Moving between opposing worlds : the moral experiences of white, anti-racism educators in Saskatchewan
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This research explores the moral experiences of White, anti-racism educators in Saskatchewan. As members of the dominant group, while at the same time being defenders of the rights of minority groups, the unique positioning of these individuals raises intriguing questions of moral experience. Although there is a large body of research regarding issues of racism, there is very little research focusing on the experiences of individuals working in the field of anti-racism; this research seeks to address this gap in the literature. Using a critical interpretive approach (Lock and Scheper-Hughes, 1990) grounded in the assumptions of constructionism, and relying upon Kleinman’s (1995; 1999) theory of moral experience, I interviewed 12 self-identified White, anti-racism educators using an open-ended life-history interview followed by a semi-structured interview. The interview questions were inspired by the racism literature reviewed; my own experiences as a White woman negotiating my place in the study of racism; Kleinman’s theory of moral experience; and a collection of secondary theories deemed potentially useful to understanding various dimensions of participants’ experience. Four broad domains of moral experience are identified and explored in this research. First, participants’ understandings of race, racism, and anti-racism are examined. Veyne’s (1988) theory regarding the plurality of “programs of truths” is used to make sense of what might be read as contradictions in participants’ constructions of these concepts. Second, the experience of actually doing anti-racism education is considered in terms of participants’ descriptions of their involvements; which they frame alternately as educating Whites, ‘helping’ the racialized, and changing racist structures. Foucault’s (1977, 1978) theory of power and de Certeau’s notion of tactics (1984) prove relevant to understanding aspects of participants’ experiences in this domain. Third, the relationships between Self and various Others (i.e., the White Other, the racialized Other, the anti-racism Other) are explored. Todorov’s (1984) typology of the Other is used to make sense of these complex data. Finally, participants’ descriptions of their experiences of Self (including past, present, and future Selves) are examined. Goffman’s (1961) theory of moral career and Turner’s (1995) theory of liminality are applied to understanding elements of participants’ varied experiences of Self. In reviewing participants’ accounts across these broad domains, I argue that their noted success and confidence in navigating a challenging moral landscape might be understood in terms of their skill in moving between dual worlds that operate according to distinct logics of morality. Potential applications for the field of anti-racism are discussed.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.005 | 0.007 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.066 | 0.022 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.015 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.015 |
| Research integrity | 0.004 | 0.014 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.008 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".