Hi Anne!

According to Jones and Okun (2001, summarized here), one aspect of white supremacy culture is objectivity, “the belief that there is such a thing as being objective” and “the belief that emotions are inherently destructive, irrational, and should not play a role in decision-making or group process.” This is the foundation upon which the entire testing industry is based. Individualism is probably a close second, in that we must learn and demonstrate our learning independent of and in isolation from everyone else.

Another related notion is what Paolo Freire calls the “anti-dialogical” or “banking” style of teaching and learning. This is more generally an idea of power, but since whiteness is dominant, it fits:

For the anti-dialogical banking educator, the question of content simply concerns the program about which he will discourse to his students; and he answers his own question, by organizing his own program.

This is oppressive to all students, but far more so for the marginalized because what is most often privileged in that account would be the cultural and intellectual values of whiteness.

In some ways these “contexts” (as opposed to contents) of whiteness are even more dangerous because they comprise the water that we (especially white people) swim in.

I’d recommend Chris Emdin’s For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood for some good concrete ways of disrupting the mainline approaches. Also, I really appreciate the insights of New Zealand educator Ximena. Check out her “Who gets to define education?”