Disrupting the normativity of whiteness with teacher education students: challenges and possibilities

Aveling, N. (2004) Disrupting the normativity of whiteness with teacher education students: challenges and possibilities. Balayi: Culture, Law and Colonialism, 6 . pp. 82-93.

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Abstract

In this paper I want to reflect on the ways in which I work with teacher education students to assist them to read the cultural codes through which they/we have constructed their/our own narratives and histories and to identify problematic areas when doing this work. I want to focus in particular on 'story-telling, a teaching strategy that seeks to make visible how whiteness functions as a historical and social construction. I conclude with the contention that becoming aware of our own racial positioning is not quite enough if whiteness studies are to progress the work of 'understanding and dismantling racism'.