Uncovering (w)hiteness: Developing a critically-informed exercise for higher education professionals

Abstract

The primary goal of this chapter is to propose a training for Higher Education and Student Affairs Practitioners that applies five concepts of Critical (w)hiteness Studies (CWS) to reveal how whiteness is embedded in structures, practices, and understandings in higher education. With the incorporation of interviews with white educators and professionals who work with indigenous and minoritized communities, we strive to make visible the systems and structures that educators navigate and enable that promote the hegemonic forces of whiteness. Recognizing the primary goal of CWS is to reveal systems that perpetuate whiteness (Applebaum, 2016), we seek to illustrate whiteness and offer an approach to assist educators in making these invisible assumptions, systems, and practices-visible. Recognizing the bounds of this chapter and our privileged perspectives, we connect readers to the existing work of BIPOC educators and scholars to guide readers toward the necessity of taking informed action to problematize and disrupt systems and practices rooted in whiteness in higher education.