Education in the Black Diaspora: Perspectives, Challenges, and Prospects 0415890349, 9780415890342

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Education in the Black Diaspora

Routledge Research in Education

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40 Systemization in Foreign Language Teaching Monitoring Content Progression Wilfried Decoo 41 Inclusive Education in the Middle East Eman Gaad 42 Critical Issues in Peace and Education Edited by Peter Pericles Trifonas and Bryan Wright 43 Children’s Drawing and Writing The Remarkable in the Unremarkable Diane Mavers 44 Citizenship, Education and Social Conflict Israeli Political Education in Global Perspective Edited by Hanan A. Alexander, Halleli Pinson and Yossi Yonah 45 Emerging Teachers and Globalisation Gerry Czerniawski 46 Social Studies as New Literacies in a Global Society Relational Cosmopolitanism in the Classroom Mark Baildon and James S. Damico

47 Education Policy, Space and the City Markets and the (In)visibility of Race Kalervo N. Gulson 48 Memory and Pedagogy Edited by Claudia Mitchell, Teresa Strong-Wilson, Kathleen Pithouse and Susann Allnutt 49 Universities and Global Diversity Preparing Educators for Tomorrow Edited by Beverly Lindsay and Wanda J. Blanchett 50 Equity and Excellence in Education Towards Maximal Learning Opportunities for All Students Edited by Kris Van den Branden, Piet Van Avermaet and Mieke Van Houtte 51 Global Pathways to Abolishing Physical Punishment Realizing Children’s Rights Edited by Joan E. Durrant and Anne B. Smith 52 From Testing to Productive Student Learning Implementing Formative Assessment in Confucian-Heritage Settings David Carless

53 Changing Schools in an Era of Globalization Edited by John C. K. Lee and Brian J. Caldwell

62 Teacher Learning that Matters International Perspectives Edited by Mary Kooy and Klaas van Veen

54 Boys and Their Schooling The Experience of Becoming Someone Else John Whelen

63 Pedagogy of Multiliteracies Rewriting Goldilocks Heather Lotherington

55 Education and Sustainability Learning Across the Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Divide Seonaigh MacPherson 56 International Case Studies of Dyslexia Edited by Peggy L. Anderson and Regine Meier-Hedde 57 Schooling and the Making of Citizens in the Long Nineteenth Century Comparative Visions Edited by Daniel Tröhler, Thomas S. Popkewitz and David F. Labaree 58 Islamic Education and Indoctrination The Case in Indonesia Charlene Tan 59 Beyond Binaries in Education Research Edited by Warren Midgley, Mark A. Tyler, Patrick Alan Danaher and Alison Mander 60 Picturebooks, Pedagogy and Philosophy Joanna Haynes and Karin Murris 61 Personal Epistemology and Teacher Education Edited by Jo Brownlee, Gregory Schraw and Donna Berthelsen

64 Intersectionality and “Race” in Education Edited by Kalwant Bhopal and John Preston 65 The Politics of Education Challenging Multiculturalism Christos Kassimeris and Marios Vryonides 66 Whiteness and Teacher Education Edie White 67 Multidisciplinary Approaches to Educational Research Case Studies from Europe and the Developing World Edited by Sadaf Rizvi 68 Postcolonial Perspectives on Global Citizenship Education Edited by Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti and Lynn Mario T. M. De Souza 69 Education in the Black Diaspora Perspectives, Challenges, and Prospects Edited by Kassie Freeman and Ethan Johnson

We dedicate this volume to the individuals and groups that make up the African Diaspora and their continued struggles both inside and outside of educational practices and processes. It is evident to us as educators, students, and scholars of the African Diaspora that this was more than a worthwhile endeavor and enchourage others to pursue and expand the line of inquiry we have argued for in the text. We express a special thank you to Kelvin Sealey, without whom this volume would not have been possible.

Education in the Black Diaspora Perspectives, Challenges, and Prospects Edited by Kassie Freeman and Ethan Johnson

NEW YORK

LONDON

First published 2012 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2012 Taylor & Francis The right of Kassie Freeman and Ethan Johnson to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Typeset in Sabon by IBT Global. Printed and bound in the United States of America on acid-free paper by IBT Global. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Education in the Black diaspora : perspectives, challenges, and prospects / edited by Kassie Freeman and Ethan Johnson. p. cm. — (Routledge research in education ; 69) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Blacks—Education—Cross-cultural studies. 2. African diaspora. I. Freeman, Kassie. II. Johnson, Ethan. LC2699.E48 2011 371.829'96073—dc23 2011023598 ISBN13: 978-0-415-89034-2 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-203-15297-3 (ebk)

Contents

List of Figures and Tables Preface: Black Populations in the Diaspora—Educational Perspectives, Challenges, and Prospects

xi xiii

KASSIE FREEMAN AND ETHAN JOHNSON

PART I Overview of the African Diaspora Educational Experience 1

Historical Overview of Black Populations in the Diaspora: A Review of Their Educational Challenges

3

KASSIE FREEMAN

2

Defending Self Worth: A Hidden Talent of Children of the African Diaspora

13

JILLIAN C. FORD AND KAMAU BOBB

PART II Educational Challenges and Perspectives: Black Populations Globally 3

Race, Nation, and Schooling in Esmeraldas, Ecuador

27

ETHAN JOHNSON

4

Black Canadians’ Perspective on Educational Opportunities

48

CLANCIE MAVELLO WILSON

5

Black Students, Schooling, and Education in the United Kingdom CECILE WRIGHT

66

x

Contents

6

Education and Black People in Portugal

72

FERNANDO KA

7

The Educational Experiences of Caribbean People in France

79

CRYSTAL M. FLEMING

8

Challenging Swedish Exceptionalism? Teaching While Black

99

YLVA HABEL

9

Education of the African Diaspora in Germany

123

JOHN W. LONG

10 Education and Pasifika Communities in Aotearoa/New Zealand

136

CAMILLE NAKHID

11 Situating Russia in the Contemporary Globalized Context of African Americans and Black Populations Worldwide: Challenges and Opportunities

155

KASSIE FREEMAN

12 Structured Partialities: The African Educational Experience in Ireland

163

LARISSA MALONE

PART IV Conclusion 13 Concluding Thoughts

185

KASSIE FREEMAN AND ETHAN JOHNSON

Contributors Index

189 193

Figures and Tables

FIGURES 10.1 Growth of Pacific population in New Zealand, 1945–2001. 10.2 Proportion of Pacific and total adults with no qualifications, 1986–2001. 10.3 Employment by industrial sector for Pacific people, 1991–2001.

