Protect and Survive: ‘whiteness’ and the middle‐class family in civil defence pedagogies

‘Civil defence pedagogies’ normalise continuous emergency through educational channels such as school, community and adult education. Using critical whiteness studies, and critiques of white supremacy from critical race theory, as a conceptual base, the protection of whiteness, and particularly the white middle‐class family, is considered to be centrally important to civil defence in education. Civil defence is not only classed and state‐centred, but a racialised and eugenic discourse where the state considers not necessarily the survival of the majority of white people, but the continuity of whiteness to be prioritised above the survival of people of colour. Within these policies, the enterprising white, middle‐class, suburban family has provided a key role as main reference, beneficiary, activist and supporter of civil defence pedagogies. Through the use of policy analysis and documentation from the USA in the 1950s and the UK in the 1980s, I discuss representations of the family, race and class in civil defence pedagogies. Although whiteness is contextualised by geography and history, there is congruence in terms of the eugenic tendencies of these seemingly innocuous pedagogies.     

‘It's a different world out there’: improving how academics prepare health science students for rural and Indigenous practice in Australia

Rural and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous) health content in undergraduate health science curricula in Western Australia has been limited. In 2008, a three-and-a-half-day, rurally-based, intercultural and inter-disciplinary programme for academics from three universities aimed to improve how academics prepared health science students for work in this area. Situated learning theory underpinned the programme's design, which prioritised context and participation in the construction of knowledge: academics lived ‘on country’ and participated in the lived experience of a rural and Indigenous community. Semi-structured phone interviews with 21 academics four months later indicated this approach had radically changed thinking and led to a desire to improve rural and Indigenous health and teaching practice. Targeting academics to learn about rural and Indigenous health in situ is one promising strategy for improving undergraduate health science education in this priority area.     

Anti-Roma attitudes as expressions of dominant social norms in Eastern Europe

Although one of the most severe forms of bias all over Europe, anti-Roma prejudice has been neglected within social psychology. We argue that anti-Roma attitudes need to be recognized as a unique form of prejudice because (a) they reflect socially approved dominant societal norms, (b) intergroup contact increases rather than decreases prejudice, and (c) not just negative stereotyping, but also cultural distancing of Roma people is a form of social exclusion. We developed an integrative Attitudes Toward Roma Scale (ATRS) based on existing measures and theoretical assumptions about prejudice toward Roma people. We conducted a study (N = 1082) relying on student and community samples in Hungary and Slovakia. Exploratory factor analysis revealed and confirmatory factor analysis supported the structural equivalence of a three-factor solution of the16-item scale, consisting of Blatant Stereotyping, Undeserved Benefits, and Cultural Difference.Our findings confirmed that intergroup contact with Roma people is associated with more negative attitudes, and prejudice is mostly expressed in blatantly negative ways, made possible by social contexts that approve of these beliefs. The analysis also revealed that essentialist, romanticized ideas of cultural differences between Roma and non-Roma populations contribute to the psychological distancing of Roma people from the national ingroup.     

A Race to the Top From the Bottom of the Well? The Paradox of Race and U.S. Education Reform

Abstract

This article explores the paradox of “race” and U.S. education reform in the 21st century. I consider how the invisible ontology of race and its entangled relationship with class divert our attention from economic inequality and undermine policies intended to redress racial inequality in schools. I conclude that the education research community must unpack its use of “race” and focus on the role of racism in the maintenance of racial caste in America's schools.     

Safe Discussions Rather Than First Hand Encounters: Adolescents Examine Racism Through One Historical Fiction Text

summary This article presents a case study class response to Mildred Taylors now classic and widely read novel, Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry. Through data collected during one school year, the ways urban, adolescent students use their contemporary lenses to interpret the literary theme of confronting, overcoming and challenging racism are discussed. The participants responses are organized into four reader response categories that explicate the complex and interactive interpretations developed by the children while reading the novel. In addition to providing insights about the participants textual understanding, pedagogical findings indicate that the book can also be used to explore the nature of racism while creating a safe space to confront and more deeply understand racisms impact on the past as well as the students current reality.     

On White Racial Ignorance and Releasing the Ethic of Control: A Reflection on the 2018 Annual Meeting of the REA

Abstract

In response to the events of the 2018 Annual Meeting of the Religious Education Association, the author reflects on white racial ignorance as the inability to read racialized situations with nuance and to respond appropriately, naming three particular practices of academic conferencing in which her own actions potentially contribute to perpetuating white supremacy. The desire to be professional, to control how one's own actions are perceived, and to be above reproach are named as barriers to disrupting white supremacy, while willingness to be accountable and to continue showing up to do the work are encouraged.     

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.     

Race relations legislation,ethnicity and disproportionality in school exclusions in England

This paper extends earlier research into the responses of local authorities and schools to the requirements of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 (RRAA) in relation to minority ethnic pupils and exclusion practices. The original study drew on evidence from national exclusions data, a wide range of official documentation and visit data from 85 secondary, primary and special schools and pupil referral units (PRUs) in England. It focused on the disproportionality in rates of permanent and fixed term exclusion for minority ethnic pupils, particularly black Caribbean pupils and those from other black backgrounds. One‐quarter of the difference between black Caribbean permanent exclusion rates and the rates for other pupils is explained by factors relating to deprivation. More recent national data available confirm that the disproportionalities continue. This suggests a lack of compliance with the requirements of the RRAA at the level of national agencies, local authorities and schools. The persistence of disproportionalities in exclusions by ethnic group can be considered institutionally racist outcomes.     

Renewed but not Redeemed: Revising <Emphasis Type="Italic">Elsie Dinsmore</Emphasis>

Elsie Dinsmore, the first book in a late 19th century childrens series, is unique because it had not been adapted, just reprinted, until 1999. It is also unique in the setting, the mythic Southern plantation life of the 1850s. The 1999 edition ameliorated what is now recognized as racist language based on the images of the minstrelsy tradition, though consonant with the views of the time period. However, the deep structure of the story—its dependence on the plantation myth, its belief in the basic inferiority of African Americans, and its acceptance of slavery as compatible with Christianity—is not changed. The new edition is a comment on the publishing industrys disregard of racial history and the importance of context for understanding literature.     

Mapping violence,naming life: a history of anti-Black oppression in the higher education system

Abstract

The article will provide a historical overview of anti-Black violence in the higher education system across three time periods: Colonial Era, Post-Civil War, and the mid-to-late twentieth century. Mapping violence demands a focus on how higher education historically has practiced anti-Black oppression coupled with how Black people have practiced resistance and life-making. Both the terms education violence (how systems of schooling limit and kill Black lives) and life-making (how Black people engage in alternative self-definition and self-care) are introduced to name pivotal moments in this history. Defining violence at structural, cultural, and direct levels, the paper accounts for how higher education has been an engine and reflection of racial hierarchy. The article ends with the implications history has for issues of anti-Blackness and movements for Black life-making in the higher education system today.