the ways in which she interacted with others.
Experiences with other white people. One such choice, and social interaction structure that
she soon found herself in, was sorority membership. As an upper middle class white woman it was
her legacy to join a sorority. She unquestioningly attended to this normative expectation and soon
felt the unintended consequences of that decision.
So then I went and I joined a sorority! Why did I do this to myself? I went from this
big open thing with all these beautiful people and all these different backgrounds to
joining the Greek System which was going right back to what my comfort zone
was of majority white people. That was the group of girls and guys that I would
hang out with. Why did I do that to myself? Because I was comfortable with the
social rules that were the norm, I knew how to navigate that system, I was
confident, and I was powerful, and I was privileged enough to be accepted and
wanted as a member of that community and I stayed in the Greek system.
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This snapshot of Rene’s college experience illustrates what Maxwell (2004) calls “discovering the
water.” Rene became aware that there were multiple perspectives, ways of knowing, and ways of
being. However, at this point, Rene was not aware of the systems of power and privilege that
allowed her to slip in and out of the water to attend to her own comfort while others were being
oppressed by the water.
Professional experiences. Rene’s most profound crossroads experience came when she
took her first teaching job. The Los Angeles university where she was earning her master’s degree
and teaching credential required that she work for at least a year in an inner city school in Los
Angeles or one of its surrounding urban neighborhoods. For the first time she found herself living
and teaching outside of the water.
I got a job at a charter school that was run mostly by people of minority races. I was
one of three people at my school of 25 teachers that were white. The hardest year of
my whole life was teaching that first class of students because they didn’t
automatically give me respect, they didn’t automatically give me any authority
because they had pretty much grown up within a one square mile radius, they had
never left that, never known anything but their community that was pretty much
homogeneously Latino. So, they did not realize that in my system, I was the
privileged one. Suddenly, for the first time, I had to earn respect, and earn that
privilege that I had always automatically had my whole life being a white female. I
had to earn respect from this group of little 10 year olds. I had to face my own
values. I was dumbfounded. I had the toughest year of my life. I had to learn what
their culture was and their value system because it was different than my own and I
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couldn’t understand it. I felt so disrespected. I couldn't understand why all of my
[teaching] skills weren’t working with them. It was because I didn’t know their
network, their system. It took me a good year to learn what their system was, learn
how to communicate with their parents, and learn what they valued in life because
that’s what their system was built on. It was the first time I wasn’t given respect and
authority based on what I look like. That was my biggest time of self awareness. So
I sought to learn what I needed to do to be the best educator, working within their
system, to educate them. It caused me to teach in a whole different way. It was my
whole crossroads experience that led me to more of a self-authorship stage because
I stayed working there for like 5 years.
Rene articulates many of the factors Magolda (2014) describes as hallmark to the crossroads stage
toward self-authorship. She acknowledges the role her colleagues of color played in her learning to
become an effective educator for her students of color, she describes the inner tension she felt over
being challenged and uncomfortable, and she demonstrates a reconciliation of the conflict between
the external formula she has always known and the new ways of knowing that her colleagues and
students taught her. She highlights this as the closest she has ever been to self-authorship, having
been engaged in critical work for five years.
Personal experiences. While working in this first teaching assignment, Rene met and
married her husband. Being white of Italian ancestry, it was expected, by her family, that she marry
someone who was also white of Italian ancestry, and she did. As they dated, married, and began
laying the foundations of their life, they decided to move back to the community both of them had
grown up in.
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My husband and I decided to move back to Orange County, back to the bubble. I
feel like when you reenter the bubble, you take up your privilege, and you are
happy with it. You just get kind of comfortable. You get back into the same routine,
and you just don’t even think about it because you're dealing with your day today.
This is Rene’s current position on the road to self-authorship. She knows her privilege has allowed
her to choose to live in a place and state of comfort, she knows she is capable of doing critical
work and affecting critical change, yet she finds herself struggling with choosing to step into the
unknown waters of being the only anti-racist white woman, that she knows of, in her home, in her
community, and in her work place.
Self-Authorship.
I’ve decided that I am on the crossroads. However, at one point I was moving
towards self-authorship, I was taking off, but I think I've digressed, almost to the
point of uncritically following the [external] formula. I was on the train before, then
I went away, then I got back on, now I’m away and I want to get back on.
This statement by Rene most clearly expresses her acknowledgement of her starts and restarts as
she has gained a deeper understanding of the waters she navigates. As an educator, she wants
equity in her schools and community, but she understands the risk and the cost.
I have a lot of questions. How do I choose the path? On days where I feel like, I’m
just gonna go along with the dominant culture, I have to constantly remind myself
to stay on the path even though it is difficult. Am I going to make people
uncomfortable? Are people not going to like me? I am not sure. If you think about it
as a competition for resources, [right now] we are making sure that we win, and
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that our kids win. It’s like a survival tactic. If we take away the balance that we
know, and we don’t have the upper hand, what happens to our advantages? Do we
survive?
Rene’s current reality is different than that of her pivotal crossroads experiences. She now works
and resides in a predominately upper middle class white community and works as an instructional
coach with predominantly white upper middle class female teachers. The district she works in has
been experiencing a student demographic shift away from predominantly upper middle class white
students to a growing population of students in poverty, second language learners, and Latinx
students. After witnessing several microaggressive comments and behaviors among teachers
toward the non-white and/or socioeconomically disadvantaged students, Rene feels compelled to
engage in transformational resistance. However, as she indicates in her previous comments, she
feels unsure of herself and her ability to lead in this area. In college and in her first teaching
experience she was the one who was learning from the people around her. She was able to make
herself vulnerable as a learner and grown in this new knowledge, but in her current position, she is
the one that people are learning from. It is a new kind of vulnerability. She is the one who has to
step out in courage and attempt to bring people in without calling them out, as her colleagues once
did for her. She has to be confident in herself, her position, and her own understanding in order to
be self authored and step out into transformational resistance. She, personally, has a lot at stake: she
has built her life in this community, she owns a home and has a good job, her husband is not on a
path toward self-authorship, and this is a way of life that she is comfortable in and familiar with.
However, she knows that socially there is also a lot at stake. She hears microaggressions everyday
at work, she sees a disparity in achievement between white students and students of color, and as a
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woman she has tasted some of the discrimination that she knows others live with daily. As she
indicates, she has many questions, and associated feelings, that she is working through to meet her
goal of getting there. In the words of Maya Angelou, “The cost is high, the reward is great”
(Spragins, 2008).
Reconciling feelings. Rene speaks often about the fear and uncomfortability of “rocking
the boat,” a term she uses to conceptualize the deconstruction of whiteness in a predominantly
white home, work place, and community. Her prior experiences with questioning social norms
with other white people has resulted in these residual fears about “rocking the boat.”
When I tested the waters with my family it rocked the boat. They didn’t like to be
asked these questions, so how do we do that at work, too? It’s hard because I know
what [transformational resistance] could be like and I feel worse about myself for
taking the easy path.
This honest self evaluation outlines Rene’s fears and struggles with taking up the charge of
reconstructing her own whiteness and helping others do the same. Her early attempts to do so in
loving familial relationships were difficult, at best, and she struggles with taking that charge into
her workplace. The previous quote also reveals Rene’s struggles with “white guilt.” Rene builds
upon this feeling of guilt associated with her whiteness being revealed, “When you become aware
and your whiteness is not invisible anymore, you feel guilty. You don’t want to offend anybody.
How do you come to terms with that?” Fortunately, Tochluk (2010) writes extensively about the
depth and complexity of white guilt and offers personal and research-based strategies for
overcoming the negative side effects of white guilt. In Rene’s case, she is continuing to work on
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growing her own positive anti-racist white identity through purposeful and intentional interactions
with people,
I realize I need to be able to start these conversations in my own home. I need to at
least start there. If I can’t even convince my own husband that these issues exist,
and that we should care about them, how am I going to convince teachers that I
work with? The steps to go there are to have open and vulnerable conversations.
Reconciling values. Rene talked about her experiences reconciling her values with the
values of others. As described earlier, she viewed her early charity work as opportunity to give
other communities what her community had. Her community was defined by pretty houses on
vegetation lined streets occupied by well dressed blonde people. When she began teaching in Los
Angeles, her students helped her realize that that was not everyone's value for what a community
should look like. Additionally, she has a friend whose career has helped shed light on the reality of
her own community,
I have a friend who travels all over working for the CDC. I see her pictures and I
hear her stories and I realize, this place [where I live] is not real. Well it is real but
it’s not the only reality. How do we have a more global experiences within our
pretty little streets? How do we educate our students that this is not everybody’s
reality? That other realities that don’t look like this aren’t “bad.” It’s not that they
need our help to achieve this, they don’t want this. I didn’t even realize that until I
got to that first class with my students and they were like, “We’re good. We like our
life. I like where I live. My parents like their job. This is our community. What’s
wrong with this, Miss?” And I realized, “I guess you’re right, there isn’t anything
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wrong with it.” It’s just different.
