ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how issues of race and ethnicity play out in education. It considers both how notions of race have shaped education policies and how education policy reproduces race inequalities. The chapter considers the definitions and understandings of race. It explores the history of race in education since 1945, briefly looking at some of the key issues, debates, educational approaches and related policies. These include assimilation, integration, multicultural education, antiracism, institutional racism, de-racialisation, and neoliberalism. The chapter argues that education policy has been characterised by racial ‘othering’ of minority ethnic people and white privilege. Different notions of race in society have shaped education policies and, equally, education policy has reproduced race inequalities in England. The process of ‘othering’ refers to the dividing of the world into entities which are believed to be separated along the lines of alleged radical difference. The nature of racism shifted from the 1980s, from ‘biological racism’, to ‘cultural racism’.
