Racialized classroom practices in a diverse Amsterdam primary school: the silencing, disparagement, and discipline of students of color

Abstract

In both Europe and the US, racial and ethnic minority students experience discrimination at the hands of teachers that negatively impacts academic achievement. In the US, scholars have documented how a predominantly white teaching force racializes students of color through discipline and low expectations, which impact educational attainment. But in Europe, the denial of race’s existence hinders research regarding structural explanations for minority educational inequality and often explains low educational attainment as a function of cultural differences. Examining classroom practices in a diverse Amsterdam primary school, this article documents racializing mechanisms that found minority students disproportionately disparaged, disciplined, and silenced. In addition, many were students under-recommended to higher level secondary school tracks. These findings reveal that Dutch schools are not racially meritocratic institutions and are relevant for scholars in the Netherlands and all other nations with educational institutions dominated by colorblind ideologies, white norms, and large immigrant populations.

Keywords:

• Race/ethnicity
• classroom practices
• discipline
• the Netherlands

Acknowledgments

The author is deeply grateful to the Spencer Education Foundation for funding this research (Grant #201100032) and for feedback from Antonia Randolph, Carson Byrd, Jack Schneider, and Ericka Fisher.

Notes

1. Most research on minority youth in the Netherlands occurs in the predominantly black Amsterdam southeast.

2. In the Netherlands, children aged four through 12 attend small primary schools with only one to four classrooms for each grade. Parents may send their children to religious (e.g. Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim), pedagogical (e.g. Waldorf, Montessori) or non-denominational schools, all of which are state-funded.

3. See the official Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Society website (https://www.duo.nl/open_onderwijsdata/) or the much easier to use http://www.10000scholen.nl (both accessed January 28, 2016).

4. Three students were of an unspecified national background but noted that they were Muslim on the survey.

5. http://www.cito.nl/over%20cito/pers/archief_pers (accessed January 28, 2016).

6. http://www.os.amsterdam.nl/media/Basismeetset2013/Basismeetset%202,013/assets/basic-html/page147.html (accessed January 28, 2016).