Since Rene has experienced this particular reconciliation, she identifies it as need in her community
and workplace. Many of the microaggressions that were discussed by the group were aligned with
this theme of devaluing families, homes, and communities that did not “look” like the community
Rene describes. This is one area that Rene feels confident in addressing with the teachers she
coaches because it is one facet of whiteness that she feels confident in questioning with her peers.
Reconstructing worldview. Beginning in her early teaching experiences and through the
reconciliation of some of her dominant values with the values of other communities, Rene has also
begun the process of reconstructing her worldview and is bringing this into her work in three
important areas.
We have to be aware that inequality exists, that the dominant culture is not the only reality,
it is hard, it is uncomfortable, it involves fear, it is unknown. It’s all about the level of
uncomfortability we are willing to feel, and to make others feel... Right now some people
think [culturally relevant teaching] is just having a diverse classroom library. We have to
have conversations about how that is great place to start, but are you living it? Do you
believe it? Are you promoting it in your classroom? But they don’t value it. It is a big racial
and political issue right now. They don’t value what their [Spanish speaking students’]
parents contribute to our society.
In this complex statement, Rene is demonstrating her reconstructed worldview. There was a time
when she was not aware that inequality existed, when she was not aware that the dominant culture
was not the only reality, when she did not value other communities. However, because she has
deconstructed and reconstructed these areas through her own personal experiences, she feels
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empowered as a coach to lead others in the areas of deconstructing dominant culture norms,
curricular representation, and deficit mindsets toward non dominant cultures. This empowerment of
the experienced is exactly what Vygotsky (1978) meant when he talked about the expert-novice
learning relationship that the coaching position is built upon. It would be a lost opportunity if Rene
expected herself to be a completely formed anti-racist political activist before she could begin
coaching others in anti-racist praxis, because that may never happen. Rene can begin her work in
the areas she had already been developed in and through her continued personal learning, can
continue to take others deeper as well.
Transformational Resistance. Now that Rene is re-entering the early stages of
self-authorship, she is also taking intentional action at home and at work that are in line with
transformational resistance. Solorzano and Bernal (2001) describe an individual in this stage as
someone who is “at least somewhat” aware of socially oppressive structures and motivated for
social change. Rene’s focus is also aligned with the CHAT components of subjects and rules. She
intends to reconstruct the relationship, and normative expectations and attitudes, between people
and their roles in her home as well as her schools.
Resistance at home. Rene talked quite a bit about how her views were, more and more,
diverging from those of her family; most critically from those of her husband. She had been
reluctant to even tell her husband about her participation in the group because she rationalized that
it would be “pointless” because “he would never get it.” After one member commented about how
she at least felt effective in her home, and that helped her feel more confident at work, Rene
decided, as previously quoted, that she needed to start the conversations in her home. Her hope is
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that she will be able to get her husband to understand her worldview, to gain him as a pillar of
support, and to build confidence in engaging in critical, and sometimes difficult, discourse.
Resistance at work. Rene feels most confident in addressing microaggressions that
marginalize the diverse families, homes, communities, and contributions of students of color. She
also feels empowered to help teachers become more culturally relevant by including opportunities
for diverse representation in curriculum and other instructional materials. She acknowledges that
there is much more to learn and she has committed to building her own awareness in order to be
able to lead others in the same transformation,
That's the first step, noticing the times when you could take a stand. Maybe before you
didn’t even notice the times you could have taken a stand. Then once we become more of
aware of what is happening around us, then we can start deciding what actions we need to
take when those situations come up, and then we can take a stand...Also, I think since
we’ve started having these conversations, I feel better able to say what I think against the
established opinion at the lunch table, or in meetings, or during trainings.
Using the group as a support system, sounding board, and learning resources, Rene is working
toward building her awareness and understanding of the complex systems and structures in place.
As mentioned previously, as Rene becomes more and more self-authored in the many facets of
having a positive anti-racist white identity, she will have growing opportunities to act in
transformational resistance.
Next steps. Rene’s final reflective statement sums up her personal next steps. She
emphasizes the importance of surrounding yourself with critical peers so that you can confidently
step out and lead others.
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I digressed and it mostly has to do with location and the people I’ve surrounded myself
with. I’m knowingly comfortable. I bought a home here and I am not going to be moving.
I’m working in my district, with this group of children. So, now how can I take action so
that more people know that we do have this power and privilege that was given to us
through this system that we have created?...I think it is important to have groups like this,
where you talk about things, and keep this stuff at the forefront. So it doesn't get pushed
down, and we get lost in the flowers again. It’s an open forum for conversation. It is one
mode to make sure that we are working toward balance.
Mia: Finding my Voice
I feel like I am at a point where I can’t be quiet anymore and I want to find my voice ... I
feel like if I could find my voice, the confidence will come with it... I think part of it is
being Ok with being vulnerable. I feel like this journey is similar to yoga, it’s a practice,
you work at constantly getting better.
Mia, who found herself immersed in critical work early on in her career, and maintained for
over a decade, has only recently found herself in a position of having to confront the painful reality
of inequality in the classroom after relocating to a new school district. She is in her fourth year in
her current position, her seventh year as an instructional coach. She decided to join the affinity
group because she knew from past experiences that she needed to have the support of like-minded
anti-racist white peers in order to be able to challenge herself in growth toward self-authorship,
what she calls “finding her voice.”
Seeing the external formula. Mia grew up in the middle class white neighborhood that
she now resides in with her husband and two elementary school-aged sons. She began her career
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teaching in a more diverse school district in central Orange County for ten years. She currently
works as an instructional coach in the south Orange County school district where she grew up and
where her sons attend school. She has a unique and longevous perspective of her community
having been a student, teacher, and parent there. She notices that change has been happening,
slowly over time, and is trying to ensure that her sons have experiences that are different from her
own. Throughout her reflections, she recounted the numerous experiences she had where she
could have developed an anti-racist praxis earlier but was unaware of the covert racism that was
shepherding her.
I remember when I was a little girl I had a best friend, she was a new best friend at my
school, and she was African-American. Back then, I didn't know that she was African
American, I didn’t know what that was. All I knew was that she had different hair than me
and different skin color. I knew that because I was observant. I didn't see her in a way of
being different, in any way that was bad. I just remember loving her hair because I wished
my hair would make those little curls like her hair did. I don't remember exactly how it
happened, but someone in my life brought to my attention that she was African-American,
but they didn’t use that term. I was told that I shouldn’t be friends with her. Then,
something happened at school and her parents moved her from the school and I never saw
her again. That was my first time...the first time I ever…[realized there were unspoken
rules]. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t play with her. I didn’t understand it. She was a
person. It didn’t make sense to me. Now as an adult I realize that was a significant time
where I started realizing that because she didn’t look like me, there was a problem.
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At that young age, Mia, a self-proclaimed people pleaser and rule follower, never questioned the
underlying social formula that prevented her from keeping her new friend, she simply mourned the
loss of the girl and carried the confusion into adolescence.
In high school there was boy I had the biggest crush on. He was African American and he
was so cute and he was a junior. I remember being super conflicted because I already knew
I would never be able to bring him home to meet my family. But as I was reflecting for our
conversation today I was thinking, “Why did I know that? What made me feel that I
couldn’t bring him home?”
Here is where Mia began to connect that there were many unspoken rules about people and their
positions that had been subtly communicated to her throughout her developing years. While she
didn’t internalize the rules and view Black people as less than herself, she knew enough to not
pursue relationships with people of color for fear of her family’s reaction. It wasn’t until college
that Mia began to see the water that shaped her worldview and question the unspoken and subtle
racism she had experienced.
When I went to college I took a multicultural class. I had this moment while taking that
class, where I looked around, and I was the minority in the room for the first time, there
were not a lot of white kids in the room. I was asking myself, “Why am I learning this stuff
now? Why wasn’t I taught this in my high school? I don’t get it.” I was brought up in the
white Christian view that “this is how it is.” So, in that class, I had this moment of
realization that my entire belief system growing up might not be right. I began questioning
everything,
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Mia went on to explain that her questioning was not well received by her mother and has,
over the years, created a sometimes tense relationship between them. Mia struggles with wanting to
engage in critical dialogue with her mom but cannot find a way to get her mom to see the water.
I have this ongoing conversation with my mom, where I want her to ask me questions...so
she’ll understand, because she will automatically vote one way because her (political) party
is telling her to do that or because she thinks that is the way she is supposed to vote.
Mia has identified “asking questions,” or cognitive coaching, as a starting point strategy for
beginning non-threatening dialogue and is hoping to get her mom to engage back in the same way.
Mia has begun using this strategy not only with her mom, but in her personal growth and
professional encounters as well.
