ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION One's immediate impression, on turning from the multiculturalism of the 1970s to the anti-racism of the 1980s, is that a complete political realignment has occurred. Where once the 'race' debate in education had been conducted with the politeness and lack of overt passion characteristic of a professional disagreement, by the 1980s it had become openly polarized and frequently ferocious. For the right-wing educator Ray Honeyford (1986: 51), anti-racism arises 'from that restricted mentality which underlies all fanaticism'. Honeyford himself was described by one of my London interviewees as a 'right-wing loony' and 'tricky bastard'. An 'apolitical', apparently uncontroversial debate has, it seems, been replaced by an acrimonious dispute between right and left. The language of consensus transformed into that of conflict.
