PED 3102 Blog Post #4

‘There’s no racism at my school, it’s just joking around’: ramifications for anti-racist education

Raby (2004)

This article focuses on racialization and how 12 different teenage girls in the GTA view and experience racism at their schools. The results seemed to show three different responses, they either denied and downplayed racism, narrowly defined racism or they conceptualized racism in a way that ultimately centred whiteness. The article looked at observations, reflects on their motivations and discusses the pros and cons of anti-racist education. The students were mostly able to identify racial patterns but were hesitant to discuss it further or analyze why it happens. The article states that while multicultural education can be a positive viewpoint it often tends to maintain a white center. Overall there was a lack of familiarity with anti-racist education and there appeared to be a stigma around the work ‘racist’ and a person’s ability to have contradicting beliefs at the same time.

I feel that the article raises many interesting and thought-provoking topics. It is important to look at the results of the interviews and determine how they can be used in future anti-racist education projects. As the article suggests if we better know how young students are perceiving and understanding race we will have an easier time integrating anti-racist education into daily school life. I think that is very important and will be something that I incorporate into my own teachings. I think that most important thing is to have a strong working definition of racism and be sure to understand it from all different perspectives (ex. not to center around whiteness as the article suggests happens quite often). It is important to cover such a heavy topic since diversity is all around us, whether that is in or outside of the classroom. We must education the students about racial identifications and how to analyze situations so that they can form a better understanding.

How can you create an anti-racist education project that does not center around one specific race?

What are the main topics to cover when teaching students what racism is and how it exists in schools?