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Red Light! Green Light! An Analytic Frame & Learning Device for Race Talk

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Title: Red Light! Green Light! An Analytic Frame & Learning Device for Race Talk
Language: English
Authors: Ashley J. Carey, Hilary Lustick, James Noonan, Peter Piazza
Source: Equity & Excellence in Education. 2025 58(3):178-190.
Availability: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 13
Publication Date: 2025
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Descriptors: Race, Racism, Racial Factors, Dialogs (Language), White Teachers, Administrators, Faculty Development, Language Usage, Teacher Response
DOI: 10.1080/10665684.2025.2490894
ISSN: 1066-5684
1547-3457
Abstract: Predominantly White educator groups often struggle to talk about race, even when that is their explicit aim. This study examines conversational patterns in one district's antiracist book study to explore how individual comments promote or obstruct racial dialogue. We find that contributions that blocked race talk (what we call red lights) dominated discussions, reinforcing norms of race avoidance, while those that opened and encouraged race talk (what we call green lights) were rare. We use these terms to structure our analysis and propose them as a framework to help educators identify and disrupt race-avoidant conversational patterns to encourage racial literacy development. This research underscores the critical role of facilitation in guiding race talk and highlights the potential for red lights to be reframed as opportunities for growth.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2025
Accession Number: EJ1490726
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0187498975;eie01jul.25;2025Aug26.02:59;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0187498975-1">Red Light! Green Light! An Analytic Frame & Learning Device for Race Talk </title> <sbt id="AN0187498975-2">Introduction</sbt> <p>Predominantly White educator groups often struggle to talk about race, even when that is their explicit aim. This study examines conversational patterns in one district's antiracist book study to explore how individual comments promote or obstruct racial dialogue. We find that contributions that blocked race talk (what we call red lights) dominated discussions, reinforcing norms of race avoidance, while those that opened and encouraged race talk (what we call green lights) were rare. We use these terms to structure our analysis and propose them as a framework to help educators identify and disrupt race-avoidant conversational patterns to encourage racial literacy development. This research underscores the critical role of facilitation in guiding race talk and highlights the potential for red lights to be reframed as opportunities for growth.</p> <p>At their first book study meeting, five educators pored over racial demographic data comparing their students to students in neighboring towns. One educator wondered aloud what the racial data might look like between students and teachers within their district. "What would the data for our staff look like?" she asked before answering, "It would be bad." The comment, implying a racial mismatch between the predominantly White educator body and a more racially diverse student body, appeared to signal a <emph>green light</emph> or openness to discussing race. However, a second educator promptly blocked the group's consideration of race, saying, "To be fair, you have to look at <emph>adult</emph> [census] data." This educator then asserted that not enough adults of color exist, especially in New England, to fill teaching roles proportionately. Her comment presented a <emph>red light</emph> or block to discussing race. No one in the group challenged this assertion, and the conversation about racial mismatch ended before it ever really began.</p> <p>Race-focused professional development aims to educate teachers on racism, allowing them to identify and address implicit biases, understand the impact of systemic racism on student learning, and develop strategies to create more equitable classrooms (Matschiner, [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref1">23</reflink>]). However, race-focused dialogue, which is often the mechanism for learning race-focused professional development, presents a significant hurdle. Our opening vignette illustrates a scenario that scholars have observed time and time again. Even with clear guidelines and goals, White educators frequently struggle to talk about race (Crowley & Smith, [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref2">6</reflink>]; Gorski, [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref3">10</reflink>]; Yoon, [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref4">39</reflink>]). To address this persistent issue, our project deconstructs race talk to understand how conversational patterns promote or inhibit critical engagement with topics related to race.</p> <p>We observed a predominantly White educator group that set out to discuss and learn about antiracism by participating in a book study. Drawing on ethnographic methods, we document how individual contributions to conversation encourage race talk (green lights) and block race talk (red lights) to shape the conversation as a whole and support or undermine learning about race. Through this analysis, we provide a framework and a learning device to help White educator groups understand where their conversations are going wrong and how to foster more productive discussions. Gaining a deeper understanding of how individual contributions shape group engagement with race can help practitioners transform moments of race avoidance into opportunities for growth. Sustained racial dialogue will allow educators to discuss and make meaningful shifts in practice that improve the schooling experiences of students of color.</p> <hd id="AN0187498975-3">Literature review</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0187498975-4">Critical whiteness & white teacher identity</hd> <p>This study draws on Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS) to understand how White educator dialogue continues to minimize race. CWS explores the ways White people create and uphold systems of White supremacy and privilege. Scholars in this field suggest that Whiteness—comprising the norms and beliefs influencing White educators' viewpoints—also shapes the U.S. education system, affecting policies, practices, teacher training, classroom interactions, and, ultimately, student outcomes. A key contribution of CWS is that it helps highlight potential defensive and avoidance patterns in predominantly White educator groups, which often re-center Whiteness and inhibit transformative conversations (Matias & Boucher, [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref5">22</reflink>]).</p> <p>The subfield of White teacher identity focuses specifically on White teachers' understanding of their own racial identities and how these identities influence their teaching practices and interactions with students. Early work on White teacher identity brought attention to the role of Whiteness in education, particularly concerning teacher identity and its impact on diverse classrooms (Jupp et al., [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref6">15</reflink>]). Scholars in this wave emphasized the "invisibility" of Whiteness and the structural privileges afforded to White individuals, thereby challenging the normalization of Whiteness as the implicit standard (e.g., Frankenberg, [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref7">9</reflink>], McIntosh, [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref8">25</reflink>], Roediger, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref9">30</reflink>]). By identifying the challenges and common patterns in White teachers' racial identity development, this research laid the foundation for more complex explorations of how White identity affects teaching and learning in racially diverse schools.