Whiteness in/and education

Abstract

This article discusses my interactions with the teacher in whose classroom I conducted my doctoral research. That project was concerned with using transformative Drama pedagogy to reconceptualise cultural identity in multicultural curricular policy. The participants in my study comprised of 15 Grade Nine Drama students and their teacher at ‘May Valley High School’, located just outside of Toronto, Canada. During the Fall semester of the 2004–2005 academic year, I observed the students’ performances (both in and out of dramatic role) of their gender, sexuality, racial and ethnic identities. Using a performative lens to analyse the connections between their ‘fictional’ identity performances, and their ‘actual’ ones, I showed how, in this particular classroom, those connections often served to reinforce rather than challenge hegemonic constructions of social identity and identification. I suspected that this had much to do with their teacher’s pedagogical orientations and practices, with respect to multiculturalism and ethno‐cultural difference. In this article, I tease out how the ‘Whiteness’ embedded in his pedagogy served to perpetuate institutional racism at the school.