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Collection Highlights

Student Engagement and Educational Rapport in Higher

Education 1st Edition Leonie Rowan

Ethnography and Education Policy A Critical Analysis of

Normalcy and Difference in Schools Claudia Matus

Higher Education and Working-Class Academics : Precarity

and Diversity in Academia Teresa Crew

Leadership in Higher Education Practices That Make a

Difference James M Kouzes
Indo French Educational Partnerships Institutions
Technologies and Higher Education 1st Edition Marc
Pilkington (Auth.)

Strategies for Supporting Inclusion and Diversity in the

Academy: Higher Education, Aspiration and Inequality Gail
Crimmins

Inclusive Access and Open Educational Resources E text

Programs in Higher Education Tracy A. Hurley

Post critical Perspectives on Higher Education Reclaiming

the Educational in the University Naomi Hodgson

Schools in Transition Linking Past Present and Future in

Educational Practice 1st Edition Pauli Siljander
Educational Inequalities

While there is considerable literature on social inequality and education,

there is little recent work which explores notions of difference and diversity
in relation to “race”, class and gender. This edited text aims to bring together
researchers in the field of education located across many international con-
texts such as the UK, Australia, USA, New Zealand and Europe. Contribu-
tors investigate the ways in which dominant perspectives on “difference”,
intersectionality and institutional structures underpin and reinforce edu-
cational inequality in schools and higher education. They emphasize the
importance of international perspectives and innovative methodological
approaches to examining these areas, and seek to locate the dimensions of
difference within recent theoretical discourses, with an emphasis on “race”,
class and gender as key categories of analysis.

Kalwant Bhopal is Reader in Education and Director of Postgraduate

Research Degrees at the University of Southampton, School of Education.
She has recently edited Intersectionality and Race in Education (with John
Preston, Routledge 2012) and is currently researching aspects of rural rac-
ism in primary schools in England.

Uvanney Maylor is Professor of Education and Director of the Institute for

Research in Education at the University of Bedfordshire. She is currently
writing a text for Routledge entitled Teacher Training and the Education
of Black Children: Bringing Color into Difference.
Routledge Research in Education

For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com.

73 Commitment, Character, and 80 The Politics of Teacher
Citizenship Professional Development
Religious Education in Liberal Policy, Research and Practice
Democracy Ian Hardy
Edited by Hanan A. Alexander
and Ayman K. Agbaria 81 Working-Class Minority
Students’ Routes to
74 Adolescent Literacies in a Higher Education
Multicultural Context Roberta Espinoza
Edited by Alister Cumming
82 Education, Indigenous
75 Participation, Facilitation, Knowledges, and
and Mediation Development in the
Children and Young People in Global South
Their Social Contexts Contesting Knowledges for a
Edited by Claudio Baraldi Sustainable Future
and Vittorio Iervese Anders Breidlid

76 The Politics of Knowledge in 83 Teacher Development in

Education Higher Education
Elizabeth Rata Existing Programs, Program
Impact, and Future Trends
77 Neoliberalism, Pedagogy and Edited by Eszter Simon
Human Development and Gabriela Pleschová
Exploring Time, Mediation and
Collectivity in Contemporary 84 Virtual Literacies
Schools Interactive Spaces for Children
Michalis Kontopodis and Young People
Edited by Guy Merchant,
78 Resourcing Early Learners Julia Gillen, Jackie Marsh
New Networks, New Actors and Julia Davies
Sue Nichols, Jennifer Rowsell,
Helen Nixon and Sophia 85 Geography and Social Justice
Rainbird in the Classroom
Edited by Todd W. Kenreich
79 Educating for Peace in a Time
of “Permanent War” 86 Diversity, Intercultural
Are Schools Part of the Solution Encounters, and Education
or the Problem? Edited by Susana Gonçalves
Edited by Paul R. Carr and Markus A. Carpenter
and Brad J. Porfilio
87 The Role of Participants in 95 The Resegregation of Schools
Education Research Education and Race in the
Ethics, Epistemologies, Twenty-First Century
and Methods Edited by Jamel K. Donnor
Edited by Warren Midgley, and Adrienne D. Dixson
Patrick Alan Danaher
and Margaret Baguley 96 Autobiographical Writing and
Identity in EFL Education
88 Care in Education Shizhou Yang
Teaching with Understanding
and Compassion 97 Online Learning and
Sandra Wilde Community Cohesion
Linking Schools
89 Family, Community, and Roger Austin and William Hunter
Higher Education
Edited by Toby S. Jenkins 98 Language Teachers and
Teaching
90 Rethinking School Bullying Global Perspectives, Local
Dominance, Identity and Initiatives
School Culture Edited by Selim Ben Said
Ronald B. Jacobson and Lawrence Jun Zhang

91 Language, Literacy, and 99 Towards Methodologically

Pedagogy in Postindustrial Inclusive Research Syntheses
Societies Expanding Possibilities
The Case of Black Academic Harsh Suri
Underachievement
Paul C. Mocombe 100 Raising Literacy Achievement
and Carol Tomlin in High-Poverty Schools
An Evidence-Based Approach
92 Education for Civic and Eithne Kennedy
Political Participation
A Critical Approach 101 Learning and Collective
Edited by Reinhold Hedtke Creativity
and Tatjana Zimenkova Activity-Theoretical and
Sociocultural Studies
93 Language Teaching Through Annalisa Sannino and Viv Ellis
the Ages
Garon Wheeler 102 Educational Inequalities
Difference and Diversity
94 Refugees, Immigrants, and in Schools and Higher
Education in the Global South Education
Lives in Motion Edited by Kalwant Bhopal and
Edited by Lesley Bartlett Uvanney Maylor
and Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher
This page intentionally left blank
Educational Inequalities
Difference and Diversity in Schools and
Higher Education

