Conditional Love: Teaching and Learning about Race in the Current Moment

Samuel Jaye Tanner; Erin Miller

doi:10.29333/ajqr/16818

Samuel Jaye Tanner ¹ ^* , Erin Miller ²

More Detail

AM J QUALITATIVE RES, Volume 9, Issue 4, pp. 155-167

https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/16818

OPEN ACCESS 47 Views 37 Downloads

Download Full Text (PDF)

Abstract

This article considers how the compulsion of whiteness towards conditional acceptance limits the degree to which educational researchers and teachers can bring pedagogies meant to grapple with white supremacy to schools. We rely on of narrative research to share a story about implementing whiteness pedagogies in elementary schools. Our intention is to interpret the ways in which compulsions of whiteness limited our ability to implement our teaching and learning in the current moment.

Keywords: Narrative Inquiry, Critical Whiteness Studies, Anti-racist Pedagogy

References

Allen, W. S. (2019). “I had Missionary Grandparents for Christ’s Sakes!”: White Women in Transracial/Cultural Families Bearing Witness to Whiteness. Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Studies, 6(1), 130–141. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejecs/228
Badenhorst, P. (2018). Kintsugi and processes of productive damage: The values of embodiment and emotion for antiracism work in education. The Pennsylvania State University.
Baldwin, J. (1962, November 17). Letter from a region in my mind. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1962/11/17/letter-from-a-region-in-my-mind
Baldwin, J. (1984, April). On being White…. and other lies. Essence. https://www.fredjoiner.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/On-Being-White-and-Other- Lies.pdf
Barone, T. (2000). Aesthetics, politics, and educational inquiry: Essays and examples.Peter Lang.
Cabrera, N. (2022) Cause with effect: Critical whiteness studies and the material consequences of whiteness on communities of color. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 35(7), 711-718. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2022.2061628
Carter, C. & Jocson, K. M. (2022) Where the repetition fades: Black feminist lessons and (sonic) critiques beyond critical whiteness studies. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 35(7), 744-754. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2022.2061729
Connelly, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (1990). Stories of experience and narrative inquiry.Educational Researcher, 19(5), 2–14. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X019005002
Echeverría, B. (2019). Modernity and whiteness. Polity Press.
Edwards, K. T. & Shahjahan, R. A. (2022) Lessons on love in collaboration: Black and Brown ruminations on global whiteness. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 35(7), 764-774. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2022.2061734
Hong, C. P. (2020). Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning. One World.
Hübinette, T., Wikström, P., & Samuelsson, J. (2022). Scientist or Racist? The Racialized Memory War Over Monuments to Carl Linnaeus in Sweden During the Black Lives Matter Summer of 2020. Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Studies, 9(3), 27–55. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejecs/1095
Jacobson, D., & Mustafa, N. (2019). Social identity map: A reflexivity tool for practicing explicit positionality in critical qualitative research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 18, 1-2. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406919870075
Johnson, L. L. (2017). The racial hauntings of one black male professor and the disturbance of the self(ves): Self-actualization and racial storytelling as pedagogical practices. Journal of Literacy Research, 49(4), 476-502. https://doi.org/10.1177/1086296X17733779
Jupp, J. C., Berry, T. R., & Lensmire, T. J. (2016). Second-wave white teacher identity studies: A review of white teacher identity literatures from 2004 through 2014. Review of Educational Research. 86(4), 1151-1191. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654316629798
Jupp, J. C. & Badenhorst, P. (2021). Second-wave critical white studies. In Z. Casey (Ed.), Critical understandings in education encyclopedia: Critical whiteness studies (pp. 596-601). Brill / Sense Publishing.
Kelly, L. B., & Taylor, L. (2024). What do so‐called critical race theory bans mean for elementary literacy instruction? Reading Research Quarterly, 59(2), 173-192. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.530
Lally, K. (2022). Whiteness and antiracism: Beyond white privilege pedagogy. Teachers College Press.
Lehrer-Small, A. (2023, January 25). National study reveals 1 in 4 teachers altering lesson plans due to anti-critical race theory laws. The 74. https://www.the74million.org/article/national-study-reveals-1-in-4-teachers-altering-lesson-plans-due-to-anti-critical-race-theory-laws/
