Confronting the Limits of Antiracist and Multicultural Education: White Students’ Reflections on Identity and Difference in a Multiethnic Secondary School
Restricted accessResearch articleFirst published online August, 2012
Confronting the Limits of Antiracist and Multicultural Education: White Students’ Reflections on Identity and Difference in a Multiethnic Secondary School
This paper is drawn from ethnographic participant-observation data and interview materials collected between September 2004 and July 2005 in ‘Kingsland’, an inner-city, multiethnic comprehensive secondary school in the South West of England. It explores the complex and often contradictory ways in which young people negotiate and reflect on notions of identity and difference in relation to social and pedagogical vocabularies of belonging, friendship and fairness which operate within their school. The paper pays particular attention to experiences and perspectives outlined by Kingsland's ‘white British’ or ‘ethnic majority’ students in order to highlight and critically examine some of the tensions within, and limitations to, both national policy frameworks for citizenship education and local, institutional discourses which powerfully construct the school as a strongly antiracist multicultural community.
AnthiasF. (2002) ‘Where do I belong?: Narrating collective identity and translocational positionality’, Ethnicities, 2 (4) pp 491–514. [doi:10.1177/14687968020020040301]
2.
AppleM. (1982) Cultural and Economic Reproduction in Education: Essays on Class, Ideology and the State, London: Routledge.
3.
AjegboK. (2007) Curriculum Review: Diversity and Citizenship, DfES.
4.
ArcherL. (2003) Race, Masculinity and Schooling: Muslim Boys and Education. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
5.
BackL. (1996) New Ethnicities and Urban Culture: Racism and multiculture and in young people's lives, London: UCL Press.
6.
BackL. and KeithM. (1999) ‘“Rights and Wrongs”: Youth, Community and Narratives of Racial Violence’ in CohenP. (ed) New Ethnicities, Old Racisms, London: Zed Books, pp 131–162.
7.
BallS. (1981) Beachside Comprehensive: A Case-Study of Secondary Schooling. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
8.
BallS., RoweR. and GewirtzS. (1996) ‘School choice, social class and distinction: the realisation of social advantage in education’Journal of Education Policy, 11 (5) pp 83–106.
BhattiG. (2011) ‘Outsiders or Insiders? Identity, educational success and Muslim young men in England’Ethnography and Education6 (1) pp 81–96. [doi:10.1080/17457823.2011.553081]
11.
BinghamC. (2006) ‘Before recognition, and after: the educational critique’, Educational Theory, 56 (3), pp 325–344. [doi:10.1111/j.1741-5446.2006.00229.x]
12.
BolerM. (1999) Feeling Power: Emotions and Education, New York: Routledge.
13.
BourdieuP. and PasseronJ. C. (1977) Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture, London: Sage.
14.
BridgesS. and Poyatos MatasC. (2006) ‘Investigating multiculturalism as policy and practice in the middle years of schooling: An Australian study’International Journal of Diversity in Organisations, Communities and Nations, 6 (2) pp 89–100.
15.
BritzmanD. (2003) After-Education: Anna Freud, Melanie Klein, and Psychoanalytic Histories of Learning, Albany: SUNY Press.
BrubakerR. and CooperF. (2000) ‘Beyond “Identity”’, Theory and Society, 29 pp 1–47. [doi:10.1023/A:1007068714468]
18.
BrysonM. (2000) ‘Guilt and Education’, Philosophy of Education Yearbook, pp 365–8.
19.
ByrneB. (2006) White Lives: The Interplay of ‘Race’, Class and Gender in Everyday Life, London: Routledge.
20.
CohenR (1995) ‘Fuzzy Frontiers of Identity: The British Case’Social Identities, 1 (1) pp 35–62.
21.
ColeM. (2004a) ‘“Brutal and stinking” and “difficult to handle”: the historical and contemporary manifestations of racialisation, institutional racism, and schooling in Britain’, Race, Ethnicity and Education, 7 (1) pp 35–56. [doi:10.1080/1361332042000187298]
22.
