ABSTRACT
Difference, diversity, pluralism, hybridity-these are some of the most debated and contested terms of our time. Questions of difference are at the heart of many discussions within contemporary feminisms. In the field of education in Britain, questions of identity and community continue to dominate debates surrounding ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘antiracism’. In this chapter, I consider how these themes might help us to understand the racialisation of gender. No matter how often the concept is exposed as vacuous, ‘race’ still acts as an apparently ineradicable marker of social difference. What makes it possible for the category to act in this way? What is the nature of social and cultural differences and what gives them their force? How does ‘racial’ difference, then, connect to difference and antagonisms organised around other markers like ‘gender’ or ‘class’? Such questions are important because they can help to explain people’s tenacious investment in notions of identity, community and tradition.
