A critical analysis of whiteness unavoidably relies on using metaphors in order to understand or apprehend its object of study. In this effort, scholars of whiteness recruit tropes to describe whiteness and in the process discursively constitute its contours, concerns and contradictions. In short, the tropics of whiteness reveal something…

Best known for arguing that individual development is part of social and historical development Vygotsky's entry into education may be captured by his concept of the "zone of proximal development" (ZPD). ZPD has not yet been synthesized with a critical study of whiteness. When ZPD is used to explain racial disparities in the service of…

This article presents the main terms of the racial contract, as they appear in the subcontracts of Mills' theory, such as the spatial, epistemological, cognitive subcontracts. It is important to keep in mind that these subcontracts are by no means separate and represent analytical moments of the main contract. Furthermore, other than its…

This article explores the embodiment and affectivity of whiteness, particularly as it implicates educational praxis and social justice in education, focusing on the following questions: In what ways are affect and whiteness constitutive of each other in race dialogue? How does emotion intersect with racial practices and white privilege, and what…

The study of whiteness in education is receiving increased attention. This essay argues that the No Child Left Behind Act is an example of color-blindness "par excellence." NCLB's hidden referent of whiteness makes a casual pass at racial explanation that sidesteps race as a causal explanation for educational disparities. In this sense,…