Faciality enactments, schools of recognition and policies of difference (in-itself)

Abstract

This article discusses the idea of difference in relation to schools of recognition. The analysis is based on a three-year study that mapped the development of the Africentric Alternative School in the Toronto District School Board. Within, we review the concept of difference and juxtapose it with Gilles Deleuze's concept of difference-in-itself as a way to think about educational policy enactments. In order to understand how difference and recognition were enacted – and enacting – we examine how the idea faciality positioned eight key people in the development of the school.

Keywords:

• policy enactments
• choice
• recognition
• race
• Afrocentric

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their excellent comments and Viviana Pitton for her extensive archival work on Afrocentric schooling in Toronto.

Funding

This research was supported by a Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Additional information

Funding

Funding: This research was supported by a Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.