137 138 138

TABLES 10.1

Proportion of 2002 School Leavers Going Directly to Tertiary Education, by Level of Study 2003 10.2 Proportion of Pasifika and Non-Pasifika Candidates Who Gained an NCEA Qualification in 2004 10.3 Pasifika and Non-Pasifika Year 12 Candidates by Achievement in Credits (Level 2 or Higher), 2004

141 142 143

Preface Black Populations in the Diaspora— Educational Perspectives, Challenges, and Prospects Kassie Freeman and Ethan Johnson

As we began to conceptualize our ideas for this volume, we were amazed and somewhat disheartened that in the twenty-fi rst century, there is little written from a comparative perspective about the educational dilemmas confronting Black populations in the Diaspora. Yet, globally, Black students’ educational possibilities and potential are seriously limited. We are aware that historians, such as Hine and McLeod (1999), in their book Crossing Boundaries: Comparative History of Black People in Diaspora, and Okpewho, Davies, and Mazrui (1999), in their book, The African Diaspora, have examined the historical influence of the Diaspora on the identities and experiences of Black people. Their examinations have focused on the broader questions of the diasporan experiences. For example, their works raise such questions as the following: “How did the Africans manage to create a viable life for themselves after they arrived to their respective destinations? How were they able to negotiate these new and hostile social, political, and cultural contexts they encountered? (Okpewho et al., 1999, p. xi). Because they are historians, in neither book, however, is the subject of education addressed, although it is widely accepted that Black people’s participation in the economic and political spheres are is severely limited without educational opportunities. Even so, McLeod (1999) perfectly captures the rationale for this volume in her statement: What the African diaspora paradigm affords us, therefore, is an opportunity for a genuinely comparative perspective that illuminates the particular historical experiences of African peoples both on the African continent and in its diaspora. Quite unlike the traditional paradigms of power, which locate Africa and her descendants at the periphery of every discourse, this paradigm of empowerment (as we would like to call it), properly situates Africa and her diaspora actively within the complex of New World history. (p. xix). Our conception of this volume, in the same way as outlined by McLeod, is to situate the educational experiences of Black populations in the Diaspora at the center of the examination rather than at the periphery.

xiv Preface Beyond the details of oppressions, what do educators and researchers know about the educational challenges that Black people encounter globally in their quest for education? What are similarities of Black populations’ experiences in their participation in education, particularly when the controlling population and numerically superior group is non-Black? What can be learned from the collective experiences of Black populations globally that will help illuminate or explicate the pattern of exclusion of Black people’s participation in education? To be sure, there are similarities in the experiences of Black people in the Diaspora. Yet, understandably there are differences. McLeod (1999) stated her position in this way: People of African descent in the New World (the Americas and the Caribbean) share a common set of experiences: domination and resistance, slavery and emancipation, the pursuit of freedom, and struggle against racism. Yet no single explanation can capture the varied experiences of black people in diaspora. (p. xix). As Audre Lorde (1992) in reference to the differences in Afro-German women and other Black women indicated: “particular histories have fashioned our particular weapons, our particular insights” (p. xiii). Yet, in also indicating our sameness, Lorde posed a fundamental question: “As members of an international community of people of color, how do we strengthen and support each other in our battles against the rising international tide of racism?” (p. xiii). In response to this question, she stated: “To successfully battle the many faces of institutionalized racial oppression, we must share the strengths of each other’s vision as well as the weaponries born of particular experience” (p. xiii). In no arena is the battle more apparent and similar for Black populations than in their pursuit of education. From countries as diverse as Australia, Great Britain, France, Portugal, U.S., and New Zealand, people of African descent have always had to fight for their right to participate in education. Black people have always realized, as a recent writer in The Economist (1999) stated, “The ultimate ladder of opportunity is education” (p. 18). Recognizing the liberating power of education, people of the African Diaspora in their desire to participate in education across societies have encountered opposition from their particular states. As Martin Carnoy (1993) indicated, implicit in every discussion of education, there is the invisible hand of the state—in a sense, determining who will participate and who will not. However, the dilemma that global states now fi nd themselves in at the beginning of the twenty-fi rst century, after centuries of denying educational opportunities to populations of Black people, is the individual and societal costs associated with having uneducated and/or under-educated segments of their populations. As such, education as a commodity provides a unique opportunity to compare and contrast the educational experiences of Black people in the Diaspora.

