“I don't think I'm a racist”: Critical Race Theory, teacher attitudes, and structural racism

Abstract

This article is an ethnographic examination of teacher attitudes towards race, racism, and White privilege in response to anti‐bias in‐service trainings in two major U.S. urban school districts through the theoretical lens of Critical Race Theory. We employ the analytic tools of Whiteness as property to make sense of the messages teachers perceived and developed about race and racism. Further, we examine what teacher attitudes reveal about the structural dimensions of racial inequity in schooling and achievement. We argue that the racial attitudes expressed by teachers in this study are illustrative of larger structural racism that both informs and is reinforced by these attitudes and their manifestation in practice.