Edited by Kalwant Bhopal

and Uvanney Maylor

NEW YORK LONDON

First published 2014
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,
an informa business
© 2014 Taylor & Francis
The right of Kalwant Bhopal and Uvanney Maylor to be identified as the
authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual
chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Educational inequalities : difference and diversity in schools and higher
education / edited by Kalwant Bhopal and Uvanney Maylor.
pages cm. — (Routledge research in education ; 102)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Educational equalization—Cross-cultural studies. 2. Education,
Higher—Social aspects—Cross-cultural studies. 3. Educational
change—Cross-cultural studies. 4. Educational attainment—Cross-cultural
studies. I. Bhopal, Kalwant. II. Maylor, Uvanney.
LC213.E44 2013
379.2'6—dc23
2013012622
ISBN13: 978-0-415-53998-2 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-1-315-88619-0 (ebk)

Typeset in Sabon
by IBT Global.
Contents

List of Figures and Tables ix

1 Educational Inequalities in Schools and Higher Education:

An Introduction 1
KALWANT BHOPAL AND UVANNEY MAYLOR

PART I
Difference, Diversity and Inclusion

2 Pale/Ontology: The Status of Whiteness in Education 13

ZEUS LEONARDO

3 How Fair Is Britain? Addressing ‘Race’ and Education

Inequalities—Towards a Socially Just Education System in the
Twenty-First Century 31
GILL CROZIER

4 Black Academic Success: What’s Changed? 47

JASMINE RHAMIE

5 The Intersections of Ethnicity, Gender, Social Class and an

Itinerant Lifestyle: Deconstructing Teachers’ Narratives and
Thinking about the Possibilities for Transformative Action 65
ROBYN HENDERSON

PART II
Understanding Difference: Policy and Practice in Education

6 Negotiating Achievement: Students’ Gendered and Classed

Constructions of (Un)Equal Ability 87
ANNE-SOFIE NYSTRÖM
viii Contents
7 Change and Tradition: Muslim Boys Talk about Their
Post-Sixteen Aspirations 102
FARZANA SHAIN

8 Gendered Surveillance and the Social Construction of Young

Muslim Women in Schools 126
HEIDI SAFIA MIRZA AND VEENA MEETOO

9 Politics of Difference, Intersectionality, Pedagogy of Poverty

and Missed Opportunities at Play in the Classroom 146
CARL A. GRANT AND ANNEMARIE KETTERHAGEN ENGDAHL

PART III
Educational Inequalities: Identities, Inclusion and Barriers

10 ‘I Want to Hear You’: Listening to the Narratives, Practices

and Visions of a Chuj Maya Teacher in Guatemala 167
ALEXANDRA ALLWEISS

11 What Does It Mean to Be the ‘Pride of Pinesville’?:

Opportunities Facilitated and Constrained 193
AMY JOHNSON LACHUK, MARY LOUISE GOMEZ AND SHAMEKA N. POWELL

12 A Place to Hang My Hat On: University Staff Perceptions in

Multiethnic New Zealand 212
EDWINA PIO, ALI RASHEED, AGNES NAERA, KITEA TIPUNA
AND LORRAINE PARKER

13 Intersectional Pedagogy: From Movies to the Classroom 230

ELŻBIETA H. OLEKSY

14 Intersecting Identities: Young People’s Constructions of Identity

in South-East Europe 247
ALISTAIR ROSS

15 Conclusions 267
UVANNEY MAYLOR AND KALWANT BHOPAL

Contributors 275
Index 283
Figures and Tables

FIGURES

12.1 Minority staff engagement in universities. 219

TABLES

12.1 Ethnic Groups Based on NZ Census Classification

(Total Percentages) 214
12.2 Participants Interviewed 219
12.3 Percentage Distribution of Academic and Administrative
(Admin) Staff in a University 2007–2010 222
14.1 Locations of Focus Groups in Bulgaria and Romania 250
This page intentionally left blank
1 Educational Inequalities in
Schools and Higher Education
An Introduction
Kalwant Bhopal and Uvanney Maylor