Preface xv This volume then focuses on Black populations in other than African countries where the controlling population is non-Black, e.g., Ireland, Great Britain, Germany, Ecuador, and the U.S.. There have been substantial research studies on African Americans in their struggle to participate in education, less on Blacks in other countries, and even fewer comparative studies on the educational experiences of Black people. Therefore, this volume provides the opportunity to examine similarities of experiences of Black people in their quest to participate in education, particularly to assess the terrible underutilization of Black students’ participation in education. Across cultures, there are generally common issues in Black students’ pursuit of education as it relates to the underutilization of their potential. This volume, then, brings some of the leading scholars who have researched these issues in specific countries, yet are able to look beyond their country to examine comparatively Black students’ experiences with schooling in the Diaspora. Part I of the volume examines broadly the similar and different experiences of Black students’ schooling from an historical perspective and sets a transnational context for the debate for Black students’ differential schooling experiences. For example, Freeman, in Chapter 1, contrasts the historical experiences of Blacks in the Diaspora in their pursuit of education, the pattern of cultural alienation and annihilation on the part of the dominant population in their underutilization of Black people in education, and the “culture of exclusion” that exists in Blacks people’s participation in education. In Part II, authors analyze more specifically the schooling experiences of Black populations impacted by the multiple and overlapping experiences of the vestiges of colonization, the slave trade, and more recent historical dynamics that leave many African people perceiving and experiencing that their only option for economic and social survival and/or mobility is leaving the continent for Europe. For example, Fleming in chapter 7 draws upon in-depth interviews with French Caribbean migrants living in Paris to explore their schooling experiences as well as the sources of their knowledge about colonization and the transatlantic slave trade. In contrast, Habel in Chapter 8 examines the pedagogical challenges she faces as a Black film and media studies scholar in pedagogical situations where she teaches predominantly white students about media representations of the African Diaspora. In Part III, the editors conclude with future challenges and recommendations for next steps. The intent of this volume is to demonstrate not only the necessity of examining and comprehending the educational dilemmas of Black populations in the context of their own countries and cultures but to examine their experiences collectively. The underachievement and the underutilization of Black populations’ potential globally speak to the need for this volume. We hope that it will set the foundation for researchers and policymakers to better understand the urgency for examination and policies that address the pattern of challenges and prospects that exist for the participation for Black people in education across the Diaspora.

xvi

Preface

REFERENCES Carnoy, M. 1993. The New Global Economy in the Information Age: Refl ections on Our Changing World. Pennsylvania State University Press. Hine, D., & Mcleod, J. (1999). Crossing Boundaries: Comparative history of black people in Diaspora. Bloomington: Indiana University press. Lorde, A. (1992). Foreword to the English language edition. In M. Opitz, K. Oguntoye, & D. Schultz (Eds.), Showing our colours: Afro-German women speak out. London, England: Open Letters. Okepewho, I., Davies, C. B., & Mazrui, A. A. (Eds.). (1999). The African Diaspora: African origins and new world identities. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Part I

Overview of the African Diaspora Educational Experience

1

Historical Overview of Black Populations in the Diaspora A Review of Their Educational Challenges Kassie Freeman

As James Anderson has so rightly indicated in numerous writings and speeches (e.g., 1988), to understand the educational experiences of Black people, it is necessary to examine the historical context of their existence. Although, as Lorde (1992) has indicated, Black people in different countries have experienced particular histories, as it relates to their humanity and their pursuit of education, Black people across societies have had similar experiences. The common historical linkage among Black people in the Diaspora is captured by Opitz, Oguntoye, and Schultz (1992) who wrote in reference to Afro-Germans: “In the course of colonial exploitation, enslavement, and domination “Negro” (from Latin niger, i.e., black) became an especially negative epithet. The thinking underlying this label attempted to link physical characteristics with intellectual and cultural ones” (p. 7). That is, across cultures, being Black has historically been thought of as being intellectually inferior and being without a culture or having a primitive or uncivilized culture. Okepewho, Davies, and Mazrui (1999) posed a different, broader set of questions to ponder regarding the experiences of Black people in the Diaspora: Is derivation from Africa enough to account for the African presence in the New World? How did the Africans manage to create a viable life for themselves after they got here? How were they able to negotiate the social, political, cultural, and other spaces they encountered here? How successfully have their ancestral peculiarities coexisted with those of the other peoples that history has forced them to live with over the years? (p. xi). Also, although Okepewho et al. acknowledge that “Essentialism” has emerged as the focus of much of the discussions around the history of Blacks in the Diaspora, they argue that “we can hardly deny that Africa has had much to do with the ways that New World Blacks have chosen to address the realities before them from the moment they emerged from the ships” (p. xv). Because of the value of education in uplifting people from their circumstances, how Black populations have confronted this reality globally is of particular importance. While often not recognized, Black people have been a part of European societies in most cases longer than in America. For example, Fryer (1992),

4

Kassie Freeman

who wrote what would be considered the seminal work on Black people in Britain, indicated that African descendants have been in Britain for centuries, and as a group they “have been living in Britain for close on 500 years. They have been born in Britain since about the year 1505” (p. ix). That would mean that based on American history, Black Britons, as a group, were in England more than 100 years before the arrival of Black people in America in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619 (Clarke, 1972). While Opitz et al. (1992) indicated that “there is no precise method of determining when the fi rst Africans came to Germany and when the fi rst Afro-Germans were born,” they indicated that “several paintings have survived from the twelfth century that depict Africans living in Germany” (p. 3). Although the exact arrival of Blacks across cultures may be unclear, what is certain is that by the mid-sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Black people were settled in countries around the globe. For example, “in the mid-sixteenth century, one-tenth of the population in the Portuguese capital were Black, and, as in France and England, it was probably also true in Germany” (Opitz et al., 1992, p. 3). Black people in different countries faced similar treatment in the portrayal of their culture. Blackness was associated with evilness, inferiority in every way, and sub-humanism. In Britain, for example, “Africans were said to be inherently inferior, mentally, morally, culturally, and spiritually, to Europeans” (Fryer, 1992, p. 7). Likewise, in Germany, Blacks were portrayed negatively. In general, “Africans were seen as the lowest human form, thought to be related to the highest animal form, the monkey” (Opitz et al., 1992, p. 8). As well, “Most Portuguese seem to have thought that blacks as a people were innately inferior to whites in physical beauty and mental ability and moreover, that they were temperamentally suited to a life in slavery” (Saunders, 1982, p. 166). Although on a different continent, Black people in the U.S. were experiencing the same devaluation of their humanity. In the U.S., this statement about the use of Slave Codes best captures how Black people were viewed: There were variations from state to state, but the general point of view expressed in most of them [Slave Codes] was the same, that is: slaves are not persons but property, and laws should protect the ownership of such property, and should also protect the whites against any dangers that might arise from the presence of large numbers of Negroes. (Franklin & Moss, 1988, p. 114) This devaluation of the Black culture caused by the nineteenth century, according to Clarke (1972), Africans the world over to begin to search for a defi nition of themselves.

