Lauri Johnson On White Teachers Summary

Researcher, Lauri Johnson, conducts a study testing how white teachers reacts to a racially diverse classroom. According to Johnson majority of teachers in today’s classrooms are white, and when asked about teaching racially diverse children they would respond with “I don’t see color” (Johnson, 2002, p, 154). The goal is to get teachers to see race being that they are teaching racially diverse children. Additionally, Johnson goes on to state that, because many people of color are not teachers, those who are teachers must learn to be aware of race and racism. The researcher used narratives by Paley, Sleeter, and Howard, educators, to conduct autobiographies of the 6 white teachers in this study. Each author has their own theme in which Johnson as a concept behind the narratives of the 6 teachers, Johnson’s goal is for the teachers to gain racial awareness by creating their own experiences, developing relationships …show more content…
The questions ranged from their experiences as a child to their experiences with race in their lives. The researcher analyzed the teacher’s feelings about creating an autobiography to further her researcher on teacher education programs. Additionally, Johnson analyzed how the teacher’s educational experiences during pretraining affects how racially aware they are. Experts were used to nominate the teachers for the study. The experts were individuals who were professors and taught a multicultural class and/or lived in communities with people of color. The six white teachers that the experts selected were between the ages 26 to 63 and taught for as little as 4 years and as high as 30 years. Also, each of the teachers taught in racially diverse schools that was located in the Pacific Northwest. All of the participants lived a simple life by going to college straight after high school then went on to pursue a career in teaching after