Education in the UK has seen significant changes in the past few years, par-
ticularly policy changes introduced by the Coalition government such as the
introduction of tuition fees and the introduction of free schools and acade-
mies, as well as the eradication of the Education Maintenance Grant (EMA).
Such significant changes have affected the poorest students the hardest. Far
from creating greater equality, such changes have perpetuated inequality
both in schools and in higher education—with greater students from poor
working-class backgrounds being further disadvantaged. Recent research
suggests, for example, that although the gap between the richest and poor-
est children has started to fall over the last decade, the gap at the General
Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) level remains large, with the
latest Department for Education (DfE) figures indicating that pupils eligible
for free school meals (FSMs) are almost half as likely to achieve five or more
A*–C grades at GCSE compared with those who were not eligible (30.9 per
cent compared with 58.5 per cent) (Carter-Wall and Whitfield 2012). Fur-
thermore, poorer children are half as likely to go on to study at university
compared with their more affluent peers. Educational attainment continues
to be strongly associated with socio-economic background (Sutton Trust
2010), despite some signs that social differences in examination results
may have started to reduce. There have been some significant changes with
the gap in attainment between ethnic groups narrowing, with some pre-
viously low-performing groups catching up with the average attainment.
Whereas a generation ago almost all the students attending university were
White British, today one in five are from Black and minority ethnic (BME)
backgrounds (EHRC How Fair Is Britain, 2010). Whereas this change is
positive, inequalities in education continue to persist. A recent report by
Alan Millburn (2012), MP (member of Parliament), explores how the most
advantaged 20 per cent of young people are still seven times more likely
than the 40 per cent most disadvantaged to attend the most selective uni-
versities, demonstrating how access to university remains inequitable. The
report argues that ‘there is a strong correlation between social class and
the likelihood of going to university generally and to the top universities
particularly. Four private schools and one college get more of their students
2 Kalwant Bhopal and Uvanney Maylor
into Oxbridge than the combined efforts of 2,000 state schools and col-
leges’ (2). Furthermore, elite universities such as Oxford and Cambridge
are failing to adequately represent BME students and the representation of
minority ethnic students at Russell Group universities is unbalanced (Race
into Higher Education 2010).
A report by the Sutton Trust (2010) found that just 16 per cent of pupils
who are eligible for FSMs progress to university, compared with 96 per cent
of young people who have been to independent schools. Changes in Coali-
tion government policy outlined earlier, such as the scrapping of the EMA,
has had implications for students from low-income backgrounds, affect-
ing their entrance into higher education and consequently their chances of
social mobility and future success in the labour market. Inequalities also
persist in higher education; research has shown that the majority of the UK
professoriate is White and male (Bhopal and Jackson 2013). A report by the
Equality Challenge Unit (2011) found that in 2009–2010 only 0.9 per cent
of UK staff in professorial roles were from BME backgrounds and 76.1 per
cent of professors of UK staff were White males (Equality in Higher Educa-
tion, Statistical Report 2011).
But these inequalities are not unique to the UK. Michael Apple, in his
pioneering new book, Can Education Change Society?, starkly reminds
us of the disparities and injustices that continue to exist in the US and
the significant role that education (particularly schools) play in sometimes
perpetuating these inequalities. Schools are ‘key mechanisms in determin-
ing what is socially valued as “legitimate knowledge” and what is seen as
merely “popular”. In their role in defi ning a large part of what is considered
legitimate knowledge, they also participate in the process through which
particular groups are granted status and other groups remain unrecognised
or minimised’ (Apple 2013, 21).
As scholars committed to equality and social justice, we are disappointed
about the lack of commitment and engagement given to such inequalities not
just by politicians, but also policymakers and grant-funding bodies. Con-
sequently, we are committed to examining the discourses of inequalities.
Educational Inequalities in Schools and Higher Education brings together
researchers in the fields of education, class, gender, ‘race’ and sociology
who provide theoretical and empirical understandings of the discourses
of educational inequality. The main focus of the collection is to examine
difference and diversity, specifically gender, ‘race’ and class, and how the
intersectionalities of these differences work in relation to challenging and
also perpetuating inequalities in education.
In particular the collection seeks to locate the dimensions of differ-
ence within recent theoretical discourses with an emphasis on ‘race’, class
and gender as key categories of analysis and does so by using theoretical
approaches to examine the inequalities and diversities of educational expe-
riences. Whereas there is considerable literature on social inequality and
education, there is little recent work which explores notions of difference
 Educational Inequalities in Schools and Higher Education 3
and diversity in relation to ‘race’, class and gender. Given the gap in the lit-
erature, it becomes all the more important to address the specificity of dif-
ference. In this collection, we bring together major research located across
the UK and diverse international contexts (such as Australia, the US, New
Zealand and Europe). Contributors explore the ways in which dominant
perspectives on ‘difference’, intersectionality and institutional structures
underpin and reinforce educational inequality. They also emphasise the
importance of international perspectives in such discussions by using inno-
vative methodological approaches to examining these areas. A collection
that integrates and interrogates the debates about difference, diversity and
inequality in education and theorising such approaches is long overdue.
Educational Inequalities in Schools and Higher Education is based on
the premise that education and notions of inequality are controversial sub-
jects in which difficult and contested discourses are the norm. Individuals in
education experience multiple inequalities and have diverse identifications
that cannot necessarily be captured by one theoretical perspective alone
(Gillborn 2008; Ladson-Billings 2003; Reay, David and Ball 2001). The
purpose of this collection and the coherence of its arguments are dictated
by an examination of controversial grounds, both empirical and theoretical
debates, within national and international educational research contexts
foregrounding issues of gender identity, ‘race’, culture and inclusion. As
such, the aim of the collection is to do the following:

• Specifically examine areas of discrimination and disadvantage such

as gender, ‘race’ and class within education as well as debating the
difficulties of applying such concepts in relation to the experiences of
students in education.
• Analyse contesting discourses of identity in different educational cul-
tural contexts.

