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Initial teacher education: The practice of whiteness

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Abstract

This timely collection focuses on domestic and international education research on race and ethnicity. As co-conveners of the British Education Research Associations (BERA) Special Education Group on Race and Ethnicity (2010-2013), Race and Lander are advocates for the promotion of race and ethnicity within education. With its unique structure and organisation of empirical material, this volume collates contributions from global specialists and fresh new voices to bring cutting-edge research and findings to a multi-disciplinary marker which includes education, sociology and political studies. The aim of this book is to promote and advocate a range of contemporary issues related to race, ethnicity and inclusion in relation to pedagogy, teaching and learning.
6
Initial Teacher Education:
The Practice of Whiteness
Vini Lander
Introduction
This chapter will discuss how initial teacher education – with respect
to preparing and enabling student teachers to teach with confidence,
knowledge and understanding in the ethnically diverse classrooms in
England – receives little attention in the pre-service teacher education
programmes. The chapter will illustrate the current position with respect
to teacher training and education in England regarding race equality, and
will show that there is very little content related to preparing teachers
to understand their own racialised positions as powerful professionals,
within either predominantly White or multiethnic classrooms. There is
almost no education or training to help student teachers to understand
the constructs of race and ethnicity; there is even less attention given to
how student teachers can work with pupils to address racist incidents
and how they can use the curriculum as a vehicle to develop children’s
understanding of multicultural Britain, or how to educate children and
young people beyond the stereotypes rehearsed and promoted in the
media every day.
The chapter draws on the theoretical framework of Whiteness . This
will be delineated using some current research in England, but drawing
predominantly on work in the United States. It will use research regarding
the inadequacy of teacher education to increase understandings of how
it perpetuates Whiteness through the lack of engagement, and at times
sheer reluctance of White educators to understand their own positions
as racialised beings within a context whereby the racialised ‘Other’ is
marginalised in order to maintain an unspoken hierarchy of dominance
and supremacy (Gillborn, 2005, 2008).
93
R. Race et al. (eds.), Advancing Race and Ethnicity in Education
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 2014
94 Vini Lander
As 2011 receded into history, two events associated with race and
crime made the headlines. One the one hand, the news was permeated
with discussions about the callous killing of an Indian student, Anuj
Bidve, in Salford, Manchester, UK (BBC, 2011a), and it was interesting
to note how the first reports avoided the use of the term racist in favour
of recasting it as a hate crime. At the same time, in December 2011
the judge in the Stephen Lawrence trial summed up the arguments
presented by the defence and the prosecution as a ‘hate crime’ under-
taken twenty years ago for which no one had been convicted at the time
(BBC, 2011b). These two events are visible tips of an iceberg which repre-
sents the failure of our education system, at all levels, to educate about
and against racism – through the failure to develop a ‘racial literacy’
(Skerrett, 2011) with teachers and children. These crimes are not solely
due to the failure of the education system, but due to a collective failure
to develop our racial literacy in a way that moves us on to think about
and tackle the deep-rooted everyday racism in society.
We need to educate our teachers and children alike to be able to under-
stand our multiethnic society based on facts and informed discussions
in classrooms rather than acquiring that understanding from media
headlines. Our failure to do so to date within initial teacher education
(ITE) means teachers are unable to construct robust counterarguments
which can disrupt the barrage of negative headlines about minority
ethnic groups, a barrage which influences children’s understandings of
our society. For example, a teacher recently conveyed how a group of
seven–eight-year-old children watched a film in which a woman was
robbed. According to the teacher, it was clear that the robber in the film
was White. The children were asked to write about the lady, and one
child wrote, ‘She is skint because the Black man nicked her money.’ The
teacher asked the child why they had written this and the child said, ‘I
just thought he was a Black man.’ Apart from this initial question from
the teacher, there was no followup. We have to ask why? Could it be
that this teacher did not know how to follow this up? It may have been
because the teacher did not have the training or the racial literacy with
which to tackle this child’s stereotypical notions of Black men.
It is the responsibility of teacher education, both initial and contin-
uing, to keep race equality on the agenda (regardless of the geograph-
ical location of the school) and to have the courage to move beyond
the three S’s: ‘Saris, Steelbands, Samosas’ (Troyna and Ball, 1985) and,
nowadays, the D for Diwali approach, or ‘Africa Week’, to address and
examine how being White and the discourse of Whiteness are perpetu-
ated through teacher education – education in such a way as to re-centre
Initial Teacher Education 95
the majority narrative and to side-step the legislation (except, at times,
in the cases of overt racism) to allow silent and injurious covert racism
(Gillborn, 2008) to inflict its every-day damage on society as a whole.
If we cannot educate new teachers to understand and act with knowl-
edge to challenge the dominant discourse of Whiteness through the
curriculum and the resources and approaches they use, then we will still
be paying lip service to race equality in the next century whilst Black
and minority ethnic (BME) children continue to be the victims of overt
and covert racism, as evidenced by racist attacks, by the high number
of BME people in prison, the high numbers of BME pupils excluded
from school, the underachievement of certain BME groups (Gillborn,
2008) and, no doubt, the higher number of BME young people making
up the unemployment statistics in times of recession (Ball et al., 2012;
TUC, 2012).
In the ‘Key Facts about Race in the UK’, the Runnymede Trust (2012)
notes, that since ‘the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993, 89 more
people have lost their lives at the hands of racists in the UK; that if you
have an African or Asian surname you need to send twice as many appli-
cations as someone with an English name to get an interview[,] and that
whilst 300 Black Caribbean students attained the appropriately high
grades in their A-Levels to gain entry to Oxford University[,] only one
gained a place’. It seems that despite the everyday assumptions of the
proverbial ‘man or woman in the street’ that race or racism are not issues
in twenty-first century Britain[,] the facts do not support such an asser-
tion. It is these everyday understandings that student teachers bring to
their preparation to become teachers that remain unchallenged and so
new teachers remain uneducated about race and racism in Britain.
The context – teacher education in England
This section provides a brief overview of how initial teacher prepara-
tion has changed in England, and how these changes have impacted
on notions of teacher professionalism, equality and, specifically, the
absence of references to racial, ethnic and cultural diversity. There is
insufficient space to provide an in-depth discussion about this reduction
and erasure, but readers ought to reflect on how this process of erasure
in policy documents that govern initial teacher education has gathered
momentum and met little resistance from the education community.
This is because hand-in-hand with such changes there has been greater
control of student teacher numbers through surveillance via institu-
tional inspections.