Historical Overview of Black Populations in the Diaspora

5

Another similar link in the historical experiences of Black populations was the exploitation of their labor. As Clarke (1972) indicated, The story of the African slave trade is essentially the consequences of the second rise of Europe. . . . They were searching for new markets, new materials, new manpower, and new land to exploit. The slave trade was created to accommodate this expansion. (p. xvii) Just as Black people in America were relegated to working the land and as servants to increase the wealth of this country, so were Black people in European countries. For example, according to Fryer (1992), “The majority of the 10,000 or so black people who lived in Britain in the eighteenth century were household servants—pages, valets, footmen, coachmen, cooks, and maids—much as their predecessors had been in the previous century” (p. 73). Although working menial jobs, Fryer conceded that as a Liverpool writer declared in 1893, “It was the capital made in the African slave trade that built some of our docks and the price of human flesh and blood that gave us a start” (p. 66). Similarly in Germany, Black people were used for menial labor. In Germany, for example, Black people “were forced to cultivate export products or to work on the plantations and in the mines of whites” (Opitz et al., 1992, p. 25). The same was the case in Portugal. According to Saunders (1982), “The nobility employed—or underemployed—large numbers of slaves solely as domestic servants” (p. 63). Even when Black people were interested in working higher status jobs, they were forbidden. For example, in London after 1731, Black people were not allowed to learn a trade. In fact, on September 14 of that year the lord mayor of London issued the following proclamation prohibiting apprenticeships for Black people: It is Ordered by this Court, That for the future no Negroes or other Blacks be suffered to be bound Apprentices at any of the Companies of this City to any Freeman thereof; and that Copies of this Order be printed and sent to the Masters and Wardens of the several Companies of this City, who are required to see the same at all times hereafter duly observed. (Fryer, 1992, p. 75) Although there were some Black people in the U.S. who possessed some skills, especially the few slaves who lived in towns, the great majority of slaves’ responsibilities were divided between two distinct groups, the house servants and the field hands (Franklin & Moss, 1988). According to these researchers, slaves had little opportunity to develop initiative because their responsibilities were proscribed for them. Therefore, the idea that Black

6

Kassie Freeman

people did not want to work and thus played a role in having their skills underutilized was not the case. Understandably, the exploitation of labor is and has always been intricately linked to lack of educational opportunities. To keep groups uneducated or undereducated has been a formula across societies for the underutilization of their talents. Nkrumah, the son of the late African leader, describes it as a sort of worldwide formula where African descendants everywhere have been relegated to the bottom educationally and economically. As such, the idea has been to prevent Black people from being empowered intellectually, culturally, and economically. As Anderson (1988) has indicated, it is through education that individuals begin to feel empowered, and African Americans were active agents in their right to be educated. From slavery until the present, African Americans have had to struggle to have the opportunity to participate in any form of education. According to Anderson, “Blacks emerged from slavery with a strong belief in the desirability of learning to read and write” (p. 5). As an example of the intensity of anger that slaves held for keeping them illiterate, Anderson quoted a former slave: “There is one sin that slavery committed against me which I will never forgive. It robbed me of my education” (p. 5). Restrictive legislation was passed to prohibit slaves from learning to read and write (Fleming, 1976). According to Fleming, from 1850 to 1856 less than five percent of African Americans out of a population of 4.5 million could read and write. Just as Blacks in America were forbidden to learn to read and write, the same was true in other countries where the controlling population was nonBlack. In Portugal, for example, Saunders (1982) indicated that very few Black people were able to read and write. As Opitz et al. (1992) indicated as it related to Afro-Germans, “The limitations of educational opportunities concurrent with the favoring of some individuals led to hierarchical structures that undermined the solidarity of the community” (p. 33). In that sense, not only has a lack of educational opportunities been utilized to limit the use of the talent and skills of Black people, but education has also been used as a force to destabilize communities. That is, education as a commodity has been used as a means to favor some intra-group members over others as a way to undermine community relationships. In Portugal, for example, mulattoes were thought to be more conversant “with Portuguese customs, [and] were supposed to be more gifted intellectually than were blacks from African” (Saunders, 1982, p. 172). Therefore, the commonality of the Black historical experience in countries where non-Blacks are the dominate populations has been the underutilization of the potential of Black people through demeaning their humanity through the slavery experience, destabilizing their communities, exploiting their labor, and limiting their educational opportunities. However, even when Black people were allowed to participate in education, a process of cultural alienation and/or annihilation was implemented.

Historical Overview of Black Populations in the Diaspora

7

CULTURAL ALIENATION AND ANNIHILATION According to Anderson (1994), one way that the use of power over a less powerful group takes form is “the group with the greater power annihilates the powerless group or drives them out of the territory” (p. 82). Thus, cultural alienation and annihilation can be defined as that process that controlling populations use to minimize or eradicate the culture of minority populations. Generally, this process is synonymous with assimilation, acculturation, or deracination (the term Mankiller (1993) used to describe the mission of boarding schools to annihilate the American Indian culture)—i.e., the uprooting or destruction of a race and its culture. More specifically, she stated, “the primary mission of Sequoyah and the other boarding schools was a full-scale attempt for the children to leave everything behind that related to their native culture, heritage, history, and language” (p. 8). In order for Blacks to assimilate into the dominate culture in different countries, they were often separated (alienated) from their own cultural group or an attempt was made to eliminate (annihilate) their culture altogether. Clear examples of cultural alienation and annihilation can be found across Black populations. In Australia, for example, “Between 1910 and 1970 it [Australian Government] forcibly stole up to 100,000 aboriginal children from their families to live with whites in an attempt at forced integration—‘to breed the black out,’ as politicians of the day expressed it (Evenson, 1998, p. A10). As in other countries, particularly children who, through rape, had White fathers were taken from their families. Doris Pilkington (1996), whose aboriginal name is Nugi Garimara, wrote an intriguing account of the assimilationist policy of Australia that took her mother and her mother’s sisters, Daisy and Grace, away from their families. She wrote the following: Patrol officers traveled far and wide removing Aboriginal children from their families and transported them hundreds of kilometres down south. Every mother of a part-Aboriginal child was aware that their offspring could be taken away from them at any time and they were powerless to stop the abductors. (p. 40) The aboriginal experience was not unlike that of Black Britons and African Americans. As it related to the experience of Black Britons, Fryer (1992) indicated that most Black Londoners “had been torn from their parents and ethnic groups while still children. They were atomized in separate households, cut off from the cultural nourishment and reinforcement made possible by even the most inhumane plantation system” (p. 70). As a Black Briton recently stated in the popular press (Kogbara, 1999, August 15): “I have done a lot of thinking about issues of assimilation and national identity. And I’m beginning to suspect that immigrants can only blend totally into their host