By combining a mix of intellectually rigorous, accessible and controversial

chapters, the collection presents a distinctive and engaging voice, one that
seeks to broaden understandings of ‘intersectionality’ beyond the simple
confi nes of the education sphere into an arena of sociological and cultural
discourse. In this way, the collection provides a challenge to current racia-
lised, gendered and classed educational discourse and promotes new ways
of thinking about educational practice.
The collection is divided into three specific parts. Part I examines dif-
ference, diversity and inclusion and consists of four chapters each of which
explores how discourses of difference are understood in different educational
contexts. Zeus Leonardo in Chapter 2 interrogates the status of whiteness
in American education by exploring two significant camps regarding the
uptake of whiteness: White reconstruction and White abolition. In the fi rst,
reconstructionists offer discourses—as forms of social practice—that trans-
form whiteness, and therefore White people, into something other than
4 Kalwant Bhopal and Uvanney Maylor
an oppressive identity and ideology. Reconstruction suggests rehabilitating
whiteness by resignifying it through the creation of alternative discourses.
It projects hope onto whiteness by creating new racial subjects out of White
people, which are not ensnared by a racist logic. On the other hand, White
abolitionism is guided by Roediger’s announcement that ‘whiteness is not
only false and oppressive; it is nothing but false and oppressive’ (1994, 13).
In opposition to reconstructing whiteness, abolishing whiteness sees no
redeeming aspects of it as long as White people think they are White. This
chapter considers White reconstruction and abolition for their conceptual
and political value as it concerns not only the revolution of whiteness, but
of race theory in general, particularly in relation to educational contexts.
In Chapter 3, Gill Crozier examines the school experiences of second-
ary-aged young people in England and explores the factors that advantage
or disadvantage their academic success. The chapter presents an analysis
of existing research of educational under/achievement amongst a cross sec-
tion of BME, working-class and middle-class, girls and boys in order to
investigate the similarities and differences in their school experience. Cro-
zier argues that there is an abundance of research which shows that social
mobility between the social classes has remained stagnant for the past
twenty years and that the academic achievement of Black Caribbean and
Bangladeshi and Pakistani heritage children remains obdurately lower than
the rest of the population. By employing theories of ideology, Whiteness
and Bourdieu’s concept of ‘field’, the chapter develops insights into why
this remains the case in the twenty-fi rst century. As part of this, Crozier
considers the role of the school in its challenge to or maintenance of exist-
ing stratification and inequalities of outcome. This is followed by Jasmine
Rhamie’s chapter, ‘Black Academic Success: What’s Changed?’ Rhamie
examines whether there have been changes of Black academic success
since the new Coalition political climate in England. The chapter begins
by reviewing the literature on the academic achievement of Black pupils,
focusing on research which identifies and promotes their academic success,
it particularly focuses on such research conducted since 2007 (Rhamie
2007). The chapter raises concerns about the education policy direction of
the present Coalition government and the implications of some of its key
decisions on equality for the inclusion of Black pupils. Rhamie provides a
picture of the current situation for Black pupils in terms of (under)achieve-
ment and explores some of the theoretical explanations for the continued
underachievement of Black pupils. The chapter concludes by emphasising
the importance of acknowledging Black academic success and considers the
implications of this for educational research and policy making.
In Chapter 5, Robyn Henderson explores intersections of ethnicity,
social class and gender based on an itinerant lifestyle identified amongst
some Australian students. She does so by deconstructing teachers’ narra-
tives in theorising transformative action. Her chapter explores how con-
siderable research has highlighted how social membership—in terms of
 Educational Inequalities in Schools and Higher Education 5
ethnicity, social class and gender, or combinations of these factors—can
influence the successes that children achieve in school literacy learning.
Teachers often use these features as points of reference, creating narratives
about why some students in the school context succeed and others do not.
One result can be narratives of blame—stories that blame students for not
bringing appropriate understandings to school, or stories that blame par-
ents for being deficient in caring for their children and negligent in not pre-
paring them for school literacy learning. Such narratives are often based on
normative and stereotypical views of families and provide common sense
understandings that reinforce educational inequality. The chapter draws
on empirical evidence from a two-year research study that was conducted
in a school located in a north Australian rural community. It is framed
within cultural-critical understandings of literacy, alongside critical dis-
course and poststructuralist theories. The chapter investigates the intersec-
tionality of social class, ethnicity and gender in teachers’ narratives about
itinerant farmworkers’ children and their successes or otherwise in school
literacy learning. In many of the stories, deficit discourses about the chil-
dren’s ‘differences’ from their residentially stable peers represented com-
monsense knowledge that regarded children’s inappropriate behaviours,
actions and underachievement in literacy learning as predictable and ‘natu-
ral’ consequences of families’ lifestyles and perceived characteristics. The
chapter argues that these taken-for-granted assumptions about the negative
impacts of ethnicity, class, gender and an itinerant lifestyle on children’s
schooling served to narrow the pedagogical options that were available for
teachers. As a result, educational inequities seemed to be maintained and
there was little opportunity for itinerant children to move beyond under-
achievement. The chapter further considers possibilities for transformative
action, arguing that a reconceptualisation of itinerancy and the supposedly
deficient characteristics of itinerant families could disrupt deficit views and
help teachers focus on responsive, flexible and enabling pedagogies for chil-
dren who are often marginalised in school settings.
Part II focuses on ‘Understanding Difference: Policy and Practice in
Education’. It examines how the effects of educational policy and prac-
