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Racism and Reform: new ethnicities/old inequalities?
Author(s) -
Gillborn David
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
british educational research journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.171
H-Index - 89
eISSN - 1469-3518
pISSN - 0141-1926
DOI - 10.1080/0141192970230307
Subject(s) - racism , ethnic group , thatcherism , ignorance , sociology , inequality , gender studies , institutional racism , political science , politics , law , anthropology , mathematical analysis , mathematics
Racism lies at the heart of the Thatcherite project. This article explores how issues of ‘race’, racism and ethnicity are positioned within the education reforms that have reshaped the British schooling system. Education policy has adopted a largely deracialised discourse such that a concern with ethnic inequalities of achievement and opportunity has been effectively removed from the policy agenda. Simultaneously, most reforms have had a particular (usually negative) impact upon children of minority ethnic background. The article explores the development of this strand of education policy and exposes the new racist constructions of ‘the nation’ and its ‘common culture’ that find expression through the marketisation of schooling and a willed ignorance about the extent and nature of racism within the system.