Marking the "Invisible"

Articulating Whiteness in Social Studies Education

Edited by:
Andrea M. Hawkman, Utah State University
Sarah B. Shear, University of Washington-Bothell

A volume in the series: Teaching and Learning Social Studies. Editor(s): William B. Russell, University of Central Florida.

Published 2020

Substantial research has been put forth calling for the field of social studies education to engage in work dealing with the influence of race and racism within education and society (Branch, 2003; Chandler, 2015; Chandler & Hawley, 2017; Husband, 2010; King & Chandler, 2016; Ladson-Billings, 2003; Ooka Pang, Rivera & Gillette, 1998). Previous contributions have examined the presence and influence of race/ism within the field of social studies teaching and research (e.g. Chandler, 2015, Chandler & Hawley, 2017; Ladson-Billings, 2003; Woyshner & Bohan, 2012). In order to challenge the presence of racism within social studies, research must attend to the control that whiteness and white supremacy maintain within the field. This edited volume builds from these previous works to take on whiteness and white supremacy directly in social studies education.

In Marking the “Invisible”, editors assemble original contributions from scholars working to expose whiteness and disrupt white supremacy in the field of social studies education. We argue for an articulation of whiteness within the field of social studies education in pursuit of directly challenging its influences on teaching, learning, and research. Across 27 chapters, authors call out the strategies deployed by white supremacy and acknowledge the depths by which it is used to control, manipulate, confine, and define identities, communities, citizenships, and historical narratives. This edited volume promotes the reshaping of social studies education to: support the histories, experiences, and lives of Students and Teachers of Color, challenge settler colonialism and color-evasiveness, develop racial literacy, and promote justice-oriented teaching and learning.

Praise for Marking the “Invisible”

"As the theorization of race and racism continues to gain traction in social studies education, this volume offers a much-needed foundational grounding for the field. From the foreword to the epilogue, Marking the “Invisible” foregrounds conversations of whiteness in notions of supremacy, dominance, and rage. The chapters offer an opportunity for social studies educators to position critical theories of race such as critical race theory, intersectionality, and settler colonialism at the forefront of critical examinations of whiteness. Any social studies educator -researcher concerned with the theorization or teaching of race should engage with this text in their work."
Christopher L. Busey,
University of Florida

CONTENTS
Acknowledgements. Foreword—Lifting the Veil: On Decentering Whiteness in Social Studies Curriculum, Teaching, and Research, Amanda E. Vickery and Kristen E. Duncan. Introduction—Taking Responsibility, Doing the Work: An Introduction to Marking the “Invisible”, Andrea M. Hawkman and Sarah B. Shear. SECTION I: THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO ARTICULATING WHITENESS. AsianCrit as a Theoretical Lens to Trouble and Transform White Supremacy, Sohyun An. Extensions of Intersectionality Theory From Critical Race Analyses: A Framework of Coalitions for Interrogating Race and Racism in Social Studies Education, Christian D. Chan, Jehan A. Hill, and Sarah N. Baquet. “But I Just Never Knew!”: Theorizing and Challenging the Ideologies of Whiteness in Social Studies, Danielle S. Walker and Peter M. Newlove. SECTION II: WHITENESS AND THE OFFICIAL KNOWLEDGE OF SOCIAL STUDIES. The Silences We Speak: Deliberative Pedagogies and the Whiteness of Civic Education, Melissa Leigh Gibson. Hope in the Dismal Science: A Race-Centered Redirection of Economics Curriculum, Neil Shanks and Delandrea Hall. Interrogating Whiteness: A Critical Content Analysis of Notable Picture Books Recommended by the National Council for the Social Studies, Jacob P. Gates, Paul H. Ricks, and René M. Rodríguez-Astacio. Where Is Race? A Critical Whiteness Studies Analysis of NCSS Position Statements, Sara B. Demoiny. “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House”: Recognizing and Disrupting Hegemonic Practices in the edTPA, Ritu Radhakrishnan. “This Isn’t a Sentence in a History Book”: Students’ of Color Resistance to Official Knowledges of Whiteness, Ryan Oto. The White Conundrum: White Social Studies Teachers, Fear, and the Racial Contract, Michael L. Boucher, Jr. SECTION III: WHITENESS IN MEDIA, TEXTS, AND SPACES. Surpassing the Single Story: Widening the Representation of BIWOC in an Online History Museum, Lauren Colley and John P. Broome. Unveiling Race/ism and White(ness) Supremacy Through Historiartography, Bretton A. Varga and Vonzell Agosto. White(ness) Narratives on Miscegenation: Loving v. Virginia as a Medium for Examining Racism in the South, Lisa Brown Buchanan and Cara F. Ward. Framework for Decentering Whiteness in Social Studies Field Trips: Evaluating Museums and Public Sites and Challenging the Whiteness Curriculum, Karen L. B. Burgard. Pictures Speak Louder: Portraying Early Prominent Middle Eastern Religious Women as “White” and “Passive” in Textbook Imagery, Erica M. Southworth. SECTION IV: WHITENESS IN K–12 CLASSROOMS. Navigating Difficult Knowledge But Still Evading Race: The Overwhelming Effects of Whiteness in Doubly Constrained Civil Rights Teaching, Jennifer Gallagher. “Isn’t That Enough?”: Troubling White Student Performances of Allyship, Ryan Oto. “It Is Hard to Admit Your Own Group Did Wrong”: How Whiteness Becomes Centered in the Canadian Social Studies Classroom, Samantha Cutrara. Teaching Latinx-Identifying Students in a Post-Truth America: Reflections from White-Identifying Teachers on Bringing Non-White Identities and Experiences Into the Classroom Through Localized Civics Curriculum, William Toledo. White Supremacy in the Gaps of Practice: A Retroactive Self-Study of My Antiracist Lesson, Brian C. Chervitz. SECTION V: WHITENESS IN TEACHER EDUCATION. Whitewashing the History of Education: Laying Bare the Pervasive Power and Presence of White Supremacy in a Teacher Education Course, Amy Mungur. “How Is That White Privilege Though?”: Preservice Teachers Dialogue About White Privilege and Whiteness in an Intergroup Dialogue Course, Natasha C. Murray-Everett. What Does Whiteness Have to Do with Teaching History? Toward Racial Historical Consciousness in History Teacher Education, Travis L. Seay. Grammar Matters: Verbal(izing) Whiteness in Social Studies Teacher Education, Erin Adams. SECTION VI: WHITENESS, POSITIONALITY, AND REFLEXIVITY. Tenets of Social Studies as Tools of Whiteness: Dismantling the Myths, Elizabeth A. Kenyon. Working to Unsettle Settler Colonialism: (While) Tripping Over My Whiteness, Tana A. Mitchell. Learning to Teach Against White Social Studies: Toward a True Criticality, Brian Gibbs. Epilogue—Committing Forward: In Lieu of an Epilogue, Sarah B. Shear & Andrea M. Hawkman. Editor and Author Bio Sketches.