Critical Multicultural Perspectives on Whiteness

Whiteness is a narrative. It is the privileged dimension of the complex story of "race" that was, and continues to be, seminal in shaping the socio-economic structure and cultural climate of the United States and other Western nations. Without acknowledging this story, it is impossible to understand fully the current political and social contexts in which we live. Critical Multicultural Perspectives on Whiteness explores multiple analyses of whiteness, drawing on both past and current key sources to tell the story in a more comprehensive way. This book features both iconic essays that address the social construction of whiteness and critical resistance as well as excellent new critical perspectives.

Virginia Lea is Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. She received her Ph.D. in social and cultural studies in education from the University of California, Berkeley. Her published work with Peter Lang includes Undoing Whiteness in the Classroom: Critical Educultural Teaching Approaches for Social Justice Activism, co-edited with Erma Jean Sims (2008), and Constructing Critical Consciousness: Narratives that Unmask Hegemony, and Ideas for Creating Greater Equity in Education (2014). Virginia tries to live an active commitment to social justice. She sees her scholarship, research, teaching, and The Hegemony Project, which she co-directs (www. thehegemonyproject.org), as means of developing greater understanding about how cultural hegemony works to create and reproduce socioeconomic, cultural and educational inequities in our time; and to take social action for equitable social change. Virginia also co-directs the nonprofit The Educultural Foundation with her partner, Babatunde Lea.

Darren E. Lund is Professor in the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary, where his research examines social justice activism in schools, communities, and professional education programs. Darren co-founded the Service-Learning Program for Pre-Service Teachers, winner of the national 2012 Award of Excellence in Education from the Canadian Race Relations Foundation. He is the Principal Investigator of a Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) research project entitled, "Teacher Education for Social Justice: Enhancing Community-Engaged collaboration and Cultural Humility Through Critical Service-Learning." Darren has been recognized with a number of awards, including the Alberta Teachers’ Association’s 2015 Educational Research Award, the inaugural 2013 Alberta Hate Crimes Awareness Award, the 2012 Scholar-Activist Award from the American Educational Research Association (Critical Educators for Social Justice), and was named a Reader’s Digest National Leader in Education. Before entering academia, Darren was a high school teacher, and formed the award-winning Students and Teachers Opposing Prejudice (STOP) program.

Paul R. Carr is Professor in the Department of Education at the Université du Québec en Outaouais, Canada, and is also the Chair-holder of the UNESCO Chair in Democracy, Global Citizenship and Transformative Education (DCMÉT). His research is broadly concerned with political sociology, with specific threads related to democracy, media literacy, peace studies, intercultural relations, and transformative change in education. He has sixteen co-edited books and an award-winning, single-author book (Does Your Vote Count? Democracy and Critical Pedagogy). He is the Principal Investigator of two Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) research projects entitled, respectively, Democracy, Political Literacy and Transformative Education, and Social Media, Citizen Participation and Education. Before entering academia, he was a Senior Policy Advisor in the Ontario Ministry of Education, working on equity and social issues.