Acts of racial microdefense: embodied whiteness in social studies teacher education

ABSTRACT

Embodied whiteness within teacher education operates in resistance to pedagogies, curriculum, discourse, and policy that seek to disrupt the influence of white supremacy in education. This study explores how five white pre-service teachers at a predominantly white institution (PWI) embodied whiteness as acts of racial microdefense to learning to teach for anti-racism in a social studies method course. Findings indicate that racial microdefense was utilised to project and promote the continued influence of whiteness within secondary social studies teacher education. Implications for teacher education are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• whiteness
• teacher education
• social studies
• racial microdefense

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).