96 Vini Lander
The landscape of teacher education in England has changed rapidly
over approximately the last three decades. These changes continue apace
as this chapter is being written. However, the changes in initial teacher
education started to gather momentum with the election of Margaret
Thatcher in 1979. The introduction of the first set of teacher competences
in 1984 (Circular 3/84) and subsequent sets of competences introduced
through government circulars, such as in Circulars 9/92 for secondary
trainee teachers and 14/93 for primary trainee teachers, were designed
to improve trainee teachers’ subject knowledge and understanding. The
changes in the standards that govern teacher education have shifted the
notion of teacher professionalism from the autonomous professional
(one who could make decisions based on professional knowledge and
understanding) to a more technicist model of the teacher – one who
‘can do’ (Furlong et al., 2000). In these changes some key elements have
been lost: specifically, the need to prepare children and their teachers
to be actively engaged in understanding the nature of society around
them and to fulfil high standards through a framework of social justice
and inclusion. The nomenclature has also changed: for example from
initial teacher education to initial teacher training ; from student teacher to
trainee teacher and from teacher educator to teacher trainer . The move from
‘educating’ teachers to one of ‘training’ teachers is widely recognised as
a reductive change (Furlong et al., 2000). Just as the nomenclature has
changed, so has the role of universities in preparing teachers. A student
studying to be a teacher on a postgraduate programme at a university
must spend 24 weeks in school (DfE, 2012a, p. 4) and with the introduc-
tion in England of School Direct (DfE, 2013), the role of universities has
been further reduced. School Direct is likely to produce teacher prac-
titioners for local rather than national or global contexts. Individuals
with a first degree who want to become teachers can now do so through
training in a school environment without the need to engage in any
higher education, thereby becoming the apprentice teacher who will
learn the skills of their trade ‘on the job’. Therefore, if their school is in
a predominantly White area with little ethnic diversity, it is likely that
these trainee teachers (I use this term deliberately) will be insufficiently
prepared for ethnically diverse classrooms and may perpetuate narrow
perspectives in the education they offer children in their classrooms.
As the standards which govern initial teacher preparation have
evolved from competences to the Teachers’ Standards of 2012, scholars
have traced the reduction in references to social justice and ethnic diver-
sity and a transformation of the notion of equality. Scholars working
in the intersecting areas of race equality and teacher education have
Initial Teacher Education 97
traced the minimal presence, erasure and absence of references to race
and ethnicity within the statutory frameworks, that have come and
gone, governing teacher education. Gaine (1995) noted how the estab-
lishment of CATE (Council of the Accreditation of Teachers Education)
started the central control of teacher education, and also how the criteria
emphasised teachers’ subject knowledge rather than the preparation of
teachers to work in an increasingly ethnically diverse Britain.
The recommendation of the Swann Report (DES, 1985) that student
teachers gain experience in multiracial schools was largely ignored
(Race, 2011). Menter (1989, p. 460) noted how the CATE criteria intro-
duced the technical model of the teacher, whilst removing the ‘educa-
tion disciplines’ of sociology, philosophy and psychology that were the
underpinning conceptual framework of teacher education. These criteria
enabled aspiring teachers to understand how children learned within the
contexts of their own development, their families, schools and society.
Menter (1989) noted how the technicist approach silenced professional
dialogue about racism and sexism, thereby limiting student teachers’
understanding and their ability to challenge the practices which embed
educational inequality.
As the model of the teacher has moved from educator to technicist
teacher, the debate about multicultural education has run apace with
these changes. Multicultural education was seen as a response to the pres-
ence of an increasing Black and minority ethnic population in Britain
(Tomlinson, 2008). The notions of multicultural education prevalent
at the time within schools is, as described by Troyna and Ball (1983),
the three S’s – Saris, Steel Bands and Samosas – and in initial teacher
education (ITE) it was based on, notes Siraj-Blatchford (1993), the prob-
lems faced by schools due to the presence of children and students from
BME groups rather than the evident racism in the schools. Sadly, in my
experience not much has changed; in fact, in ITE there is now even less
done on multicultural education or race equality than in the 1980s. The
‘problem’ of ethnic minorities, or the deficit model of difference, be that
ethnic or linguistic, is still prevalent in the discourse today.
The 1990s heralded the death knell of any multicultural education
within ITE courses, as the whole sector was publicly attacked and pillo-
ried by the political Right wing, which set the agenda for ITE. Gaine
(1995) notes that teaching was cast as a ‘technical skill’ with no space
for theory, and so started the distancing of higher education from
the preparation of teachers. This gap has been growing ever since. As
the gap has widened, the preparation of teachers to understand race,
racism, and issues of equality and inequality have also diminished.
98 Vini Lander
Jones (2000), writing after the murder of Stephen Lawrence, urged that
beginning teachers needed to understand racism, and he noted how ITE
educated (or, rather, trained) teachers to teach in a society within an
assumed cultural homogeneity. He argued that it is no wonder that ITE
fails to develop student teachers’ understanding of key concepts such as,
equality, social justice, equality of opportunity and inequality. This lack
of knowledge renders them ineffectual in their stated goal of achieving
equality of outcomes for their pupils.
Despite initiatives such as Multiverse (Smith, 2012) – a web-based
resource related to ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity to support
teachers, student teachers and teacher educators to understand how to
work in diverse classrooms – the absence of references related to ethnic
diversity are apparent in the current Teachers’ Standards 2012 (DfE,
2012b).
In her analysis of the teaching standards in England from 1983–2012,
Smith (2012, p. 3) notes that
conceptualisations of equality however, tend to be concerned prima-
rily with removing perceived obstacles and providing remedial tools
to educational success. ‘Equality of opportunity’ is premised on indi-
vidualised notions of discrimination which can therefore be over-
come by actions of individuals.
Smith’s analysis of the teaching standards as policy documents related
to the political hue of each successive government provides a timeline
of how the deficit notion of difference has become embedded, how
each set of standards has served to centre an assimilationist agenda and,
thereby, promote White middle class hegemony and maintain the status
quo (Smith, 2012, p. 10).
Bryan (2012) examines the Teachers’ Standards 2012 (DfE, 2012b)
with reference to the inclusion of the term ‘fundamental British values’,
found in Part Two, entitled ‘Personal and Professional Conduct.’ There
it states that teachers should not undermine fundamental British values
(BERA Race, Ethnicity and Education Special Interest Group Conference
October 2012). In her critique, Bryan (2012) explains how this phrase is
drawn from the Prevent Strategy, a counter-terrorism policy targeted at
Islamist terrorism. She argues that, not only does the inclusion of this
phrase bestow the role of cultural and moral custodian on the teacher,
but in addition it conceptualises the teacher’s role from a particular
perspective, thus signalling an integration of the teacher into the roles
of custodian and promoter of national values. These values are listed as:
Initial Teacher Education 99
‘democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect, and
tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs’ (DfE, 2012b) and as
such are not uniquely British. Thus, the project of teacher as technicist
is also coupled with the conception of the teacher as custodian of British
values and therefore accountable for upholding them. This signals the
beginning of a new concept of who teaches and becomes a teacher.
The assimilationist approach exemplified by the Teachers’ Standards
2012 needs to be considered alongside three other elements:
1. Pupil demographics;
2. Teacher demographics; and
3. The results of the annual Newly Qualified Teacher (NQT) survey.
In relation to pupil demographics, the data show that schools in England
are becoming more ethnically diverse. In 2011 over a quarter of pupils
in primary/elementary schools were from minority ethnic backgrounds,
and almost 20 per cent spoke English as an additional language. Yet,
the data for teachers’ ethnicity show that only 6.4 per cent are from
BME backgrounds (DfE, 2011). When the outcomes of the NQT survey
for 2012 (DfE, 2012c) are considered with respect to the two questions
which are related to ethnic and linguistic diversity, respectively:
How good was your training in preparing you to teach learners from
minority ethnic backgrounds?