tice can work to interrogate and understand the discourses of difference
in Swedish education. Anne-Sofie Nyström in Chapter 6, ‘Negotiating
Achievement—Students’ Gendered and Classed Constructions of (Un)
Equal Ability’, explores how educational institutions are structured around
achievement and evaluating and comparing students’ achievements. The
chapter explores how stratification processes are not just about cogni-
tion but about social processes such as affect, negotiations of values and
causes of achievements. Like other Nordic countries, Sweden has long been
associated with equality—not least in education. Many statistics suggest
increased differences are primarily based on school and student categories
in terms of class and ‘race’, whereas gender stratification has focussed on
policy debates. The chapter examines privilege via analyses of peer-group
6 Kalwant Bhopal and Uvanney Maylor
interactions amongst a student category that is rarely problematised: an
ethnographically informed doctoral study on young people’s identity nego-
tiations in Swedish upper secondary schools. The focus is on examining a
setting structured by high performance and dominated by White, upper-
middle-class students. Identification processes such as social categorisa-
tions based on gender, class and age and dominance relations are studied
as micro-processes and placed in the context of equality/equity and educa-
tion. The chapter outlines how young men and women in the study draw
attention to dominance relations amongst peers in the classroom; it also
demonstrates the hierarchies between schools and study programmes. The
chapter further explores how students questioned the legitimacy of such
identity claims and hierarchies, but these were often reproduced in terms of
unequal educational and social ability (resources).
Farzana Shain’s chapter, ‘Change and Tradition: Muslim Boys’ Talk
about Their Post-Sixteen Aspirations’, examines how the neo-liberal
restructuring of education has resulted in a relentless pursuit of educa-
tional success through policies such as Parental Choice, Beacon and Lead-
ing Edge schools, Gifted and Talented (Hey and Bradford, 2007) and, more
recently, Academy and Free Schools in England. As Ozga (1999) maintains,
these policies are located within a wider framework which ties education
to national competitiveness and sees achievement as the solution to social
exclusion. Rather than equalising opportunities, analyses (Reay 2008;
Tomlinson 2008) suggest that these polices have enhanced middle-class
choice and advantage while reinscribing working-class and racialised dis-
advantage. Despite such observations, policies on citizenship, for example,
place the focus on ‘helping’ individuals navigate their way through a series
of individualised ‘personalised’ choices away from the old certainties of
gender, ‘race’ and class solidarity (Avis 2006). Drawing on a wider empiri-
cal study of Muslim (predominantly working-class Pakistani and Bangla-
deshi) boys’ identities and educational experiences (Shain 2011), the chapter
argues that class, ‘race’ and gender remain salient factors which constrain
and enable educational outcomes. Following a brief overview of policy and
academic debate, the chapter focuses on the boys’ orientations to schooling
and ‘success’, their subject preferences and imagined future choices about
post-sixteen education and careers. The chapter outlines a range of factors
that shape these experiences and ‘choices’, including school processes such
as setting, peer relations, and the boys’ economic location in some of the
most deprived neighbourhoods in England.
In Chapter 8, Heidi Mirza and Veena Meetoo explore how new and vir-
ulent forms of faith-based racism in the form of Islamophobia have gripped
Western multicultural societies since the 9/11 and the 7/7 bombings by Brit-
ish-born Muslim (male) youth. In this climate, education has become a key
site in the battle against the spectre of the ‘Muslim extremist’ in our midst.
Educational programmes such as the Prevention of Violence and Extrem-
ism exemplify this hysteria with its focus on averting the next generation of
 Educational Inequalities in Schools and Higher Education 7
potential terrorists by combating the ideology which might produce them.
However, such programmes are largely aimed at Muslim young men and
boys. Ironically, young women in patriarchal Muslim communities, often at
risk of domestic forms of violence such as forced marriage, slip through the
cracks of educational policy and school practice. In terms of safeguarding
and well-being, young Muslim women are effectively caught between the
multicultural discourses that focus on issues between communities rather
than within communities and the Islamophobia discourse that demonises
young Muslim men. Drawing on interviews with seventeen young women
in two inner-city schools, this chapter traces the narrative constructions
of young Muslim women as they negotiate gendered, ‘raced’ and classed
structures, dominance and power in the classroom and in their everyday
lives. Interviews with teachers and policymakers contextualise the young
women’s subjectivity and social relations with their perspectives on reli-
gious identity and gendered discourses of risk, safety and well-being. Using
a Black feminist framework of ‘embodied intersectionality’ (Mirza 2009),
the young women’s narratives not only demonstrate the fluidity of a collec-
tive transcendental ethnic Muslim female identity, but they also express a
strong outwardly individualistic neo-liberal career-orientated identity. In
effect they were negotiating the traditional wearing of the veil as a means
of personal transformation in socially and educationally restrictive circum-
stances. The chapter concludes that to understand young Muslim women’s
lived reality in Britain we need to theorise beyond the limitations of the
multicultural discourse which invisiblises minority ethnic women and the
Islamophobic discourse that visibilises the over determined female Muslim
body with its obsession with the ‘veil’.
In Chapter 9, Carl A. Grant and Annemarie Ketterhagen Engdahl dis-
cuss how the concepts of politics of difference, intersectionality and an
understanding of and resistance toward a pedagogy of poverty can be used
to help education researchers and teachers to see missed opportunities in
the classroom in order to create a culturally relevant instructional environ-
ment where all American students are academically engaged and have a
meaningful classroom experience that leads to a flourishing life. They con-
clude the chapter with examples of missed opportunities where teachers did
not use a lens of intersectionality or the concept of the politics of difference
in their classrooms. The examples used are contrasted with fulfi lled oppor-
tunities where these lenses and points of view are applied as a counter to
the pedagogy of poverty. This chapter is intended to deepen understanding
