Making Race Matter: Interrupting Racial Color-blindness in Education Through the Implementation of Anti-racist Curriculum

The United States continues to be a highly racialized society. As a result, race remains a predictor of educational achievement for students in the PK-12 public education system. Concurrently, racial color-blindness continues to dominate educational institutions, as teachers--particularly White teachers--often feel uncomfortable and ill prepared to talk with students about race. One approach that educators have developed to combat color-blindness in schools is anti-racist curriculum. Such curriculum directly teaches students about race and intentionally interrupts the color-blind ideology. This research study sought to understanding how teachers attending a series of collaborative professional development sessions experienced the process of designing and implementing anti-racist curriculum. The qualitative data collected for this research incorporated participant observations, semi-structured interviews, participant journal entries, and completed lesson plans. The data were transcribed, coded, analyzed through the theoretical framework of transformative curriculum as a means for answering the research questions and generating findings. The findings indicated that the collaborative experiences were beneficial for the participants, not only to construct curriculum but to foster new anti-racist lenses. Yet, the findings also spoke to the complexity and everpresent challenges faced by teachers attempting to implement such curriculum. This study calls for educational leaders, teacher educators, and teachers to challenge racial inequalities and color-blind ideology with anti-racist curriculum to actualize educational equity in schools