SOCIAL JUSTICE AND WHITENESS IN EDUCATION: COLORBLIND POLICYMAKING AND RACISM

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SOCIAL JUSTICE AND WHITENESS IN
EDUCATIONCOLOR-BLIND POLICYMAKING AND RACISM

• Dr. Paul R. Carr

2
Overview

• Historical, cultural and societal Whiteness
• Contextualizing Whiteness in education
• Educational policymaking in education (the case
  of Ontario)
• Key considerations
• Questions

3
The imagery of Whiteness

• White as Snow, Pure White, Snow White
• Metaphors, analogies, images, cultural landmarks
  and concrete manifestations in language, law and
  cultural practices
• White ?-------------------------------------------
  ---------------------------?Black
• Good ?? Evil
• Lightness ?? Darkness
• Benevolence ?? Malevolence
• Cleanliness, kindness, and serenity
  ?? Undesirable
• the conqueror ??
  the dark continent

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White racial superiority

• Slavery, colonialism, neo-colonialism,
  imperialism
• Whiteness ? moral, biological, religious
  superiority
• Hate groups against people of colour ( others)
• Europeans and Aboriginal peoples (forced
  religious conversion, disrespect of language,
  culture and family, and attempts to terminate
  First Nations)
• Why are churches still largely segregated?
• Why are inter-racial marriages still taboo for
  many?

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The myth of White goodness

• Canada as a civilized, non-colonizing, pacifist
  nation, with two founding peoples (English and
  French)
• Land of opportunity, more welcoming and
  charitable than the US (less segregated, racist
  and divided)
• Canadians embrace multiculturalism, difference
  and minority status ours is a meritocracy
• How do we reconcile our history of history of
  colonization, slavery racism?
• Colour-blindness masks internment of Japanese in
  WWII, razing of Africville in N.S., Chinese
  head-tax, under-achievement in education by some
  groups, etc.
• Canada as a White country (embassies, symbols,
  monarchy)
• Prime Ministers, Supreme Court Judges, major
  cultural and media figures, business icons, etc.
  are largely, if not exclusively, White

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White identity

• We know that people of colour are racialized but
  do Whites know that they have a racial origin?
• Do Whites use their privilege to deny or ignore
  their racial identity, and, simultaneously, infer
  inherent racial attributes to the Other?
• If White people do not know they are White, how
  can those in positions of power (who are mainly
  White) effectively understand and challenge
  racism and unearned privilege?
• If there are Black, Asian, Chinese, Racial
  Minority, etc. communities, is there then,
  logically, a White community?
• If Affirmative Action for minorities today is
  wrong, was Affirmative Action for Whites for the
  past 400 years equally wrong?
• If we are colour-blind, why is there racism
  (individual, collective, systemic, institutional)?

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Shades of Whiteness

• If Whites experience power and privilege
  differently, does that mean that we are all
  simply individuals, responsible for our own
  actions?
• If White groups also experience discrimination,
  does this mean that there is no real racial
  discrimination against people of colour?
• Francophones vs. Anglophones in Canada
• Catholics vs. Protestants in Northern Ireland
• Hungarians vs. Romanians in Romania
• Basques vs. Spanish in Spain
• Maritimers vs. Central Canadians in Canada
• Jews vs Christians in Europe North America
• Social class ?power and privilege
• Whites, no matter how poor, are part of a club,
  even if it is the second tier

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Why talk about Whiteness?

• Power gaps in income, employment, status and
  representation based on race
• Equity advancements have often avoided racial
  issues (i.e., womens movement)
• Networks, associations, clubs, etc. are changing
  but Whiteness is still a predominant factor
  private schools are mainly for Whites? producing
  more inequity
• Unwritten, unspoken, coded language still
  characterizes public discourse (jokes,
  expressions, concerns about reverse
  discrimination, rejection of notion of racism)
• Confusion between overt and systemic racism
• Data collection on race is discouraged
• Filling a quote and Playing the race card can
  be used to neutralize racial equality

