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This conceptual article explores the use of threshold concepts to help pre-service teachers develop antiracist dispositions. Threshold concepts are "troublesome knowledge" within a discipline that serve as gateways to expanded modes of thinking about subject matter. Grappling with threshold concepts places learners in a liminal space as they confront new knowledge that connects them to transformative, irreversible, and integrative understandings. In response to a call for expanding pedagogical content knowledge of threshold concepts in teacher education, we propose the use of threshold concepts as a pedagogical tool to structure methods courses in order to facilitate the growth of PSTs' working racial knowledge. We provide the study of redlining as an exemplar of how to promote the threshold concept of structural racism toward developing PSTs' antiracist dispositions.

In this conceptual article we consider the pedagogical possibilities and pitfalls of incorporating White ally figures in history and social studies curricula. Drawing on the burgeoning scholarship on race and the social studies and literature on alternative racial orientations, such as allies, antiracists, and abolitionists, we contend that educators can use White-ally pedagogy to offer White students, in particular, examples of an antiracist White racial identity. We close with guidelines to provide social studies educators and teacher educators with a starting point for effectively introducing White allies into the social studies.

Critical theory is one of the predominant schools of thought in the social sciences. Like all theory, it is a framework used for explaining--and examining--something about the world. Critical theory pays special attention to the social world, focusing on the hierarchical nature of social relations and examining how these unequal power relationships lead to privilege for some and oppression for others. In this article, the authors discuss that one must be purposeful when designing a critical inquiry. It is not quite as simple as examining a topic that could connect to social justice issues. To truly stay within the bounds of critical theory, there must be a focus on identifying unequal power relationships in society coupled with the goal of transforming those unjust social relations. To remain true to critical pedagogy, teachers should work to identify questions that are important to students' lives and that encourage them to reflect on the ways that they are either privileged or oppressed by social dynamics. And, finally, to enact these concepts in the context of the Inquiry Design Model (IDM), the inquiry must ask critical questions, analyze sources from the viewpoint of the oppressed, and encourage action that can make a tangible contribution toward justice.

This critical case study investigated the experiences of six White preservice teachers as they learned about race and racism during the first semester of an urban-focused teacher preparation program. The author identified two broad themes of "transgressive White racial knowledge" and "negotiated White racial knowledge" to capture the participants' engagement with the topic of race. By detailing the complexities of the racial knowledge of a group of race-conscious White teachers, the project helps to de-homogenize conceptualizations of White teachers' racial identities. The transgressive knowledge displayed by the participants largely occurred in their intellectual understandings of issues related to urban education. When the participants discussed their antiracist practice and their own complicity in racism, their negotiations with critical understandings of race emerged. These findings suggest that educators working with race-conscious White teachers should emphasize the messiness inherent in enacting an antiracist practice and think differently about the subtle distancing strategies White teachers often deploy to release themselves from complicity in racism.

Utilizing a critical whiteness studies framework, the authors analyzed the experiences of a cohort of predominantly White pre-service social studies teachers discussing race and Whiteness in relation to education. The pre-service teachers resisted identifying White privilege as a form of structural racism, instead preferring individualized understandings of racism. The participants also utilized their personal biographies to accept or reject aspects of race privilege. The authors highlighted three tensions for teacher educators to consider when engaging pre-service teachers in discussions about race privilege, including recognizing the unfamiliar nature of structural thinking, appreciating the limitations of personal experience, and acknowledging the challenges of structural considerations within individual classrooms. The authors' findings--and the tensions they highlight--depart from previous literature on White teachers and race by paying specific attention to pedagogical issues related to developing a critical racial consciousness in White teachers and by attending to the ways in which Whiteness, as a structural force, limits the ability of White teachers to engage in conversations about race. The authors attempt to trouble the assumption that the pedagogical practices in teacher education adequately create an environment in which White teachers can thoroughly engage in the problematics of race, racism, and Whiteness.

The author utilized Critical Race Theory (CRT) to examine the passage of the US Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965 in an effort to disrupt the simplistic, uncritical understandings of the US Civil Rights Movement common to school texts while also arguing for the ongoing importance of the VRA in a time when voting rights for people of color are under attack. The author identified four points of interest convergence in the passage of the VRA and contends that a critical revisionist narrative of the VRA--along with other events and individuals Civil Rights Movement--is necessary to help students and teachers understand the persistence of racism and the limitations of liberalism in addressing racial inequality.

In this article the authors interrogate the historical meaning of the African American soldier in order to widen the discussion of race and citizenship in the field of social studies education. The article has two overarching purposes. First, the authors attend to the recent call in the field of social studies for a more rigorous analysis of issues of race and racism. The authors focus attention on the history of the Black soldier in order to document the nuanced and paradoxical ways in which race and citizenship have intersected in the lives and military service of these men. Second, the authors situate the work of Carter G. Woodson as foundational to discussions about race and citizenship. They give specific attention to Woodson's textbook writings in order to highlight how he employed the genre of curriculum writing to challenge the historical narratives found in K-12 texts and in the academic literature about the Black soldier. (Contains 2 notes.)

The intent of this article is to examine the significance of Carter G. Woodson to the historical development of the fields of curriculum and social studies, particularly as they relate to the evolution of the modern multicultural movement. The authors focus on Woodson's contributions through his curriculum and his pedagogical efforts in establishing a more rigorous and historically accurate social studies framework through his community education initiatives, the "Negro History Bulletin", and his textbooks. They conclude the article with a discussion of how Woodson's efforts can have direct implications for social studies educators.

In this conceptual article we consider the pedagogical possibilities and pitfalls of incorporating White ally figures in history and social studies curricula. Drawing on the burgeoning scholarship on race and the social studies and literature on alternative racial orientations, such as allies, antiracists, and abolitionists, we contend that educators can use White-ally pedagogy to offer White students, in particular, examples of an antiracist White racial identity. We close with guidelines to provide social studies educators and teacher educators with a starting point for effectively introducing White allies into the social studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Utilizing a critical whiteness studies framework, the authors analyzed the experiences of a cohort of predominantly White pre-service social studies teachers discussing race and Whiteness in relation to education. The pre-service teachers resisted identifying White privilege as a form of structural racism, instead preferring individualized understandings of racism. The participants also utilized their personal biographies to accept or reject aspects of race privilege. The authors highlighted three tensions for teacher educators to consider when engaging pre-service teachers in discussions about race privilege, including recognizing the unfamiliar nature of structural thinking, appreciating the limitations of personal experience, and acknowledging the challenges of structural considerations within individual classrooms. The authors’ findings – and the tensions they highlight– depart from previous literature on White teachers and race by paying specific attention to pedagogical issues related to developing a critical racial consciousness in White teachers and by attending to the ways in which Whiteness, as a structural force, limits the ability of White teachers to engage in conversations about race. The authors attempt to trouble the assumption that the pedagogical practices in teacher education adequately create an environment in which White teachers can thoroughly engage in the problematics of race, racism, and Whiteness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author utilized Critical Race Theory (CRT) to examine the passage of the US Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965 in an effort to disrupt the simplistic, uncritical understandings of the US Civil Rights Movement common to school texts while also arguing for the ongoing importance of the VRA in a time when voting rights for people of color are under attack. The author identified four points of interest convergence in the passage of the VRA and contends that a critical revisionist narrative of the VRA – along with other events and individuals Civil Rights Movement – is necessary to help students and teachers understand the persistence of racism and the limitations of liberalism in addressing racial inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]