Disenchanting secularism (or the cultivation of soul) as pedagogy in resistance to populist racism and colonial structures in the academy

This article explores pedagogic strategies for resisting the racism of contemporary populism and age-old coloniality through challenging secularism in the academy, especially in social theory. Secularism sustains racism and imperialism in the contemporary academy and is inscribed, in part, through the norms of social theory. Post-secular social theory has been positioned by some as the decolonial answer, but often replicates the most problematic aspects of secularism. Whereas post-secularism affirms the previously denigrated side of the secular vs religious dualism, I am more interested in unworking those classificatory schemas, setting the critical thought of religious teachers in relation to ‘secular’ social and political theorists such that boundaries erode. The ambition in this is to resist the hierarchical orderings of knowledge that pit Islamic, indigenous, feminised subjectivity as backwards, dangerous or intrinsically inferior to secular, Christian, rational knowledge. It is also to disenchant the secular gods (progress, money, growth, health) and hold open space for critical play in relation to the transcendental—to create a permissive, legitimising, space for students’ spiritual dimension, conocimiento or the ‘cultivation of soul’. The article draws theoretical inspiration from Gloria Anzaldúa, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Sylvia Wynter. It also draws on a practical experiment in disenchanting secularism through teaching an undergraduate module in social theory called Capitalism and Religion.     

Wearing,speaking and shouting about sexism: developing arts-based interventions into sexism in the academy

This paper examines a project that developed humorous, irreverent and subversive arts-based interventions into sexism in the academy. Two workshops were run with women currently working in teacher education in Australian universities. The researchers worked with the participants collaboratively and in line with feminist practices and methodologies to develop interventions that were performed at a large multidisciplinary educational research conference. The paper outlines the origins of the project, the feminist scholarship that inspired it, the methodological framework as well as a discussion about three of the interventions and demonstrates that sexism both (re)produces structural disadvantage for women in higher education as well as being characterised by a set of micro practices that shape the everyday experiences of women in the academy. Although this research is set within an Australian context, the paper acknowledges that sexism is systemic within higher education across contexts.     

How private ‘everyday racism’ and public ‘racism denial’ contribute to unequal and discriminatory educational experiences

The study uses ethnographic research from four classes in secondary school as well as from two groups in upper secondary school, to examine everyday racism as an element of the daily institutional lives of students and teachers. The study is based on long-term participant observation and 89 interviews. These were all audio-recorded and transcribed. In Sweden the education of ethnic groups is couched in a discourse of integration and inclusion. However, the research presented shows that the aims of integration and inclusion were not achieved. Unequal and discriminatory educational experiences operated through two related actions: by private everyday racism and through public racism denial.     

Race,rurality and representation: Black and minority ethnic mothers’ experiences of their children’s education in rural primary schools in England,UK

There is little research that has examined the role of mothers in their children's education in the rural space of the school, particularly in relation to the experiences of Black and minority ethnic (BME) families who are newcomers to the rural space. This article attempts to redress the balance and examine how BME mothers are positioned in rural primary schools in England (UK) which are predominantly White. This article is based on 20 in-depth interviews conducted with mothers who identified themselves as Black or from a minority ethnic background (India, Pakistan or Bangladesh). All of the respondents had moved into the areas in the last 10 years. The findings from this research suggest that mothers are active agents in the education of their children; however, their experiences reveal that within the White space of the school they are positioned as ‘other’ and ‘outsiders’ as they navigate the diasporic space of the White countryside.     

Urban public space and the construction of social life: a social-pedagogical perspective

This paper addresses the question of what meaning urban public space has in relation to the process of children’s socialisation. It builds on data from qualitative research into the social-pedagogical meaning of three contrasting neighbourhoods in the city of Ghent. In this research, the neighbourhood was studied as a social and spatial context in which particular socialising practices are constantly constructed and reconstructed through the everyday social actions and practices of people, including children, and hence influence the socialisation processes of children. The research shows that different patterns influence the strategies through which children learn to deal with issues like diversity, otherness and unpredictability in different ways, ranging from excluding this diversity from the everyday lifeworld, through enclosing oneself within one’s own social group, to learning through the everyday confrontation with diversity.     

Imagining the Antiracist State: Representations of racism in Canadian history textbooks

This paper examines how knowledge about racism has been represented in high school Canadian history textbooks authorized by the Province of Ontario during the 1960s and after the year 2000. I argue that even though historical racisms have increasingly made their way into Canadian history textbooks as valid and important topics of study, the idea of racism continues to be understood largely within a prejudice/discrimination framework that reduces racism to irrational and individualized problems of thought, behaviour, and assumption. Moreover, through multiple techniques of containment, racism is imagined to exist within temporal and spatial locations, events, or incidents that are represented as either foreign to Canada or aberrations within Canada. The combined effect is to depict the space of Canada as one largely antithetical to racism.     