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Evolving complexity of race

• Intersectionality of identity complexity of
  lived experience
• More mixing of identity (race, culture, religion,
  etc.) re marriage, adoptions, study, travel,
  etc.
• Rapid demographic changes Whites are in an
  extreme minority in World population
• Concern about sustaining and growing cultures
  while acknowledging inequities
• How do you classify groups (Hispanics, Arabs,
  Mixed Race)?
• With mixing of races, will there be a day when
  there are no Whites?
• DNA tests prove that over 50 million White
  Americans have at least one relative of African
  origin, and 10 of African-Americans are more
  than 50 White (One-drop rule)
• Is racism democratic? (Tator and Henry)

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Whiteness and education

• Education as a key site for learning and
  advancing social justice
• Most teachers are White
• Curriculum is still contested, considered
  Euro-centric
• Student identity and experience is evolving
• Issues of power, democracy and social justice
  need to be addressed formally as well as
  informally in an authentic way
• Neo-liberalism can reinforce marketization of
  public education as well as less political
  literacy
• The study of Whiteness forces us to interrogate
  identity, difference, equity and power from
  diverse vantage-points, with myriad linkages to
  the international context
• A multitude of studies on racial groups, racial
  problems, integration, multiculturalism, etc.
  without a explicit focus on Whiteness and White
  complicity in shaping social realities
• Educational policymaking, curriculum development,
  teacher training and teacher unions, etc., are
  infused with Whiteness

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George J. Sefa Dei

• To my reading and experience, Whiteness is never
  invisible to those who daily live the effects of
  White dominance. Many Whites may see their
  Whiteness, and yet they are able to deny the
  dominance associated with it. This denial is not
  unconscious, nor is it accidental I believe it
  is deliberate. Critical anti-racism maintains
  that we will only do away with racism when
  Whiteness no longer infers dominance and Whites
  acknowledge and work towards this end. In noting
  this I also agree that there are contradictory
  (and sometimes competing) meanings of Whiteness,
  as in the way Whites and subordinate groups
  understand contemporary Whiteness (e.g., the
  perception of Whiteness as anything but
  positive).
• Because White bodies are invested in systems of
  privilege, the importance of dominant groups
  questioning their self-appointed and racialized
  neutrality is always critical and transformative.
  For far too long we have witnessed how White
  society has conscripted and choreographed the
  idea of a fractured Black community that avoids
  taking responsibility.

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Insider-Outsider perspective

• Involvement in social justice issues in education
  since late 1980s, including various projects,
  committees and academic research on anti-racism
• Senior Policy Advisor in the Ontario Government,
  primarily in the Ministry of Education, for
  seventeen years, undertaking a range of tasks,
  including leading several anti-racism, diversity
  and equity-based initiatives, and being involved
  in curriculum, policy and research projects
• Academic research on transformational change in
  education, equity and identity, and, recently,
  democracy and social justice in education
• Book on Whiteness with Darren Lund entitled The
  Great White North? Exploring Whiteness,
  Privilege, and Identity in Education, to be
  published in Spring 2007 by SENSE Publishing.

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Critical educational policymaking

• How do governments and educational
  decision-makers consistently avoid being held to
  account for social justice?
• Why do reforms routinely ignore or omit dealing
  with racism?
• Is this latent and less than stringent
  institutional response merely willful neglect,
  systemic dysfunctionality, a contrived, intricate
  web of inequitable power relations or rather the
  fomenting of ingrained racist interests?
• More importantly, why should some promises or
  commitments be held up as a standard, and others
  that are never even broached or are discarded as
  meaningless or insignificant, not be considered
  as important?
• What is the role of Whites in sustaining and
  shaping racism?
• Given the crystallization of neo-liberal
  interests, what has happened in/to public
  education over the past fifteen years?

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Focus

• Primarily focused on 1995 with a view to the
  1990-2007 period
• a left-wing New Democratic (Bob Rae, NDP)
  government 1990-1995
• a right-wing Progressive Conservative (Mike
  Harris, PC) government 1995-2003 and
• a centrist Liberal (Dalton McGuinty) government
  2003-present.

