ABSTRACT

This chapter considers the complexities of how whiteness contributes to the formation of identities. The chapter draws mainly on contributions made by critical whiteness studies and critical race theory to develop our understanding of whiteness as process and plurality. In particular it explores the consequences of naming whiteness and embracing white identities, especially as the work of Ladson-Billings (1998), Parker et al. (1999), Crenshaw et al. (2001), Delgado and Stefancic (2001) and Gillborn (2005) challenges the efficacy of dominant liberal education as suitable processes for social transformation. Reins’s (1998) argument that white privilege is the corollary to racism is explored here because of the rarely acknowledged link between the two. Further, many people involved in sport are viewed as problematic in being colour-blind and reproducing the inequalities that we experience in wider society. We are all racialised (Frankenberg 1999), and Harrison et al. (2004) are clear that ‘race’ is neglected in sport and physical education; they query the relative absence of a racial discourse in this academic arena.