The Production of Whiteness in Education: Asian International Students in a College Classroom

This study uses a poststructural analysis to explicate the social production of Whiteness in a college classroom. Whiteness scholars define Whiteness as reference to a set of locations that are historically, socially, politically, and culturally produced, and intrinsically linked to relations of domination. Using this framework of social production, I analyze a graduate-level college classroom for evidence of Whiteness. More than 50% of the class members were Asian international students. I suggest that Whiteness was operating on multiple levels, which I categorize as: Whiteness as Domination; Resources and the Production of the Other; and the Discourse of Cultural Preference. I argue that Whiteness not only served to deny Asian international students and other students of color an equal opportunity to learn in that classroom, but most pointedly, Whiteness also served to elevate the White students by positioning the students of color as their audience.