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Un panier de crabes (A basket of crabs)

• The three governments (1990-2007)
• a range of expectations
• a series of promises
• Focus on message (the medium is the message,
  manufacturing consent) pollsters, consultants,
  focus-groups? billions on communications? the
  political party before the public good, using
  public funds for narrow political purposes
• Perception is reality
• PC government kept its promise to cut taxes (but
  ? increased federal taxes, user-fees, lost or
  reduced public services, privatization of other
  services broken promises, including the
  introduction of an anti-discrimination
  education program).
• NDP government seen as reckless, out of control,
  and unable to faithfully do what it said it would
  do because of a large deficit combined with a
  recession.
• Ben Levin (2005) summarizes the intricacies of
  government as follows
• Government is a very tough world, full of
  pressures, tensions, and contradictions. A new
  government begins with strong policy commitments,
  but the pressures of political influence and
  events are highly distracting. The work is
  complex and unrelenting, while expectations are
  so high they can rarely be met and scrutiny is
  extensive and unforgiving. In some ways it is an
  impossible task, made more difficult because
  often the people taking it on do not really know
  what they are getting into.

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Turmoil in education (1995)

• Upheaval
• end to a broad range of equity policies
• concomitant introduction of a de facto war
  against teachers
• general assault on unions in favour of private
  choice and individual rights
• Neo-liberal model
• back to basics pedagogical approach
  (student-focused funding, higher curriculum
  standards)
• more influence for business in schools and the
  curriculum
• no focus on citizenship, democracy, diversity and
  social justice
• introduction of tax-incentives for parents for
  private schools
• Radical shift in rhetoric (suggestion that
  employment equity and anti-racism were anti-White
  male and anti-majority group)
• broad-brush embracing of testing at all levels,
  including teacher testing.
• Conservative mantra to create a crisis in
  education leaked inadvertently in the first week
  of new government ? Days of Action protests
• Neo-liberal, conservative focus on competition
  and employability in Ontario case seems extreme
  in comparison to other jurisdictions

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Leadership by example

• No more racism (See no evil, hear no evil)
• No discussion
• No meetings
• No policy development
• No training
• No accountability
• No formal recognition, an officially
  colour-blind society
• Sophisticated signals from the top of the
  pyramid everyone understands what should be
  said, how and where
• No longer a formal priority for school boards,
  principals and teachers
• Not as prominent in school boards business and
  strategic plans
• Control of the agenda ? passive or full-fledged
  compliance from the educational sector

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Public Servants and Ideology

• Are they middle of the road, slightly left of
  centre, due to their choice to work in
  government?
• How did they react to the arrival of the NDP, PC
  and Liberal governments?
• Are some public servants equity workers
  (Rezai-Rashti, 2003 McCaskell, 2005)?
• How and why decisions are made is not always
  rational, coherent and/or justifiable (effect on
  public servants)
• Reference to ideology is systemically
  discouraged a certain pride in feigning that
  public servants are neutral, able to implement
  policies, not develop them, regardless of the
  political party in power.

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The Formal Commitment to Social Justice

• 1995 equity workers left numb at the thought of
  the new governments mission to dismantle the
  anti-racism file morale was low, and suspicion
  over the end high
• One shortcoming of the Ministry of Educations
  Anti-racism and Ethno-cultural Equity Education
  Branch was that almost all of the staff (the
  majority of whom were RMs) came from the school
  board sector, and they did not have experience in
  government
• the Branch was not seen to be an integral part of
  the Ministry but, rather, an outside entity,
  almost a special interest group, and this fact
  disadvantaged it greatly.
• Anecdotes
• these new arrivals to the Ministry were seen to
  be attempting to disrupt the conventional,
  accepted educational terrain
• there were a number of complaints from people
  saying they resented being treated like a
  racist at anti-racism training sessions
• one anti-racism staff told the moment he entered
  a committee meeting for a curriculum initiative
  that this is not an anti-racist committee, to
  which he responded, without missing a beat, oh,
  it must be a racist committee
• we dont need anti-racist education because all
  of our kids are White

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Knowing Your Place in Government

