Chapter 1: Roadblock in the Mirror: Recommendations for Overcoming the Cultural Disability of Whiteness in Non-White Educational Spaces

Exploring the contradictions between White female teachers’ good intentions, and their often-misinformed cultural perspectives of the students in their classrooms that are culturally and linguistically different from themselves, poses both challenges and opportunities for educational researchers and teachers alike. One method of exploring these incongruities is to first examine the experience of a White female teacher as he/she prepares and interacts with students in situations of racial mismatch. This chapter begins with a brief illustration of one such case that will be revisited in later sections as a tool to assist us in describing the cultural disability of whiteness.

A brief story about Marcie, a White middle-class teacher, written in her words.