ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how the interests of white people have been kept at the top of the educational agenda in England for more than a decade, despite clear evidence of raced inequities. This has been achieved by the creation and exploitation of the belief that white working-class children are the lowest lowest-achieving ethnic group and that they suffer because of the presence of racially minoritized students (who are said to monopolize the attention of teachers and policymakers). This view repeats a common defensive strategy that is deployed when mass protests threaten the position of white elites; only then are poor whites made a focus for of policy rhetoric.
Every year, since 2006, British newspapers have repeated the argument that white working- class students are a racially victimized group in school. This myth started under a Labour administration, partially as a backlash following terrorist attacks in London, and supported by the ‘white left’ preference for class-based analyses, that frequently dismiss race as a distraction. This ‘white lie’ has been supercharged under successive Conservative-led governments.
The chapter is in two parts which, first, explode the factual basis for the myth of white victimization, and, second, look at its consequences. The chapter shows how official statistics have been selectively presented, on an annual- basis, across government and the mainstream media. Put simply, the group at the centre of the debate are is not ‘the white working class’ (as it is usually understood), and it is not the lowest lowest-achieving ethnic group. The factual problems with the headline narrative are well known in policy circles, but they are repeated nonetheless. The idea of white racial victimization in school has a number of powerful consequences; most obviously, the interests of minoritized communities, teachers and students are downgraded across all aspects of the system. A concern with ethnic diversity has been entirely removed from policy on teacher recruitment and retention; the curriculum has been consciously reshaped to privilege racist nativism; and the official watchdogs, that are meant to safeguard standards (Ofsted and the Equalities and Human Rights Commission), have downgraded any concern with race and racism in education. Meanwhile, a decade-long policy of public spending ‘austerity’ has hit minoritized people the hardest and further normalized the idea of race inequity in education. The image of white racial victimization offers a huge boost to racist and misogynist identity politics but has little real-world benefit for the disadvantaged white children who are supposed to be at the heart of the discussions. Despite being viewed as race victims, and cited as a ‘moral’ priority for policymakers, the achievement gap between poor white students and their more economically advantaged white peers has remained substantially unchanged.