• With the PC Governments neo-liberal economic
  model focused on business plans, borrowed from
  Alberta, everything, therefore, was supposed to
  be measured and accountable except for equity.
• Anecdotes
• Discussion about proposals for school councils,
  parental involvement and at-risk students
  intervention regarding exclusionary practices,
  absence of data-collection and systemic barriers
  response by a senior official, in a slightly
  exasperated tone, was clear while pointing to
  the door, the official stated You know where
  the door is if you dont like it you dont have
  to stay.
• Many public servants questioned why and how the
  business model should be transposed on public
  education, where, clearly, the bottom-line was
  never intended to be profit.
• Most disparaging with the business plans was the
  reality that there was no visible, credible
  follow-up on the goals, targets, measures and
  other barometers of success that took untold
  meetings and resources to generate.
• No goals, targets, measures and other barometers
  of success were considered for the social justice
  domain.

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Public Servant/Political Staff Relationships

• Tension-point for public servants is relationship
  with political personnel (each Minister has
  roughly 15), many of whom are parachuted into
  government with little experience of how
  government works, and are deeply suspicious of
  public servants.
• Public servants are generally knowledgeable about
  the intricacies, idiosyncrasies and maneuvers of
  political parties, and must pay a certain
  deference to political staff.
• Anecdotes
• the day after the PC election, a female
  francophone colleague is accosted
• a colleague from the Toronto Board of Education
  recounted an anti-racism training-session for
  staff he was giving, in which he was told quite
  bluntly by one of the participants whats the
  point, you lost the election
• many people interpreted the PC message as one of
  a victory for Whites.

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Government and Communications

• Is it possible for outsiders to access
  decisionmaking processes?
• Bureaucratic joke two things you do not want to
  see being made
• 1) sausage and
• 2) public policy
• How do you know what the Governments agenda is?
• Throne Speeches
• Budgets
• Policy platforms
• Speeches from the Premier and Minister
• Other signals, often disseminated in the media
• How do you know if you understand the
  Governments agenda?
• You send up trial balloons
• Read the press clippings
• Prepare contingency plans, options papers, and
  proposals to try to find a hook
• Question-period, issues management,
  briefing-binders, hysterical staffers

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Social Justice Groups and the Government Agenda

• Access to government is pivotal to be able to
  have input into the decisionmaking process
• With the arrival of PCs, virtually all contact
  with visible minority groups was eliminated
• Anecdotes
• new Equal Opportunity Office (EEO) replaced the
  Ontario Anti-racism Secretariat (the terminology
  is illustrative).
• EEO roundly criticized by equity sector for being
  redundant, as no equal opportunity policies were
  made mandatory, but this did not receive much
  attention in the media, nor at the governmental
  level.
• a senior official described how social justice
  groups were no longer an irritant because they
  simply did not exist on the government radar
  (they the social justice groups were
  defeated)

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Government Inaction and Sabotage

• Old leitmotif about studies gathering dust
• Guideline on preventing hate-crime activities
  destined for school principals the Ontario
  Secondary School Teachers Federation (OSSTF)
  included half of the draft, unpublished document
  in their membership-magazine, complementing the
  Ministry for its work, and demanding that the
  document be released
• Other equity documents that were never
  distributed by Conservatives include
• A Teachers Guide for Anti-racism in the
  Classroom
• A resource on the development, selection and
  usage of Equity in Learning Materials
• A curriculum guideline on Afro-Canadian Studies
• A resource-document on Aboriginal Anti-racism
  Education
• In the absence of formal guidelines, the system
  is able to vacillate with the ebb and flow of
  daily concerns without focusing on the larger
  portrait (social justice)
• What would education in Ontario look like 12
  years later if all of these reforms had been
  implemented?