8

Kassie Freeman

environment if they are the same colour as the host or dominant population” (p. 58). Similarly, African American families were divided. Franklin and Moss (1988) described the process of dividing Black slave families in the U.S.: “Since the domestic slave trade and slave breeding were essentially economic and not humanitarian activities, it is not surprising to find that in the sale of slaves there was the persistent practice of dividing families. Husbands were separated from their wives, and mothers were separated from their children” (pp. 106–107). Although the dividing of families might have been justified for economic reasons, it also served the function of cultural annihilation and/or alienation. That is, when families were divided, they had to reconstruct their social institutions into new forms. Education has been used as one of the primary channels through which cultural alienation and annihilation have occurred. As Pilkington (1996) noted about the Aboriginal girls who were taken from their family, the belief was that “part-Aboriginal children were more intelligent than their darker relations and should be isolated and trained to be domestic servants and labourers” (p. 40). In a like manner, in America, Blacks were treated to educational opportunities differently by color. For example, according to Franklin and Moss (1988), mulattoes had more of a chance of schooling than others. In addition to using education as a divisive tool based on color among Blacks, cultural alienation and annihilation have occurred through the transmission of education. That is, the way in which education has been transmitted (teaching style) and the content of educational materials (curriculum) has discounted the social and cultural capital of Black populations (consciously or subconsciously) and has therefore minimized the culture of Black populations. Researchers such as DiMaggio and Mohr (1985) have suggested that cultural capital is typically specialized social behaviors that make one accepted at different levels of society. Whereas some theorists (e.g., Coleman, 1990) have indicated that while social capital is related to cultural capital, social capital is more related to relations among persons. For example, Coleman (1988) explains social capital as the networks that provide information, social norms, and achievement support. In simplest terms, the concepts of cultural and social capital mean assets, in the form of behaviors, on which individuals and/or families can draw to meet a certain set of established values in a society (Freeman, 1997). As Freeman noted, these societal values are generally established by majority groups in society and encompass behaviors such as the way individuals speak to the way they dress. The more individuals are able to meet these established standards, the more they are accepted by different institutions (e.g., schools) in society. There is no doubt, however, the cultural and social capital that students bring to the classroom have tremendous implications for how they will be accepted, treated, and provided necessary information. According to Cicourel and Mehan (1985), students are provided different educational opportunities because students arrive in school with different types of culture capital. Black students typically arrive in school

Historical Overview of Black Populations in the Diaspora

9

with different cultural capital, and schools therefore attempt to eradicate their cultural values in order to make them assimilate. Who has taught, what has been taught, and how it has been taught over time have severely eroded the cultural identity and educational opportunities of Blacks. Although this has been the case historically, Black educators and researchers, particularly in the U.S., are currently extensively examining and discussing ways to undo the intellectual damage to Black children by demonstrating the importance of valuing the culture of Blacks rather than eradicating their culture. For example, several researchers and educators have written about the impact of the influence of the curriculum (what is being taught) on the education of Black children (e.g., Banks, 1988; Freeman, 1999; Hollins, 1996; King, 1995). The school curriculum, as defi ned by Hollins (1996), is “in fact that package of knowledge, skills, and perspectives that prepares us to develop the attributes of thought and behavior that comply with the prescribed norms” (p. 82). When there are inconsistencies in the compliance of these norms by different cultural groups, in this case Black populations, this can lead to various group members questioning their identity, being turned off to learning, and/or underperforming academically. The curriculum validates individuals’ culture, history, and sense of self—what is possible. Therefore, when Black populations’ culture is not included in the very heart of school, this must create the feeling within students that something is missing. Banks (1988) says it best: “It is important for students to experience a curriculum that not only presents the experience of ethnic and cultural groups in accurate and sensitive ways, but that also enables them to see the experiences of both mainstream and minority groups from the perspectives of different cultural, racial, and ethnic groups” (p. 161). Searle (1994), a Black British educator, mirrors Banks’ statement. In reference to the national curriculum of Britain, he stated: “The national curriculum, with its gradgrindian sequence of learning and testing, the narrow cultural chauvinism of its approach to knowledge and human experience and its blatantly racist exclusion of cultures, histories, languages and perspectives of Britain’s black people, is already creating a tedium and uniformity which will do nothing to spark the interest and motivation of young people to learn” (p. 26). It is as though the fact that many Black students have underachieved is completely divorced from the curriculum. Linkages have clearly been established between the curriculum and its effect on African American students’ achievement (Hollins, 1996; King, 1995). As Hollins (1996) indicated, for African American children the “discontinuity between the home-culture and school learning ultimately disrupts the learning process for many children and the resulting failure may lead them to reject the Euro-American culture and school learning as well” (p. 84). Aside from what has been taught (the curriculum), as a way to stem the tide of alienation and annihilation of the Black culture through education,

