Date of Award
Summer 8-2024
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Education
First Advisor
Lilia D. Monzó, Ph.D.
Second Advisor
Margie Sauceda Curwen, Ph.D.
Third Advisor
Shelly Tochluk, Ph.D.
Abstract
In asking the questions “How are white families striving to create antiracist family cultures simultaneously resisting reifying white dominant culture, and how are white children making sense of their racial identities in those families?” I had the opportunity to deepen previously established relationships with three families asking similar questions. Our collective querying resulted in data collected using critical ethnographic methods rooted in culturally responsive methods including fieldwork, formal and informal conversations, and written narrative. Unique themes emerged from each family’s data, from which I drew three major theoretical conclusions: the importance of (1) Critical Consciousness (2) Antiracist Community, and (3) Unfinishedness. The data indicates the need for continued research regarding white children’s antiracist racial identity development in the social, familial, and schooling spheres, as well as the motivations that undergird white caregivers to attempt to act in antiracist ways. This study contributes to a current gap in the literature regarding the development of antiracist attitudes among white children.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Kitchens, K. (2024). New ways of being white: White families striving to raise young antiracists [Doctoral dissertation, Chapman University]. Chapman University Digital Commons. https://doi.org/10.36837/chapman.000607
Included in
Early Childhood Education Commons, Elementary Education Commons, Family and Consumer Sciences Commons