Racism, Education and the State

The education system should be in the forefront of the battle to combat racial inequality. The contributors to this book, however, argue that, far from reducing racial inequality, the education system in the UK systematically generates, maintains and reproduces it. Through careful consideration of the complex and pervasive nature of racism (and the practices it gives rise to) the contributors draw attention to the failure of the contemporaneous multicultural education theories and policies. The contributors’ concerns are with: the role of the state in sustaining and legitimating racial inequalities in education; black students’ experiences of racism in schools and post-school training schemes; and proposals for the realization of genuine and effective antiracist education principles.

Multicultural education is a major concern throughout the world. In the UK many local education authorities have implemented curricula which stress the multicultural nature of the world and which pay some attention to the cultural tradition of minority groups. This book argues that this approach is inadequate. It reviews education policies from the 1960s to the mid 1980s and argues that the playing down of racism in education and avoidance of any clear policy was in fact misguided and has not resulted in equality of opportunity for all students, as was hoped. The authors argue instead that clear policies to counter racism should be formulated and should be linked to more broadly conceived equal opportunity programmes – in short, that these policies cannot be effective if they fail to consider also inequalities of gender and class.