of both academic theory and classroom practice.
Part III of the book, ‘Educational Inequalities: Identities, Inclusion and
Barriers’, specifically examines how educational inequalities persist through
an understanding of identities and barriers to inclusion. Alexandra Allweiss,
in Chapter 10, ‘I Want to Hear You’: Listening to the Narratives, Practices
and Visions of a Chuj Maya Teacher in Guatemala’, examines the progres-
sion of educational reform. She argues how in many countries, classroom
8 Kalwant Bhopal and Uvanney Maylor
teachers are on the front line of the reform effort. These education policies,
however, are generally devised, implemented and evaluated using a top-
down approach. Yet, there is much more that can be learned about the
effects of such education policies by discussing these reform efforts with
teachers. This chapter documents the experiences of one middle school
teacher, who is representative of a sample of thirty-two educators in Xan-
tin, Guatemala, participating in a larger research project designed to shape
instructional practices to be responsive to the Intercultural and Bilingual
Education (IBE) reforms in Guatemala. At the heart of the teacher’s work
is the goal of teaching students in a manner that fosters academic, social
and personal success. A narrative inquiry approach is used to frame the
chapter and investigate the intersections and influences of ‘cultural racism’,
gender inequities and place-based classism on education policy and prac-
tice through a teacher’s experience. Voices of educators working within the
framework of the national reforms provide powerful critiques and visions
for change that are not always visible through a top-down approach. The
chapter explores how narrative inquiry allows educationalists to view the
challenges and possibilities of these reforms using the experiences and
insights from one teacher.
Chapter 11, ‘What Does It Mean to Be the “Pride of Pinesville”?:
Opportunities Facilitated and Constrained’, by Amy Johnson Lachuk,
Mary Louise Gomez and Shameka N. Powell, presents the life history of
one African American woman living in a small rural community in the
southern United States. Surpassing many social, economic and contextual
barriers, she earned postsecondary degrees and returned to live and work
in her community. Using in-depth interviews, the chapter explores factors
that facilitate and/or constrain the literacy and educational experiences of
this woman. Through examining her life history, the authors present ways
that educational pursuit in rural areas is framed by intersecting dimensions
of ‘race’, class, gender and place.
In Chapter 12, Edwina Pio, Ali Rasheed, Agnes Naera, Kitea Tipuna
and Lorraine Parker use ethnicity to explore the lived-in and lived-through
academic and support staff experiences of Maori and Pasifi ka peoples in
a New Zealand university. Based on staff perceptions of their experiences
and hopes around curriculum, students, colleagues and institutional
structures, the authors present broad themes on the inscription of ethnic-
ity in the doing and being of who one is in a university. A hermeneutic
approach and semi-structured qualitative interviews are used to provide
an in-depth understanding of key issues. Using the lens of diversity man-
agement, specifically post-colonial scholarship, this chapter examines the
enduring impact of ethnicity. The fi ndings point to the coalescence of the
historical streams of migration and Indigenous peoples along with newer
nuanced ways of handling ethnicity. Creating mana—respect/honour
through ethnicity is a prevailing theme, along with the perception that
ethnicity is based on stereotypes of Indigenous people which are easily
 Educational Inequalities in Schools and Higher Education 9
accessible in an environment where there are very few minority ethnic
staff. To this end, the chapter explores how government policies seek to
positively support Maori and Pasifi ka staff in universities and develops a
model of minority ethnic staff in universities where such policies tend to
have a varying impact.
Elżbieta H. Oleksy, in Chapter 13, offers a new approach to pedagogy
whilst demonstrating how intersectionality can be experienced, thought
and learned. In the wealth of literature on intersectionality as a concept,
theory, political option and methodology, little has been published on
how intersectionality can be taught. Working with graduate students
within the European Commission’s Erasmus Mundus Project in Women’s
and Gender Studies, the chapter demonstrates how such innermost intri-
cate interdependencies as ‘race’, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexuality
and circumstance can be explored through an audience analysis of inter-
sectional visual products.
In Chapter 14, ‘Intersecting Identities: Young People’s Constructions
of Identity in South-East Europe’, Alistair Ross examines a different
kind of intersection than that considered elsewhere in this volume: that
between potentially confl icting territorial or political identities of the
self that arise as young people in Bulgaria and Romania attempt to rec-
oncile their potential memberships of a national community, a regional
Balkan identity and a European identity. The educational implications of
this analysis relate to young people in a much wider context than these
two south-eastern European countries. At the time of writing, they are
the most recent members of the European Union, joining in 2007, but
they will have been joined by Croatia by the time this book is published
and very likely within the next four to six years by six or seven other
Balkan states. The chapter explores how some of the implications will
resonate much more widely than the Balkan peninsular: The tensions
of multiple membership of different and nesting political entities and of
being a ‘global citizen’ are becoming more common and pressing across
Europe and beyond. The chapter calls for educators to display sensitiv-
ity in understanding and reacting positively to the self-constructions of
young people as liminal beings, uncertain of how their mix of identities
socially positions them in Western Europe, if they are not to experience
inequality in educational settings.
In all these chapters, the authors have aimed to explore how educational
inequalities in schools and higher education continue to persist in differ-
ent social, economic and political climates from national and international
perspectives. If we want to work towards achieving equality in education, if
we see it as a realisable goal—and as optimists we do—we must continue to
question, interrogate and disrupt the discourses of social justice, inclusion
and (in)equality; it is only then that we, as educators committed to equal-
ity work, can achieve our aims of reaching those on the margins of society
who continue to be disadvantaged.
10 Kalwant Bhopal and Uvanney Maylor
REFERENCES

