School ethnography and longitudinal interviews

The concept of white privilege is often considered as inherent to ‘white’ people. Hence, this static approach does not take significant notions such as gender, class and age into account. Intersecting these concepts with each other contributes to a more dynamic approach of white privilege. This is necessary to understand why ‘white’ female middle-aged teachers experience white privilege differently than ‘white’ female students from working-class backgrounds. In addition, the school context brings in the element of power between teachers and students, in which students depend on teachers for certain resources for achieving school results and for the development and realisation of their future aspirations (see also Stam, 2016). In short, studying white privileges as part of students’ racial resources brings us closer to understanding how ‘white’ students can realise their aspirations.