</p> <p>More recent work on White teacher identity has emphasized that recognizing Whiteness alone is not enough to dismantle racist power structures (Jupp et al., [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref10">15</reflink>]). Second-wave scholars focused on the complexities of White identity, White guilt, and the performativity of antiracist efforts by White people. Scholars scrutinized how White people's engagement with CWS could reinforce White dominance (e.g., Ahmed, [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref11">1</reflink>]; Yancy, [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref12">38</reflink>]). The present study joins more recent work that seeks to understand how we can bridge theory and practice to support White educators who are interested in antiracism through professional development (e.g., Leonard & Woodland, [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref13">19</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0187498975-5">Race talk in professional development</hd> <p>Researchers find that professional development (PD) focused on racial dialogue can lead to positive outcomes, including greater racial literacy and increased understanding of race and power (Matschiner, [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref14">24</reflink>]; Sacramento, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref15">31</reflink>]). In their observation of one book study, Lac et al. ([<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref16">18</reflink>]) found that by engaging in critical reflection, a predominantly White educator group moved past race evasive and culturally oriented explanations of inequity and drew on structural and organizational explanations. This ultimately shifted the way educators addressed racial disparities in their daily practice.</p> <p>In addition to these positive outcomes, it is important to note that race talk also can lead to feelings of frustration, anger, and stress for people of color and White participants (Sue, [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref17">34</reflink>]). These feelings often cause educators to disengage from the conversation. Scholars refer to this phenomenon as "resistance in the form of silence" (Murray-Johnson, [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref18">27</reflink>], p. 5), a "conspiracy of silence" (Sue, [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref19">34</reflink>]), or "Whiteness at work" (Yoon, [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref20">39</reflink>], p. 587). These reactions to discomfort often bring progress to a halt.</p> <p>Yoon ([<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref21">39</reflink>]) provides an in-depth case study of this phenomenon in which she observed an educator book study for a predominantly White educator group. This group read <emph>The Freedom Writers Diary</emph> (The Freedom Writers & Gruwell, [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref22">11</reflink>]).[<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref23">1</reflink>] Yoon notes that the group's discourse and facilitation euphemized and avoided race for the comfort of White educators, thereby undermining their stated equity goals. She reasons that understanding how groups construct Whiteness can reveal how "individual participation and social context and norms interact to perpetuate racism in schools, despite intentions or cognitive awareness" (Yoon, [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref24">39</reflink>], p. 609). We build on these observations by examining the link between individual contributions to conversation, patterns of conversation shaped by the group, and de-facto group norms, like race-evasion.</p> <hd id="AN0187498975-6">Conceptual framework: Red light! Green light!</hd> <p>We propose a framework that distinguishes between two types of responses to race talk: those that promote race evasion and those that foster race-focused dialogue. Educators' contributions function as green lights, validating and encouraging race talk, or as red lights, invalidating and discouraging it. These individual contributions shape conversational patterns, reinforcing what is socially permissible in the conversation. These patterns, whether red-light- or green-light-dominated, ultimately shape the norms of antiracist conversations as spaces that avoid or foster racial dialogue.</p> <p>As a learning device, this framework can support White educators engaging in race-focused conversations to improve schooling experiences for students of color. Sustained racial dialogue is critical to engage educators in antiracist learning necessary for meaningful school improvement. Successful race talk requires educators to recognize their complicity in systems of oppression (Leonardo, [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref25">20</reflink>]). As a learning device, Red light! Green light! can raise awareness of the ways individual contributions shape racial dialogue.</p> <p>Providing language can help educators and facilitators recognize red lights, allowing them opportunities to transform them into green lights. By reflecting on their contributions in real time, educators can ask, "Am I contributing a red light or a green light?" This mindfulness creates opportunities to disrupt race-evasive patterns before they solidify. Importantly, red lights also can serve as inflection points. When examined retrospectively, they provide opportunities to deepen the understanding of race and power. Facilitators can leverage the framework to call attention to red light patterns and re-engage educators in race talk.</p> <hd id="AN0187498975-7">Methods</hd> <p>This study is a focused ethnography, which offers the benefits of ethnographic exploration within a narrow area of inquiry (Knoblauch, [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref26">17</reflink>]; Wall, [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref27">37</reflink>]). Unlike traditional ethnography, which unfolds over months or years and studies the wider cultural context of a population, focused ethnography unfolds over weeks and examines a specific phenomenon of interest (Alfonso et al., [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref28">2</reflink>]). Given the fixed span of the book group we observed and our interest in the conversational dynamics of a predominantly White educator group embarking on race-focused work, focused ethnography allowed us to balance the confines of time and scope of the research. In this work, we use the terms "talk," "conversation," and "dialogue" interchangeably to refer to verbal exchanges in the observed book study.