Pivotal crossroads experiences. Mia identifies the multicultural class during her preservice
teaching training as the starting point of her crossroads experiences. This is when she began to see
that many of the rules she had followed as a child and young adult where from a dominant
perspective that subverted non-white people and groups. While she had not internalized these
views, she started to understand her role in them and wanted to work against deficit worldviews
while still learning of the depth and complexity of dominant culture norms. She accomplished this
throughout her early teaching experiences.
Professional experiences.
After I got my teaching credential, I started working in a Title 1 school district. The school I
was working at was 90% Hispanic, maybe 8% various Asian cultures, and 2% white. And
every single one of our teachers were white and blonde, minus one. All of the parents
respected us as professionals, as educators, not necessarily because I was white. I felt it was
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because I am an educator and that is how their culture views educators. They looked at
the teachers like, “you are teaching my children and I am holding you up as high as a
professor or a doctor.”
Mia found herself immersed in classrooms filled with ethnically and socioeconomically
diverse students that were thriving under the educational guidance of white culturally relevant
teachers. She describes the high expectations the teachers held for their students, the positive
relationship between the parents and the school staff, and the mindset that bilingualism and
multiculturalism were strengths that the students brought to the classroom. As a developing teacher,
and eventually as an instructional coach, she became a part of this culture and internalized these
worldviews as an educator. After ten years of commuting, she decided to take a coaching position
closer to home in south Orange County as her own sons began to attend school and participate in
extracurricular activities in their home community.
When I started working down south I assumed that everyone, the schools and the teachers
here would be somewhat the same. I had this really weird culture shock where we have
Title 1 schools and non-Title 1 schools. The non-Title 1 schools look at the Title 1 schools
as an us versus them because they have money from the state to work with those kids. I
miss my other District in that way because even though we did have a couple of non Title 1
schools there it wasn't an “us-versus-them” it was “what can we do for our kids?” There’s a
difference in how the white teachers [where I work now] look at the different races. They
see them as the haves and the have-nots. They roll their eyes and say, “The state had to
give you money.” It hurts my feelings because I still feel attached to my families and the
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kids from [my previous district] and I want to say, “No, no, no, don’t you understand why
they have this money?”
Mia was able to reach a stage of self-authorship without as much of the usual inner turmoil
because she hadn’t fully internalized the external formula about the supremacy of the white race
over others. However, one aspect of the external formula that she has a hard time battling is the
expectation that as a white woman she is to be “quiet and agreeable.” This unspoken expectation is
likely what has formed her into a people pleasing rule follower. This is Mia’s current reality. She is
caught in the middle of knowing what is right and having the courage to “speak truth to bullshit” as
she quotes Brene Brown’s (2017) memorable line from Braving the Wilderness .
Self-Authorship. Mia’s self-authorship is best captured in a poem she wrote during a
language arts demonstration lesson she taught recently with a fifth grade class. The objective of the
lesson was for students to begin to see and understand different points of view. She asked the
students to take the poem “I, Too, Sing America” by Langston Hughes and exchange his
perspective of being American with their own perspective of being American. Mia’s own
adaptation says:
I am a woman.
They always expected me to be quiet and agreeable
When around others who use words as weapons,
But I struggled
And searched
And found MY voice.
Tomorrow,
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I’ll not be quiet and agreeable
When around others who use words as weapons.
Nobody will dare
Say to me,
“Your voice doesn’t count,”
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see that I am not alone in this fight
And be filled with wonder at how loud we can be!
I, too, am America
In this poem she captures the struggle she feels about finding and using her voice to battle the
microaggressive words she hears. She also identifies the strength that comes from engaging in this
battle with others, in reference to her first teaching partners and her current membership in the
affinity group.
Reconciling feelings. When discussing feelings of guilt with Rene, Mia acknowledged
feeling guilty but identified that hers had less to do with identifying as white and more to do with
what she was going to do about it.
I think my feeling guilty comes from feeling like I could be doing more. Last night my
husband and I were filling out our voter form and we were trying to figure out how to use
our vote to accomplish something. More than just talk about it, how else can I be doing
something? It’s not enough to just sit around and talk about it. What are we going to do?
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Mia’s guilt stems from her inner critique of social oppression and motivation toward social justice,
her position within transformational resistance. She further expresses this mounting motivation
toward action when she described an experience where she reconciled her position in her
community.
Reconciling values.
Growing up in this community, being white, female, and attractive, I got things other
people didn’t get. For example, in high school if I was struggling in certain
classes, I would get extra help from certain teachers, where other students wouldn't get it,
because I was cute. When I did see that I kind of played on it because I was getting the
help I needed and it worked. But it’s not right. Now as a teacher, I realize how wrong this
is. You can’t give preferential treatment based on how someone looks or what race they are
or what background they are. So I guess I feel like I am constantly battling myself that I
should be doing more awareness work in our community and having those difficult
conversations with the teachers that I work with. That's where I am at. I am recognizing
things around me. Because I was raised in the dominant culture, sometimes I don’t even
notice things or know what to say.
In this statement Mia is honestly acknowledges that there are ways in which the dominant culture
has benefitted, and continues to benefit, her; even in ways that she is not yet aware of.
Furthermore, she concedes that seeing the water and knowing how to respond is a constant
learning opportunity that she has to commit herself to. In spite of the challenge, she is motivated by
her self-authored worldview to continue.
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Reconstructing worldview. In a conversation about how to deconstruct your worldview, or
lead other in doing so, Mia offered insight from her own experiences in deconstructing and
reconstructing what she believed to be true.
You have to take a moment to think critically whenever you come up against something
that is different than what you believe. Acknowledge that it is different than what you have
always thought. Ask yourself, “Why am I am uncomfortable with this?” Take a moment to
do that. Why don’t we do that? Not everyone gets to have conversations like this [group
meeting]. The ability to think past these situations that will help us move and grow. Not that
you are going to be persuaded to think like someone else, but it’s an opportunity to open
yourself up to what other people are experiencing and going through and understanding
that your view is not the “right” view, nor is it the only view.
Mia shares that her self-authorship was born out of her ability to think critically about herself and
her feelings. She questioned her discomfort instead of giving in to it and was able to adopt a
worldview that has room for other truths. It is in the shifting of mindsets and worldviews that Mia
continually situated her engagement in transformational resistance.
Transformational Resistance. Mia’s critique of social oppression and motivation for
social justice vibrates from her body when she speaks to the group. She wants to act and has found
her starting point in using her voice to question the social rules across lines of ethnicity, gender, and
social class both in her home and her work place—in “speaking truth to bullshit” (Brown, B.,
2017).
Resistance at home. Mia has identified her home as both a place of critical work, in her
sons, and one of safe refuge, in her relationship with her husband. She and her husband are able to
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engage in critical dialogue with one another and often agree with each other’s self-authored
worldview. They are committed to raising their white sons to neither conform nor contribute to the
dominant culture norms. Many of the group meetings took place in Mia’s home and at the
conclusion of some of the meetings, Mia’s husband and sons joined the conversation with
questions and comments about pieces of the group discussion.
Resistance at work. Mia’s resistance work at her school sites is more challenging than that
which takes place at home. Mia witnesses microaggressive behaviors and comments about students
with disabilities, second language learners, socioeconomically disadvantaged students, and
non-white students.
In my district we have high populations of hispanic students and Vietnamese students but
the teachers don’t see them equally as English language learners, they see them as two
completely different things. They blame a lot of [the Vietnamese students’ lower
performance] on agent-orange exposure, and they believe the Hispanic students inherently
have lower IQs. It is so egregious. To the point where we have to go back to square one
and address these low expectations they have for their students. How do we as coaches,
shift the practice in the classroom? How do we take who we work with now and move
them forward? Because when we talk about first best teaching, it’s teaching to all of our
students. It feels like a daunting task.
In this summary of the problem, Mia connects teacher beliefs and attitudes about students with their
subsequent academic expectations for them. She understands that in order to change a teacher’s
expectations of her students, she first needs to address the underlying beliefs and attitudes they hold
about the students and their families. She further explains,
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One teacher had taken her data and sorted her students into quadrants (well below, below,
meeting, exceeding). Then we had a conversation about her students in the quadrants. She
made note that she could have predicted who was going to be in the bottom half of the
quadrant, even without looking at the data, based on the fact that they were all ELLs, and
that all of the kids there had no supports at home and all the other kids do. To me, that was
a microaggression because she believes that all these students parents’ and their culture
don’t value school and that the only reason these students were in these lower parts of the
quadrant was because they don’t have support at home.
Mia tackles these conversations with her cognitive coaching questioning strategy in an attempt to
help the teacher see the stereotypes and biases in their statements without having to bring them to
light herself directly, something the group called “bringing them in without calling them out”.
