ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the nature of racism and its relation to vocational education, work, and economic policy. It explores different forms of racism. Racism must be understood as a historically specific, constantly mutating phenomenon. The most common historical expression of white racism in America is known as essentialist racism—the belief that there are essential qualitative, biological differences between different races. Essentialist racism works to shape the way its adherents see the world and their role in it. At the same time, it shapes views of the purposes of academic and vocational education. As compared to essentialist racism, another form of racism—called institutional, or structural—tends to be far more subtle and difficult to identify. Americans identify with winners, exerting little anxiety over the plight of those who lose in the great capitalist race. White Americans for the most part are not aware of the vicissitudes of black workers in the post-Fordist economy.