Apple, Michael. 2013. Can Education Change Society? New York: Routledge.
Avis, James. 2008. ‘Class, Economism, Individualisation and Post-Compulsory
Education and Training’. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies 6 (2):
37–53.
Bhopal, Kalwant. and Jackson, June (2013) The Experiences of Black and Minor-
ity Ethnic Academics: Multiple Identities and Career Progression. University of
Southampton: Engineering and Physical Sciences Research (EPSRC).
Carter-Wall, Charlotte, and Grahame Whitfield. 2012. The Role of Aspirations,
Attitudes and Behaviour in Closing the Educational Attainment Gap. York:
Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
Equality Challenge Unit. 2011. The Experiences of Black and Minority Academics
in HE in England. London: Equality Challenge Unit.
Equality in Higher Education (2011) Statistical Report 2010–2011. London:
EHE.
Equality and Human Rights Commission (2010) How Fair is Britain? London:
EHRC.
Gillborn, David. 2008. Racism and Education: Coincidence or Conspiracy? Lon-
don: Routledge.
Hey, Valerie, and Simon Bradford. 2007. ‘Successful Subjectivities? The Succes-
sification of Class, Ethnic and Gender Positions’. Journal of Education Policy
22 (6): 595–614.
Ladson-Billings, Gloria. 2003. Critical Race Theory Perspectives on the Social
Studies: The Profession, Policies, and Curriculum. Greenwich, CT: Information
Age Publishers.
Millburn, Alan. 2012. Fair Access to Professional Careers: A Progress Report
by the Independent Reviewer on Social Mobility and Child Poverty. London:
Crown Copyright.
Mirza, Heidi Safia. 2009. ‘Plotting a History: Black and Postcolonial Feminisms in
‘New Times’. Race Ethnicity and Education 12 (1): 1–10.
Ozga, Jenny. 1999. ‘Two Nations? Education and Social Inclusion-Exclusion in
Scotland and England’. Education and Social Justice 1 (3): 44–50.
R a c e i nto Highe r E d u c atio n. 2010. L ondon: C om mu n it ie s a nd L o c a l
Government.
Reay, Diane. 2008. ‘Tony Blair, the Promotion of the “Active” Educational Citizen,
and Middle-Class Hegemony’. Oxford Review of Education 34 (6): 639–650.
Reay, Diane, Miriam David and Stephen Ball. 2001. ‘Making a Difference? Institu-
tional Habituses and Higher Education Choice’. Sociological Research Online 5
(4). http://www.socresonline.org.uk/5/4/reay.html. Accessed March 2013.
Rhamie, Jasmine. 2007. Eagles Who Soar. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham.
Roediger, David. 1994. Toward the Abolition of Whiteness. New York: Verso.
Shain, Farzana. 2011. New Folk Devils: Muslim Boys and Education in England.
Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham.
Sutton Trust. 2010. Education Mobility in England. London: Sutton Trust.
Tomlinson, Sally. 2008. Race and Education: Policy and Politics in Education.
Berkshire: Open University Press/McGraw-Hill.
Part I

