Structural ignorance of Christian privilege

Abstract

Despite claims of a so-called war on Christmas, Christmas in the United States is still celebrated widely in public spaces. The question is why some people ignore, what some scholars call, their Christian privilege? In this paper, we explore the ignoring of Christian privilege in one public space: USA elementary schools. Using 27 interviews, we show that most of the teachers/administrators adopted what we are calling Christian ignorance –– a structural ignorance rooted in normative cognitive schemas that creates and maintains Christian privilege.