Deconstructing ideological habits: An analysis of an antiracist place-based education course

White teachers enter culturally and racially diverse urban classrooms ill-prepared to teach. The resulting cultural mismatch contributes to educational disparities, including academic gaps and punitive imparities. Teacher education programs' attempts to address the gaps intend to immunize young teachers to the effects of implicit bias. However, the efforts do little to help teachers recognize how their implicit bias, in the form of ideological habits, created the need for a culturally responsive curriculum in the first place. As part of a larger project, this study deconstructed three reflective essays assigned during an introductory place-based education course. The post-structural analysis used a critical race theoretical lens focused on ideological habits. The findings revealed that participants demonstrate racialized associations promoting white supremacist thinking. However, the longitudinal analysis demonstrated participation in the critical place-based learning course with antiracist underpinnings influenced the participants' progression toward recognizing and dismantling ideological habits that reproduce biased ideologies.