Inwardly, Mia struggles with publically positioning herself as a positive white anti-racist educator
and not just as someone who is attempting to be “politically correct”.
It makes me upset that say stuff like that to me like I am going to agree with them. I have to
say, “No you can’t speak like that to me about children.” I feel like if I could read their
brain, they’re thinking, “but you’re white?” That’s why we have to be one of the major
voices that says something because they will assume that since we are white we will think
like them.
She wants to shift people away from just saying the right thing in order to be politically correct
toward believing and living the truth about different ethnic and racial groups. She wants them to
see that there is a different way to be white.
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Next steps. Mia articulated her next steps clearly in her poetry, “tomorrow, I’ll not be quiet
and agreeable”. Throughout our group learning she concluded that it is her responsibility to act on
the tension she feels mounting in her body.
We have to take a stand because neutrality only helps the oppressor, it never helps the
oppressed. It takes courage to have those conversations. As coaches we have to have those
courageous conversations with our teachers and be able to say, “I understand that you see it
that way, but I don’t see it that way, and that culture doesn’t see it that way.”
After one of the group conversations she began making journal entries for the microaggressions
she witnessed throughout her day and how she handled them so that she could reflect on it and
continue to grow in her confidence, one day at a time.
Andi: Staying at the Table
“When conversations need to be had, I want to stay at the table, even if it is hard, or
stressful, or any other negative feeling, just stay at the table. I feel like two years ago I could have
checked out, but I decided then and I’m committing now, to staying at the table.”
Andi, grew up in central Orange County during a time of major demographic change. Her
dad was a police officer in the town where they lived which influenced the schools she and her
siblings attended and the neighborhoods they were allowed to hang out it in, which were
predominantly white. She began her career teaching in an ethnically and linguistically diverse
school district in Los Angeles County, coincidentally in the town where her dad grew up. As a
divorced single mom of two girls, she moved to south Orange County five years ago to access
better resources for one of her daughters who is multiply disabled. She is in her third year in her
current position as an instructional coach. She decided to join the affinity group because she
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needed a brave space in which to engage in critical dialogue that would help her continue to grow
her positive white anti-racist identity and discuss ways in which that could be brought into her
work as an instructional coach.
Seeing the external formula. Andi lived and attended school in a large city in central
Orange County. Due to its size, the city experienced self-segregated micro communities within the
city where white people lived together, Hispanic people lived together, and Vietnamese people
lived together and there was very little cross over. Andi and her family lived in the white
community and navigated the school system to maintain enrollment in the predominantly white
schools, mostly due to the gang activity that was erupting at the other schools. This navigation of
the school system often involved bussing provided by the school district or public transportation,
and many of Andi’s white friends were all on the busses together. This self-segregation created an
environment in which Andi never really had experiences, let alone relationships, with people of
color throughout her K-12 schooling.
My only experience [with race or racism in my early years] was in fifth grade when
the Rodney King trials ended. I was allowed to stay up late to watch the news. On the
news they were saying, "Black people are rioting...and the Black people are
retaliating...and the Black people are...breaking into stores and stealing stuff..." And when
you’re a kid, looking back now, the news was the truth. They're saying there are Black
people doing this, now I'm seeing Black people do this and I remember being really
disturbed by it. I was wondering why they would destroy their own community over
a court decision they didn’t agree with. I wrote an essay about it, in response to what
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I was seeing, kind of like a reflection, my own little news report. My mom was super proud
of it. So she wrote a note to my teacher saying that I had written this report and that she
wanted to share it with her. So my teacher, an older white woman, also really liked it and
had me read it out loud to the class. I remember there was one boy in our class, who was
half Samoan and half Black and when I read this thing out loud, he got super mad. I
remember being in the front of the whole class and he was just yelling at me, “You keep
saying ‘Black people’ are doing this and that, and you’re generalizing it to all Black
people.” I remember just standing in front of the whole class having no idea what he was
talking about or what he was so mad about, because I had watched THE NEWS! I had
only reported the things I was told and was shown. These were the facts from THE
NEWS! I just didn’t understand what he was so mad about. It wasn’t until much, much,
much later that I realized the intersection of race, and police, and my home, and being
white, and my dad being a cop, and the media coverage, what they chose to show versus
what wasn’t shown or communicated, and what I didn’t yet understand.
From there, Andi adopted the popular position of “color blindness” in which one chooses to not
see race, they concentrate instead on just seeing people. She reasons that it stemmed from a place
of love for people and discomfort at wanting to never have an experience like that again. She
maintained this position throughout middle school, high school, and college and never had to come
face to face with the reality of racism until she began her teaching career.
Pivotal crossroads experiences. It was during her post-baccalaureate studies that Andi
began to have experiences with people of color who eventually exposed her to the systems and
structures of power and racism; a reality that once realized, Andi could no longer idly ignore.
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Professional experiences. Andi taught in a private Christian school during her teacher
preparation program and did most of her student teaching in that environment. In tandem with
receiving her teaching credential, she received the APLE (Assumption Program for Loans in
Education) Scholarship that would pay her student loans if she worked for four years in a Title I
school. So, Andi left the private school to begin teaching in a public Title I school.
My first several years of teaching were in a district in Los Angeles County. The district was
mostly Hispanic students, we’d have a couple blonde kids in our classes each year and a
couple Black students each year. One year, I had a Black student in my class when I was
teaching fifth grade. Looking back now, I was clueless about the way I was being
perceived. So, different kids would get in trouble and have their consequences, and I didn’t
think too much about it. One day, this Black student’s mom wanted to have a conference
with me. At the conference she accused me of being racist, of picking on her son, and
constantly disciplining him because he was Black and I was white. I remember being
dumbfounded, because in my mind racism didn’t exist anymore and I knew in my heart I
wasn’t treating anybody differently. At that time I had no idea that this whole system and
structure existed and that her whole life experience had probably been going through
situations like this. I told her I was uncomfortable with the meeting and that we could
continue to talk with my administrator present, who was also a white woman. We did
continue the conversation and by the end of the school year she apologized to me for the
accusations and we were able to repair the relationship. But the whole experience was a
shock to me, that she thought racism still existed.
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While this experience was shocking and memorable for Andi, it only served to further her belief
that race and racism should not be discussed, or made relevant, in the classroom. It wasn’t until she
was able to have safe personal conversations with some critical white peers, and peers of color, that
she was able to see that color blindness was a form racism.
Experiences with other white people. One important relationship for Andi is with her
brother who is now a police officer in the same town where they grew up, where their dad had also
been a police officer.
My youngest brother is now a police officer and he was telling me about how in his line of
work, the most tension lies between him and people of color. The tension is not necessarily
toward one another but it exists between one another. He told me about a time when he
had sat down with an African American man, not a colleague but someone he had come
across while on duty, and he spent time listening to that person explain themselves
(in relation to him and the tension) for an hour. All he did was sit and listen. And he said, “I
walked away with such a better understanding of where he was coming from and how he
perceived me as a white police officer. Not that I felt he had an accurate perception of me,
because some of the things he was saying aren’t me, but just to know that that is how I am
being perceived was powerful.” Then he said, “I gained even more respect for the man
because then he wanted to sit and listen to me, for an hour, explain my perception of him.”
He told me the only way to even begin to understand one another is to start talking about it,
and more importantly, to listen. I really respect both of them for that.
Andi’s brother, and his critical stance about police work partnered with hers as an educator,
is a safe place to deconstruct the dominant culture norms, and associated “truths” they were raised
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in. While they don’t always align politically, they are able to listen to and accept one another and
they have both taken those skills into their personal lives and workplaces.
Experiences with people of color. Having been raised by a cop in a city heavy with gang
violence, Andi’s understanding of non-white people and non-white communities was that, at best,
she was not welcome, and at worst, they were violent and dangerous. It took a willing friend of
color to help her navigate new experiences that would allow her to break down some of her
stereotyped understandings.
I have a friend I met in college that is African American, and one year he took me out
for my birthday. I had always wanted to eat at Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles in
Downtown LA but I was always too afraid. Having been married to a white man, and then
as a single white woman, it was not a place I was ever comfortable going to. He repeated
his trademark line, “Girl, I got you,” and he took me there. Leading up to it, I was nervous
and I asked him, “Are people going to look at me funny? Are people going to look at us
funny?” because I knew if we were to hang out at a predominantly white place, people
would raise their eyebrows. So I asked him, “Is your community going to look at us the
same way?” He responded honestly with, “Probably,” so I said, “Ok.” When we went, I
was always looking around, wondering what people were thinking, and I asked him, “Is
this what it feels like for you all the time?” and he responded, “Yep, pretty much,” and
again I was like, “Ok”.
Andi and this friend were able to have open and honest conversations, from both sides,
about being Black and being white, about their communities’ perception of each, about interracial
dating and how their families would respond, and how their identities influenced their roles as
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educators. Andi identifies this as one of the most important pieces for growing in her identity.
