Teaching and Learning Color-Consciousness in a Color-Blind Society

Abstract

In this ethnographic study, I draw on interviews, audiorecordings of course meetings, observation notes and student work to explore the experiences of White preservice teachers in two sections of a Social Contexts of Education course. The instructors of both sections sought to challenge students’ color-blind racial ideologies. Whereas prior research documents prospective teachers resisting learning about race, this study’s participants evidenced a willingness to engage with this content. Nevertheless, most participants still remained committed to color-blind ideologies at the end of the course. This research offers insights into two obstacles that hindered most participants from adopting color-conscious ideologies as well as four pedagogical strategies that successfully interrupted, at least temporarily, some participants’ color-blind ideologies. The findings lead to pedagogical recommendations for teacher educators, structural suggestions for teacher education programs, and a theoretical contribution about the important role of socio-cultural understandings of identity in the preparation of color-conscious teachers.