Towards Anti-Racism, Anti-Domination Pedagogies: A Critical Ethnographic Inquiry Exploring Personal Struggles in Constructing Anti-Racist Identities

Background and Purpose: Within anti-domination literature, a growing body of research seeks to identify ways to enhance pedagogical techniques in support of developing critical anti-racist, emancipatory education. Anti-racist scholars have identified common barriers inhibiting white individuals from further developing a proactive stance in challenging systemic racism. However, less emphasis has been placed on exploring ways to support individual’s process in navigating the complexities involved in building critical race consciousness. This exigent gap is precisely what this paper seeks to address.

Anchored in an anti-domination, emancipatory research paradigm and stemming from critical lineages of inquiry, this paper attempts to offer greater insight into the ways in which students navigate particular challenges in learning about the systemic nature of racism in the United States in support of enhancing anti-domination pedagogies and critical social justice education.  

Methods: Six students from Western Washington University participated in an in-depth, semi-structured focus group interview surrounding their classroom experiences in learning about racism as a systemic, structural phenomenon. Using a purposive sampling method, students enrolled in Human Services 403: “Inequity in U.S. Policies and Institutions,” were recruited via an in-class solicitation; class enrollment was the only selection criteria utilized. The focus group participants were predominantly female (5 female; 1 male), White (4 white students; 2 students of color) with a median age of 29.5 (age range 20-40).

Prior to the interview, a facilitation guide was constructed to support the operationalization of anti-domination, emancipatory practices within the research process--a method to support research as praxis--and a semi-structured script was implemented during the focus group interview. Based in Grounded Theory, the interview was audio-recorded, manually transcribed and thematic analysis was conducted after an open-coding process.

Findings: Data analysis revealed seven emergent themes, with 29 nested main categories. Central findings illustrate student difficulties in grappling with difficult emotions and highlighted challenges in dealing with questions surrounding whether enduring, transformative change is even possible. Thematic findings also indicate that student’s process in learning about systemic racism holds potential implications related to peer relationships and student experiences of social isolation. The data also suggests the possibility that personal traumas and other, non-racial forms of oppressive experiences might be inadvertently elicited through critical race education.

Conclusions and Implications: These findings implicate a possible need for critical social justice pedagogies that not only expound upon the nature of systemic oppressions, but which also operate with trauma-informed sensitivity and with the concurrent purposes of supporting emotional regulation, self-efficacy and evoking hope and motivation for transformative change efforts. Another noteworthy finding suggests the possibility that critical race education might increase experiences of social isolation—particularly in predominantly white communities. This exposes a gap in anti-racism and anti-domination literature and highlights an important area requiring further investigation.