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Black educators have also more recently focused their research on who has taught and how Black children have been taught. For example, researchers/ educators such as Foster (1997), Irvine (1994), Ladson-Billings (1994), and Siddle-Walker (1996) have examined the role of culturally relevant pedagogy and the relevance of the cultural perspective of Black teachers in Black students’ achievement. More specifically, these researchers have suggested the importance of historically and currently understanding the role Black teachers have played in helping Black students achieve. At the same time, Black educators in the U.S. have focused their research on the inclusion of a Black perspective and valuing Black culture in the educational system, Black researchers in other countries have also begun to address these same issues. About the British system, Searle (1994) stated: “The ignorance of teachers and the school system generally about the communities whom they serve is still a vital factor which promotes conflict and misunderstanding between teachers and students” (p. 25). Bridges (1994), another British educator, supported Searle’s ascertain. He indicated that more Black teachers were employed as a way “of counter-balancing the under-representation of black teachers in the borough and, through this, to attack the real problems of underachievement among black children” (p. 4). Cultural alienation and annihilation have had a devastating effect on Black students’ participation in education. Over time, the process of trying “to breed the black out” (assimilation), whether through the devaluation of the cultural capital of Blacks or the what and who of the transmission of knowledge, has had a severe impact on black students’ sense of self and achievement. As such, there should be little doubt that cultural alienation/annihilation has led to a “culture of exclusion” for Black populations globally. For globalization to be successful for individual countries and countries collectively, the potential of all of their citizens has to be utilized. In order to balance this imperative, different paradigms and players have to be a part of the research agenda and the public policy agenda has to be expanded to include the historical and cultural contributions and educational challenges confronting all individuals and groups.

REFERENCES Anderson, C. (1994). Black labor White wealth: The search for power and economic justice. Edgewood, MD: Duncan & Duncan, Inc. Publishers. Anderson, J. D. (1988). The education of Blacks in the South, 1860–1935. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press. Banks, J. A. (1988). Multiethnic education (2nd ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Bridges, L. (1994). Exclusions: How did we get here? In J. Bourne, L. Bridges, & C. Searle (Eds.), Outcast England: How schools exclude black children. London, England: Institute of Race Relations. Cicourel, A. V., & Mehan, H. (1985). Universal development, stratifying practices, and status attainment. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 4 (5), 728–734.

Historical Overview of Black Populations in the Diaspora

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Clarke, J. H. (1972). Introduction. In J. A. Rogers (Author), World’s great men of color. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company. Coleman, J. S. (1988). Social capital in the creation of human capital. American Journal of Sociology, 94, 95–120. Coleman, J. S. (1990). Foundations of social theory. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University. DiMaggio, P., & Mohr, J. (1985). Cultural capital, educational attainment, and marital selection. American Journal of Sociology, 90 (6), 1231–1261. Evenson, B. (1998, February 23). Land crisis brewing down under: A 1996 court ruling means aboriginals could claim 80 per cent of Australia’s land mass. The Ottawa Citizen, p. A10. Fleming, J. (1976). The lengthening shadow of slavery: A historical justifi cation for affi rmative action for Blacks in higher education. Washington, DC: Howard University Press. Foster, M. (1997). Black teachers on teaching. New York: New Press. Franklin, J. H., & Moss, A. A., Jr. (1988). From slavery to freedom: A history of Negro Americans (6th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc. Freeman, K. (1997, September/October). Increasing African Americans’ participation in higher education: African American high school students’ perspective. The Journal of Higher Education, 68(5), 523–550. Freeman, K. (1999, Fall). My soul is missing: African American students’ perceptions of the curriculum and the influence on college choice. Review of African American Education, 1(1), 30–43. Fryer, P. (1992). Staying power: The history of Black people in Britain (6th ed.). London, England: Pluto Press. Hollins, E. R. (1996). Culture in school: Revealing the deeper meaning. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Irvine, J. J. (1994). Black students and school failure: Policies, practices, and prescriptions. Westport, CT: Praeger. Ka, F. (1998). Black people’s situation in Portugal. Paper prepared for Fisk University Race Relations Institute Conference. Nashville, TN. King, J. E. (1995). Culture-centered knowledge: Black studies, curriculum transformation, and social action. In Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Kogbara, D. (1999, August). A sense of elsewhere. Mail on Sunday, pp. 58–59. Ladson-Billings, G. (1994). The dreamkeepers: Successful teachers of African American children. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Lorde, A. (1992). Foreword to the English Language Edition. In M. Opitz, K. Oguntoye, & D. Schultz (Eds.), Showing our colours: Afro-German women speak out. London, England: Open Letters. Mankiller, W. (1993). Mankiller: A chief and her people. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Okepewho, I., Davies, C. B., & Mazrui, A. A. (Eds.). (1999). African Diaspora: African origins and new world identities. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Opitz, M., Oguntoye, K., & Schultz, D. (Eds.). (1992). Showing our colours: AfroGerman women speak out. London, England: Open Letters. Pilkington, D. (1996). Follow the rabbit-proof fence. Queensland, Australia: University of Queensland Press. Saunders, A. C. DE C. M. (1982). A social history of black slaves and freedmen in Portugal 1441–1555. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Searle, C. (1994). The culture of exclusion. In J. Bourne, L. Bridges, & C. Searle (Eds.). Outcast England: How schools exclude black children. London, England: Institute of Race Relations.

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Siddle-Walker, V. (1996). Their highest potential: An African American school community in the segregated south. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press.

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Defending Self Worth A Hidden Talent of Children of the African Diaspora Jillian C. Ford and Kamau Bobb

DEVALUED AND UNWELCOME IN THE DIASPORA The continuous battle for African dignity as human dignity is the common link across all segments of Africa and the African Diaspora. Characteristics of cultural resistance and affirmation are recognizable throughout the African world, which is a result of the ubiquitous spirit of survival through slavery, colonial domination, and the pernicious residuals of racism. This persistent attempt to defend human dignity and enable the realization of human potential singularly defines the African diasporic experience. An essential component of that experience is young people’s battle to establish their self worth, their struggle to determine for themselves who they are and resist attempts to prescribe who they ought to be. Black youth throughout the world are engaged in this daily battle. They often have only their personal belief in themselves to counter the forces that would belittle their intellect, undermine their dignity, and limit their potential. Fortunately for students in the United States, they no longer have to fight for the legal right to be educated. Unfortunately for this set of Black students, if they are to win the battle for their self worth, they must often do so in spite of their education rather than because of it. The ability of a young person to positively determine his or her self worth is a special skill. It is particularly remarkable for Black young people in the U.S. who do not benefit from the national storehouse of positive assumptions reserved for their White and Asian counterparts. This special ability of certain Black students is not celebrated in the U.S. educational environment of standardized testing and the reduction of all elements of intellect to this or that rubric. Like so many other diasporic cultural attributes, it is not something that can be easily quantified, measured, or tallied for ranking and evaluation. It is an element of the spirit of survival. Two groups of students serve to highlight this special skill: Black students who are bused to White schools from Black neighborhoods and refugee students who are attending schools in the United States. Significantly, both sets of students are being educated in a space that is far from home. Successful students within this unlikely pair share the special ability to positively determine their self worth when there is little around them to support their effort.