</p> <hd id="AN0187498975-8">Data collection</hd> <p>We draw on observational data from a race-focused book study convened during the spring of 2021 (March through April). We observed five one-hour Zoom sessions, each of which included whole-group discussions and smaller breakout sessions. To maintain an environment where participants could freely share and converse, we did not record sessions. Rather, we relied on contemporaneous note-taking to capture as much verbatim conversation as possible. Discussing race can be a highly sensitive and uncomfortable topic. This discomfort can be further compounded by the presence of researchers. To minimize our presence, we turned off our cameras and microphones after briefly introducing ourselves to the educators.</p> <hd id="AN0187498975-9">Study location</hd> <p>Chestnut (a pseudonym) is a rapidly diversifying suburb in New England. Between 2010 and 2020, the proportion of White students in the district decreased from 78% to 60%. In that same time, the district's Latinx student population more than doubled from less than 15% to more than 30%. In contrast, the teaching force remains predominantly White: in 2020, it was 94%, down slightly from 97% in 2010.</p> <p>The assistant superintendent of Chestnut, a White man, convened and facilitated voluntary antiracist reading groups beginning in the summer of 2020 in response to educator interest. He shared via interview that he did not have explicit training in race talk facilitation but had taken graduate coursework related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.</p> <p>While educators participated voluntarily, they were offered professional development points for their participation. During 2020, groups read <emph>How to Be an Antiracist</emph> (Kendi, [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref29">16</reflink>]). We observed a book study held in the spring of 2021, in which participants read the book <emph>Tell Me Who You Are: Sharing Our Stories of Race, Culture, & Identity</emph> (Guo & Vulchi, [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref30">12</reflink>]). In the text, two young women of color, Winona Guo and Priya Vulchi, embark on a cross-country trip to collect first-person accounts of the ways racism manifests in the United States. Between book study meetings on Zoom, participants read chapters and engage in reflective writing prompts on a Google Classroom page. Zoom sessions consisted of both whole group sessions and smaller breakout room sessions randomly generated by the facilitator. The four members of the research team were manually placed into separate breakout sessions by the facilitator.</p> <p>The group included a mix of 20 individuals, both building administrators and classroom teachers, from across the district's schools, including 17 women and three men. Notably, there was no formal recognition of participants' race during the sessions. Participants did offer direct and indirect cues that revealed their racial identity. For example, one educator mused that a breakout room was "pretty vanilla," while others shared stories of growing up in predominantly White areas with the implication that they, too, are White. From what participants shared about themselves during the group, we surmise that 19 participants were White, and 1 participant self-identified as Latinx.</p> <p>In the context of group dialogue, we believe that the racial presentation of speakers has a strong effect on how their comments are perceived by their peers. For example, if a White presenting speaker contributes a red light to the conversation, what matters most for the group dynamic is how that speaker is perceived by peers, even regardless of whether that speaker privately identifies as non-White. In our analysis, then, we rely on the same method of racial consciousness that people use in common interactions: the inevitable inferences that individuals make about others' racial identity based on skin color and related identity markers. If a participant voluntarily identified their racial identity, then we adjusted our notes accordingly, as now the person's identity was part of the common understanding in the group.</p> <hd id="AN0187498975-10">Analysis & interpretation</hd> <p>After each session, we reviewed our notes for clarity and added memo notations to highlight emerging patterns. We also engaged in reflective memo writing throughout the project. Following the culmination of the book study sessions, we reviewed and reflected on our notes to identify preliminary codes (Saldaña, [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref31">32</reflink>]). From this preliminary review, we observed that participant discourse sometimes served as a green light to productive conversation, where participants invited discussion of race and, at other times, served as a red light that stalled progress or avoided discussion of race completely. Thus, red light and green light became our parent codes. We utilized subsequent coding rounds and ongoing memo-writing to better understand the nature of dialogical red lights and green lights.</p> <hd id="AN0187498975-11">Validity, reliability, & positionality</hd> <p>Ethnographic studies are particularly vulnerable to bias as the researcher is the primary data collection instrument (Marshall & Rossman, [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref32">21</reflink>]). To mitigate the risk of bias, we use peer examination and confirmatory analysis to ensure the credibility of this study (Creswell, [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref33">5</reflink>]). For the peer examination process, the authors reviewed one another's observational notes and themes to confirm the dependability of the findings.</p> <p>All four members of our research team identify as White. Three of the four researchers are former K-12 educators, and all currently work as university faculty. Our collective research expertise includes areas such as restorative justice, culturally responsive teaching, school diversity, and K-12 policy. Additionally, two team members worked with the assistant superintendent of the Chestnut School District in a professional capacity on an unrelated project. Through this existing relationship, members of the team learned about Chestnut's antiracist reading groups and arranged to observe them for this study. We engaged in critical self-reflection to consider how our positions as White individuals, former teachers, and colleagues to the facilitator might shape our sensemaking.</p> <hd id="AN0187498975-12">Findings</hd> <p>We found that dialogic patterns largely hindered educators' stated goal of antiracist conversation. Participants contributed frequent red lights, which socially discouraged discussion of race and power from moving forward. Green lights—moments when teachers explicitly discussed race and power—were infrequent. As a result, conversational norms reinforced systems of thought that minimized and silenced discussion of race. We share examples of red lights and green lights, using a combination of paraphrasing and direct quotations. When we utilize quotations, we are reporting direct quotes from participants as captured in our notes.</p> <hd id="AN0187498975-13">Red lights</hd> <p>Dialogue in the sessions often functioned in patterns that made sustained discussion of race difficult. Participants spent a lot of time <emph>not</emph> discussing race or racism, and these red lights largely aligned with previous work on conversational blocks to discussing race in White educational spaces (e.g., Crowley & Smith, [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref34">6</reflink>]; Dugan, [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref35">8</reflink>]; Gorski, [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref36">10</reflink>]; Yoon, [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref37">39</reflink>]). The more that individual participants avoided race, the easier it seemed for the entire group to continue this pattern. We observed three overlapping red light patterns: (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref38">1</reflink>) race talk blocks, (<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref39">2</reflink>) bravery posturing & praising, and (<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref40">3</reflink>) red light stacking.