ABSTRACT
Despite the growing significance of race in Europe today and despite Ireland’s commitment to aid, trade, and development, there is a dearth of theoretical understanding which centralises race within these fields. This chapter argues for a Critical Race Theory perspective in global justice education that includes a comprehensive understanding of racial stratification, its operation, and effects. Drawing on extensive empirical evidence from a racial stratification project in Ireland, it discusses the implication of the ‘default’ starting position of the Global South in the world order. The key features of racial stratification examined within this chapter include its homogenising attributes, the interaction between class and race; how assigned racial groupings influence outcomes; and the hegemonic imaging and representation which reify racism and racial stereotypes. It insists that global justice education and the preparation of global justice educators should commence with an in-depth understanding of race and of how society responds to difference. Without this, they only skim the surface without impacting transformative learning. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the implications of racial stratification on the socio-economic outcomes of the African continent and its people, and the race consciousness required to carry out a non-racist, non-Eurocentric examination and engagement with the Global South.
