Foundational Concepts for Understanding
Many anti-racist pedagogies are grounded in Critical Race Theory. Critical Race Theory (CRT) is an academic movement that seeks to understand and transform race, racism, and racial power structures. At its core, CRT is concerned with how power is distributed among different races and how race-based oppression has been used to maintain the power and privilege of white people through law, education, and other institutions (Mensah & Jackson, 2018). CRT interrogates systems’ historical, economic, political, social, and cultural contexts. It also considers intersections with settler colonialism, ableism, sexism, classism, transphobia, and other forms of oppression. In education, CRT explains how notions of fairness, meritocracy, colour blindness, and neutrality are framed through dominant perspectives and ignore the collective experiences of race and racism that shape the lives of Black, Indigenous, and other racialized students. Anti-racist pedagogies are also found in cultural studies, Critical Whiteness Studies, racial capitalism, and other frameworks.
Key concepts/frameworks that are connected to CRT frameworks include:
- Anti-Colonial Theories
- Racialization
- Racial Hierarchy
- Racism
- Relational racialization
- Whiteness
- White supremacy
What is Whiteness? Why is it Important?
Gillborn (2015) refers to whiteness as “a set of assumptions, beliefs and practices that place the interests and perspectives of white people at the center of what is considered normal and every day” (p. 278). Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS) identifies and deconstructs the racial construct of whiteness by analyzing the historic, social, political, and cultural elements of white supremacy and how they have contributed to the marginalization of people racialized as other than white. CWS examines how history, law, culture, and pseudoscience have been used to invent notions whiteness. In addition to analyzing histories of whiteness, CWS explores how white privilege and supremacy are maintained and how they can be challenged and dismantled. For example, interest convergence speaks to the pattern that Black and racialized interests will be advanced only when they align with white interests.
Key concepts to explore when learning and teaching about Whiteness include:
- Whiteness
- White Identity
- White supremacy
- Othering
- Erasure
- Myths of neutrality and meritocracy
- Reverse racism
