Education policy as an act of white supremacy: whiteness, critical race theory and education reform

Abstract

The paper presents an empirical analysis of education policy in England that is informed by recent developments in US critical theory. In particular, I draw on ‘whiteness studies’ and the application of critical race theory (CRT). These perspectives offer a new and radical way of conceptualizing the role of racism in education. Although the US literature has paid little or no regard to issues outside North America, I argue that a similar understanding of racism (as a multifaceted, deeply embedded, often taken‐for‐granted aspect of power relations) lies at the heart of recent attempts to understand institutional racism in the UK. Having set out the conceptual terrain in the first half of the paper, I then apply this approach to recent changes in the English education system to reveal the central role accorded the defence (and extension) of race inequity. Finally, the paper touches on the question of racism and intentionality: although race inequity may not be a planned and deliberate goal of education policy neither is it accidental. The patterning of racial advantage and inequity is structured in domination and its continuation represents a form of tacit intentionality on the part of white powerholders and policy‐makers. It is in this sense that education policy is an act of white supremacy. Following others in the CRT tradition, therefore, the paper’s analysis concludes that the most dangerous form of ‘white supremacy’ is not the obvious and extreme fascistic posturing of small neo‐nazi groups, but rather the taken‐for‐granted routine privileging of white interests that goes unremarked in the political mainstream.

Acknowledgements

The ideas in this paper have benefited considerably from discussions with colleagues and friends in numerous contexts, including the annual meetings of the American Educational Research Association (San Diego, 2004), the British Educational Research Association (Edinburgh, 2003), and seminars/meetings in universities and community halls in various parts of the world. In particular, I would like to thank the colleagues who made such events possible through the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust, the Birmingham Race Action Partnership and the Universities of Brighton (UK), Melbourne (Australia), Tokyo and Osaka (Japan), Roskilde (Denmark) and Wisconsin‐Madison (USA). My thanks to all the participants for their generous, passionate and committed interchange of ideas and experiences. Finally, a special thanks to those who have commented in detail on the text of this paper, Michael W. Apple, Stephen J. Ball, Gregg D. Beratan, Alastair Bonnett, Mike Cole, Paul Connolly, Gloria Ladson‐Billings, Zeus Leonardo, Heidi Safia Mirza, Laurence Parker, Peter Ratcliffe, Christine Sleeter and Deborah Youdell: I have tried to learn from their views, all remaining errors are, of course, my responsibility.

Notes

* Educational Foundations and Policy Studies, Institute of Education, University of London, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL, UK. Email: [email protected].

1. In this paper the word ‘Black’ is used to signify those groups of minoritized subjects who would generally identify themselves with the term, and be identified by such a term; most usually people with family heritages that identify with Africa and/or the Caribbean.

2. My first public presentation of the central ideas in this paper was at a major education conference in England in the fall of 2003. A prominent white professor told me later that, although some of my earlier work had been ‘useful’, this talk of ‘supremacy’ meant that I had, in his words, ‘gone mad’.

3. I use ‘troubling’ here in the way that several scholars, in particular those working in post‐structuralist and/or queer theory, have applied the term to a destabilizing, decentring of commonly accepted assumptions and definitions: after Butler (1990), Horn (2003), Kumashiro (2001) and Youdell (2000).

4. See also David R. Roediger (1992, 1994).

5. See, for example, the interviews with Matthew Hale and Lisa Turner of the World Church of the Creator, in Swain and Nieli (2003).

6. For more detail on Herrnstein and Murray’s claims, and the racist pedigree of their sources (both intellectual and financial) see Lane (1999), Gillborn and Youdell (2000, p. 231) and Apple (2004, pp. 198–199).

7. For an introduction to the basic tenets of CRT see Delgado and Stefancic (2001). For a consideration of the links between CRT in education and British antiracist thought see Gillborn (forthcoming).

8. The annually published data are frequently retabulated by national newspapers and given headlines that proclaim them as a guide to the ‘top’ schools, those with the ‘highest failure rate’ and ‘bottom of the league’ (Gillborn & Youdell, 2000, chapter 2).

9. An official survey, for the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), found that in 2001, 10‐ and 11‐year‐olds were spending 49% of their classroom time on English and maths: see Mansell and Clark (2003, p. 2).

10. The best guide to students’ performance over this time period is the Youth Cohort Study (YCS), a survey of school‐leavers’ achievements and experiences that has been conducted at least every two years since the late 1980s. The YCS has the advantage of using large, nationally representative samples but it is far from perfect: sub‐samples can become quite small, especially when trying to simultaneously examine several elements (such as gender, ethnicity and socio‐economic background). Nevertheless, it does offer a snapshot of how certain minority groups have performed over time.

11. A report by the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) noted that ‘the lengths of fixed‐period exclusions varied considerably in some schools between black and white pupils for what were described as the same or similar incidents’ (2001, p. 23).

12. See, for example, the reviews offered by Hallam (2002) and Wiliam and Bartholomew (2001).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David Gillborn*

* Educational Foundations and Policy Studies, Institute of Education, University of London, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL, UK. Email: [email protected].