How good was your training to work with learners with English as an
additional language?
The responses show that, with respect to the first, only 54 per cent of
primary NQTs felt well prepared or very well prepared to teach learners
from minority ethnic backgrounds; and with respect to the second ques-
tion only 49 per cent felt equally well prepared (DfE, 2012c). In each case,
approximately half of newly qualified teachers felt they were not very
well prepared with respect to working with learners from minority ethnic
backgrounds and those for whom English is an additional language. One
could consider that these statistics attest to the failure of ITE to prepare the
predominantly White classes of student teachers for ethnic and linguis-
tically diverse classrooms, yet the Teachers’ Standards 2012 centre an
assimilationist agenda (Smith, 2012) which seeks to overlook the identity
of minority ethnic pupils in terms of their ethnic, cultural and linguistic
heritage, depicted as barriers to learning which should be swept away. The
process of ITE fails to prepare student teachers to understand how a child’s
100 Vini Lander
ethnic and linguistic heritage is part and parcel of who he or she is, and
how education can help children to be secure in their own identities.
Whiteness
In reflecting on the evolution of the Teachers’ Standards and how, at
each stage, the notions of difference are conceived as obstacles, and how
the role of the teacher as a technicist is to be the agent of assimila-
tion – and when we consider that the majority of the teacher workforce
is White, it is not such a great leap to link the Standards to being a
means of centring Whiteness to ensure it is securely embedded in the
process of preparing future teachers (Gillborn, 2008; DfE, 2012a; Smith,
2012). This section will discuss the notion of Whiteness as a central
organising concept which underpins teacher education policy, curric-
ulum and practice. Whiteness is the concept which exposes how struc-
tural inequalities are built into processes and practices. It is an invisible
component of how policy makers, policy interpreters and recipients
work in both complicit and unknowing ways to advantage one group
whilst disadvantaging others, namely those from BME groups.
There is a long history of studying BME groups and their successes or
failures within the education system (Coard, 1971; Stone, 1981; Gillborn,
2008; Tomlinson, 2008). The notion, ‘difference equals deficit, equals
a problem to be solved’, prevails in the underlying thinking of some
individuals. The ‘problem’ is always perceived to lie with those who
represent the ‘different other’. This conceptualisation is still evident in
the Teachers’ Standards with respect to linguistic diversity, and it deter-
mines some teachers’ responses to the BME pupils in their classrooms.
If we stop to examine this idea of the problem being the racialised
‘other’, then we expose an underlying assumption of the ‘other’ as aber-
rant, which assumes there are those who are non-aberrant or ‘normal’.
Bonnett (2000) explains how White identity has been forged through
the conquering, enslavement and domination of people through the
process of colonisation. He traces how groups once thought to be White,
such as Arabs and Chinese, were marginalised and re-categorised as non-
White over the course of time. He describes the development of a ‘hege-
monic European-identified racialised whiteness’ (Bonnett, 2000, p. 17).
It is this group that defines or represents the norm. In contemporary
society this equates to the White middle class. This underlying unspoken
measure of classification needs to be exposed. Whiteness enables us to
turn the spotlight of surveillance from the BME ‘other’ to examining the
hidden operation and exercise of power through Whiteness.
Initial Teacher Education 101
Whiteness is a concept which can be used to expose the inherent
structures that perpetuate systemic racism. Garner (2010) describes
Whiteness as a social and political construct which underpins struc-
tural racism. McIntyre (1997) notes that Whiteness is more than the
racial identity, White, and Harris (cited in Ladson-Billings, 2004, p. 57)
confirms that it is an identity which carries ‘social and material value’.
Whiteness is a racialised discourse which has been established over time
to privilege White people. It maintains their interests and supremacy
and is constructed to advantage White people. Frankenberg (2009,
p. 526) notes that ‘the term “Whiteness” signals the production and
reproduction of dominance rather than subordination, normativity
rather than marginality, and privilege rather than disadvantage’. Marx
(2006, p. 6) grapples with defining Whiteness in her study of six White
pre-service teachers. She concludes that ‘Whiteness is much more than
a racial discourse[, it is] an amalgamation of qualities including cultures,
histories, experiences, discourses and privileges shared by Whites.’
The often-cited article by Peggy McIntosh (1990) in which she deline-
ates 46 privileges which Whites enjoy is now, in the Whiteness litera-
ture, a seminal piece that others have built upon. In discussing White
advantage, Ryde (2009) acknowledges how as a White person she became
aware of the advantages associated with her identity:
Whiteness has become less neutral and more figural for me. It is as if
staring at a blank page I have begun to notice contours and shades
that were not at first apparent. So what have I seen? I have noticed
that I am advantaged by being White in many subtle ways. (Ryde,
2009, p. 36)
Ryde asserts that being White is not seen in as a racialised identity by
the vast majority of White people, and she suggests that therein lie the
roots of the problem.
The link between Whiteness and structural racism is often unclear to
some people. Chubbuck (cited in Yoon, 2012) suggests that Whiteness
is not new and is inseparable from racism. Leonardo (2002) suggests
that Whiteness and the perpetuation of racism run in tandem. He notes
that Whiteness is identified through an inability or unwillingness to
name racism which occurs as a result of the action or inaction of White
people, and this leads to inequality. Leonardo adds that Whiteness is
premised on the notion of ‘othering’ ethnicity and the ‘naturalisation’
of White as the norm, and trying to set aside the historical wrongs of
the past as a means of moving on is an attempt to hide the construction
102 Vini Lander
of dominance. It is the attempt to hide the operations of privilege and
domination that Gillborn (2008) notes is the most dangerous aspect of
Whiteness, as is the obliviousness to this aspect under which most White
people unknowingly operate on a daily basis. Picower (2009) writes
about the tools of Whiteness used daily to perpetuate its centrality. She
outlines emotional responses, such as anger and defensiveness; colour-
blind racism or, as Frankenberg (1993) would term it, a ‘color and power
evasive’ position which maintains the structures of power. The colour-
blind approach can be used to ‘justify inaction through denial, thereby
maintaining the current power structure and preserving the privileges of
the dominant group’ (Anderson, 2010, p. 250). Picower (2009) suggests
that the other tools of Whiteness, such as silence and the promotion of
the ethical, non-racist good self in teachers’ discourses, are used adeptly
to maintain the status quo. Yoon (2012) shows how Whiteness-at-work
within schools in the United States serves to maintain a race-neutral
approach to children’s questions and curiosity about each other’s ethnic-
ities and that of visitors – doing so in such a powerful way that it does
not enable children to talk about ethnicity and difference and, instead,
the discourse is about politeness. Picower (2009) would analyse such
deflections as a need by teachers to maintain and protect Whiteness.
