White racial ignorance and refusing culpability: how the emotionalities of whiteness ignore race in teacher education

ABSTRACT This article builds on Charles W. Mills’ foundational concept of white racial ignorance to expand his work by exploring the inner dynamics and practices of teacher education (its rationales, student teaching, practicums, pedagogies, curriculum) and explaining how the emotionalities of whiteness play a significant role in the ways that whiteness persists perniciously in teacher education. In order to hold whiteness accountable and culpable, it is argued that teacher education needs to stop emotionally deflecting anti-racist critiques by over pontificating their lackluster commitments to race, a practice which only ignores, and diverts attention away from the hegemonic presence of whiteness. It suggests that teacher educators need to help pre-service and in-service teachers be attentive to how racial politics are felt, acted upon, and reproduced, and how emotionalities of whiteness become ‘ordinary’ in everyday life in schools. The article concludes by outlining some implications for research and theory in critical whiteness studies.