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Comparing these groups of students is not intended to trivialize the experiences of either. It is difficult to compare the experiences of U.S.-born Black students being picked up by a school bus and driven across town to a Sudanese youth, for example, fleeing the Janjaweed and arriving in the United States to be educated. One clear commonality is that both groups of students have to relocate to gain access to the life blood that is education. However different the details and dramas of their lives may be, they share a quest for education and ultimately survival. Precisely this confluence of macro similarities and micro differences enables us to learn important features relevant to their education. Despite vast differences in their lived experiences, these students share the general experience of having to leave an environment that does not value them to go to another where they are often unwelcome. Herein lies these students’ phenomenal hidden talent: the ability not only to be educated under these circumstances, but to simultaneously develop a positive sense of self worth. Black students who participate in busing programs face a formidable challenge in determining their value. Integration and opportunities for better education have always been interwoven motivations for participation in busing programs (Orfield & Yun, 1999). The initial lofty social goals of integration do not carry much sway today, as the movement that bore that message is no longer influential among young people. More importantly, moving to predominantly White schools to get a better education carries a painful corollary. It plainly demonstrates a two-tiered failure to many students who participate in such busing programs. First, the students recognize that the local, state, and federal governments have created policies that allow for vast disparities in educational opportunities between White and Black students. Second, many students recognize the specific inability of the Black community to provide adequate education for them. The logical implication of that reality is that students and children of Black communities are not valued by their own government, and that their communities do not have the economical, political, or educational resources to better the situation. Of course, understanding the confluence of forces that creates this problem is one of the challenges of our time. This challenge matters little to the individual Black child who must turn her back on her community every morning because it does not offer her an education indicative of her potential or value. The atrocious condition of so many schools in Black neighborhoods conveys the message to Black students that they are of little worth. Many students articulate this message by saying that “they just don’t care about us.” It is clear from students’ synopses that the details of who they may be are immaterial to their sense of not being valued. The failure of Black students to find their worth validated in their own neighborhood schools is compounded by the lack of welcome in predominantly White schools (Yonezawa, Wells, & Serna, 2002). The national climate of anti-affirmative action sentiment is conveyed at the local level by increasing resistance to busing programs (Moore, 2004). In Atlanta, for

Defending Self Worth 15 example, the Majority to Minority (M-to-M) Program that offered Black students the opportunity to attend predominantly White schools for integration and better education has been legislated out of existence. This is in a city where more than 70% of all Black students who attend public high schools do so at schools that are approximately 80% Black and where 85% of all white students attend schools that are more than 60% White. The achievement gaps between these sets of schools follow dismal national patterns. The racial disparity in educational achievement even in the schools with limited integration suggests that Black students are excluded from the assumptions of being smart and the confidence that comes from feeling valued. In order to appreciate the real battle to protect and determine their sense of self worth, it is necessary to briefly consider their narrative. A group of Black students in South Fulton County, Atlanta, shared some of their thoughts and schedules as participants in the M-to-M Program. Regarding the status of the schools in their communities, there were several variations on the theme that “the Black schools down here in the south county suck.” Students also agreed about the sentiment towards them at the predominantly White schools they attend. “They [White students and school administrators] don’t want us up there. They’ll be like, here come the ghetto kids. And when we’re up there they don’t even put us in the same classes with them.” Not only do Black students have to contend with these experiences of exclusion, but they must make considerable sacrifices to participate in the program. Several students are picked up at 5:00 a.m. in order for the bus to make the rounds picking up groups of Black students and busing them the nearly 50 miles to the north county schools. Many students wake up at 4:30 a.m. in order to attend their fi rst class at 8:30. After school, students are immediately bused to a central location where Black students from the different north county schools meet to be bused back down to the south. Many students do not return home until 7:00 in the evening. They spend between 4 and 6 hours a day commuting to and from school. The sacrifices in terms of extracurricular activities, personal relationships, employment, and even time to study and do homework are extraordinary. By contrast, their White classmates have virtually an entire extra day, each day, to devote to their personal development and to experience a school based in their community designed to serve them. It is important to note that the Black students participating in these programs have chosen to do so. This choice indicates that their parents are concerned about their education and doing what they can to ensure they get the best of what is available. While student choice and parental concern are certainly significant, they do not diminish the difficulty of the reality faced by these students. Black students in these circumstances are left to their own devices to develop and maintain their self worth despite the disorienting signals of their daily experience, an experience that lasts nearly 13 hours a day.

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The element of choice is a significant characteristic that distinguishes U.S. Black students in busing programs from refugee students in the United States. Invariably, refugees are dislocated from their home nations, their home communities, and their home schools as a result of conditions over which they have no control. By definition, a refugee is defined as a person who: Owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it. (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 1951/1996) Despite the fact that refugee students have been forced to flee their homes, in the United States they are often confronted with particular scorn and disdain and are merely tolerated rather than welcomed; an experience similar to South County Black students in North County schools. The term refugee itself has taken on ugly connotations that in many ways fail to acknowledge the humanity of people. Black refugees from Africa and Haiti are doubly burdened with the combination of scorn and pity heaped upon refugees and the racial disdain reserved for Black people in communities where they are unwelcome. Consider then, the challenge faced by a young person who is a refugee trying to defend his or her self worth under these conditions. Language, religion, cultural norms and values, political classification, and personal trauma may all align to undermine that effort. Refugees exist in a space outside their country of origin, after fleeing to a country of asylum or resettlement. They live without the protection of their home country. Refugees live under the joint protection of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the country serving as their foreign host (UNHCR, 2004). Refugees exist in a state of flux. They are not members of any particular state. At the same time, they are potential contributors to the country in which they have sought asylum as well as to the global economy (Waters & LeBlanc, 2005). In this era of rapid globalization, refugees and members of other transnational communities emerge as the personification of an increasingly interconnected world. Globalization “from above” (Castles, 2004) pushes education toward a privatized, efficient, and economy-centered structure and curriculum (Stromquist & Monkman, 2000). Refugee students in the United States are met at the doors of the schools they attend with an ever-increasing focus on testing and accountability. No matter that their first language may not be English or that they may have experienced family death and torture, they are expected to quickly learn vast amounts of material such that their schools do not appear on the list that designates those schools who did