Simultaneously with these other experiences, Andi had one other major transformative experience
that really ignited her journey toward self-authorship.
My big aha moment, when I realized that this whole system of power and privilege existed,
was two years ago when I attended a training on culturally responsive teaching. We went
through all these activities that were just shocking to me. I had never heard the word
privilege before, I had never even heard that word before. We did the privilege walk, and
we did an activity where we had to write down all the stereotypes you know about
different groups of people and it was shocking to see how pervasive all of that
“knowledge” was, or those ideas were. I was mad, I was upset the whole time. I felt like
being white automatically meant I was racist and that having this privilege made me a bad
person. I remember during that two day training, just being pretty angry. It took me a long
time to get past that, well maybe not the anger, but the guilt or shame I felt about being
white. The gentleman that was leading it was a young African American man, and he stood
in front of the group and he said, “I am Black, I own my Blackness, I am proud to be
Black.” In my anger, I asked him, “What if I stood up in front of an entire room of Black
people and said ‘I am white, I own my whiteness, I am proud to be white.’ It would mean
something different. Why can you say that but I can’t?” I felt like there was this inequity
with being able to be proud of how you identify. He said, very patiently to me, “You are
absolutely right, there is a difference, there shouldn’t be a difference, but we are not at a
point where there can’t be a difference.” In reading more about it since then, researching
more, and looking at the history of it, what he was saying is that there shouldn’t be a
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difference but we aren’t there yet. I’ve learned a lot about what it means to have a positive
white anti-racist identity and I guess that is what I am striving for. To be able to say I am
white, and I am proud of it, and being white to me means being anti-racist and working to
close that gap and pay back the debt, but it’s not easy.
These transformative relationships and experiences caused Andi to start questioning what it means
to know something and what is considered truth. It was through this questioning, and reevaluation
of truth, that Andi was able to formulate her self-authored worldview.
Self-Authorship. As experienced by all affinity group members, when your self authored
worldview goes against the dominant culture norms, there are often relational consequences that
have to be navigated; loved ones who may not understand. In the story of Rene it was with her
husband, in the story of Mia it was with her mother, and in the story of Andi, it is with her dad.
Recently, I was watching the news with my dad and he was asking me “What do you think
about all of this?” and I responded, “Dad, I don’t want to engage in political conversation
with you.” He kept goading me by saying that at some point I needed to stand up for
myself and what I believe in, so I was like, “Ok. here’s, in general, what I believe. I
believe that our country was founded on the superiority of able-bodied, straight, white,
Christian, men, that’s the standard and anybody, or any group of people, who are not one
or all of those things have had to fight for equal rights.” He didn’t understand what I was
trying to say and he got really mad. He called me a “fucking liberal feminist bitch.” So, it’s
hard. It’s hard to stand up for yourself and others.
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In the past, this type of encounter would have caused Andi to retreat, to not engage in further
discussion, to keep quiet, to hide her feelings. However, this encounter has inspired what Andi
refers to as “staying at the table.”
Reconciling feelings. One of Andi’s biggest challenges in growing toward self-authorship
was the conflicting feelings about being white. She identifies it as one of the most difficult aspects,
but one of the most important to get through. As Paulo Freire (2000) explains, it is one of the most
important steps in rehumanizing the oppressed and the oppressor.
I was recently at a training and the facilitator said, “You can’t lead others where you
haven’t been.” So I'm glad now that I was able to have openly acknowledged all those
feelings I was having two years ago, because if someone is feeling guilt, or anger, or
frustration, or confusion, I felt all of those things, so maybe I can help people and not judge
them for feeling that way. The facilitator explained that sometimes you “step in it” and
that’s ok as long as you own your truth and you own your learning. Acknowledge when
you have been offended and also when you make a mistake. She called it “staying at the
table”; the more you learn, the more you realize how much work there is to be done, so
stay at the table.
In staying at the table, Andi has been able to reconstruct a positive white anti-racist identity and has
been inspired to help others do the same. However, at the same time acknowledges that sometimes
staying at the table is difficult.
It's hard. It’s hard to stand up for yourself and others. I just hope we can get people to see
that maybe this is a major piece that can change things in the right direction. But it’s
exhausting. Sometimes I wish I was just still ignorant. Ignorance is bliss right?
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Reconciling values. Another step in working toward self-authorship was in reconciling the
value of truth. As with her earliest experience in fifth grade, she had to come to terms with the
reality that what she considered truth, and sources of truth, may not always be the whole truth or
the only truth.
In one of the articles we read, “The Silenced Dialogue” by Lisa Delpit (1988), she talks
about being “vulnerable to allow our worlds to turn upside down.” I feel like that’s what
this whole process has been like for me, being vulnerable enough to accept that what I
know may not be the only way of knowing or the only truth that exists.
This was the pivotal piece of Andi’s self-authorship journey, the willingness to be vulnerable
enough to stay at the table and not retreat, to see beyond her own perspective, to abandon
comfortable ideas of absolute truth, and to reconstruct an inclusive worldview.
Reconstructing worldview. Andi identifies that her early experiences with avoiding race
and racism, adopting a colorblind stance, and having limited or nonexistent experiences with
diverse people, is not unique to her but is common among white people who were born and raised
in Orange County. What is unique were the opportunities to have those critical experiences and to
be willing to think flexibly as an adult.
Nowadays, we teach our students to consider other points of view, but when and
how are we teaching the adults? That’s what started that fight with my dad. I was
trying to explain the Indian parable of the blind men and the elephant that we teach
our second graders. In the parable, five blind men are going to experience an
elephant for the first time. The first man touches the elephant's tail and says
elephants are like a rope, the second man touches the elephant’s ear and says
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elephants are like a fan, the third man touches the elephants side and says elephants
are like sandpaper, the fourth man touches the elephant's tusk and says elephants
are like spears, and the fifth man touches the elephant's trunk and says elephants are
like hoses. They all argue because they think they are right and the others are wrong. So I
tried to explain to my dad that we are all talking about the same elephant and we can
probably all agree that that immigration is a problem, whether you see it as the immigrants
are the problem or the way they are being treated is the problem. We can all agree that the
national deficit is a problem, and we can all agree that racism is a problem: we are all
talking about the same elephant. But you as a seventy year old white male retired police
officer from the suburbs of Los Angeles and me as a younger white female teacher in
southern California, we are going to experience and understand that elephant differently.
It’s not that one of is right and one of us is wrong. We are bringing so much to
understanding that elephant, like the blind men had their own past experiences and
they were only touching their own part of the elephant. But to my dad, an elephant
is an elephant, there is no other way of seeing it. He has this idea of absolute truth.
But he can only ever experience the elephant from the perspective of a white male
police officer. He can’t understand that as a white female teacher I might see it
differently. I believe you have to have space in your truth for other people’s truths.
This anecdote illustrates Andi’s self-authored worldview where she uses the elephant analogy to
capture what Fatehi and Tate (2014) refer to as epistemological heterogeneity in which individuals
and groups within and across cultures can develop different understandings from the same
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information based on their own emotions and experiences. This worldview is what inspires Andi’s
work in transformational resistance both at work and at home.
Transformational Resistance. Andi’s critique of social oppression and motivation for
social change has a platform in her role as a single mother to two girls, as the parent of a special
needs child, and as an instructional coach in a white suburban school district.
Resistance at home. Similar to Mia, Andi is determined that her daughters will have
different experiences and opportunities for self-authored understandings that will allow them to
have a more inclusive and empowered worldview, not only for people who are different from
them, but for themselves as women as well. One way this manifests in the stories Andi shared
about her daughters is in her youngest daughter’s questions that challenge some of the stereotypical
gender roles she experiences at school and with her grandparents, versus those that she witnesses
or experiences with her mom. Andi answers the questions in a way that acknowledges the
differences but encourage her daughter to decide for herself what she wants her role as a woman to
be. Secondly, as the parent of a disabled child, Andi hopes to help both her daughters see one
another equitably by focusing on the value of each of their abilities and challenges while
encouraging them to help educate their peers about disability and disability stereotypes.
Resistance at work. As an instructional coach, Andi focuses her resistance work on
shifting mindsets and changing instructional practices. While Mia focuses her work on using her
voice to address microaggressions head on, Andi hopes to do the same in a more veiled way with
what she calls her “hidden objective”. When designing professional development opportunities in
various content areas, Andi tries to weave in images, information, and/or conversation starters that
reflect her worldview in an effort to begin to engage teachers in critical dialogue and expose
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unchecked biases. Andi uses this strategy because she knows, from first hand experience, that
many of the teachers she works with don’t know that they carry these biases around with them,
and hopes that this is another way to “bring them in without calling them out.”
Secondly, Andi is interested in instructional practices that may be oppressive and/or
liberatory. For example, she highlights her own learning in the area of oppressive versus liberatory
language instruction.