</p> <hd id="AN0187498975-14">Race talk blocks</hd> <p>Race talk blocks occurred when individuals actively interrupted or derailed conversation about race from moving forward. For instance, one educator brought up the absence of students of color in Advanced Placement (AP) classes at the high school, presenting a green light to a direct discussion about race. Then, a second educator discounted the role of race in the make-up of AP classes, reframing the observation as a "class issue." She stated that AP disparities are a matter of "[socioeconomic] class issues," because families do not have access to monetary resources needed to prepare children for advanced coursework. After this block, no other members of the group raised race or racism in the conversation.</p> <p>A second example of a race talk block occurred during a session in which the group was discussing the changing demographics of Chestnut. One educator shared her experience of growing up and moving back to Chestnut, calling the demographic shifts a "culture shock:" "Growing up in Chestnut and having moved back, it's changed ... not having a lot of Black people, I only knew one other Jewish person growing up ... Now—It's so diverse, but it wasn't like that growing up." Her reflections offered a green light to further discussion about what it means to grow up in a racially segregated White community and how that experience might shape perceptions of demographic shifts.</p> <p>A second educator then added that she too has family in Chestnut. Her comment, an effort at connection, but off-topic and void of race, served as a red light to the conversation opened by the first educator. Following that red light, a third educator offered another green light to reopen the discussion on race. "I had a very similar experience—small town, very White. In college, I did a service trip down south and it was ... wooooow," she said with an expressive face and tone of voice to emphasize the depth of her awakening. "It was eye-opening, dilapidated houses or mansions, shocking to me. I started to see it in other places, it's something I'm working with." While it was not entirely clear what was "eye-opening" about her experience or what it was she observed on that trip that she has since observed elsewhere, her comment signaled an openness to discussing race and inequality. Then, the same educator who offered the comment about having family in Chestnut, interjected a second time: "Oh! It makes me want to travel! See the world!" This comment, again devoid of race, was more focused on an indulgent yearning for adventure—quite different than the experiences shared by her colleagues, who contrasted their childhoods in segregated towns with travels that seemed to shift their awareness of race.</p> <p>The green light, red light, green light, red light pattern inhibited further interrogation of the observations shared in the green light and any fruitful conversation from taking place. In example one, the educator blocks conversation about representation within the AP classes from moving forward. In example two, the teacher ignores direct mentions of race and shifts the conversation towards general niceties like having family in the district or wanting to travel more. In addition to impeding a focused conversation from moving forward, this pattern began to lay the groundwork for race evasion as a group norm.</p> <hd id="AN0187498975-15">Bravery posturing & praising</hd> <p>Bravery posturing and praising refers to the inclination of educators to share and applaud one another's examples of White people confronting racism. In bravery posturing, bravery tends to be superficial and performative, less about the act itself and more about masking feelings that could include insecurity or discomfort. Bravery praising is the social validation of these performances. For example, one educator shared a story about a time she ate at a restaurant with a racially diverse group. A young child at a nearby table pointed to the group and asked their parents, "What are <emph>they</emph> doing here?" To which the participant recalled responding that, "<emph>They</emph> [the Latinx members of her dinner party] were just out enjoying a meal like everyone else." In her retelling, this participant positioned herself as the hero of a story about fighting racism by inferring that the child was questioning the presence of the Latinx diners. She was rewarded for this "brave" White person behavior, as group members praised her courage.</p> <p>During a later breakout room session, a different group of participants were discussing the contrasting concepts of "color blindness" and "color bravery." The concept of being "color brave" was introduced by the facilitator through a TED Talk by financial executive Hobson ([<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref41">13</reflink>]). The facilitator presented the concept of being "color brave" or acknowledging that race exists as a social construct—as an alternative to the concept of being "color blind," when an individual suppresses discussion of race by claiming one does not "see race." In the subsequent breakout room discussion, one teacher shared that she gifted her elderly neighbor Ibram Kendi's <emph>How to Be an Antiracist</emph> because he often says things that she believes are racist. She continued that her exchanges with her neighbor, whom she called Bob, are so frequent that her children also confront Bob, adding: "Even my kids will say, '<emph>Oh</emph> Bob, that's racist!' in response to some of his comments."</p> <p>These anecdotes reflected a larger trend throughout the sessions: White educators repeatedly distanced themselves from <emph>normal</emph> or <emph>racist</emph> Whites, by demonstrating that they were <emph>good</emph> or "brave" White people. Notably, these anecdotes did not interrogate the role of race or racism. Teachers leaned into examples of times they were "brave" White people while avoiding discussions that might stimulate racial identity growth, cause discomfort, or acknowledge racial power dynamics in the classroom. Through a sensemaking lens, red light social cues like bravery posturing and praising reinforced the types of race talk that were socially acceptable within the group. Group encouragement of these shallow forms of race talk coupled with the blocking of deeper forms of race talk effectively communicated boundaries that prevented more critical conversations around race from occurring. As a result, norms around the types of race talk that was and was not permitted within the group emerged.