This paper seeks to report the findings of a cultural studies project conducted in an upperclassman, undergraduate, teacher preparation course. With this paper, I explore the implications of a white savior mentality through the lens of three different, yet over-lapping, personal and social media: my own story as a beginning, white teacher in racially diverse school settings; popular texts that romanticize white teachers who come in to “save the day”; and the experiences of future teachers with whom I have worked to interrogate a White Savior Industrial Complex (WSIC). With this paper, then, I work to investigate the social institutions that animate the WSIC, which I position as a detrimental extension of a superhero teacher that perpetuates inequalities in schools if left unexamined. More specifically, to combat the structures of inequality that exist in our schools, I argue for critical race theory and critical whiteness studies courses as a potential space for white teachers to dialogue and come to terms with their understandings of white supremacy.

This article emerged from conversations that we and fellow graduate students have had in building a community donation garden, which was initiated in partnership with a local food distribution nonprofit and a community church. As graduate students, we created the garden with a vision of enacting food justice in our community, but over the past four years we have experienced complexities with our vision. We found ourselves positioned between an emergency food system dependent on an industrial agrifood system and the ideals of food justice. In this article, we share the complexities with which we have wrestled, how we have encouraged thoughtful dialogue among fellow scholars about these shortcomings and the intricate workings of the agrifood system, and the lessons we have learned through these experiences as early-career scholar-activists. This article represents our collective and individual voices as graduate student garden leaders reflecting on: (1) the ways in which we strived to integrate social justice into our local emergency food system; (2) the paradox of industrial commodity-oriented production agriculture designed to ‘feed the world’, which neglects the production of healthy food that is locally produced and locally accessible; and (3) the holistic learning approach of combining academic studies with praxis. As students cycle through the graduate program, the garden and partnerships continue, and students take the lessons that they learn through this engagement into their careers and other activities.

A reflexive and conceptual piece, I address the tension around white people and researchers utilizing stories of people of color for social justice, instead maintaining that white researchers can deconstruct their own whiteness upholding white supremacy through reflexive, race-centered stories. Because of white epistemological disadvantages (Alcoff, 2007) and the shallow depth of experiences required to see and dismantle oppression (Leonardo & Porter, 2010), white people must engage differently in work towards justice, focusing on the way white supremacy operates institutionally and individually. While painful, white people need to grapple with the interior work of reflexivity to confront individual histories and ideologies influenced by whiteness (Matias, 2016), as well as internal contradictions around racial constructions (Newton, 2002). Utilizing Jones (2000) levels of racism--personally mediated, institutional, and internalized--I explicate a process to engage with stories reflexively and unpack whiteness ideologies for justice-oriented action. I model the process with some of my own reflexive stories intended to support my everyday work for social justice.

Service learning has gained traction in higher education as an accepted pedagogical model, but practitioners question the types of learning outcomes that emerge from it. How does service learning contribute to student growth, particularly in the area of critical consciousness development? This study investigates how service-learning experiences impact the ways in which students think about issues of Inequality, Social Justice, and Power & Privilege. Qualitative data collected from 17 service learning courses were coded within these three major themes, and then further categorized within each major theme as statements that reflect Cognitive Recognition, Perspective Taking, or Student Agency.

The Journal of Critical Thought and Praxis has traditionally published interviews with individuals who have strong connections to our special issue topics. We believe that interviews are important ways to contribute to the conversation surrounding critical issues in social justice. This interview features Dr. David Koepsell, whose recent research focuses on how ethics and public policy deal with emerging science and technology.