Critical race theory in India: theory translation and the analysis of social identities and discrimination in Indian schooling

This article examines ethical and philosophical considerations in theory translation, i.e. translating a theoretical framework from its original place to another national context. Critical race theory (CRT) was developed in the United States through significant struggle in order to analyze everyday racism. Marginalized groups have historically shared postcolonial critiques, conceptualizations of social justice, and methods for mass resistance across national borders. Through an analysis of the literature on CRT and contemporary India, this article explores whether CRT’s principles and methodology can be employed to research discrimination within India’s school system. Can CRT be sensitive to the differences in context and still retain its philosophical center? This analysis reveals that CRT may be particularly helpful in highlighting the educational discrimination experienced by Dalits via use of CRT’s social construction thesis to conceptualize caste and intersectionality to understand caste’s relationship to gender and class.     

Inhabiting the ‘tragic gap’: pre-service teachers practicing racial literacy

Set in the context of a teacher education program, this study examined how three White pre-service teachers participate in book club discussions of children’s literature. We asked: When White pre-service teachers are in a context that enables talk about race, racism and anti-racism, what do they talk about? What conceptual and discursive tools do they use? We were guided by these questions, along with theoretical perspectives of racial literacy, multicultural discourses and a form of critical discourse analysis referred to as ‘positive discourse analysis’ or ‘reconstructive discourse analysis’. Our analysis illustrates that the participants held two questions, what constitutes racism and what makes a person a White ally, without firm resolution in the form and function of their talk. Their discourses illustrate that racial literacy involves what teachers say and also a willingness to stand in the space of indeterminacy, which may create space for new social positions. We argue for a continued theorization of critical discourse analysis alongside of racial literacy and multicultural discourses.     

‘Absent fathers’, and children’s social and emotional learning: an exploration of the perceptions of ‘positive male role models’ in the primary school sector

This paper focuses on the testimonies of three male primary school staff members who utilised social and emotional learning (SEL) in their everyday practice within their respective schools. The data, collected through individual interviews, illustrate how these three men interpreted SEL, and their role in the development of children’s social, emotional and behavioural (SEB) skills, in response to their perceptions of pupils’ home-life. In particular, the sample identified the children’s fathers’ perceived ability/inability as a main cause of pupils’ SEB deficiencies. Consequently, the three male staff members maintained that in order to advocate and encourage alternative, appropriate behaviours, they should act as ‘replacement fathers’ and become ‘role models’. The findings contribute to existing debates relating to the notion of ‘positive male role models’ in primary schools and the propensity for staff to engage in parental blame. The implications of these findings are discussed, and suggestions that call for a more democratic and cooperative exchange of knowledge between parents and teachers are made.     

History and civics education in Israel: reflections from Israeli teachers

In recent years, a number of studies have explored the link between Zionism and the latent racism prevalent in Israeli society. As a result of these studies, it has become clear that successive generations of Israeli citizens (and non-citizens) are exposed to a single historical and cultural narrative. Such a narrative is intentionally designed to strengthen the emergent ethno-national character of Israeli democracy. This study examines a selection of Jewish–Israeli teachers’ reflections on teaching in Israeli high school history and civics classrooms, and the institutionalized racism that they encounter both within the textbooks and from their students. I will demonstrate that these reflections are examples of negotiating dilemmatic spaces, resulting from the unique ‘structural conditions and relations to everyday practices’ that Israeli educators must face. Israeli teachers must mediate the curricular materials vis-à-vis the degrees of freedom they are provided to teach counter-historical narratives and their own emotional responses to both the content of the textbooks and their students’ reactions to the dominant national narrative presented therein.     

Transgressive and negotiated White racial knowledge

Abstract

This critical case study investigated the experiences of six White preservice teachers as they learned about race and racism during the first semester of an urban-focused teacher preparation program. The author identified two broad themes of transgressive White racial knowledge and negotiated White racial knowledge to capture the participants’ engagement with the topic of race. By detailing the complexities of the racial knowledge of a group of race-conscious White teachers, the project helps to de-homogenize conceptualizations of White teachers’ racial identities. The transgressive knowledge displayed by the participants largely occurred in their intellectual understandings of issues related to urban education. When the participants discussed their antiracist practice and their own complicity in racism, their negotiations with critical understandings of race emerged. These findings suggest that educators working with race-conscious White teachers should emphasize the messiness inherent in enacting an antiracist practice and think differently about the subtle distancing strategies White teachers often deploy to release themselves from complicity in racism.     

Hipster racism and sexism in charity date auctions: individualism,privilege blindness and irony in the academy

This paper follows one small, Christian university’s five-year experience with student charity date auctions. The contemporary re-emergence of date auctions represents a backlash against gender and racial progress. Student leaders believe that in a post-racial and post-sexist society, race and gender are decontextualised neutral elements of identity. Students see their expressions of racist or sexist practices as quaint or ironic, as markers that they have sufficient cultural capital to reference historical events or practices. This perceived mastery of cultural signs is what marks these expressions as hipster racism and sexism. The date auction is difficult to unpack and challenge as it rests on privilege blindness, individualism, and the powerful rhetoric of irony. Using a close reading of the student newspaper, we analyse the discourse surrounding the date auction revealing the maintenance of patriarchy and white supremacy within the academy.     