</p> <hd id="AN0187498975-16">Red light stacking</hd> <p>Red light stacking describes moments when attempts to interrupt, derail, or avoid race talk are reinforced, or even strengthened, by other participants who follow suit. One example of this pattern occurred in a breakout room discussion in which participants were instructed to discuss code switching. The text utilized by this group defines code switching as "when one alternates between different languages, dialects, or ways of speaking among different groups of people" (Guo & Vulchi, [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref42">12</reflink>], p. 17). One participant shared that, "as a Catholic, I behave differently in church then I do when I'm with friends." Building on this race-avoidant theme, a second participant chimed in that she acted differently with her family than with her in-laws: "Like how I am with my family versus with my in-laws." A third participant then described how she and some of her immediate family members have adopted a plant-based diet and the challenges they face when dining with others: "Others don't accommodate us—people can't understand what you're doing." These red lights stacked up as participants continued to chime in with anecdotes and observations devoid of considerations of race and power. The first red light could be viewed as a misinterpretation of the concept of code-switching, but it also acted as an invitation to minimize or erase race from the conversation. Subsequent red lights responded to this invitation by affirming race avoidance as a conversational norm. As a result, the entire discussion ensued without participants discussing race. There seemed to be a sense of momentum around not discussing race and participants generally seemed disinterested in disrupting this momentum.</p> <p>A second example of red light stacking occurred when participants were discussing the concept of intersectionality. Similar to the conversation on code-switching, participants interpreted intersectionality broadly and, in a way, devoid of race. The conversation focused on the phenomenon of students being surprised that teachers are people with lives outside of the classroom. One educator shared, "It's also good for the kids to know about teacher identity. A lot of my students are shocked to learn that I play soccer." Another shared that her students are surprised to see her outside of the school context, "My students are surprised to see I'm a mom who shops at Target." This conversation continued as the four White women in the group shared examples of their identity not related to race—athlete, mom, educator, Target shopper. Once again, the first red light seemed to act as a gateway or permission to divert the conversation from race and systems of privilege. Subsequent red lights—whether through misinterpretation or purposeful misdirection—cultivated what Sue ([<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref43">34</reflink>]) calls a "conspiracy of silence" about race. Participants did not discuss what intersectionality is. Rather, participants discussed aspects of their identity without any explicit mention of how they relate to systems of oppression and privilege. Most notably, the aspects of identity participants shared did not include their race.</p> <p>In this book study, educators were reading about the experiences of people of color in the U.S. and then encouraged to discuss how they relate to concepts like code-switching. Despite the explicit focus on learning and talking about antiracism, we observed participants carry on complete conversations with little to no acknowledgment of race and the power structures that uphold racism in schools. Avoidance was made easier by the fact that it became a group activity, participants created a sense of momentum and safety around avoiding race as the red lights stacked up. For each subsequent red light comment, the red lights before it seem to serve as permission.</p> <hd id="AN0187498975-17">Green lights</hd> <p>Conversational green lights, or moments when educators engaged in discussion of race and power, occurred infrequently during the sessions we observed. Moreover, as we described above, green lights were often met with red lights that blocked or derailed the opportunity for sustained conversations about race. Despite the rarity of sustained race-focused conversation, such exchanges did occasionally occur. Participants made explicit remarks about race and racism that were grounded in school- or district-level demographic data, connecting data to personal experience and asking questions that encouraged interrogation of racist norms. Parsing the dialogic patterns in these green lights helps us understand how and when substantive race talk takes place.</p> <p>During the first session, the facilitator displayed student data that detailed the demographics of students who attend Chestnut High School compared to another local regional high school that serves a higher population of White and monolingual English-speaking students. These data spurred a conversation in one breakout room about differences between schools like Chestnut High School that accept all students and those, like the regional vocational high school, that are allowed to guard access using racially biased admissions criteria.</p> <p>In the breakout room, educators shared a mixture of reactions to the data, with some finding the level of racial segregation between districts predictable and some finding it surprising. One educator, who seemed unaware of the racial differences between the two high schools, shared that she was "embarrassed to say" that her children "go to the [regional vocational high school]." She went on to verbalize that her biracial daughters would "fall into the non-White" category in the data spreadsheet. She continued, "As a single White mom, I don't consider them Black because of that, but they are considered that." In these comments, the educator responded to the data by reshaping her reality by thinking more expansively about her own children's racial identity.</p> <p>She also acknowledged feelings of embarrassment, but rather than suppress that emotion, she used her realization to broaden her understanding of race. The concreteness of the data categories during the exercise helped facilitate this connection, and the ability of the group to remain engaged around the data created an environment where sharing this type of observation was possible. By communicating her feelings and cognitive process to the rest of the group, she offered a green light for others to build on.</p> <p>Next, in the same breakout room, educators engaged in a brief back-and-forth conversation about the use of admissions criteria in limiting the number of disabled and English learner students at the regional vocational school. One educator shared the need for re-framing bilingualism as an asset, which seemed to prompt a memory in a second educator about a recent conversation she had with her cousin. In this conversation, her cousin expressed their satisfaction with their children's new school because "it's mostly White" and "that's why it's good—they're smart. [Chestnut] used to be good." The teacher went on to describe how her cousin's comments are indicative of the prevailing perspective that diverse schools are viewed as lower-quality schools and that if "people want to have the deficit conversation," it is crucial to address this misperception. Group members then discussed how they can use demographic information to inform their work as teachers and administrators through the development of curriculum, allocation of resources, design of professional development, and the direction of district-wide efforts.</p> <p>While this conversation was not necessarily free of red lights, educators were able to return to the demographic data as a conversational anchor. This confirms previous research on the role of locally relevant data in grounding race-focused conversation (Myers & Finnigan, [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref44">28</reflink>]). Similar to Myers and Finnigan, we observed that system-level data grounded conversations on race while avoiding "blaming and shaming" and "break through defensiveness" ([<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref45">28</reflink>], p. 38). When educators drew on school and district data to engage in conversations about racial bias and segregation, they were drawing on local knowledge to make sense of their district's reality.