In her book, Delpit (2006) talks about how some of our instructional strategies, like
whole-language, and process writing, are actually really only good for white students if
they are not used in conjunction with explicit instruction in the English Language. That’s
why the framework calls for balanced literacy because when you teach whole language or
process writing, you’re assuming that the kids were coming to school with an
understanding of standard English. Delpit (2006) says we are just creating opportunities for
white kids to demonstrate what they already know while holding students of color and
second language learners accountable for things they haven’t been taught. I can see that this
is true in my work as a teacher and as an instructional coach. I grew up during a time of
whole language instruction and I began my career teaching with a whole language
approach. It wasn’t until my Master’s program that I learned about explicit phonics
instruction and saw my students thriving under it. Even then I didn’t really see it as a
liberatory practice until I became aware of the systems of oppression. It was a long
journey for me. As a coach, it’s difficult to get others there as well.
In this reflection on practice and professional learning, Andi is demonstrating what Zaretta
Hammond (2015) says is the most critical work of a culturally relevant teacher, in providing
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students what they need in order to be successful; in this case, a teacher who is willing to shift
traditional instructional practices toward those that fill gaps in learning and make achievement more
equitable.
Next steps. As with all the group members, Andi recognizes that there is still work to be
done internally with her developing positive white anti-racist identity as well as in her role as an
instructional coach.
Something kept coming up for me, that I heard someone say recently, which was that
“it’s not about being woke, it’s about being awakened” it’s not like all of a sudden you’re
woke, it’s a slow process to being awakened. The more you get into it, you realize the
more work there is to be done, not only for yourself but also for your community. To me,
that means I need to continue to work on myself so that I can continue to have an impact on
my community.
This is where Andi commits to staying at the table and continuing to grow as an individual and an
educator so that she can alter the pattern she had been a part of, and effect positive change within
her spheres of influence.
Summary
This chapter detailed the process, and individual journeys, that an affinity group of
instructional coaches navigated as they developed toward self-authorship and transformational
resistance. While no two stories are alike, they can all be traced along the theoretical framework of
the study and all emerged through the Freirean (2000) problem posing methods process. The next,
and final, chapter formulates the group learning into implications for practice and recommendations
for future research.
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CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION
Introduction
This study answered the call put forth by Ladson-Billings (2006) to focus on addressing
white teacher pedagogy in response to the persistent underachievement of students of color;
specifically in culturally mismatched states, such as California, where there are high populations of
white female educators and high populations of students of color and second language learners.
The problem addressed is that when a teacher has not sufficiently deconstructed what it means to
be a privileged member of the white dominant culture, they often address the needs of their
students of color with a deficit mindset and pedagogy that is not culturally relevant. As
Ladson-Billings (2006) further posits, teacher pedagogy that is not culturally relevant, and
instructional practices that reflect a deficit mindset toward students of color, perpetuate social deficit
mindsets toward minorities and exacerbate the education debt.
The review of literature showed that when students are not achieving as expected, one
response is teacher professional development to improve instructional practices; one
research-supported approach to teacher professional development is instructional coaching (Pelayo,
et al., 2012). Instructional coaching, as a model of professional development, is built upon the
social learning theories of Vygotsky (1978) in that an expert guides a novice to new learning
through collaborative partnership. In this model, the coach must first have deconstructed their own
white identity in order to lead teachers through the same processes.
In their study on instructional coaching, Tompkins and Ward (n.d.) asserted that coaching
for equity can be difficult to manage due to the controversial, and uncomfortable, topics of race and
racism. Although difficult to manage, they assert that coaching for equity can be an effective
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avenue through which to raise teachers’ awareness of students’ needs, and develop action steps to
meet those needs (Tompkins & Ward, n.d.). However, Freire (2000) stipulates that for liberation
and transformation to take place, the teacher must be made aware of their position of power,
identify their own biases, and work with their students to co-create understandings and action
steps.
In response to this, the present study explored how instructional coaching can be used to
create equitable learning for all students; specifically, how instructional coaching is used to
deconstruct whiteness in suburban classrooms. The following are the implications for practice for
instructional coaches that emerged from the study design and findings, as well as suggestions for
further research on the topic of coaching for equity.
Implications for Practice
Tompkins and Ward (n.d.) state that, “of all the elements of the coaching model, coaching
for equity proved to be the most difficult to enact” (p. 6). However, they go on to state that, when
enacted, coaching for equity can lead “to changed teacher assumptions and greater access for all
students” (p. 6). This study focused on both the challenge, and the hope, Tompkins and Ward’s
(n.d.) study identified. The challenge was to formulate a process through which coaches could
engage in dialogue around deconstructing whiteness and establishing culturally relevant pedagogy
as a preparatory measure to lead teachers through the same process. The hope was to begin to see a
change in educator assumptions about students of color, and second language learners, and
subsequent improvement in student achievement for these marginalized groups.
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Through Freirean problem posing methods, a process organically emerged from the study.
The following is a description of that process, an identification of essential elements of the process,
and recommendations for implementation of the process.
Description of the Process
As demonstrated in Chapter Four, over the course of the six meetings a pattern in the group
learning process emerged. The process was to ask questions, read intentionally, learn openly, and
act accordingly. This process was aligned with Freirean problem posing methods in which we
asked questions, researched, engaged in dialogue, and co-constructed knowledge in order to
address a relevant problem (Freire, 2000). It was also aligned with the theoretical framework of the
study in such a way that the problem we were addressing was how to use the emergent strategies
of intentional personal interactions and dialogue to move individuals through the stages of
self-authorship, toward the tenets of transformational resistance, and challenge the social rules
around race (Bernal & Solorzano, 2001; Brown, 2017; Foot, 2014; Porfilio & Malott, 2011).
Finally, the process was aligned with liberatory rehumanization in that it did not end with
participant learning, it incorporated the planning of actions steps for the participants to take in
response to their new understandings (Freire, 2000; Tochluk, 2010).
Each piece of the process holds its own implications for coaches when engaging in
dialogue for equitable teaching practices and student learning.
● Ask Questions: This part of the process is constant and ongoing as participants read,
dialogue, challenge one another’s thinking, and co-construct knowledge. The questions
guide both the dialogue and the direction of group learning. Furthermore, all types of
questions were asked, and honored, including how questions, why questions, and what
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questions. These questions also ranged in scope within the social ecology concept map. For
example, we asked how we could address microaggressive behaviors in our workplaces,
which is situated in the interpersonal layer of Bronfenbrenner’s (1994) social ecology
model, and we also asked how our education system had become so oppressive, which is
situated in the policy layer of Bronfenbrenner’s (1994) social ecology model. By allowing
all question types, all questions depths, and all question scopes, every voice and personal
position within the self-authorship continuum was validated. This, in and of itself, is a
humanizing process.
● Read Intentionally: This piece of the process was organic and ongoing as each member of
the group researched and read many pieces of literature throughout the learning process.
The most relevant were shared with the group to become part of the conversation. In the
present study, relevance was defined as those that were able to answer the question posed,
those that challenged dominant ways of thinking, those that were written by white
anti-racist authors, and most importantly, those that were written by people of color
specifically for white teachers. By establishing this definition of relevance, we were able to
ensure our learning was aligned with current research on anti-racist praxis and maintain
accountability to people of color within our white space.
● Learn Openly: The brave white space of the group provided a forum in which to learn
openly. During the process, to learn openly became defined as: being vulnerable enough to
ask questions, to admit what we did not know, to challenge our own understanding, to
accept truth that was different from our own, to forgo the need to be right, to reflect on our
own positions of power, to analyze our own behavior, to construct a positive white
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anti-racist identity, and to plan how to act on our learning in our personal and professional
lives. The learning came from a combination of analyzing the readings, asking one another
questions about the reading, co-constructing meaning and understanding, and internalizing
new ideas. This learning resulted in self-authored anti-racist identity development and
motivation to act in transformational resistance, as evidenced in each of the journeys shared
in Chapter Four.
● Act Accordingly: At each juncture, the questioning, reading, and learning continued, but
action steps were also planned. Some action steps were focused on continued personal
growth, while others were geared toward beginning to enact change through our position
as instructional coaches. The group continually drove the process toward taking action
outside of the white space because we understood, from the early stages of the learning
process, that it wasn’t enough to just talk about deconstructing whiteness in suburban
classrooms, we had to incorporate our learning into our work with teachers in intentional
and tangible ways, as evidenced in both the Process and Journeys sections of Chapter Four.
Essential Elements
Like any process, the process of coaching for equity through the deconstruction of
whiteness in suburban classrooms is reliant on essential elements to function and result in effective
change. The following essential elements of the process described above are responsible for the
transformative results presented in Chapter Four.
