From model minorities to disposable models: the de-legitimisation of educational success through discourses of authenticity

Abstract

This article explores teachers' use of discourses of authenticity in relation to minoritised students, with a focus on the relationship between these discourses and ‘model minority’ status. The paper aims to advance the critical thinking about ‘model minorities’ in the education system in England by examining the diversity of identity positions and minoritised groups that can be constituted as belonging to this category in different contexts. It is argued that in England there is ‘intelligible space’ for some students from the Afghan and Kosovan communities to be constituted as ‘model minorities’, alongside the Chinese and Indian communities usually identified with this term, with similar links made between the home lives of students and their educational attainment. However, this status carries with it racist assumptions about students' motivation, and the perception of high attainment as inauthentic and therefore illegitimate. Building on Archer and Francis' discussions of Chinese students' success as being achieved in the ‘wrong way’, it is argued that the idea of authenticity/inauthenticity can be used to delegitimise educational success in multiple ways. A theoretical framework influenced by Critical Race Theory is used to discuss the role of this partial and precarious recognition of some minoritised groups' high attainment in the continuation of White dominance in education.

Keywords:

• model minorities
• authenticity
• educational success
• Critical Race Theory
• Muslim students
• interest convergence

Acknowledgements

The research studies discussed in this paper were funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (Grant number ES/G018987/1) and the London Education Research Unit at the Institute of Education, University of London.

Notes

1. To clarify, I use the term Asian-American (sometimes referred to Asian Pacific American) in the sense that it is used in the US; the term ‘Asian’ in the UK is usually used to refer to the Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities, not the Chinese community. In reference to the UK, I avoid the term, except when citing research which uses this terminology.

2. These classes included only two or three White students, and few or no students from the Chinese or Indian communities, which may be relevant here.

3. This teacher assessment, which is a standardised system across Reception classrooms in England, is conducted through observation and, as I have argued elsewhere is not a true measure of what children can or cannot do. It is, however, a measure of what a teacher expects a child to be able to do (within the constrictions of a performative accountability system), and therefore is an indication of these students' ‘model’ status.

4. It is worth noting that some of the literature on Asian American students makes use of the concept of ‘honorary Whites’; which I do not use but may be relevant here. In particular, there is scope for further exploration (which I do not have space for here) of the status of Kosovan children, who are listed in official document as White European, but are nonetheless a minoritised group in contrast to the White British majority.

5. The UK Department of Education publishes data by ‘ethnic group’, but not in a form that allows the consideration of the attainment of these smaller groups.