</p> <p>In this green light scenario, participant conversation reflected the sensemaking relationship between individual cognition and group dialogue. Their conversational cues reflected a reshaping of their own realities and cognitive flexibility. Through the exchange of green lights, this behavior was socially encouraged. If the group had more frequent exchanges like this one, conversational norms that encouraged race talk might have developed.</p> <hd id="AN0187498975-18">Discussion</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0187498975-19">Red lights as missed opportunities: teachers need teachers, too</hd> <p>The educators we observed struggled to talk about race at all. At times, teachers seemed wholly disinterested in discussing race, and at others, they engaged in patterns, like bravery posturing and praising, that have been critiqued as performative allyship. Effective teachers and facilitators help participants locate insights that lie beneath the surface of a wrong answer or misstep. Many red lights presented missed opportunities for the facilitator or participants to draw their colleagues into deeper conversations about race and power. For instance, during discussions about intersectionality, educators veered away from race. Such deviations often went unchecked, and conversation resulted in a slew of red lights. Facilitators can and should harness red lights to dig deeper into critical conversations around race. Ignoring or admonishing race avoidance results in missed learning opportunities (Tanner, [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref46">36</reflink>]). In particular, a skilled facilitator can help guide discussions and help educators refocus or dig deeper when the conversation is derailed, which is necessary during work that elicits strong emotions.</p> <p>While the teacher group we observed made little progress toward their goal of antiracist dialogue and learning, other scholars have observed predominantly White groups that experience success in these regards. Juxtaposing our observations with observations from more successful groups highlights key differences in facilitation and accountability—and how the Red light! Green light! framework can be used as a tool for both. While it may seem counterintuitive, we see a path forward through red lights.</p> <hd id="AN0187498975-20">Turning red lights green</hd> <p>So, what does it look like to use a red light as an opening to deeper insights and more sustained racial dialogue? Two overarching strategies for turning red lights green are, first, to set the stage for the challenges encountered during race talk and, then, to be prepared to hold the group accountable when it avoids race or veers off course. Each of these strategies requires delicate and intentional facilitation and activities.</p> <p>To set the stage for race talk, facilitators may employ agreements to guide the work (Singleton, [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref47">33</reflink>]), but norms and agreements alone are insufficient. Facilitators also need pedagogical approaches to draw out participants' assumptions and help them let their guard down. For example, as part of her "Brave Community" approach to teaching and learning about race, de Novais ([<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref48">7</reflink>]) opens each session with a "grounding speech," an exercise designed "to establish the conditions for learning about racism" (p. 57). The grounding speech uses storytelling to be explicit about her <emph>why</emph>, which models vulnerability and creates conditions for other people to share candidly. Similarly, Sue ([<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref49">34</reflink>]) describes the need for facilitators to "forewarn" and explicitly prepare participants for "difficult dialogues" before they begin (p. 242).</p> <p>In the moment, facilitators and participants must be prepared to respond to red lights. Describing a two-year-long professional learning course with teachers on race, racism, and whiteness, Casey and McManimon ([<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref50">4</reflink>]) encountered an example of what we called bravery posturing in their first session. Instead of praising or affirming, the facilitators pivoted to talk about failures—enlisting everyone in the group to acknowledge ways they had failed to confront or disrupt racist practices and building solidarity around their shortcomings and learning edges. Our proposed framework allows facilitators in these situations to be explicit about what they are doing: turning red lights green through probing questions (Pollock, [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref51">29</reflink>]) or process observations, noticing and naming the avoidance tactics as a way to refocus the group (Sue, [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref52">34</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0187498975-21">Implications for practice & research</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0187498975-22">Red light! Green light! in practice</hd> <p>We reimagine two examples of red light patterns to illustrate how Red light! Green light! can be used both in the moment and retroactively to refocus race talk. These reimagined scenes adapt exchanges from our observational data. Red light moments are drawn from actual examples from our data corpus. The moments in which participants recall the Red light! Green light! device to disrupt red light patterns are hypothetical situations. We use italics to denote hypothetical quotes.</p> <p>The facilitator asked the group to consider the quote, "Our diversity, not Whiteness, should be normal." Next, he posed a question to the group: "Are the messages that people receive that White is normal?" His prompt, asking participants to consider hegemonic aspects of Whiteness, served as a green light to discuss race directly. One of the educators responded, "It upsets me when I hear the term 'regular,' like regular classes and regular ed—like nails on the chalkboard because it means that others are irregular..." The teacher took the concept of hegemony and applied it to the language we use around learning disabilities. A second teacher listened to her colleague. As a special education teacher herself, she agreed with her colleague's thoughts about how educators speak about special education. Before contributing, the second teacher considered how a statement of agreement about special education might serve as a red light to race talk. Instead, she unmuted her laptop microphone and said, "<emph>Just to bring it back to race, I wonder how we teachers might signal to students of color that White is the norm</emph>?" Her contribution of a green light in the form of a question opened the door for group members to re-engage with race. In that moment, the second teacher used Red light! Green light! to refocus herself before contributing to the group conversation.