● Brave white space: A brave white space is a community of anti-racist white people who are
committed to understanding what it means to be white, to dismantle white supremacy, and
to develop a positive white anti-racist identity (AW ARE-LA, n.d.). Furthermore, as brave
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white space relieves people of color from having to be the ones who educates white people
about their whiteness and engages white people in this process together as a means of both
learning and support (AW ARE-LA, n.d.). Every participant of this study identified how
much stronger they felt in their anti-racist work because of the support of the group.
Additionally, as a result of the brave white space, each participant made transformative
change in their self-authored world view and anti-racist identity within the three months
that the study took place; the effects of that change were already being brought into their
roles as instructional coaches.
● Accountability to people of color: Although the deconstruction of whiteness takes place in
a brave white space, there is still a call to be accountable to people of color (Utt & Tochluk,
2018). Accountability to people of color involves listening to their truths without defense
and incorporating their perspective in new learning and decision making (Utt & Tochluk,
2018). Delpit (2006) expands the notion of listening to not only listening with our eyes and
ears, but also through our beliefs. As we challenged our beliefs, and held ourselves
accountable to people of color, we incorporated the voice of people of color in a couple of
ways. First, as we read to learn we intentionally chose literature that was written by people
of color for white people, we invited a person of color to our meeting when the meeting
was focused on decision making and planning for shifts in pedagogy and instruction, and
we each identified close relationships with people of color in our lives who had, or
continue to have, a voice in our developing anti-racist identity.
● Time: The deconstruction of whiteness and the development of a positive white anti-racist
identity can be a long and painful process (Utt & Tochluk, 2018). Although many positive
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changes were noted in the three short months of group participation, each participant had
been on the road toward self-authorship for many years. Transformative work of this nature
needs to be a constant and ongoing learning process because the development of an
authentic self-authored anti-racist identity takes time.
● Commitment: If the learning process is to be constant and ongoing, there must be a
commitment to making that happen. The group in the study committed to meeting every
other week and to come to the meetings prepared having read the shared readings. As with
any group of individuals, conflicts in personal schedules arose and we worked with one
another closely to meet within the timeline as it was important that every member of our
small group be present for each discussion. Early on we experienced the loss of a member
who could not commit to the group; those remaining relied on one another to be committed
to their own learning for the good of group progress. As evidenced in some of the journey
stories, work of this nature cannot be fleeting and superficial because past disengagement
from the process caused people to slide back into the comfort of operating within dominant
culture norms. As a group we committed to remain present for one another to prevent
regression, or stagnation, from happening.
● Vulnerability: Committing to the group does not only involve that of time and being
present, it also means committing to being vulnerable within the group. Delpit (2006) calls
for white people to be “vulnerable enough to allow your world to be turned upside down”
(p. 297). The commitment to vulnerability in the group was established during the first
meeting when we used Freire’s (2000) third chapter on dialogics, the intentional
engagement in critical dialogue, to set our group norms in which we committed to speak
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and listen from a position of love, humility, faith, trust, hope, and critique. We could not
have had open honest dialogue, and subsequent positive growth, unless we knew we were
in a space where we felt loved as humans, where it was safe to be humble, where there was
faith in the process, where we could trust one another with our truths and with our learning,
where we could hope for positive change, and where we could be openly critical of
ourselves and one another without fear.
● Relationships: This level of vulnerability cannot be achieved outside of intimate critical
relationships (Brown, A., 2017; Freire, 2010; Magolda, 2004; Tochluk, 2010; Utt &
Tochluk, 2016). Therefore, relationship is the foundation upon which this work is built.
Fortunately, instructional coaching is also built upon the foundation of relationships. As
such, coaches are in the perfect position, as peer mentors, to guide one another, and
inservice teachers, through the process of deconstructing whiteness in suburban classrooms.
● Voluntary: As much as we wanted to get everyone on board, this level of personal
interrogation, vulnerability, and commitment of time and presence, requires the willing
participation of group members. In the formation of the group, many individuals were
invited to join, five agreed to participate, one left due to the time commitment, one left due
to the sensitivity of the topic, and three engaged in the process of deconstructing whiteness.
As we planned for the continuation of the group, and how we were going to take this
process into our roles as coaches, we conceded that participation needs to be voluntary
because forcing people to see what they are not able or willing to see often has the opposite
effect, in that it causes them to hold more firmly to their own beliefs (Brown, B., 2017).
However, this does not mean that as coaches we wait for teachers to come to us when
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they’re ready to deconstruct whiteness; it is our job to begin to expose them to the water in
preparation for their willingness to participate.
● Reflective: The group learning in this study identified reflective conversations as a means
through which to begin to challenge educator beliefs about students of color and second
language learners. Reflective conversations can be used both in preparing educators for
participation in the process as well as throughout the process of deconstructing whiteness.
Reflective conversations, or cognitive coaching as the group often referred to it in Chapter
Four, involves the coach asking questions that guide the coachee in summarizing their
understandings, identifying data that supports their claims, construct new understandings,
and apply their new understandings to their instructional practice (Thinking Collaborative,
2019). As coaches, we found reflective conversations to be an effective and
non-threatening way to begin to expose educators to their own deficit thinking about
students of color and second language learners. Often when teachers summarized their
understanding of student achievement, their deficit beliefs were expressed within the
summary. When the deficit belief could not be supported with data, new anti-racist
information could be offered in order to construct new understandings. These new
understandings are the basis upon which changes in instructional practice can be planned.
Examples of reflective conversations being used in this way are presented in Chapter Four
findings.
● Focused on student achievement: When shifts toward liberatory pedagogy and instructional
practices are being planned, it is important to focus on student achievement (Freire, 2000;
Gonzalez, 2018; Hammond, 2015). The ultimate goal of deconstructing whiteness in
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suburban classrooms is to establish cultural relevance among inservice teachers so that
historically underperforming populations of students can achieve equity academically with
their white peers. Therefore, the coach needs to be well educated themselves in liberatory
instructional practices that focus on building the learning capacity of the individual student,
identifying and filling in gaps in student learning, and adjusting multiple levels of classroom
culture to accommodate differences in learning, so that they can coach teachers through
understanding and implementing these liberatory practices (Freire, 2000; Gonzalez, 2018;
Hammond, 2015).
Recommendations for Implementation
Finally, as the process was initiated in the group, the essential elements were identified, and
plans were made for the ongoing growth and function of the group, a few recommendations for
implementation were identified. These recommendations for implementation are aligned with the
theoretical framework of the study and are intended to guide others in establishing a similar group
and/or process within their own community of white educators.
● Focus on intentionality and a coordination of efforts: The theory of change for this study
was Emergent Strategy in which small changes to the foundations of the social constructs
of race and racism occur through intentional interpersonal interactions that will, over time,
change patterns at a grassroots level that have the potential to spiral upward to larger scales
of transformation (Brown, A., 2017). When implementing a group to engage in the
process, it is important that elements and steps are engaged with intention and are
coordinated within the layers of the system so the biggest impact can be made. For
example, this study incorporated three white elementary instructional coaches. In planning
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for group expansion, we discussed intentionally inviting white secondary instructional
coaches so that the group could begin to have impact in middle and high schools. We also
discussed inviting white elementary school administrators so that the group could affect
larger system-wide anti-racist change. These are two examples of using intentionality and
coordinated efforts when implementing and planning a group focused on deconstructing
whiteness and coaching for equity.
● Start small, grow fractally: Within Emergent Strategy, intentionality and coordinated efforts
call for small changes within the systems of power that then grow and expand fractally
(Brown, A., 2017). Immediate, large scale, systematic change has proven to be difficult to
implement and is often fraught with its own dysfunction (Ladson-Billings, 2006), as
described in detail in the first section of the literature review on the history of public
education. Emergent Strategy suggests that an intentional and coordinated grassroots
movement has the potential for greater lasting impact (Brown, A., 2017). However, small is
not defined as only situated in the inner circles of Bronfenbrenner’s (1994) social ecology
model and grow slowly upward through the outer layers, as depicted in the concept map
for this study. When intentionally planned and coordinated, change can start small in each
layer of the social ecology model and effect fractal growth and change throughout the
whole system. This notion came from the group readings on enacting anti-racist praxis from
Paulo Freire (2000), Zaretta Hammond (2015), and Shelly Tochluk (2010) who specifically
identify that this is the work of all who are involved in education.
● Meet people where they are at: As evidenced in the three journeys shared, and their
subsequent personal action steps, it is important to keep in mind that not all journeys will be
COACHING FOR EQUITY 155
the same and not everyone will be eager to start. Groups, such as the one formed for the
study, must have various entry points for different people at different points on their journey
toward self-authorship and transformational resistance. Not only does this create a space for
all participants to move at their own pace, it establishes Vygotskian expert-novice roles
within the group and positions all participants as students in the Freirean co-construction of
knowledge process (Freire, 2000; Vygotsky, 1978).
