Critical Race Theory as Dialogic Performance with White Teachers: Addressing Colorblindness

This study is an attempt to both uncover and challenge the adherence to colorblind views and practices of white teachers with regard to race and racism in schools. Employing a performance ethnography approach, the study attempts to position white teachers as both unintentionally supportive of and potentially resistant to institutional structures and ideologies that marginalize students of color. The performance approach also positions these teachers as co-performers in the research act itself, thus close attention is paid to what they can offer towards the goal of challenging colorblindness. Particular attention is paid to the potentially educative aspects of Critical Race Theory (CRT) as a tool that can be used to promote and analyze dialogue with white teachers about race. By using CRT in this dialogic fashion, the study can focus on the complexity and contractions involved in teachers' approaches to racial equity. Specifically, the teachers in this study both support and resist colorblind approaches to such equity, and CRT as a motivation and tool of analysis enables the study to focus on the possibility of fostering more critical antiracist practice