“Do you want an idea of what they’re doing?” Transgressive data generation and analysis within a bilingual writers workshop

We consider how research participants engage alongside researchers as choreographers of data generation and highlight the everyday practices of researchers and participants in motion within and across time and space. Data for this case analysis were generated during a two-year qualitative study investigating multimodal literacies, multilingualism, and literacy teacher development. We utilized microethnographic discourse analysis to analyze a video excerpt from a classroom observation during writers workshop in a fourth-grade bilingual classroom. We sought to understand how the teacher’s and students’ discursive moves during the event tactically disrupted the researchers’ agenda in the moment and complicated attempts at data analysis. Our analyses illustrate how the teacher multiply situated herself in ways that trouble dichotomous framings of teachers’ work, such as traditional or nontraditional, as well as dominant conceptualizations of qualitative research, such as data “collection.” We end with implications for interpreting and representing research findings.     

For whose benefit? Black and Minority Ethnic training programmes in higher education institutions in England,UK

Inequalities continue to exist in higher education, with Black and minority ethnic (BME) academics less likely to be professors or occupy senior decision-making roles compared to their White colleagues. In order to increase BME representation in senior decision-making roles, specific programmes targeted at BME groups have recently been introduced in higher education institutions (HEIs). This article draws on research carried out on two such programmes in England. By using principles of critical race theory (CRT), I argue that racism continues to play a key role in the lack of BME groups in senior leadership roles and that such programmes benefit HEIs rather than contributing to a commitment to inclusion, equity and creating a diverse workforce. Furthermore, such programmes work for the benefit of HEIs to perpetuate and reinforce White privilege, rather than addressing structural inequalities.     

Teachers’ racialised habitus in school knowledge construction: a Bourdieusian analysis of social inequality beyond class

This article examines the school experiences of Chinese Canadian youth, a population often ignored by the academy under the model minority discourse. Drawing on Bourdieu’s theoretical insights, I raise and discuss the concept of teachers’ racialised habitus. I explore how teachers’ racialised habitus structures their practices of knowledge construction via formal and hidden curricula, and how it consequently affects Chinese Canadian youth’s identity construction. I argue that habitus, as an important theoretical tool that links the social and the individual as well as past, present and future, can also be used to study other forms of social inequality beyond class. This article makes both theoretical and empirical contributions to the research on habitus by highlighting teachers’ racialised habitus in relation to the perpetuation of racism in the educational field.     

Mentoring in black and white: the intricacies of cross‐cultural mentoring

Cross‐cultural mentoring relationships can be sites of struggle around the issues of race, class and gender. In addition, the mentor/protégé relationship offers micro‐cosmic insight into power relations within western society. The authors of this paper, a black woman associate professor and a white male professor, use the example of their mentoring relationship to illustrate six common issues facing academicians involved in these relationships: (1) trust between mentor and protégé; (2) acknowledged and unacknowledged racism; (3) visibility and risks pertinent to minority faculty; (4) power and paternalism; (5) benefits to mentor and protégé; and (6) the double‐edged sword of ‘otherness’ in the academy. Literature is used for review and critique of mentoring in the academy while offering personal examples to illustrate the complexity and success of a 13‐year mentoring relationship between a duo who began their association as teacher/student.     

Young people’s everyday romance and sexual experiences in relation to sex-related conversations with parents: a diary study in the Netherlands

This study builds on existing research into how young people’s emergent sexual development is connected to parent–child sex-related communication through avoidance vs. disclosure. Over the course of one year, a total of 21 young people (age range 12–17.5) reported in longitudinal qualitative diaries their (1) everyday sexual experiences and (2) sex-related conversations with their parents. Using a mixed-methods approach, findings show that less sexually experienced participants reported greater avoidance of parent–child sex-related conversations than more experienced participants. The sex-related conversations of more experienced participants mainly concerned overt experiences in the form of everyday issues with their romantic partner, while the conversations of less experienced participants were characterised by more covert experiences such as opinions about romantic relationships in general. These results suggest that the degree to which young people feel comfortable talking about sexuality with their parents partly depends on when the conversation takes place during a young person’s romantic and sexual development.     

Beyond the Black–White Binary of U.S. Race Relations: A Next Step in Religious Education

Abstract

Many if not most people in the academy as well as the public sphere tend to regard race and racism in the United States in terms of a default frame of reference (i.e., a paradigm): the black–white binary. Although this frame is constructive as well as compelling, it displays serious liabilities. This article outlines, for religious educators, nine expressions of the black–white paradigm—three variations of the binary, three approaches from black studies/theology, and three models that express efforts to transcend binary thinking. A concluding comparative exercise illustrates how participants may discern, address, and ideally revise the paradigm.