The deflections, the protective discourses of goodness and innocence,
serve some White teachers well since it helps to keep them unsullied
by debates about race, ethnicity and racism, thereby maintaining a
false innocence which perpetuates the symbolic violence of structural
racism and inequality for those racialised as ‘other’ in their classrooms.
Rodriguez (2009) would classify this stance, not as innocence, but as
ignorant, because she asserts that in choosing not to know about, or
engage in, exposing the power of Whiteness in the maintenance of
structural racism, these people choose to be ignorant: racism is thus
perpetuated by this ignorance. Rodriguez thereby exposes the harm that
ignorant deflections, silences and inactions ultimately inflict on chil-
dren. Whiteness enables us to see White people as a racialised group
which benefits from the hidden and neutral conceptions of being White
and benefit from the invisible operations of Whiteness which serve to
reproduce structural racism.
The Practice of Whiteness in ITE
The ways in which Whiteness is embedded in the process of preparing
to teach in ethnically diverse classrooms requires careful documentation
and tracking in order to reveal its invisible operations. It is worth noting
Initial Teacher Education 103
that the responses NQTs make to the question ‘How good was your
training in preparing you to teach learners from minority ethnic back-
grounds?’ has always been one of the questions that returned the lowest
positive rates, and even NQTs in multiethnic London did not report to
be 100 per cent prepared to teach learners from minority ethnic back-
grounds. For Primary NQTs the Teaching Agency (2012c, p. 19) notes:
In the case of the minority ethnic backgrounds question; NQTs trained
by London based providers rated this aspect of their training higher
than NQTs trained by providers based in the south west government
office region (68 per cent of very good and good responses compared
with 38 per cent of very good and good responses). There were similar
variations in the responses to the English as an additional language
question with 61 per cent of NQTs trained by providers based in
London compared with 39 per cent of NQTs trained by providers
based in the south west region, rating their training as very good or
good.
The evidence shows that at least a third of NQTs in London did not feel
very well prepared with respect to teaching pupils from minority ethnic
groups. So, at least one-third of new teachers feel inadequately prepared
to teach the portion of the pupil population which is increasing rapidly.
Why should that be?
Student teachers and Whiteness
Research has shown that White postgraduate secondary student
teachers represented a spectrum of views with respect to their training
to teach BME students and to deal with racist incidences (Bhopal et al.,
2009; Lander, 2011b). The students voiced feelings which ranged from
naïve conceptions of race and ethnicity to guilt, anger and inadequacy
in the face of the incidents they had to deal with in schools. Those
who voiced naïve conceptions of ethnicity had little or ‘no exposure’
(or contact with) people from ethnically diverse backgrounds; their
naivety was shown in the vocabulary they used to refer to BME chil-
dren, terms such as ‘pupils from other cultures’, or the outdated and
unaccepted term ‘coloured’. One used the language of colour blind-
ness, stressing that he ‘almost has to stop and think to work out who
they were because it just didn’t stand out’. In another extract, Sebastian
notes that he would need to be aware of BME pupils in order to look out
for bullying to make sure the child ‘has not got problems with the other
104 Vini Lander
pupils’ (Lander, 2011b, p. 357). It is interesting to note that this student
teacher associates ethnicity as a problem which attracts bullying or is
otherwise problematic. The data did not show whether this concep-
tion was one which Sebastian had formed as part of his preparation to
teach, it would be unlikely since this interview occurred three months
after the start of his teacher education programme. Deficit notions of
BME pupils and colour blindness prevailed in the interviews with the
naïve students.
There were student teachers who, through their own appraisal,
thought they were better disposed towards aspects of ethnic diversity,
which ability they attributed to their world experiences, such as living
in London or travelling abroad. However, Stuart appeared as a rabbit in
the headlights, startled and shocked by the racism he encountered in
school from pupils and teaching assistants. He encapsulates the posi-
tion that Whiteness is naturalised and neutral, explaining his shock by
stating ‘everyone likes to believe they are neutral and not racist’ (Lander,
2011b, p. 359). The idea that he as a White male is neutral indicates that
this is a ‘norm’ by which he thinks others also operate and inadvert-
ently judge others, which Gillborn (2008) asserts is the cause of passive
racism.
In interviews with other student teachers in this cohort, some felt
guilty upon recognising their positions as novice teachers who are put
into situations in school where they are unable to question practices
which lead to disadvantageous outcomes for BME children. For example,
Steven described how two African [his term] boys who were new arrivals
in England and to the school, who spoke little or no English, were
placed in his lower-group English class. He recounts how the school
policy of placing in lower groups pupils who had English as an addi-
tional language made him feel ‘uncomfortable’ and ‘guilty’ because
they were placed in the ‘wrong group for the wrong reasons’ (Lander,
2011b, p. 361). Steven felt guilty that these two Black boys were placed
in a group with poor indigenous learning, behaviour and language role
models and, as such, the school policy would, he felt, lead to inevitable
underachievement for these youngsters.
Other students had a strong sense of their own political positioning.
and Sean was vociferous in noting that most student teachers would
pay ‘lip service to racism’ and hide behind their ‘pc shield’ (pc meaning
politically correct) with respect to discussions about racism (Lander,
2011b, p. 361). In deploying the term ‘pc’ Sean indicates that some
teachers want to act in a politically correct (pc) manner, but that behind
the shield they act and talk in ways which are not pc. The wonderful,
Initial Teacher Education 105
visual metaphor of a shield to hide behind, which relates to Picower’s
(2009) tools of Whiteness in the maintenance of the ethical good self,
is apparent in anti-racist utterances on the surface, but Whiteness, as
the dominant discourse, remains undisturbed, embedded and hidden
behind the ‘pc shield’.
Teacher educators and Whiteness
In my unpublished doctoral thesis (Lander, 2011a), which examined the
Whiteness of teacher educators, a similar spectrum of perspectives is
evident. The narratives of some White teacher educators illustrate their
lack of knowledge and experience related to race, ethnicity and racism.
The narratives show how this lack of knowledge compounds their
embedded Whiteness, which is evident in the language they used to
respond to questions about improving student teachers’ understanding
of race equality. Whiteness was revealed in a range of strategies or moves
to maintain it through the tools of Whiteness (Picower, 2009), such as
protection, colour blindness, denial, deflection, innocence, niceness
and ignorance.
The tutors appeared to want to protect students from understanding
topics such as race, ethnicity or racism and tutors made excuses about
why these aspects did not feature on the ITE curriculum or in students’
practice. Some tutors felt that the White student teachers had a lot to
do in learning to become teachers and did not need to be burdened by
additional issues, or they were good people and feared getting things
wrong when trying to deal with racism. There were others who drew on
the neo-liberal discourse of treating them as individuals, where equality
is achieved through removing a barrier for individual children (Smith,
2012) to the rather insidious notion that their own ethnicity is divorced
from their teacher self, which hints at a neutrality that teachers should
possess.