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Thwarting a Progressive Response in Both Official
Languages

• Prolonged tension between English-language/Angloph
  one and French-language/Francophone areas
• Multiculturalism and anti-racism perceived as
  Anglophone concerns and priorities Francophones
  argue that they face discrimination from
  Anglophones
• The definition of the term Franco-Ontarian
  became contentious/intractable
• Few non-Whites in French-language policy area
• French-language racial minorities caught in
  delicate position
• Anecdote
• French-language school board anti-racism plans

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Government and the Curriculum

• Writing Curriculum is a political process
  top-down process from the Premiers Office
• Conservative government discarded NDP common
  curriculum, rejecting attitudes and bahaviours
  in favour of skills and knowledge within a
  pro-business framework
• Untold millions spent on communicating high
  standards of new curriculum
• No room for social justice in curriculum-writing
  process some committee-members represent
  business sector, which was poorly understood by
  teachers and others few racial minorities or
  equity advocates
• The Liberals started to re-write curriculum in
  2003, in part, to reflect absence of equity
• Anecdotes
• Implosion of Social Sciences curriculum committee
  (Fielding)
• The likelihood of successful implementation of
  curriculum without teacher involvement (Fullan
  et. al)

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Documenting and Abolishing Difference

• For fifteen years, the issue of academic
  under-achievement for Black youths has surfaced
  the lack of formal response is indicative of
  White privilege
• The Ontario Royal Commission on Learning (1995)
  suggested that there was systemic racism in
  education, that data should be collected, and
  that Black-focused schools should be considered
  the Tories ignored the equity portion of this
  Report
• New PC Government immediately erased equity
  gains, and the issue of collecting data based on
  racial lines no longer existed.
• Anecdote
• Meeting with teachers unions to inform them of
  Conservative plans to revoke employment equity
  legislation, making it illegal to collect data
  based on race
• Let me get this right. We spent five years
  resisting, and trying to be convinced, and
  fighting the government against the employment
  equity legislation, and now were in a position
  to make some gains, and we understand why were
  doing it, and youre telling us to destroy all of
  the data
• Despite the fact that there are no data to prove
  it, it seemed as though there was a drastic and
  immediate Whitening of senior levels in Ministry
  of Education in 1995

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Re-starting the Cycle a Decade Later

• 2003 Liberals state that they wish to no longer
  exacerbate social divisions created by Tories
• The promise to implement character education
  has been extremely low-key
• Some speculate that character education is
  value-laden with feel-good concepts (respect,
  tolerance, etc.) that appeal to the Conservative
  ethos without articulating any change in the
  structure and power of the system, and could also
  include religion, as in the US model
• Values focus leads to questions about
• Whose values? Are the normative values those of
  the dominant elite?
• How do you ensure that these values are
  appropriately articulated and reinforced?
• Whether teachers are well-positioned to teach
  values?
• How do you critique the values of leaders?
• Are politicians role-models who should be
  emulated by students?
• Is character education meant to reinforce White
  power and privilege?
• What about issues of power, racism, poverty,
  gender inequities, etc.?

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De-centering Whiteness

• Thompson (2003)
• To pursue social justice, we have to decenter
  whiteness from programs for social change. Among
  other things, this means relinquishing our
  cherished notions of morality how we understand
  fairness, how we understand what it means to be a
  good person, how we understand what it means to
  be generous or sympathetic or tolerant or a good
  listener. When we are challenged for our
  whiteness, our tendency is to fall back on our
  goodness, fairness, intelligence, rationality,
  sensitivity, and democratic inclusiveness, all of
  which are caught up with our whiteness. How can
  you call me (me, of all people!) a racist?.

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Goodness and racism

• Marx and Pennington (2003) raise an issue that
  troubles and confounds many Whites, concerning
  the perceived paradoxical relationship between
  goodness and anti-racism
• Thus, naming racism within themselves (White
  pre-service teachers) was at first cause for
  great concern. This is the point where guilt,
  fear, and even trauma came into the picture.
  Because they viewed goodness and racism as a
  dichotomy, their first glimpse of their racism
  led them to the conclusion that they must be
  horrible people. It seemed that, in coming to
  terms with their own racism, our
  students/participants necessarily had to make the
  connection that they could still be good be
  people and still be racist. Moreover, despite
  their altruistic hearts and their efforts to
  hide their racism, it is still possible for
  their racism to hurt the children they teach.