ColeM. (2004b) ‘“Rule Britannia and God Save the Queen”: a Marxist analysis of the teaching of imperialism, actual and potential in the British school curriculum, Policy Futures in Education, 2 (3) pp 515–531. [doi:10.2304/pfie.2004.2.3.7]
23.
DelamontS. (2002) Fieldwork in Educational Settings: Methods, Pitfalls and Perspectives (Second Edition), Abingdon: Roultedge.
24.
DelamontS. (1989) ‘The nun in the toilet: urban legends and educational research’International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 2 (3) pp 191–202. [doi:10.1080/0951839890020302]
25.
DelamontS. and GaltonM. (1986) Inside the secondary classroom, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
26.
DurkheimE. (1956) Education and Sociology, New York: Free Press.
27.
EvansG. (1980) The End of Britishness, Neath: W. Whittington.
28.
EvansS. (2010) ‘Becoming ‘somebody’: examining class and gender through higher education’ in TaylorY. (Ed.) Classed Intersections: Spaces, Selves, Knowledges, Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Limited.
29.
FineM., WeisL., PowellL., WongM. (eds) (1997), Off White: Readings on Race, Power, and Society, New York: Routledge.
30.
FordhamS. (1996) Blacked out: Dilemmas of race, identity and success at Capital High, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
31.
FrancisB. and ArcherL. (2005) ‘Negotiating the dichotomy of Boffin and Triad: British-Chinese pupils’ constructions of ‘laddism”Sociological review, 53 (3), pp 495–521. [doi:0.1111/j.1467-954X.2005.00563.x]
32.
FrankenbergR. (1993) White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness, London: Routledge.
33.
GabrielJ. (2000) Whiteness: endangered knowledges, endangered species?’ in Lee-TreweekG. and LinkogleS. (eds.) Danger In The Field; risk & ethics in social research, London: Routledge, pp 168–180.
34.
GeertzC. (1973) The Interpretation of Cultures, New York: Basic Books.
35.
GibsonM. (1997) ‘Exploring and Explaining the Variability: Cross-National Perspectives on the School Performance of Minority Students’Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 28 (3), p. 318–329 [doi:10.1525/aeq.1997.28.3.318]
36.
GibsonM. (1988) Accommodation Without Assimilation: Sikh Immigrants in and American High School, New York: Cornell University Press.
37.
GidleyB. and RookeA. (2010) ‘Asdatown: The Intersections of Classed Places and Identities’, in TaylorY. (Ed.) Classed Intersections: Spaces, Selves, Knowledges, Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Limited.
38.
GillbornD. (1995) Racism and Antiracism in Real Schools: Theory, Policy, Practice, Buckingham: Open University Press.
39.
GunaratnamY. (2003) Researching ‘Race’ and Ethnicity, Methods, Knowledge and Power, London: Sage.
40.
HammersleyM. and WoodsP. (1993) Gender and Ethnicity in Schools: Ethnographic Accounts, London: Routledge.
41.
HammerselyM. and AtkinsonP (1989) Ethnography: Principles in Practice, London: Routledge.
42.
HargreavesD. (1967) Social Relations in a Secondary School, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. [doi:10.4324/9780203001837]
43.
HargreavesL. and Galton (Eds.) (2002) Transfer from the primary classroom: 20 years on, London: RoutledgeFalmer.
44.
HaylettC. (2001) ‘Illegitimate subjects?: abject whites, neoliberal modernisation, and middle-class multiculturalism’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 19 (3) pp 351–370. [doi:0.1068/d237t]
45.
HewittR. (1997) Routes of Racism: the Social Basis of Racist Action, Stoke on Trent: Trentham.
46.
HewittR. (1986) White Talk Black Talk; Inter-racial Friendship and Communication Amongst Adolescents, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
47.
HooksB. (2003) Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope, New York: Routledge.
48.
HowardM. (2005) ‘Comment and Analysis: Talk about the British dream: Integration is about the values we share, not traditions that divide us’, The Guardian, 17 August.