In making excuses for the student teachers one respondent described
the students as ‘not straying too far from the garden gate’, to indicate
they attended their local university and could not be expected to have
engaged with race, ethnicity and racism because the university is sited
in a predominantly White area of England (Lander, 2011a). So, implying
firstly, the students could not be expected to know about these things.
Secondly, why would they want to know about them? And, thirdly,
what use would it be anyway since most of them would teach in schools
within the locality? In this phrase there is validation of maintaining the
status quo through the dominant discourse of Whiteness. Tutors were
106 Vini Lander
divided about the ITE curriculum on offer, with some noting they do too
much; one said, ‘We do enough without making a song and dance of it’,
and others said there was not enough courseworkon these aspects.
Other tutors mentioned that teachers in school were not sufficiently
knowledgeable or experienced to support student teachers’ under-
standing about racism or aspects of ethnicity and, since most of the ITE
occurs in schools, there seemed to an air of absolution in this statement.
In fact, with training through School Direct sited largely in one school,
the Whiteness evident within ITE in universities currently will remain
undisturbed without a trace of any ripples through this narrow school-
based model.
Colour blindness was believed by a number of tutors to be a virtuous
position. They talked about a ‘common humanity’, and said that ethnicity
was only associated with external phenotypic features such as hair or
skin colour, which were immaterial to learning. Some tutors talked of
ethnicity as an impediment and, therefore, the goal of a teacher and
schools was to make ‘those pupils invisible’. The colour-blind approach is
used in the tutors’ narratives to ‘justify inaction through denial, thereby
maintaining the current power structure and preserving the privileges of
the dominant group’ (Anderson, 2010, p. 250). Frankenberg (1993) and
Anderson (2010) argue that colour blindness is just a means of denying
ethnic identity and, in doing so, centring what is considered by some
people to be the norm or White identity, so at each turn it becomes a
privileged status to preserve.
Tutors who classified themselves as having some knowledge and
experience about topics such as race, ethnicity and racism talked about
other tutors who drew on notions of the teacher as saviour (Marx,
2006) in helping BME children overcome obstacles to their learning
associated with either language or ethnicity. One tutor talked about the
‘goodness of primary teachers’, when an incident involving a Muslim
student teacher being failed on placement was discussed, adding, ‘I
would be horrified to think that [they] would want somehow to estab-
lish a typical group of survivors.’ Another tutor believed a racist incident
on her course had been ‘blown up out of all proportion’. Deflection
often involved drawing on or acting ethically or casting ethnicity as
a label and the danger of using labels. This was a means of nullifying
the debate about ethnicity and racism. However, later in the interview
the respondent who did not like labels refers to herself being White
working class, thereby illustrating how Whiteness creates, maintains
and is oblivious to the contradictions that emerge in the struggle to
centre it as a dominant discourse.
Initial Teacher Education 107
Other ways in which Whiteness operates is the recruitment and reten-
tion of BME teachers to ITE. Writers such as Carrington and Tomlin
(2000), Flintoff et al. (2008) and Wilkins and Lall (2010) have shown
how BME trainee teachers in a range of geographical settings and across
a range of primary and secondary ITE courses have to negotiate the
racism of pupils, teachers and schools to survive, or not, on school place-
ments and to pass their courses. It is not surprising, then, that only 6 per
cent of teachers are from BME groups, since their struggle to succeed is
against overt racism and institutional racism as it manifests itself in the
dominant discourse of Whiteness in ITE.
Ways forward
There are ways in which teacher educators can work against the grain
of Whiteness within policy and practice. Whilst the Teachers’ Standards
2012 are statutory, most ITE providers construct the ITE curriculum
(albeit within a finite number of weeks) within the institutions. The
curriculum offered to aspiring teachers can be constructed to support
teacher candidates’ starting points with reference to race and ethnicity
through dedicated lectures, seminars and activities which challenge ster-
eotypes, constructions of otherness and internalised racism, and to be
critically reflective about the curriculum and resources they offer chil-
dren in schools. I work with a team of tutors who endeavour to offer
these challenges to all student teachers; we work through dedicated
sessions on equality and diversity. All students have to attend the eight
sessions (15 hours) in three years on an undergraduate ITE course. Whilst
I recognise this is insufficient in developing depth of understanding, it
is the first step in mobilising our commitment to race equality and inte-
grating aspects of it within the ITE curriculum. This change has only
been possible through the dedication and expertise of a small number of
ITE tutors and a senior manager with the power to enact changes within
the curriculum. These tutors have devised and delivered the units of
learning through large-cohort sessions which are not conducive to devel-
oping individual understandings nor do they promote discussion. The
evaluation of these sessions by students is predictably varied, but one
comment which I consider to be a validation of our attempts (although
I am not sure it was meant as such) read: ‘There’s too much equality and
diversity.’ Let us hope there will be even more and that more teacher
educators have the courage of their convictions to overcome the policy
imperatives to shake the embedded prevalent Whiteness in ITE rather
than hide behind their ‘pc shields’ (Lander, 2011b).
108 Vini Lander
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... In England, the Teachers' Standards (Department of Education 2012) (are statutory and have to be met to gain qualified teacher status), make no reference to teaching in ethnically diverse contexts. Little time is devoted to developing preservice teachers' critical race consciousness, so teachers enter the profession unprepared to negotiate systems which perpetuate the discourse of whiteness (Bhopal and Rhamie 2014;Cochran-Smith et al. 2015;Kohli et al. 2019, Lander 2014Moltó et al. 2010;Smith 2013). The majority of teachers entering the profession are from the hegemonic majority and attempts to provide critical racial justice education are resisted, deemed unimportant and conversations about racism shut down by some pre-service teachers (Cochran-Smith et al. 2015;Kohli et al. 2019, Marx 2006Smith and Lander, 2012). ...
... There is a 'persistent gap between the intention to educate teachers for multicultural classrooms and the failure to meet the reality … ' (Kohli et al. 2019, 25). This gap is evident in Spain and England (Lander, 2014;Moltó et al. 2010). ...
... Castro (2010) contends millennial preservice teachers may well have a greater acceptance of diversity which requires development into critical consciousness of structural racism and white privilege. Therefore, an understanding of race and racism should be integrated within Spanish and English ITE (Acquah and Commins 2013;Coronel and Gómez-Hurtado 2015;Davies and Crozier 2006;Flores and Ferreira 2016, Garcia and Lopez 2005, Lander 2014). The reality in each country meets minimum requirements, one lecture and one seminar on race and education (Lander 2011;Lander 2014;Moltó et al. 2010). ...
Article
Despite the increasing racial diversity within British and Spanish societies, teacher education and school curricula continue to be Eurocentric and taught by predominantly White teachers. This quantitative research sought to explore the perceptions of student teachers in relation to their attitudes and preparedness to teach in ethnically diverse school contexts. Data were gathered at two universities, one in Southern Spain and the other in Northwest England. The article employs critical race theory and critical whiteness studies as frames to understand outcomes of an online questionnaire. The majority White student teacher sample across both countries register an acceptance of racial diversity and report the need for better preservice teacher education in this respect. Despite preservice teachers’ positive responses to racial diversity, teacher education in both countries fails to equip them for increasingly diverse classrooms. This failure serves to replicate the enactment of whiteness and, does not develop student teachers’ stated commitment to racial diversity.
