‘You petty’: Developing critical awareness of nice dysconscious racism – an analytic autoethnography of a White K–5 general music educator

This analytic autoethnography examines how enacting critical consciousness through reflection, discourse, inquiry and action deepened my awareness of nice dysconscious racism and supported my rejection of educational niceness over time. Focusing on my professional identity as a White female general music teacher in a culturally and racially diverse, high-poverty school, the study investigates how these principles were operationalized to challenge ingrained beliefs and practices. The central research question asks how engaging in these components of critical consciousness fosters increased critical awareness and sustained shifts away from educational niceness. In this article, I have used vignettes to illustrate the development and manifestations of my own dysconscious identity as a nice White lady and analysed each vignette through the theoretical framework of critical consciousness. In doing so, I problematize taken-for-granted assumptions about the performance of the nice White lady and reflect on the ongoing work of naming, troubling and divesting from whiteness.