Putting Race on the Table: How Teachers Make Sense of the Role of Race in Their Practice Available to Purchase

In this article, Amanda J. Taylor uses portraiture methodology to explore one white teacher's efforts to understand whether and how race plays a role in her teaching practice. With no conscious experiences with race and racism, this teacher draws on her time as a cross-cultural traveler to construct and apply what Taylor calls a racial touchstone to best approximate the nature of racism. The teacher uses her touchstone to frame her interpretations and guide her pedagogical choices in the context of her classroom. Ultimately, this touchstone allows her to center culture and avoid racial analyses, resulting in her justification of surface-level approaches to engaging difference that are not likely to dismantle racial inequality.