KaufmannA. (2006) ‘The Dominant Ethnic Moment: Towards the Abolition of “Whiteness”?’, Ethnicities, 6 (2) pp 231–253. [doi:10.1177/1468796806063754]
51.
LaceyC. (1970) Hightown Grammar, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
52.
LatherP. (2001) ‘Postmodernism, Post-structuralism and Post-critical Ethnography: of ruins, aporias and angels’ in AtkinsonP., CoffeyA. and DelamontS. (Eds) Handbook of Ethnography, London: Sage, pp 477–492. [doi:10.4135/9781848608337.n33]
LeonardoZ. (2004) ‘The Souls of White Folk: Critical pedagogy, whiteness studies and globalization discourse’ in Ladson-BilligsG. and GillbornD. (eds) The RoutledgeFalmer Reader in Multicultural Education: Critical Perspectives on Race, Racism and Education, London: Routledge Falmer.
55.
Mac An GhaillM. (1994) The Making of Men: Masculinities, Sexualities and Schooling, Buckingham: Open University Press.
56.
Mac An GhaillM. (1988) Young, Gifted and Black: Student-teacher relations in the schooling of black youth, Buckingham: Open University Press.
57.
MccroneD. (2002) ‘Who do you say you are? Making sense of national identities in modern Britain’, Ethnicities, 2 (3), pp 301–20. [doi:10.1177/14687968020020030201]
58.
McgheeD. (2005) ‘Patriots of the Future? A Critical Examination of Community Cohesion Strategies in Contemporary Britain’, Sociological Research Online, 10 (3): <http://www.socresonline.org.uk/10/3/mcghee.html>.
59.
MarcusG. (1995) ‘Ethnography In/Of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 24 pp 95–117. [doi:10.1146/annurev.an.24.100195.000523]
60.
MatthewsJ. (2002) ‘Racialised school, ‘ethnic success’ and Asian-Australian students’, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 23 (2) pp 193–207. [doi:10.1080/01425690220137710]
61.
MayJ. (1996) ‘Globalisation and the politics of place: place and identity in an Inner London neighbourhood’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 21 pp 194–215. [doi:10.2307/622933]
62.
MaynardM. (2002) ‘Studying age, ‘race’ and gender: translating a research proposal into a project’, International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 5 (1) pp 31–40. [doi:10.1080/13645570110098055]
63.
MeasorL. and WoodsP. (1984) Changing Schools: Pupil Perspectives on Transfer to a Comprehensive. Milton Keynes: Oxford University Press.
64.
MendickH. and GeorgeR. (2010) ‘Language, Power and Reality TV: the dynamics of race, class and gender in the UK Big Brother Jade-Shilpa row’Online Educational Research Journal <http://www.oerj.org/View?action=viewPaper&paper=11>
65.
MirzaH. S. (1992) Young, Female and Black, London: Routledge.
66.
ModoodT., BerthoudR., LakeyJ., NazrossJ., SmithP., VirdeeS. and BeishonS. (1997) Ethnic Minorities in Britain: Diversity and Disadvantage, London: Policy Studies Institute.
67.
NairnT. (1977) The Break-up of Britain, London: New Left Books.
68.
NayakA. (2003) Race, Place and Globalization: Youth Cultures in a Changing World, Oxford: Berg.
69.
NietoS. (2000) (ed.) Puerto Rican Students in UK Schools.New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
70.
OgbuJ. (ed.) (2008) Minority status, oppositional culture, and schooling. New York: Routledge.
71.
OrellanaM. F. and BowmanP. (2003) ‘Cultural Diversity Research on Learning and Development: Conceptual, Methodological and Strategic Considerations’, Educational Researcher, 32 (5) pp 26–32. [doi:10.3102/0013189X032005026]
72.
ParekhB. (2000) ‘Defining British National Identity’, The Political Quarterly, 71 (1) pp 4–14. [doi:10.1111/1467-923X.00274]
73.
