My eyes have been opened”: White teachers and racial awareness

A life history approach was used to examine the narratives of 6 White teachers of racially diverse classrooms who had been nominated as being “aware of race and racism ” by a diverse panel of ex-perts. The teachers ’ responses to race were examined by semistructured interviews, a drawing of their racial identity, and a classroom visit that examined classroom artifacts and teacher-student in-teractions. Narrative analysis revealed that teachers ’ perceptions of racial awareness were influ-enced by (a) perceived identity as “outsiders, ” due to class background or sexual orientation, that enabled them to disidentify with the White mainstream; (b) living and working with individuals of other races in relationships that approximated “equal status ” and exposed them to “insider ” per-spectives on race and racism; and (c) personal religious/philosophical beliefs that emphasized equal-ity and social justice concerns. Implications for restructuring teacher education programs include revising candidate selection criteria, increasing the racial diversity of students and faculty, experi-encing “immersion ” in communities of color, and using autobiographical narrative as a pedagogi-cal tool. I thought it was wrong to see color. Like the T-shirts that say, “Love Sees No Color. ” As I’ve come to learn