... A raciolinguistic perspective considers white supremacy and anti-Blackness as a normalised tenet of Western schooling (e.g., Carter Andrews et al., 2021;Kroskrity, 2021;Seltzer, & de los Ríos, 2018) and an endemic organising structure of teacher education in England and the USA (e.g., Aronson & Meyers, 2022;Lander, 2014;Picower, 2009). Recent work, especially from Black teacher educators in the USA (e.g., Baker-Bell, 2020a; Croom, 2020; Johnson, 2022; Lyiscott et al., 2018; Sealey-Ruiz & Greene, 2015), has exposed how raciolinguistic ideologies are woven by design into teacher education policy assemblages in terms of curricula, assessments and pedagogical materials. ...
... Critiques of teacher education policy in England have long shown how it can work to uphold white supremacy. Lander's (2014) historical account describes how regimes of whiteness have been crafted by successive Conservative and Labour governments whilst simultaneously curtailing academic autonomy through the centralisation of teacher education curricula and the ramping up of external surveillance mechanisms. She shows how the increasing state control of teacher education provision since the late 1970s is concurrent with a decreasing level of attention to issues of racism and racialisation in teacher education policy, resulting in fewer opportunities for pre-service teachers to adequately engage with race beyond simplistic activities which conceptualise racism as a nefarious acts of individual name calling as opposed to state-crafted structures. ...
... The requirement that teachers use standardised English has remained a central aspect of this, through both Conservative and Labour designed policies which have placed an increasing emphasis on technicist notions of linguistic performance whilst gradually erasing any references to social justice and race equality. Consequently, whiteness is centred as the normative standard for pre-service teachers, in terms of identity, pedagogy and language (Lander, 2014;Smith, 2013). Whilst state-designed professional standards for teachers only came into formal existence in 1983, teachers have always faced pressure to modify their language practices towards idealised whiteness-with a perceived failure to do so representing an indicator of unacceptable pedagogy, professional incompetency and illegitimate personhood. ...
Article
Full-text available
Raciolinguistic ideologies are sets of beliefs about language which frame racialised communities as displaying linguistic deficiencies which require remediation. These ideologies are tethered to European colonialism and white supremacist logics which have long been normalised and actively written into teacher education policy in England. In this article I argue that raciolinguistic ideologies are integral to the contemporary, state‐crafted policy assemblage that pre‐service teachers and teacher educators must navigate, including the Teachers' Standards, the Core Content Framework and various documents produced by Ofsted, the schools inspectorate. I argue that this policy assemblage represents a form of hostile governance which is attempting to derail and curtail anti‐racist efforts. I show how raciolinguistic ideologies surface under guises of career advancement, pedagogical excellence, scientific objectivity, research validity and social justice. These guises operate to coerce pre‐service teachers and teacher educators to reproduce raciolinguistic ideologies in their own practice, reduce professional agency and place responsibility on low‐income and racialised communities to modify their language towards idealised whiteness. The article ends with some proposals for how teacher educators might find cracks in this oppressive system, in locating spaces for resistance which seek to undo harmful and colonial ideologies about language in the struggle against white supremacy.
... The genealogy of CRT, arising from critical legal studies in 1989, began with the recognition of "the relationship between knowledge, naming and power" (Taylor, 2009, p. 4). This could then be applied to systemic structures of racial inequality which were situated in institutional political and legal structures premised by White supremacy and settler colonialism (Lander, 2011;Lander, 2014;Race and Lander, 2014;Yusoff, 2018). CRT has been applied to education research in both the USA and the UK as a tool to explore racial inequalities and academic achievement (Houston, 2019;Lynn & Dixon, 2013;Race & Lander, 2014). ...
... (2019, n.p.). Educators may take this position as either a virtuous or ethical stance or they may be colour-blind themselves and either not want to deal with the messy issue of racism, or they are colour-blind to re-centre the dominant discourse of Whiteness (Lander 2014). ...
... We feel that practitioners and teachers should be encouraged to turn attention to their own positionality, however hard this may be, as it is a crucial part of moving towards anti-bias, anti-racist practice and abolitionist teaching. It is very easy to accede to the common sense, taken for granted, normalisation of Whiteness and White supremacy and this becomes reflected in White privilege and can result in a colour-blind approach which is used to defend, both conscious and unconscious, racist views (Lander, 2014). This has been demonstrated in Houston's (2019) research when she spoke to ECEC practitioners who had not been aware of the micro-aggressions they were displaying to the Black children in their setting. ...
... The theoretical frameworks of critical race theory and whiteness are utilised to analyse the recent changes and the persistent inertia to adequately prepare newly qualified teachers to teach in ethnically diverse schools in England. The chapter presents an analysis of teacher education in England as a practice of whiteness (Lander, 2014). ...
... As will become clear later in the text, the structures of power are so entrenched in initial teacher education that, "Addressing racism in teacher education is a process of systematic and cultural change rather than a short term 'fixing' of a problem" (Sleeter, 2017, p. 164). As I have argued previously, the assimilationist approach to policy making in teacher education in England and the de-professionalisation of teachers has resulted in the inadequate preparation of new teachers to teach in schools where one third of pupils have Black, Asian or minority ethnic backgrounds (Lander, 2014). ...
... From their white perspective they failed to comprehend the omnipresence of racism in everyday life, a fact painfully obvious to BAME teacher-educators, teachers and children. These white teacher-educators were complicit in the structural racism within teacher education and their failure to be actively anti-racist through the resources and pedagogies they employed simply contributed to perpetuating whiteness and maintain structural racism in teacher education, thus maintaining the status quo of white supremacy (Gillborn, 2008;Lander, 2014). ...
Chapter
This chapter applies Critical Race Theory (CRT) to an analysis of racism in contemporary education. I explore the ‘business-as-usual’ forms of racism that saturate the everyday world of schools; and show how so-called colour-blindness closes down critical discussion and denies the significance of racism. Finally, the chapter reflects on the nature of White supremacy in contemporary European societies.
... The theoretical frameworks of critical race theory and whiteness are utilised to analyse the recent changes and the persistent inertia to adequately prepare newly qualified teachers to teach in ethnically diverse schools in England. The chapter presents an analysis of teacher education in England as a practice of whiteness (Lander, 2014). ...
... As will become clear later in the text, the structures of power are so entrenched in initial teacher education that, "Addressing racism in teacher education is a process of systematic and cultural change rather than a short term 'fixing' of a problem" (Sleeter, 2017, p. 164). As I have argued previously, the assimilationist approach to policy making in teacher education in England and the de-professionalisation of teachers has resulted in the inadequate preparation of new teachers to teach in schools where one third of pupils have Black, Asian or minority ethnic backgrounds (Lander, 2014). ...