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Key considerations

• Accountability
• Language/terminology
• Representation
• Political Literacy
• Praxis
• Broader, thicker conception of education,
  social justice, citizenship and democracy
• Challenging White power, privilege, normative
  values and philosophy

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Questioning Whiteness - General

• 1. In what ways did/has Whiteness entered your
  life in Canada as either privilege and/or
• oppression?
• 2. Can you name ten White Canadians and ten
  non-White Canadians who have made a
• major contribution to science, culture, and
  life of Canada (excluding sports figures)?
• 3. Does surviving institutional Whiteness
  require individual or institutional responses?
• 4. What aspects of Whiteness are difficult to
  quantify?
• 5. Is there a reason for the difficulty in
  articulating Indigenous responses to
  institutional
• colonization and racism?
• 6. Do you think that being motivated to fight
  racial inequality as a result of White guilt is
• necessarily a sign of an ill-guided motive?
  In which instances do you think White guilt could
  be
• beneficial, and, conversely, harmful?
• 7. Statistical projections indicate that in
  major Canadian cities (Toronto, Vancouver) White
  people
• will soon be in the minority. How might this
  affect the process of White Racial Identity

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Questioning Whiteness - General

• 8. How can individuals work against the
  silencing of race? What conversations need to
  happen?
• 9. What are some of the tactics or mechanisms
  that Whites use in their denial of race
  privilege? How are the respective tactics or
  mechanisms related to attempts to justify and
  rationalize their beliefs that their achievements
  are a result of their individual efforts?
• 10. Is it possible for racial minorities to gain
  equitable access to employment and educational
  opportunities without special structural and
  institutional programs like Affirmative Action
  and Employment Equity?
• 11. If racism is to be addressed, White people
  must recognize (i.e., admitting to) White
  privilege, dealing with the resulting personal
  or internal discomfort, tensions and conflicts,
  and challenging the very system or structures
  that contribute to the privilege. Discuss how
  best this state of being might be attained
  without developing the urge to give up or back
  down in the face of personal and interpersonal
  conflicts that could undermine the socio-economic
  and political success for which everyone strives.
• 12. How is Whiteness complicated by other
  expressions of ethnicity? By other religious
  identities? By sexual difference?

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Questioning Whiteness - Education

• 13. Does Canadian multiculturalism hinder
  possibilities of discussing Whiteness openly
• within schools and communities?
• 14. How do policies aimed at equity and
  anti-racism play out in the schools? Are they
• enough and, if not, how do we continue to
  move forward in the struggle against
• oppressive practices and systemic racism in
  the education system?
• 15. How should Whiteness be broached within an
  institutional context by those who may not be
• in positions of power?
• 16. How should Whites be made aware of, and
  become engaged in, the conceptualization
• and application of race and anti-racism?
• 17. What do members of minoritized racial groups
  need to be aware of as they become part of
• the decision-making process?
• 18. How should Aboriginals and Whites negotiate
  pedagogy in a changing world?
• 19. How would you as a teacher develop
  understandings of the difficult knowledge
  necessary

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Questioning Whiteness - Education

• 20. What are some of the ways we might be able
  to avoid "tokenizing" the inclusion of
• racial minority (or non-White) people's
  experiences and/or scholarship in education?
• 21. How may teacher educators use antiracism
  pedagogy to disrupt the discourse of
• denial, defensiveness, emotional tensions,
  ignorance, hostility, and counter-
• knowledge strategies that teacher
  candidates often engage in to avoid a critical
• interrogation of racism and privilege?
• 22. The next generation of teachers demonstrates
  limited knowledge of Canadas racist history.
• Consequently, they demonstrate moral
  superiority toward their neighbours to the South.
  How
• do we work toward a comprehensive picture
  of Canadian history that highlights
• similarities between American and Canadian
  racial histories?
• 23. Do discussions of race in secondary school
  philosophy classrooms necessarily
• include discussions of Whiteness? In
  short, is it necessary to consider Whiteness in
• discussions of race?
• 24. What problems, especially in relation to
  race, unfold when commercialized imperatives
• and practices are the chief forces
  structuring the day-to-day happenings in schools

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• MERCI
• THANK YOU