Politics of Anti-Racism Education: In Search of Strategies for Transformative Learning

237 Pages·2014·1.84 MB·English

by  George J. Sefa Dei

Explorations of Educational Purpose 27
George J. Sefa Dei
Mairi McDermott Editors
Politics of Anti-
Racism Education:
In Search of
Strategies for
Transformative
Learning
Politics of Anti-Racism Education: In Search
of Strategies for Transformative Learning
EXPLORATIONS OF EDUCATIONAL PURPOSE
Volume 27
Founding Editor
Joe Kincheloe (1950–2008)
Series Editors
Shirley R. Steinberg, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Kenneth Tobin, City University of New York, USA
Editorial Board
Barrie Barrell, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada
Rochelle Brock, University of Indiana, Gary, USA
Stephen Petrina, University of British Columbia, Canada
Christine Quail, State University of New York, Oneonta, USA
Nelson Rodriguez, College of New Jersey, USA
Leila Villaverde, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, USA
JohnWillinsky, Stanford University, USA
Series Scope
In today’s dominant modes of pedagogy, questions about issues of race, class,
gender, sexuality, colonialism, religion, and other social dynamics are rarely asked.
Questions about the social spaces where pedagogy takes place – in schools, media,
and corporate think tanks – are not raised. And they need to be.
The Explorations of Educational Purpose book series can help establish a renewed
interest in such questions and their centrality in the larger study of education and the
preparation of teachers and other educational professionals. The editors of this
series feel that education matters and that the world is in need of a rethinking of
education and educational purpose.
Coming from a critical pedagogical orientation, Explorations of Educational
Purpose aims to have the study of education transcend the trivialization that often
degrades it. Rather than be content with the frivolous, scholarly lax forms of teacher
education and weak teaching prevailing in the world today, we should work towards
education that truly takes the unattained potential of human beings as its starting
point. The series will present studies of all dimensions of education and offer
alternatives. The ultimate aim of the series is to create new possibilities for people
around the world who suffer under the current design of socio-political and
educational institutions.
For further volumes:
http://www.springer.com/series/7472
George J. Sefa Dei (cid:129) Mairi McDermott
Editors
Politics of Anti-Racism
Education: In Search
of Strategies for
Transformative Learning
Editors
George J. Sefa Dei Mairi McDermott
Ontario Institute for Studies Ontario Institute for Studies
in Education (OISE) in Education (OISE)
University of Toronto University of Toronto
Toronto, ON , Canada Toronto, ON, Canada
ISSN 1875-4449 ISSN 1875-4457 (electronic)
ISBN 978-94-007-7626-5 ISBN 978-94-007-7627-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-7627-2
Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg New York London
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013952904
© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014
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We dedicate this book to all
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Contents
1 Introduction to the Politics of Anti-Racism Education:
In Search of Strategies for Transformative Learning .......................... 1
George J. Sefa Dei and Mairi McDermott
Part I Intersectional Analyses: Rethinking Anti-Racism Education,
Masculinity and the Politics of Sexuality
2 A Prism of Educational Research and Policy: Anti-Racism
and Multiplex Oppressions .................................................................... 15
George J. Sefa Dei
3 Homonormativity Inside Out: Reading Race
and Sexuality Into an LGBT Film Festival Opening Gala .................. 29
David Pereira
4 Progressive Discipline, Regressive Education:
The Systematic Exclusion of Black Youth
In and Through Expulsion Programmes .............................................. 43
Camisha Sibblis
Part II Policy and Curriculum: Questions of Whiteness, Aboriginal
Education, and Indigeneity
5 Moving Towards an Anti-racism Curriculum ...................................... 61
Chrissy Michelle Deckers
6 “Aboriginal Education” in Teacher Education:
Beyond Cultural Inclusions .................................................................... 71
Susanne Waldorf
vii
viii Contents
7 Indigenous Education in Colonizing Space: Reflections
on the Law, Education, and Indigenous Rights in Chile ........................... 87
Ximena Martínez Trabucco
Part III Representations: The Media, Discursive Authority,
and Counter Narratives
8 ‘You Make Our Lives Better’: Education
and the Detention of Tamil Refugee Children ...................................... 111
Gillian Geetha Philipupillai
9 The Single Story of Somalia and Western
Media Misrepresentations ...................................................................... 121
Hodan Yusuf
10 Multiculturalism: The Missing Bodies and Voices ............................... 135
Ayla Raza
11 To Speak, Know, Live and Feel ‘Asian’: For an Anti-racist
Approach on the Study of Asians in Canada ........................................ 149
Kenneth Huynh
Part IV Autoethnography: On Coalition Building, Identity
and Belonging, and Decolonization
12 Honoring Gaswentah: A Racialized Settler’s Exploration
of Responsibility and Mutual Respect as Coalition
Building with First Peoples .................................................................... 165
Min Kaur
13 Entre el Aquí y el Allá: International Schooling
and the Colonized Mind ......................................................................... 175
Alexandra Arráiz Matute
14 (Re)Turning Home: An Exploration in the (Re)Claiming
of Identity and Belonging ....................................................................... 191
Theresa Smith
15 Mo(ve)ments of Affect: Towards an Embodied
Pedagogy for Anti-racism Education .................................................... 211
Mairi McDermott
Notes on Contributors .................................................................................... 227
Index ................................................................................................................. 231
Chapter 1
Introduction to the Politics of Anti-Racism
Education: In Search of Strategies
for Transformative Learning
George J. Sefa Dei and Mairi McDermott
Politics of Anti-Racism Education is a book that engages the tough questions of anti-
racism practice : How do we recognize anti-racism when there is no prescription or
recipe for transformative practices? How does anti-racism resist the imperial divi-
sive practices at various sites of difference while simultaneously amplifying the
saliency of race? How do anti-racism educators challenge and support each other to
do the ongoing work of anti-racism to guard our work from being consumed by
hegemonic status quo agendas? What does it mean to name that which is incom-
mensurable – experiences of race and racism? These are among some of the ques-
tions the contributors in this book engaged both in dialogue in the classroom, as
well as in the chapters presented here. In sharing our stories as framed through the
counter-narrative of anti-racism, our purpose is threefold: to hold anti- racism poli-
cies, practices, and theorists accountable to the necessity for transformation in anti-
racism work; to contribute to a community for those who want to do the tough work
of anti-racism education; and to challenge the urge among those who want to move
beyond questions of race to reconsider dismissing racism as a thing of the past. We
argue that there is a need to retool anti-racism and challenge the epistemological
gatekeepers who want us to confi ne anti-racism discourse to the trash bins of his-
tory. This book pursues a crucial search for strategies for engaging a critical anti-
racism education for transformative learning. Contributors in this collection generate
important enquiries into the praxis of anti-racism education, working through con-
versations, contestations, and emotions as present(ed) and live(d) in a year long
graduate course, T he Principles of Anti-Racism Education. The chapters present
G. J. Sefa Dei (*)
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) , University of Toronto ,
252 Bloor Street W. , Toronto, M5S 1V6 , ON , Canada
e-mail: [email protected]
M. McDermott
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto ,
19 Tuscany Ridge Terrace NW Calgary, AB T3L 3A5, Canada
e-mail: [email protected]
G.J. Sefa Dei and M. McDermott (eds.), Politics of Anti-Racism Education: In Search 1
of Strategies for Transformative Learning, Explorations of Educational Purpose 27,
DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-7627-2_1, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014