5 Liquid Racism and Education
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Nathan Kerrigan
Abstract
This chapter outlines how various active and passive processes collude to ensure the sustaining of highly racialized inequities in educational outcomes and experiences. These processes exist at the macro-structural, meso-discursive and micro-agential levels – through policy, institutional discourse and educational practice. Drawing on part of the apparatus of critical race theory, this chapter argues that liquid racism manifests as a form of tacit intentionality on the part of policy makers. In the context of ambivalence around racism in late modernity, tacit intentionality can be read in two ways. The first reading is that intentionality is actively embedded in policy and practice in ways which evade obvious detection. A second reading might assume that policy makers are not actively conspiring against the interests of racialized minority groups. This passivity represents a position within which ‘good intentions’ are seen as enough to avoid accusations of racism in policy and practice, while ensuring that racist outcomes persist. This chapter develops these themes to incorporate an understanding of institutional discourse to bridge the gap between the macro-sphere within which policy making is constructed in late modernity, and the micro-sphere within which the agential action of educational practitioners is framed
Abstract
This chapter outlines how various active and passive processes collude to ensure the sustaining of highly racialized inequities in educational outcomes and experiences. These processes exist at the macro-structural, meso-discursive and micro-agential levels – through policy, institutional discourse and educational practice. Drawing on part of the apparatus of critical race theory, this chapter argues that liquid racism manifests as a form of tacit intentionality on the part of policy makers. In the context of ambivalence around racism in late modernity, tacit intentionality can be read in two ways. The first reading is that intentionality is actively embedded in policy and practice in ways which evade obvious detection. A second reading might assume that policy makers are not actively conspiring against the interests of racialized minority groups. This passivity represents a position within which ‘good intentions’ are seen as enough to avoid accusations of racism in policy and practice, while ensuring that racist outcomes persist. This chapter develops these themes to incorporate an understanding of institutional discourse to bridge the gap between the macro-sphere within which policy making is constructed in late modernity, and the micro-sphere within which the agential action of educational practitioners is framed
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- Introduction: Zygmunt Bauman, Liquidity and Racism 1
- Revisiting the Postmodernity/Liquid Modernity Debate 26
- Race, Postrace and the False Promises of the Postracial State 50
- Liquid Racism and Brexit 73
- Liquid Racism and Education 95
- Liquid Racism and Road Culture(s) 117
- Conclusion: The viscosity of contemporary racism(s) 149
- References 165
- Index 189
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- Introduction: Zygmunt Bauman, Liquidity and Racism 1
- Revisiting the Postmodernity/Liquid Modernity Debate 26
- Race, Postrace and the False Promises of the Postracial State 50
- Liquid Racism and Brexit 73
- Liquid Racism and Education 95
- Liquid Racism and Road Culture(s) 117
- Conclusion: The viscosity of contemporary racism(s) 149
- References 165
- Index 189
