Anti-Racist Teaching

For social justice–minded educators, teaching is indeed a political act, and teachers and students are constantly negotiating power relations both within and outside of the classroom walls. These negotiations have the potential to be both deconstructive and reconstructive. Anti-racist teaching stems from a position that racism is endemic to the global society. Through the unveiling of how racism functions through education, racism's deleterious effects in schools and classrooms can be analyzed and deconstructed. Reconstruction occurs when people ask, anti-racism for what ends? The answer differs for stakeholders in the educational system and results in a diverse set of approaches to anti-racist education.

Anti-racist education is also a response to disproportionately lower levels of success for students of color and higher racial violence in schools. In the field of education, the United States, Canada, and Australia have appropriated theories from British [Page 173]anti-racist education to theorize reform and social change through education. An increasing number of scholars have focused their research on the preparation of teachers for anti-racist teaching. Teachers have also published accounts of anti-racist teaching. This work shows that education may be employed as an instrument to bring awareness of unjust educational practices to students, teachers, families, and policymakers.