“They didn’t treat me as a Gypsy”: Romani Refugees in Toronto

With organized hate crime and institutionalized discrimination, thousands of European Roma have fled to Canada, where they claim refugee status. Their arrival coincided with far-ranging reforms to the refugee determination system in 2012–13 in addition to some actions aimed specifically at the Roma. Against this backdrop, former and current Romani refugee claimants substantiate the experience of migration and settlement, beginning with the first moments after arrival, to the tasks of finding housing and work. Agency and resilience are evinced, despite the government’s multiple instruments used against asylum-seekers. Romani refugees’ lives show how, for transnational groups, belongingness is always contested and the meaning of home is always nuanced.En raison des crimes organisés motivés par la haine et de la discrimination institutionnelle, des milliers de Roms européens ont cherché asile au Canada où ils ont effectué des demandes du statut de réfugié. Leur arrivée a coïncidé avec des réformes de grande ampleur en 2012-13 portant sur le système de détermination du statut de réfugié, ainsi que des mesures visant les Roms particulièrement. C’est dans ce contexte que les anciens ainsi que les actuels demandeurs du statut de réfugié d’origine rom réalisent l’expérience de migration et d’installation, en allant des premiers moments après leur arrivée jusqu’aux démarches qu’ils entreprennent  pour trouver des logements et du travail. Un esprit d’actualisation et de persévérance se manifeste, malgré les multiples mesures imposées par le gouvernement à l’encontre des chercheurs d’asile. L’expérience des réfugiés d’origine rom démontre que, pour les groupes transnationaux, l’appartenance est toujours soumise à la contestation, et que l’idée de domicile est toujours conditionnelle

MIDDLE‐CLASSNESS AND WHITENESS IN PARENTS’ RESPONSES TO MULTICULTURALISM: A STUDY OF ONE SCHOOL

Since its founding in 1941 until the 1980s, “Pinecrest” School was dominated by child‐ ren from “Baywoods,” an economically privileged and largely Jewish neighbourhood. In the late 1980s, the population of the school changed to include children of immigrants in an adjacent neighbourhood, “Kerrydale.” Seeking to protect their children’s cultural capital and class advantages, the Baywoods parents’ response involved the construction of fundamental difference and concerns about effects on school quality. The responses were interrupted by dilemma and ambivalence. They are read through the intersections of middle‐class formation and whiteness in terms of three dimensions: practice, relationality, and maintenance. Key words: Jews, immigrants, public school, parents, exclusion, social class, ethnicity Depuis sa création en 1941 jusque dans les années 1990, l’école « Pinecrest » accueillait principalement des enfants de « Baywoods », un quartier habité par des familles à l’aise et surtout par des Juifs. À la fin des années 1980, la population de l’école a changé à la suite de l’intégration d’enfants d’immigrants provenant de « Kerrydale », un quartier voisin. Cherchant à protéger le capital culturel de leurs enfants et les avantages de leur classe sociale, les parents de Baywoods ont réagi en invoquant la notion de différence fondamentale et en se préoccupant des effets possibles sur la qualité de l’école. Dilemmes et ambivalence ont toutefois interrompu le processus. Les réactions des parents sont interprétées dans le contexte du lien entre la formation de la classe moyenne et la blancheur et ce, à trois niveaux : la pratique, les relations et le maintien de la reproduction du groupe. Mots clés: Juifs, immigrants, école publique, parents, exclusion, classe sociale, ethnicité

Working through whiteness, race and (anti) racism in physical education teacher education

Background: The persistent gaps between a largely white profession and ethnically diverse school populations have brought renewed calls to support teachers' critical engagement with race. Programmes examining the effects of racism have had limited impact on practice, with student teachers responding with either denial, guilt or fear; they also contribute to a deficit view of racialised students in relation to an accepted white ‘norm’, and position white teachers ‘outside’ of race. Recent calls argue for a shift in focus towards an examination of the workings of the dominant culture through a critical engagement with whiteness, positioning white teachers within the processes of racialisation. Teacher educators' roles are central, and yet, while we routinely expect student teachers to reflect critically on issues of social justice, we have been less willing to engage in such work ourselves. This is particularly the case within physical education teacher education (PETE), an overwhelmingly white, embodied space, and where race and racism as professional issues are largely invisible. Purpose: This paper examines the operation of whiteness within PETE through a critical reflection on the three co-authors' careers and experiences working for social justice. The research questions were twofold: How are race, (anti) racism and whiteness constructed through everyday experiences of families, schooling and teacher education? How can collective biography be used to excavate discourses of race, racism and whiteness as the first step towards challenging them? In beginning the process of reflecting on what it means for us ‘to do own work’ in relation to (anti) racism, we examine some of the tensions and challenges for teacher educators in PE attempting to work to dismantle whiteness. Methodology: As co-authors, we engaged in collective biography work – a process in which we reflected upon, wrote about and shared our embodied experiences and memories about race, racism and whiteness as educators working for social justice. Using a critical whiteness lens, these narratives were examined for what they reveal about the collective practices and discourses about whiteness and (anti)racism within PETE. Results: The narratives reveal the ways in which whiteness operates within PETE through processes of naturalisation, ex-denomination and universalisation. We have been educated, and now work within, teacher education contexts where professional discourse about race at best focuses on understanding the racialised ‘other’, and at worse is invisible. By drawing on a ‘racialised other’, deficit discourse in our pedagogy, and by ignoring race in own research on inequalities in PETE, we have failed to disrupt universalised discourses of ‘white-as-norm’, or addressed our own privileged racialised positioning. Reflecting critically on our biographies and careers has been the first step in recognising how whiteness works in order that we can begin to work to disrupt it. Conclusion: The study highlights some of the challenges of addressing (anti)racism within PETE and argues that a focus on whiteness might offer a productive starting point. White teacher educators must critically examine their own role within these processes if they are to expect student teachers to engage seriously in doing the same

The militarisation of English schools: Troops to Teaching and the implications for Initial Teacher Education and race equality

This article considers the implications of the Troops to Teaching (TtT) programme, to be introduced in England in autumn 2013, for Initial Teacher Education (ITE) and race equality. TtT will fast-track ex-armed service members to teach in schools, without necessarily the requirement of a university degree. Employing theories of white supremacy, and Althusser’s (1971) concept of Ideological and Repressive State Apparatus, I argue that this initiative both stems from, and contributes to, a system of social privilege and oppression in education. Despite appearing to be aimed at all young people, the planned TtT initiative is actually aimed at poor and racially subordinated youth. This is likely to further entrench polarisation in a system which already provides two tier educational provision: TtT will be a programme for the inner-city disadvantaged, whilst wealthier, whiter schools will mostly continue to get highly qualified teachers. Moreover, TtT contributes to a wider devaluing of current ITE; ITE itself is rendered virtually irrelevant, as it seems TtT teachers will not be subject specialists, rather will be expected to provide military-style discipline, the skills for which they will be expected to bring with them. More sinister, I argue that TtT is part of the wider militarisation of education. This military-industrial-education complex seeks to contain and police young people who are marginalised along lines of race and class, and contributes to a wider move to increase ideological support for foreign wars - both aims ultimately in the service of neoliberal objectives which will feed social inequalities

Destabilising privilege : Disrupting deficit thinking in white pre-service teachers on professional experience in culturally diverse, high-poverty schools

[Extract] This chapter examines the personal reflections and experiences of several pre-service and newly graduated teachers who were, involved in the NETDS program. This process of reflexivity documents a series of professional journeys, including descriptions of being were destabilised, and grappling with tensions related to their own predispositions and values, which are investigated in the context of whiteness and privilege theory (McIntosh, 2012)