Lensmire, T. J. (2022). How white supremacy is reproduced in the relations of white people to other white people, with some notes on what this means for antiracist education. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 36(9), 1496-1502. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2022.2025485
Lensmire, T. J. (2017). White folks: Race and identity in rural America. Routledge.
Matias, C. (2022). On whiteness studies: Hope and futurity. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 35(7), 697-702. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2022.2061076
Matias, C. E. (2023). Towards a Black whiteness studies: A response to the growing field. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 36(8), 1431-1441. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2022.2025482
McIntosh, P. (1988). White privilege and male privilege: A personal account of coming to see correspondences through work in women’s studies (Working Paper 189). Wellesley Center for Research on Women. https://www.wcwonline.org/images/pdf/White_Privilege_and_Male_Privilege_Personal_Account-Peggy_McIntosh.pdf
Najarro, I. (2024, February 15). Teachers censor themselves on socio-political issues, even without restrictive state laws. Education Week. https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/teachers-censor-themselves-on-socio-political-issues-even-without-restrictive-state-laws/2024/02
Morrison, T. (1992). Playing in the dark, whiteness and the literary imagination. Vintage.
Pino Gavidia, L. A., & Adu, J. (2022). Critical narrative inquiry: An examination of a methodological approach. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 21, 1-5. https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069221081594
Sachs, J. & Young, J. (2023, November 9). America’s censored classrooms 2023: Lawmakers shift strategies as resistance rises. PEN AMERICA. https://pen.org/report/americas-censored-classrooms-2023/#heading-25
Stewart, D. -L. (2022). “Dead honky”—Against technologies of (white) violence. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 35(7), 719-729. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2022.2061630
Tanner, S. J. & McCloskey, A. (2022). Improv theatre and racial scripts in education: A systematic literature review. Review of Educational Research 93(1), 3-36. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543221076885
Tanner, S. J., & Miller, E. (2024). Storytelling and improvisation as anti-racist pedagogies. Routledge.
Thandeka. (1999). Learning to be White: Money, race, and God in America. Continuum.
Turvey, A. (2012). Researching the complexity of classrooms. Changing English, 19(1), 57-65. https://doi.org/10.1080/1358684X.2012.649144
Woo, A., Lee, S., Tuma, A. P., Kaufman, J. H., Lawrence, R. A., & Reed, N. (2023).
Walking on eggshells—Teachers’ responses to classroom limitations on race- or gender-related topics. RAND Corporation, 1-31. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA134-16.html
Yancey, G. (2023) Waiting for whiteness to un-suture: The prolonged mourning of black bodies. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 36(8), 1411-1416. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2022.2098412
Zembylas, M. (2023). Toward affective decolonization: Nurturing decolonizing solidarity in higher education. Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, 20(4), 300-319. https://doi.org/10.1080/15505170.2022.2034684

Citation

Tanner, S. J., & Miller, E. (2025). Conditional Love: Teaching and Learning about Race in the Current Moment. American Journal of Qualitative Research, 9(4), 155-167. https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/16818

Tanner, S. J., and Miller, E. (2025). Conditional Love: Teaching and Learning about Race in the Current Moment. American Journal of Qualitative Research, 9(4), pp. 155-167. https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/16818

Tanner SJ, Miller E. Conditional Love: Teaching and Learning about Race in the Current Moment. AM J QUALITATIVE RES. 2025;9(4), 155-167. https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/16818

Tanner, Samuel Jaye, and Erin Miller. "Conditional Love: Teaching and Learning about Race in the Current Moment". American Journal of Qualitative Research 2025 9 no. 4 (2025): 155-167. https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/16818

Tanner, Samuel Jaye et al. "Conditional Love: Teaching and Learning about Race in the Current Moment". American Journal of Qualitative Research, vol. 9, no. 4, 2025, pp. 155-167. https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/16818

Tanner SJ, Miller E. Conditional Love: Teaching and Learning about Race in the Current Moment. AM J QUALITATIVE RES. 2025;9(4):155-67. https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/16818