</p> <p>Later, during a conversation about what prompted their participation in the reading group, educators were engaging in red light stacking. A teacher remarked how attending regular meetings for the book study has been pleasant in the wake of COVID distancing: "It's also been nice having everyone together." A third educator responds with a question about which school she is currently working in, "Lauren, I don't even remember, where did you go? Riverside?" At this point, the facilitator popped into the Zoom room and continued to add to the stack of red lights, "What's Shawn's deal? We grew up together." The facilitator, realizing the breakout session was now consumed with small talk, intervened, "<emph>I'm noticing that we've veered off topic. I'm wondering if we're avoiding talking about what brought us here?</emph>" After a few moments of silence, one teacher said, "<emph>I think you're right. For me, seeing everything going on with Black Lives Matter, and wanting to do the right thing, and not knowing what to do. That's what brought me here</emph>." Other teachers began sharing their experiences of watching protests on television and social media. The facilitator employed Red light! Green light! retroactively to engage with red lights. He used his position as a facilitator to dig into the collective cognitive dissonance and redirect the conversation back to race.</p> <hd id="AN0187498975-23">Red light! Green light! in research</hd> <p>A major limitation of our data is that the conversations we observed lacked examples of green light patterns. As a result, this study engages more deeply with red light patterns or the times when participants evaded race-focused conversation. While this represents a reality of race talk in predominantly White educator groups, it also opens opportunities for research on conversational building blocks in more successful racial dialogue groups. For example, Tanner's ([<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref53">35</reflink>]) and Miller's ([<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref54">26</reflink>]) groundbreaking work with young people surfaced the complexities of White identity that often get lost in antiracist discourse. Part of what race research on White dialogue surfaces are the mechanisms—the green lights—by which white children are willing to name and grapple with these complexities and the added challenges that adults face in doing the same (Casey, [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref55">3</reflink>]; Casey & McManimon, [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref56">4</reflink>]). While we focus on using red lights as openings to green lights, future research might examine green light patterns during dialogue groups in which educators engage in sustained discussions of race and power. Currently, as a learning device, Red light! Green light! is most suitable for groups that are just starting to discuss race, especially groups that are predominantly White. Future work, however, may further develop this tool to be useful for a wider audience.</p> <hd id="AN0187498975-24">Conclusion</hd> <p>Despite their acknowledgment of the importance of discussing race, the educators in this study often struggled to engage in substantive conversations. Our findings highlight how red lights—comments or behaviors that block or discourage discussion of race—dominated the dialogue, and green lights—moments that encouraged direct discussion of race—were infrequent. These conversational patterns reveal White educators' deeply ingrained discomfort with race talk and highlight the persistent challenges in fostering meaningful discussions about race, even among educators committed to antiracism.</p> <p>The introduction of the Red light! Green light! learning device offers a practical tool for educators to recognize and address these conversational dynamics. By understanding their roles in blocking or facilitating race talk, educators can disrupt race-evasive conversation. The study also underscores the need for structured support in professional development settings to help educators overcome discomfort and engage in sustained, meaningful conversations about race. Facilitators play a crucial role in guiding these dialogues. Facilitators can use the Red light! Green light! approach to help transform moments of dissonance into opportunities for growth. Having language to name discursive phenomena allows for understanding, transmission, and reflection on these practices. These insights will be vital for moving educators towards shifts in practice that improve experiences for students of color.</p> <hd id="AN0187498975-25">Disclosure statement</hd> <p>No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).</p> <ref id="AN0187498975-26"> <title> Note </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref11" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> This work is, notably, derived from Gruwell's book-turned-movie, <emph>The Freedom Writers</emph>, which has been critiqued as an example of White saviorism (see Hughey, [14]).</bibtext> </blist> </ref> <ref id="AN0187498975-27"> <title> References </title> <blist> <bibtext> Ahmed, S. (2007). A phenomenology of whiteness. Feminist Theory, 8 (2), 149 – 168. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464700107078139</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib2" idref="ref28" type="bt">2</bibl> <bibtext> Alfonso, M., Nickelson, L., & Cohen, D. (2012). Farmers' markets in rural communities: A case study. 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Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203702437</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Tanner, S. J. (2020). Playing with whiteness: Toward a second wave of critical whiteness pedagogy. Teaching Education, 31 (2), 230 – 244. https://doi.org/10.1080/10476210.2018.1532988</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Wall, S. (2015). Focused ethnography: A methodological adaptation for social research in emerging contexts. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 16 (1). https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-16.1.2182</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Yancy, G. (2012). Look, a white!: Philosophical essays on whiteness. Temple University Press.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Yoon, I. H. (2012). The paradoxical nature of whiteness-at-work in the daily life of schools and teacher communities. Race Ethnicity and Education, 15 (5), 587 – 613. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2011.624506</bibtext> </blist> </ref> <aug> <p>By Ashley J. Carey; Hilary Lustick; James Noonan and Peter Piazza</p> <p>Reported by Author; Author; Author; Author</p> <p></p> <p>Ashley J. Carey is an assistant professor in the Isabelle Farrington College of Education & Human Development at Sacred Heart University. She studies the influence of social and political factors on K-12 schooling and explores how well-intentioned policies can exacerbate educational inequities.</p> <p>Hilary Lustick is an assistant professor in the School of Education at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. She studies restorative practices, social-emotional learning, and how these intersect with increasing equity in schools. She also studies academic freedom, the role of emotion in data analysis, and the implications of both for promoting equity and diversity in the academy.</p> <p>James Noonan is an assistant professor in the McKeown School of Education at Salem State University (SSU), where he teaches courses in adaptive leadership, school-community partnerships, and culturally responsive teaching. He is also a research partner at the Beyond Test Scores Project at University of Massachusetts Amherst. His research interests include the intersection of teacher identity and teacher learning, as well as the relationship between school quality and equity.