ParkerS. (2010) ‘Working capital: ownership and (some) means of production’, in TaylorY. (Ed.) Classed Intersections: Spaces, Selves, Knowledges, Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Limited.
74.
PatonK (2010) ‘Making working-class neighbourhoods posh? Exploring the effects of gentrification strategies on working-class communities’, in TaylorY. (Ed.) Classed Intersections: Spaces, Selves, Knowledges, Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Limited.
75.
PerryP. (2002) Shades of White: White Kids and Racial Identity in High School, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
76.
PhoenixA. (2002) ‘Mapping Present Inequalities to Navigate Future Success: racialisation and education’, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 23 (3) pp 505–515. [doi:10.1080/0142569022000015508]
77.
PilkingtonA. (2008) ‘From Institutional Racism to Community Cohesion: the Changing Nature of Racial Discourse in Britain’Sociological Research Online13 (3) <http://www.socresonline.org.uk/13/3/6.html>. [doi:10.5153/sro.1705]
78.
QUALIFICATIONS AND CURRICULUM AUTHORITY (QCA) (1998) Education for Citizenship and the Teaching of Democracy in Schools (The Crick Report), London: QCA.
79.
ReayD. (2004) ‘“Mostly Roughs and Toughs”: Social Class, Race and Representation in Inner City Schooling’, Sociology, 38 (5) pp 1005–23. [doi:10.1177/0038038504047183]
80.
ReayD., CrozierG. and JamesD. (2011) White Middle-Class Identities and Urban Schooling.Palgrave MacMillan: Basingstoke. [doi:10.1057/9780230302501]
81.
RossN. J., HillM. and SheltonA. (2006) White children's perspectives on inter-ethnic relations following the move from primary to secondary school, Report for Glasgow Anti Racist Alliance, Glasgow: University of Glasgow.
82.
RuckM. and WortleyS. (2002) ‘Racial and Ethnic Minority High School Students’ Perceptions of School Disciplinary Practices: A Look at Some Canadian Findings’Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 31 (3) pp 185–195. [doi:10.1023/A:1015081102189]
83.
SavageM., BagnallG. and LonghurstB. (1995) Globalization and Belonging (Theory, Culture and Society Series), London: Sage
84.
SewellT (1997) Black Masculinities and Schooling, Stoke on Trent: Trentham.
85.
ShainF (2011) The New Folk Devils: Muslim boys and education in England, Stoke on Trent: Trentham
86.
ShainF. (2003) The Schooling and Identity of Asian Girls, Stoke on Trent: Trentham
StablesA. (2003) ‘School as Imagined Community in Discursive Space: A Perspective on the School Effectiveness Debate’, British Educational Research Journal, 29 (6) pp 895–902. [doi:10.1080/0141192032000137367]
89.
TatumB. (1997) ‘Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?’: A Psychologist Explains the Development of Racial Identity, New York: Basic Books.
TomlinsonS. (2005) ‘Race, ethnicity and education under New Labour’, Oxford Review of Education, 31 (1) pp 153–171. [doi:10.1080/0305498042000337246]
92.
TomlinsonS. (2003), ‘Globalization, Race and Education: Continuity and Change’, Journal of Educational Change, 4 pp 213–230. [doi:10.1023/B:JEDU.0000006161.69737.fa]
93.
TroynaB. and HatcherR. (1992) Racism in Children's Lives: A Study of Mainly-White Primary Schools, London: Routledge.
94.
VigilJ. (1997) Personas Mexicanas: Chicano high schoolers in a changing Los Angeles.Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace.
95.
WrightC. (1986) ‘School processes: An ethnographical study’ in EgglestonJ., DunnJ. and AnjuliM. (Eds.) Education for Some, London: Trentham.
96.
WrightC. (1992) Race Relations in the Primary School, London: David Fulton.
97.
YoudellD. (2003) ‘Identity Traps or How Black Students Fail: The Interactions between Biographical, Sub-Cultural and Learner Identities’, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 24 (1) pp 3–20. [doi:0.1080/01425690301912]
