Whiteness in Public School Administration: A Critical Narrative Approach to Understanding How Insider Superintendents Communicate With Their Administrative Staff Members

The purpose of this study was to critically explore whiteness and masculinity within the context of public school administration. Using a qualitative research design, this study is broken into two separate articles. The first article is a critical narrative, and deeply examined two White and male public school superintendents' experiences serving in school districts within California's Central Valley. Framed within the broad context of critical White theory (CWT), I explored each man's approach to interpersonal communication while conducting business. Additionally, I applied the urban dictionary's definition of "Whitesplaining" to consider deeply how each man attempted to control the public narrative being disseminated to his constituency. In the second article, I conducted an autoethnography, and presented my own experiences working as a first-year middle school principal. I too situated my experiences within the broad contexts of White and masculine privilege. This study contends pushes whiteness research forward by using first and second person narration to critique and interrupt White and masculine points of view within the context of public school administration.