</p> <p>Peter Piazza is a research assistant professor in the Department of Educational Policy, Research, and Administration at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He co-leads the Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Educational Assessment (MCIEA), a coalition of public K-12 districts piloting a non-test-based form of school quality measurement.</p> </aug> <nolink nlid="nl1" bibid="bib23" firstref="ref1"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl2" bibid="bib10" firstref="ref3"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl3" bibid="bib39" firstref="ref4"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl4" bibid="bib22" firstref="ref5"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl5" bibid="bib15" firstref="ref6"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl6" bibid="bib25" firstref="ref8"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl7" bibid="bib30" firstref="ref9"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl8" bibid="bib38" firstref="ref12"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl9" bibid="bib19" firstref="ref13"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl10" bibid="bib24" firstref="ref14"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl11" bibid="bib31" firstref="ref15"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl12" bibid="bib18" firstref="ref16"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl13" bibid="bib34" firstref="ref17"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl14" bibid="bib27" firstref="ref18"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl15" bibid="bib11" firstref="ref22"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl16" bibid="bib20" firstref="ref25"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl17" bibid="bib17" firstref="ref26"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl18" bibid="bib37" firstref="ref27"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl19" bibid="bib16" firstref="ref29"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl20" bibid="bib12" firstref="ref30"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl21" bibid="bib32" firstref="ref31"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl22" bibid="bib21" firstref="ref32"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl23" bibid="bib13" firstref="ref41"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl24" bibid="bib28" firstref="ref44"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl25" bibid="bib36" firstref="ref46"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl26" bibid="bib33" firstref="ref47"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl27" bibid="bib29" firstref="ref51"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl28" bibid="bib35" firstref="ref53"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl29" bibid="bib26" firstref="ref54"></nolink>
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  Data: Red Light! Green Light! An Analytic Frame & Learning Device for Race Talk
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Ashley+J%2E+Carey%22">Ashley J. Carey</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Hilary+Lustick%22">Hilary Lustick</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22James+Noonan%22">James Noonan</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Peter+Piazza%22">Peter Piazza</searchLink>
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Equity+%26+Excellence+in+Education%22"><i>Equity & Excellence in Education</i></searchLink>. 2025 58(3):178-190.
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  Data: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Race%22">Race</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Racism%22">Racism</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Racial+Factors%22">Racial Factors</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Dialogs+%28Language%29%22">Dialogs (Language)</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22White+Teachers%22">White Teachers</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Administrators%22">Administrators</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Faculty+Development%22">Faculty Development</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Language+Usage%22">Language Usage</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Teacher+Response%22">Teacher Response</searchLink>
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  Data: 10.1080/10665684.2025.2490894
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  Data: 1066-5684<br />1547-3457
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  Data: Predominantly White educator groups often struggle to talk about race, even when that is their explicit aim. This study examines conversational patterns in one district's antiracist book study to explore how individual comments promote or obstruct racial dialogue. We find that contributions that blocked race talk (what we call red lights) dominated discussions, reinforcing norms of race avoidance, while those that opened and encouraged race talk (what we call green lights) were rare. We use these terms to structure our analysis and propose them as a framework to help educators identify and disrupt race-avoidant conversational patterns to encourage racial literacy development. This research underscores the critical role of facilitation in guiding race talk and highlights the potential for red lights to be reframed as opportunities for growth.
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  Data: EJ1490726
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RecordInfo BibRecord:
  BibEntity:
    Identifiers:
      – Type: doi
        Value: 10.1080/10665684.2025.2490894
    Languages:
      – Text: English
    PhysicalDescription:
      Pagination:
        PageCount: 13
        StartPage: 178
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Race
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Racism
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Racial Factors
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Dialogs (Language)
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: White Teachers
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Administrators
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Faculty Development
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Language Usage
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Teacher Response
        Type: general
    Titles:
      – TitleFull: Red Light! Green Light! An Analytic Frame & Learning Device for Race Talk
        Type: main
  BibRelationships:
    HasContributorRelationships:
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Ashley J. Carey
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Hilary Lustick
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: James Noonan
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Peter Piazza
    IsPartOfRelationships:
      – BibEntity:
          Dates:
            – D: 01
              M: 01
              Type: published
              Y: 2025
          Identifiers:
            – Type: issn-print
              Value: 1066-5684
            – Type: issn-electronic
              Value: 1547-3457
          Numbering:
            – Type: volume
              Value: 58
            – Type: issue
              Value: 3
          Titles:
            – TitleFull: Equity & Excellence in Education
              Type: main
ResultId 1