... From their white perspective they failed to comprehend the omnipresence of racism in everyday life, a fact painfully obvious to BAME teacher-educators, teachers and children. These white teacher-educators were complicit in the structural racism within teacher education and their failure to be actively anti-racist through the resources and pedagogies they employed simply contributed to perpetuating whiteness and maintain structural racism in teacher education, thus maintaining the status quo of white supremacy (Gillborn, 2008;Lander, 2014). ...
Chapter
Full-text available
At the heart of teachers’ professionalism is their competence in reflecting about their own pedagogical practices and the discourses these practices are embedded in. Teachers’ understanding of the complexities of their pupils’ migration experience and its impact on their educational participation is an important theme for reflective processes. This chapter presents results of my study on pupils involved in multiple and multidirectional migration during their schooling years. Their experiences are discussed with regard to their potential to challenge current pedagogical practices and discourses related to migrant pupils.
... The theoretical frameworks of critical race theory and whiteness are utilised to analyse the recent changes and the persistent inertia to adequately prepare newly qualified teachers to teach in ethnically diverse schools in England. The chapter presents an analysis of teacher education in England as a practice of whiteness (Lander, 2014). ...
... As will become clear later in the text, the structures of power are so entrenched in initial teacher education that, "Addressing racism in teacher education is a process of systematic and cultural change rather than a short term 'fixing' of a problem" (Sleeter, 2017, p. 164). As I have argued previously, the assimilationist approach to policy making in teacher education in England and the de-professionalisation of teachers has resulted in the inadequate preparation of new teachers to teach in schools where one third of pupils have Black, Asian or minority ethnic backgrounds (Lander, 2014). ...
... From their white perspective they failed to comprehend the omnipresence of racism in everyday life, a fact painfully obvious to BAME teacher-educators, teachers and children. These white teacher-educators were complicit in the structural racism within teacher education and their failure to be actively anti-racist through the resources and pedagogies they employed simply contributed to perpetuating whiteness and maintain structural racism in teacher education, thus maintaining the status quo of white supremacy (Gillborn, 2008;Lander, 2014). ...
Chapter
Full-text available
This article discusses how symbolic orders of the migration society shape the negotiation of social practices in school and lead to the (re-)production of racism in the context of pre-service teacher training, called ‘the second phase of teacher training’ in Germany. It presents selected results of interviews with teacher educators from a broader research project on pre-service teacher training in the migration society. The results show that symbolic orders inscribed as migration patterns in the tacit knowledge of these most significant professionals are relevant to racism, particularly because of pre-service teachers’ binary differentiation between the categories ‘German’ and ‘migration background’, the latter being equivalent to ‘not German’. This becomes clear in their reconstructed conceptualization of an imagined ‘ideal teacher’ as well as ‘good teaching’ and leads to the relevant question of which pre-service teachers are identified as suitable for the teaching profession according to teacher educators and why. In this imagination, the binary differentiation takes place in connection with attributes especially linked to the habitual dimensions of language and behaviour.
... A significant action of motivation to transform education opportunities for all, for the better, given by contributors across this BERA guide is through disrupting and arresting the epistemic violence (Spivak, 1999;Moncrieffe, 2020) identified as anti-Blackness produced by educational policies, and curriculum guidance aims and contents identified by the dominance of Whiteness, Anglocentrism and Eurocentrism across all educational phases. The target of this disrupting and arresting is also aimed at innate and often unconscious cultural and epistemic biases brought to education by uncritical practitioners through their curriculum teaching and learning processes (Harris, 2013;Lander, 2011Lander, , 2014Moncrieffe, 2020). This transformation is indeed a complex operation for research, teaching and learning in education. ...
Chapter
In aiming to foster a decolonial praxis that is potent and transformative – the research offered across this chapter applies critical theories to the educational values of equity and inclusion enacted in practice. Decolonial praxis is shared as critical theoretically informed teaching and learning for decentring the dominant focus in education given to Whiteness, Anglocentrism and Eurocentrism in creating anti-Blackness. In talking about Whiteness, this does not refer to White people, but an ideology that empowers people racialised as White. Therefore, decolonial praxis in this chapter means that attention to knowledge acquisition is also given to the rich value offered by ‘alternative’ or non-White, non-Anglocentric and non-Eurocentric cultural ways of knowing and being. Accepting the educational challenge in this means unlearning the taken for granted ways by which we in the contemporary western world come to know, understand, and perceive reality through the influence of formal educational institutions, the state, religious institutions, the media, and through informal influences such as families, communities, and public opinion. The decolonial praxis manifested by this chapter provide broad exemplars of critical unlearning for re-learning in aiming for genuine conveyance of equity and inclusion in teaching and learning.
... However, there is resistance toward the decolonisation movement, as Hall et al. (2021) argue, institutions such as some universities in the UK still reinforce whiteness and dissipates radical energy (Hall et al., 2021). This also applies to secondary school where teachers are predominantly white (Lander, 2014;Katsha, 2022). This means that the systemic implementation of the decolonisation concept into education will be a long and trying process, however, this also implicates that the suggestion of facing this issue by targeting the young generation in hopes of invoking change in society as a whole may be the only solution. ...
Article
Full-text available
COVID-19 has brought to light the systemic racism faced by ethnic minorities in the UK. During the pandemic, we saw an increase in anti-Asian hate crimes and a lack of support from the government given to both patients and healthcare workers from minority backgrounds on the front lines. This lack of support potentially contributed to the increased susceptibility of ethnic minorities to COVID-19 and also their hesitancy toward the vaccine, particularly the south Asian communities. In this paper we discuss potential reasons for COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among south Asian groups. Additionally, we propose that introducing a decolonised curriculum in secondary school may enhance cultural awareness with historical context among the white British populations, allowing for more inclusion for south Asian communities. By exploring ways to decolonise specific subjects in the secondary curriculum, this paper aims to set out a guideline for teachers and education professionals on expanding secondary school pupils’ knowledge of racial issues and equality, to start the process of educating a new generation appropriately. We propose that decolonising the secondary school curriculum is a potential long-term solution to eradicating racism and discrimination.
Article
Full-text available
There are a disproportionate number of teachers of colour (ToC) in Wales in comparison to pupils of colour. Teachers are less ethnically diverse than the pupils they are teaching with only 1.3% of teachers categorising themselves as being from a non‐White background. This paper sets out findings from research investigating recruitment into Initial Teacher Education (ITE) and the career progression of ToC in Wales. Through a qualitative case study approach, employing participant voice, it gives participants a platform to articulate their experiences. Sixty‐eight semi‐structured interviews took place and participants were a mixture of 14+ learners and serving teachers/leaders, all from diverse backgrounds. As a multi‐ethnic research team ourselves, we were aware of issues that participants faced within the Welsh school system, either as pupils or teachers, and were committed to carrying out the research, employing an empathetic lens. This was especially relevant as participants were relaying incidents of racism and racial trauma suffered, as well as sharing their achievements. This provided us with rich data, detailing lived experience and gave an insight into the unique experiences of teachers of colour, within a predominantly White school system in Wales and as a result, suggests what needs to change.