Difference, Diversity
and Inclusion
This page intentionally left blank
2 Pale/Ontology
The Status of Whiteness in
Education*
Zeus Leonardo

INTRODUCTION

Race scholarship is witnessing a shift. In the past two decades, whiteness

studies has penetrated what arguably has been the home of scholars of
colour who write for and about people of colour. Circa 1990, whiteness
studies burst onto the academic scene with three important publications,
written by White scholars about, but not exclusively for, White people. In
fact, we would not be far off to characterise whiteness studies as a White-
led race intervention. Circa 1990, Peggy McIntosh’s (1992) ‘Unpacking the
White Knapsack’, David Roediger’s (1991) Wages of Whiteness and Ruth
Frankenberg’s (1993) White Women, Race Matters arguably represent the
beginnings of a focus on whiteness and White experiences. Since then,
there has been a veritable explosion of critical work on whiteness across the
disciplines (Morrison 1993; Allen 1994, 1997; Ignatiev 1996; hooks 1997;
Winant 1997; Dyer 1997; Aanerud 1997; Lipsitz 1998; Brodkin 1999;
Warren 2000; Thompson 2001; Bush 2005; Wise 2007). In education,
the impact of whiteness studies has been no less (Sleeter 1995; McLaren
1995, 1997; Giroux 1997a, 1997b, 1997c; Ellsworth 1997; McIntyre 1997;
Apple 1998; Kincheloe and Steinberg 1998; Howard 1999; Sheets 2000;
Allen 2002; Thompson 2003; Richardson and Villenas 2000; Leonardo
2004; Gillborn 2005; Lee 2005; DiAngelo 2006). It should be noted that
scholars of colour previously took up the issue of whiteness, but as a sec-
ondary if not tertiary concern (see Du Bois 1989), insofar as studying the
souls of White folk was an afterthought to the souls of Black folk. With
whiteness studies, whiteness and White people come to the centre in an
unprecedented and unforeseen way. This is different from the centring that
whiteness is usually afforded in Eurocentric curricula and writing. Indeed it
would be problematic to recentre whiteness as a point of reference for civili-
sation, progress and rationality in order to relegate people of colour to the
margins, once again. In whiteness studies, whiteness becomes the centre
of critique and transformation. It represents the much-neglected anxiety
around race that whiteness scholars, many of whom are White, are now
beginning to recognise.
14 Zeus Leonardo
Whiteness studies is both a conceptual engagement and a racial strat-
egy. Conceptually, it poses critical questions about the history, meaning
and ontological status of whiteness. For example, it contains an appara-
tus for the precise rendering of whiteness’s origin as a social category. In
other words, whiteness is not coterminous with the notion that some people
have lighter skin tones than others; rather whiteness, along with race, is the
structural valuation of skin colour, which invests it with meaning regarding
the overall organisation of society. In this sense, whiteness conceptually had
to be invented and then reorganised in particular historical conditions as
part of its upkeep (Leonardo 2007). Inseparable from the conceptualisation
of whiteness, whiteness studies comes with certain interventions or racial
strategies. There are two significant camps regarding the uptake of white-
ness: White reconstruction and White abolition (Chubbuck 2004). In the
fi rst, reconstructionists offer discourses—as forms of social practice—that
transform whiteness, and therefore White people, into something other than
an oppressive identity and ideology. Reconstruction suggests rehabilitating
whiteness by resignifying it through the creation of alternative discourses.
It projects hope onto whiteness by creating new racial subjects out of White
people, which are not ensnared by a racist logic. On the other hand, White
abolitionism is guided by Roediger’s (1994) announcement that ‘whiteness
is not only false and oppressive, it is nothing but false and oppressive’ (13;
italics in original). In opposition to reconstructing whiteness, abolishing
whiteness sees no redeeming aspects of it and as long as White people think
they are White, Baldwin once opined that there is no hope for them (as
cited by Roediger 1994, 13). This chapter will consider White reconstruc-
tion and abolition for their conceptual and political value as it concerns not
only the revolution of whiteness, but of race theory in general.
Neo-abolitionists argue that whiteness is the centre of the ‘race problem’.
They go further than suggesting that racism is a ‘White problem’. Rather,
as long as whiteness exists, little racial progress will be made. In fact, lead-
ing abolitionists Ignatiev and Garvey (1996a) argue that multiculturalism
and general race theories that accept the existence of races are problematic
for their naturalisation of what are otherwise reified concepts. To Ignatiev
and Garvey, races are not real in an objective and ontological sense and
therefore Whites, for example, are not real either. They do not go as far
as suggesting that White people do not exist, which is a different point.
They exist insofar as structures recognise white bodies as ‘White people’.
But this recognition relies on the reification of a spurious category in order
simultaneously to misrecognise certain human subjects as White people.
Race treason encourages Whites to disrupt this process by pledging their
disallegiance to the ‘White club’. Race traitors are white bodies that no
longer act like and as White people. The investment in whiteness (Lipsitz
1998) is the strongest form of investment because it is the most privileged
racial identification. As long as Whites invest in whiteness, the existence of
non-White races will also continue. Hirschman (2004) has argued that as
 Pale/Ontology 15
long as race exists, so does racism and it is anachronistic to imagine one
without the other. The clarion call for abolitionists asks Whites to disiden-
tify with whiteness, leading to the eventual abolition of whiteness. I would
also add that it leads to another consequence, which is the abolition of
White people, or the withering away of a racial category and its subjects. In
other words, if whiteness disappears, so do White people. I will have more
to say about this last point later.
By contrast, White reconstructionists disagree with abolitionists in
the former’s attempt to recover whiteness. The disagreement falls within
two domains: theory and viability. Theoretically, reconstructionists do
not accept Roediger’s maxim that whiteness is only false and oppressive
because there are many examples of Whites who have fought against rac-
ism, such as the original abolitionists. Reconstructionists argue that Whites
can be remade, revisioned and resignified and are not merely hopelessly rac-
ist. Their search is for a rearticulated form of whiteness that reclaims its
identity for racial justice. They acknowledge that whiteness is a privilege,
but that Whites can use this privilege for purposes of racial justice and
therefore contribute to the remaking of whiteness that is not inherently
oppressive and false. In schools, reconstructing whiteness includes focusing
on White historical figures who have fought and still fight against racial
oppression. Reconstructionists consider this strategy as more viable than
arguing for the abolition of whiteness, which most Whites will have a dif-
ficult time accepting. The discourse of White abolition will only lead to
White defensiveness and retrenchment and does not represent much hope
for even progressive or anti-racist Whites. To the reconstructionists, aboli-
tionism is tantamount to promoting a certain self-hatred and shame among
Whites, guilting them into accepting a movement that does not recognise
their complexity. Rather, they prefer to instil critical hope in Whites.
Clearly, there has been a shift in race studies and whiteness has come
to the fore much more visibly. It is driven by a complex yet plainly stated
question: What to do with whiteness? The debate between White abolition
and reconstruction is a fertile educational ground. It represents a neglected
aspect in race studies, which is the future of a privileged people and how
they can participate in undoing these same privileges. It also poses the
question of ‘What do Whites become after undoing these said privileges?’
Do they become new subjects of whiteness or do they obliterate a racial
category beyond recognition when they commit what Ignatiev and Garvey
call ‘the unreasonable act’ of race treason? Just as we may ask what the
modern looks like after the postmodern critique (Lyotard 1984), what do
Whites look like, in the ontological sense, after the critique of whiteness
studies? This chapter hopes to generate not only insights about this process,
but a rather needed dialogue. It is less concerned with identifying who is a
reconstructionist or abolitionist of whiteness (although one can certainly
have a productive discussion that begins there), and more with assessing the
interventions that each discourse provides.
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