● Coach learning can be simultaneous with teacher learning: The process of deconstructing
whiteness and coaching for equity can happen simultaneously. As seen in this study,
coaches can be participants in an anti-racist group where they are working on their own
anti-racist identity while simultaneously initiating and guiding the same learning with the
teachers they work with. As indicated previously, work of this nature takes time, and can
be a lifelong learning process; therefore, the conversation of deconstructing whiteness and
establishing liberatory instructional practices cannot wait to start until a coach identifies as a
fully formed anti-racist activist. In the Vygotskian model the coach does not need to be a
full expert, just more experienced or knowledgeable in the area they are coaching a teacher
through (Vygotsky, 1978).
● Cannot lead others where you have not been: While the work of deconstructing whiteness
in suburban classrooms cannot wait for coaches to be fully formed anti-racist activists, it
also cannot begin until the coach has begun the work with themselves. In order for real and
lasting change to take place, the coach who is to lead others in the journey toward
self-authorship and transformational resistance has to have at least begun the journey
themselves; must be aware of their own positions of power and privilege; must have
COACHING FOR EQUITY 156
grappled, or be grappling with, their attitudes and beliefs about people of color; and must
be committed to remaining on the path toward self-authorship and the development of a
positive white anti-racist identity or else risk the dangers of further oppressing people of
color or perpetuating the systems of power with misguided action and veiled white
supremacy (Freire, 2000; Tochluk, 2010).
Recommendations for Research
Throughout the process of deconstructing whiteness and coaching for equity that took
place during the study, the coach participants consistently asked three questions that weren’t able to
be answered within the study or by the study. The first question has to do with instructional
coaching models, the second deals with initiating the process of deconstructing whiteness with
resistant participants, and the third has to do with the measurable impact on student achievement.
These are important topics to be addressed in further research because there are multiple models for
instructional coaching, and one may be better suited for anti-racist praxis than another, there are
likely to be more resistant participants at the onset, as seen in the present study, and the ultimate
goal is to impact student learning and achievement. Therefore, this study identified three research
questions that will add to the conversation, on coaching for equity and deconstructing whiteness in
suburban classrooms, in important ways.
Recommendation 1: What model of instructional coaching is most suitable to coaching for
equity?
When looking at the identified entry points for coaches working toward equitable teaching
practices, and analyzing the different models of instructional coach use, we wanted to know more
about which model would bring about the most effective change in teacher beliefs and pedagogical
COACHING FOR EQUITY 157
shifts. Some of the recommendations align with a district focused coaching model, where coaches
are charged with designing and delivering district wide professional development to all teachers.
On the other hand, some of the recommendations imply a more intimate professional relationship
between coach and teacher. The former has the potential for larger, albeit perhaps shallower
change, that may be helpful in exposing teachers to the realities of the dominant culture norms that
give power and privilege to white people and oppress people of color. This may be a good model
for initiating the process with many teachers, but may not be the most suited to the deep work that
is required for transformational change. On the other hand, the latter model of instructional
coaching has the potential for smaller, perhaps deeper, change. While this model appears
promising, and is aligned with the theoretical framework and methodology of the study, we have
found in our work that typically the teachers who are willing to work intimately with a coach on
enacting change, are the teachers who are already on the path and recognize a need for peer
support. As coaches, we feel it is important to explore which model might initiate or create the
most effective change amongst the more resistant educators.
Recommendation 2: What is an effective method for engaging resistant participants in the
process of coaching for equity and deconstructing whiteness?
Throughout their journeys, each participant dealt with the myriad of negative feelings that
bolster resistance to engaging in forming a positive white anti-racist identity. Furthermore, at the
onset of the study, during the formation of the affinity group, many potential participants were
invited to join, several did not join for unknown reasons, one joined but left due to time
commitments, and one left due to the sensitivity of the topic. These acts of resistance exemplify the
difficulty with getting people to take that first step in deconstructing whiteness. As explained
COACHING FOR EQUITY 158
previously, participation in work of this nature must be voluntary, and cannot be forced upon
someone, but getting someone to take that first voluntary step is difficult, especially with white
teachers who may be unaware of the salience of race in their lives and in their classrooms (Milner,
2008). Each participant of the study identified a critical experience with a person, or people, of
color outside of the bubble of the white community that ignited their journey. As coaches we feel
burdened by wanting to enact change, even with the most unaware and resistant teachers, but we
do not know how to inspire people to take that first step. Since we coach predominantly white
teachers in suburban communities we aren’t sure how they will be able to have the critical
experiences with people of color that could ignite their journeys. Therefore, it is important to
further explore how to engage resistant participants in the process of coaching for equity and
deconstructing whiteness.
Recommendation 3: Does coaching for equity result in higher achievement for students of
color and second language learners?
The ultimate goal of coaching for equity is to positively impact the academic achievement
of students of color and second language learners. The present study focused on the deconstruction
of whiteness among elementary instructional coaches as a preparatory practice for engaging
teachers in the same process. As such, the present study was not designed to ultimately measure the
impact that the process of deconstructing whiteness in suburban classrooms has on the academic
achievement of students of color and second language learners. If the process presented in the
study were to be replicated with other teams of instructional coaches and teachers, and/or
implemented in larger scales, it would be important to know that ultimately the process will have a
positive impact on student academic achievement. Therefore, a longitudinal, quantitative or mixed
COACHING FOR EQUITY 159
methods study, that measures the impact of coaching for equity on the academic achievement of
students of color and second language learners, would be beneficial in moving the work forward.
Conclusions
The purpose of this research project was to understand the journey(s), and various entry
points, in deconstructing whiteness, identifying bias, and establishing cultural relevance among
elementary school educators, specifically for the purposes of becoming more culturally relevant
and effecting positive change in student achievement data. Additionally, the study sought to
identify a process through which elementary instructional coaches could reflect on their own
learning in this area as a means to equip themselves to lead others through the same professional
development process, in alignment with the emergent strategy theory of change (Brown, A. 2017).
The theoretical framework for the study provided a road map for coaches and teachers to
use as they navigated the process from unquestioningly following the external formula, through
crossroads experiences, and toward the self-authorship of a positive white anti-racist identity and
action steps in transformational resistance (Bernal & Solorzano, 2001; Magolda, 2014).
Freirean (2000) problem posing methods were identified and utilized as an appropriate
process for deconstructing whiteness and co-constructing a new world view among in-service
teachers, including instructional coaches.
This study answered the call, put forth by Ladson-Billings (2006) to address the deficit
mindsets of white teachers toward their students of color as a means to make learning equitable
between white students and students of color. Furthermore, this study was the first to align theory
on white identity development with critical race theory and apply it to in-service teacher
professional development, through the use of instructional coaching, as a means to answer that call.
COACHING FOR EQUITY 160
As a result, this study offers a tangible liberatory processes that can be used in the ongoing work of
addressing teacher’s underlying beliefs and attitudes about groups of students and the manifestation
of those beliefs in their teaching practices.
Finally, this study offers a clear roadmap for implementing the process of coaching for
equity and deconstructing whiteness in suburban classrooms. This study also offers clear directions
for future research to see this important work continued effectively.
COACHING FOR EQUITY 161
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This study answered the call put forth by Ladson-Billings (2006) to focus on addressing white teacher pedagogy in response to the persistent underachievement of students of color
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Creator
Harrison, Rebecca LaMoyne
(author)
Core Title
Coaching for equity: deconstructing whiteness in suburban classrooms
School
Rossier School of Education
Degree
Doctor of Education
Degree Program
Education (Leadership)
Publication Date
04/28/2019
Defense Date
03/04/2019
Publisher
University of Southern California
(original),
University of Southern California. Libraries
(digital)
Tag
culturally relevant teaching,equity,instructional coaching,OAI-PMH Harvest,Race,Racism,suburban classrooms,White,whiteness
Format
application/pdf
(imt)
Language
English
Contributor
Electronically uploaded by the author
(provenance)
Advisor
Hinga, Briana (
committee chair
), Carbone, Paula (
committee member
), Tochluk, Shelly (
committee member
)
Creator Email
rlamoyneb@gmail.com,rlamoyneb@msn.com
Permanent Link (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-153112
Unique identifier
UC11660342
Identifier
etd-HarrisonRe-7320.pdf (filename),usctheses-c89-153112 (legacy record id)
Legacy Identifier
etd-HarrisonRe-7320.pdf
Dmrecord
153112
Document Type
Dissertation
Format
application/pdf (imt)
Rights
Harrison, Rebecca LaMoyne
Type
texts
Source
University of Southern California
(contributing entity),
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
(collection)
Access Conditions
The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...
Repository Name
University of Southern California Digital Library
Repository Location
USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA
Tags
culturally relevant teaching
equity
instructional coaching
suburban classrooms
whiteness