Article
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Education policy is not designed to eliminate race inequality but to sustain it at manageable levels. This is the inescapable conclusion of the first major study of the English education system using 'critical race theory'. David Gillborn has been described as Britain's 'most influential race theorist in education'. In this book he dissects the role of racism across the education system; from national policies to school-level decisions about discipline and academic selection. Race inequality is not accidental and things are not getting better. Despite occasional 'good news' stories about fluctuations in statistics, the reality is that race inequality is so deeply entrenched that it is effectively 'locked in' as a permanent feature of the system. Built on a foundation of compelling evidence, from national statistics to studies of classroom life, this book shows how race inequality is shaped and legitimized across the system. The study explores a series of key issues including: The impact of the 'War on Terror' and how policy privileges the interests of white people. How assessment systems produce race inequality. Exposes the 'gifted and talented' programme as a form of eugenic thinking based on discredited and racist myths about intelligence and ability. Documents the Stephen Lawrence case revealing how policy makers have betrayed earlier commitments to race equality. Shows how 'model minorities' are created and used to counter anti-racism. How education policy is implicated in the defence of white power. Conspiracy? Racism & Education takes critical antiracist analyses to a new level and represents a fundamental challenge to current assumptions in the field. With a preface by Richard Delgado, one of the founders of critical race theory.
Thesis
This study examines the racialised narratives of White tutors in initial teacher education (ITE) with specific reference to how well initial teacher education (ITE) prepares student teachers to teach in an ethnically diverse society. It draws on critical race theory as a framework to identify how the discourse of whiteness is embedded in the experience, knowledge and hegemonic understandings of these tutors and how it affects their approach to the topic of race equality and teaching in a multicultural society. The research was conducted in a predominantly White institution where the majority of student teachers and tutors reflect the national teacher demo graphics within the context of an increasingly diverse pupil population and the continued underachievement of pupils from certain minority ethnic groups. The study involved interviews with White ITE tutors within one institution. The resulting narratives were juxtaposed with the narrative of a minority ethnic tutor to examine the embedded and embodied effects of the dominant discourse of whiteness. The tutors' narratives reveal how whiteness is embodied and performed within the context of ITE to maintain whiteness whilst simultaneously engaging with the rhetoric of race equality and compliance with statutory duties and requirements. The study shows how the tools of whiteness (Picower 2009) are used to maintain and promote the misrecognised discourse of whiteness resulting in the symbolic violence evident in the persistence of endemic racism within the academy. The disruption of such a discourse has implications for ITE policy, practice and recruitment. There are particular implications for the school-based aspects of initial teacher education programmes and the continued professional development of ITE tutors and mentors.
Book
Frankenberg explores the unique intersection of race and sex as she examines the way that white women relate to racism. She writes from the assumption that whiteness is socially constructed rather than naturally pre-existing. She theorizes "from experience" to offer a unique perspective that retains the strength of a theoretical foundation as well as the relatability of personal narratives. She interviews thirty white women to get their perspectives on various racial topics and gain a critical standpoint for thinking about individual and social forces that construct and maintain whiteness in contemporary society. She begins with the question, "What is white women's relationship to racism?" The women discuss various aspects of interracial courtship, the role of power in acknowledging racial differences, and the function of language in facing and overcoming the negative effects of this difference.
Article
Multiverse is interested in publishing Case Study material that shows how institutions are addressing issues of ‘Race', Inclusion and Diversity. As part of this endeavour, Multiverse commissioned a small-scale investigation at the University of Southampton. The main objectives were to: examine the views of trainee teachers and tutors on PGCE courses, regarding the teaching of ‘race', diversity and inclusion, explore how the views of trainee teachers and tutors could be used to develop materials on such courses (e.g. workshop sessions, reading materials). Tutor questionnaires were distributed to a small group of tutors and seven in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with PGCE trainee teachers. The resulting report is however based on 59 questionnaire surveys with students on PGCE courses, the majority of which were on secondary PGCE courses. Workshops for trainee teachers and tutors were designed on the basis of data from the questionnaires collected as part of the investigation and are included as attachments to the report. There are also suggestions for further reading. The most important conclusion to emerge was that trainee teachers and tutors understandings of ‘race', diversity and inclusion are crucial in order to provide a social justice and equalities agenda for teaching in schools. The more trainee students and tutors are aware of the range of issues connected to ‘race', diversity and inclusion the better equipped they are able to deal with instances of racism and to develop an inclusive teaching agenda. The main recommendations for future policy and research are: Implementation of a compulsory course on issues to do with ‘race', diversity and inclusion for trainee teachers. The course should make reference to how trainee teachers can incorporate a more diverse range of teaching in the classroom as well as how to deal with incidents of racism in a sensitive manner. Continuous professional development for tutors on teacher training courses - to include legal updates on diversity and equal opportunities as well as an assessment of how tutors are teaching diversity issues to trainee teachers, the challenges they are facing and how they could improve their teaching practice in these areas. A sharing of ‘good practice' for tutors would form the basis of these courses. A national survey of all teacher trainers in England to examine how they are teaching their trainee teachers to be aware of issues of ‘race', diversity and inclusion with a view to disseminating and sharing ‘good practice'. The data could be used to change policy and practice for teacher trainers on a national level.
Chapter
Multiculturalism as a concept is both topical and relevant (Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship, 2011) as well as being perceived positively and negatively (Lott, 2010; May & Sleeter, 2010; Vertovec & Wessendorf, 2010). The ongoing debates and continuing need to address multicultural education as policy and within classrooms and lecture theatres remains crucial when considering domestic and international practice as well as the changing nature of cultural diversity (Banks, 2009; Modood, 2010; Race, 2011). The essays in this collection address the viability of multicultural education. We are hoping they will challenge the reader through differently focused snapshots of the status quo, the problematizing of aspects of multiculturalism, discussion of the processes and discourses that are contributing to its supposed imminent demise and indication of examples of alternatives to multiculturalism and multicultural education that are emerging. This introduction provides something of a contextualization of multiculturalism and multicultural education today, proceeding through a generalized overview of the context of multiculturalism and multicultural education and the specific examples of conservative European leaders’ contribution to the “death of multiculturalism” trope and cosmopolitan education as a specific example of a discourse in complex coexistence with multicultural education.
Article
While overt prejudice is now much less prevalent than in decades past, subtle prejudice – prejudice that is inconspicuous, indirect, and often unconscious – continues to pervade our society. Laws do not protect against subtle prejudice and, because of its covert nature, it is difficult to observe, and frequently goes undetected by both perpetrator and victim. Benign Bigotry uses a fresh, original format to examine subtle prejudice by addressing six commonly held cultural myths based on assumptions that appear harmless but actually foster discrimination: “those people all look alike”; “they must be guilty of something”; “feminists are man-haters”; “gays flaunt their sexuality”; “I’m not a racist, I’m colorblind” and “affirmative action is reverse racism.” Kristin J. Anderson skillfully relates each of these myths to real-world events, emphasizes how errors in individual thinking can affect society at large, and suggests strategies for reducing prejudice in daily life.