Defending Self Worth 17 not meet Annual Yearly Progress, the federally imposed benchmark that accompanies No Child Left Behind Act. Globalization “from below” (Castles, 2004) forges horizontal connections between grassroots organizations (Smith, 1994). Third World workers’ movements (Evans, 2000; Portes, 1996) and family remittance flows (Orozco, 2002) are examples of the kinds of global interconnections that bind people together. Because of the refugees’ strength, perseverance, and desire to end the oppressive situations that pushed them from their homes, we begin to see a vision of global development that places justice and equality at the center. Similar to the disillusionment that students participating in busing programs often face—being undervalued in their home schools and unwelcome in their new schools—refugee students often fi nd themselves ostracized from social and academic networks in public schools in the United States (Gitlin, Buendia, Crosland, & Doumbia, 2003). Increased anti-immigrant sentiments since the events of September 11, 2001, have created a harsh environment for foreign-born students to navigate their way through schools. Importantly, this mirrors the xenophobic leanings of the larger society. The recent Georgia House Bill 87 allowing police officers to stop anyone they suspect of being an illegal immigrant and the fervent anti-immigrant sentiment displayed in the nation are evidence of this xenophobia. Technically, refugees differ from “voluntary”1 immigrants because they did not choose to leave their home countries and were not included in the series of decisions that brought them to the United States. Experientially, refugee students are often grouped with other newcomers and are perceived as “illegal” or undeserving of social services such as education. For those school personnel and native-born peers who do acknowledge the students’ refugee status, there is often an ironic association made between the students themselves and the oppressive regimes from which they fled. Muslim Somali refugee girls, for example, often face discrimination as a result of wearing hijab, the head covering that is customary for Muslim women to wear (McBrien, 2005). Narratives of refugee students are as insightful as those of U.S.-born Black students participating in the M-to-M Programs. Insight from an interview with one high school refugee student from Sudan illustrates her experience with leaving home and fi nding her way in a new and unfamiliar place. Regarding the centrality of education in her life, it was clear that her parents viewed education as her ticket to advancement. As is the case for many newcomers to the United States, her family believed that a good education would enable her to forge a “better” life than that of her parents. According to this young Sudanese girl: My dad said the reason he brought us here is just to get our education and if you just go to school and he see you doing your work, that’s what he expect of you. That’s it, just go to college. As long as you do that, he

18 Jillian C. Ford and Kamau Bobb don’t care what you do . . . and he don’t want you to do anything that will mess your education up. The centrality of education is quite common for children of immigrants and refugees to the United States. Numerous scholars have shown, however, that parents’ and students’ expectations of the opportunities that education will bring dissipate as they face the structural racism, linguistic challenges, and xenophobia that characterize much of the historical and contemporary school environment in the U.S. McBrien’s (2005b) study on refugee students’ perceptions of discrimination by U.S. peers and teachers illuminates the many ways in which such students are made to feel unwelcome in their U.S. school environments. The participants in her study cited language and accents, physical appearance, clothing, and international origins as the objects of their torment. One student shared that a native-born U.S. student told her, “This is not your country, and I can do anything I want” (p. 65). Other students talked about times that youth born in the U.S. told them to “go home” and called them “foreigners” (p. 65). Refugee students cannot often count on their teachers to help them battle discrimination from their peers, as many teachers carry similar xenophobic sentiments about newcomers as well. McBrien reported that one girl explained that “an African American told a Somali student in my class that she should go back to her own country. They started to fight, and the teacher expelled the Somalian” (p. 66). In spite of their acute awareness of instances of explicit discrimination, there are refugee students who are able to develop and claim their own self worth. Not willing to let their U.S. peers’ and teachers’ expressions of superiority alter their course, they continue to believe in their inner strength.

HIDDEN TALENT AS HUMAN POTENTIAL In her presidential address at the CIES (Comparative and International Education Society) conference in 2004, Kassie Freeman (2004) discussed the “compelling case for the use of human potential” to address many of the problems that face individuals and groups around the world. Freeman drew on Schultz’s (1961) scholarship to frame her defi nition of human potential. As she described it, human potential is “individuals’ and/or groups’ skills, knowledge, and disposition, or what is commonly referred to as ‘talent’” (Freeman, 2004, p. 445). She juxtaposed human potential with societies’ failure to recognize it. Societies’ failure to recognize the talents, the human potential of Black students in the Diaspora, is particularly acute. That failure is a component of the system of forces that serve to undermine their educational experience and ultimately assault their dignity. One of the valued characteristics of effective teachers and effective teaching spaces is the ability to not only recognize but help students realize

Defending Self Worth 19 their potential. The experience of so many Black students in the United States, both native and refugee, suggests that they simply do not experience effective teaching environments. That is not an indictment of teachers of native-born Black students or refugee students, rather it is an acknowledgment of the broad reality. The current national emphasis on standardized testing and the tremendous failure rate among Black students confi rm this point. The general inflexibility of the teaching environment highlights the talents of these Diasporic young people. Since they are confronted with a largely immovable curriculum in addition to an unwelcome environment, their ability to defend their self worth is even more commendable. The static teaching environment highlights the point that these students often establish their self worth despite their education. Freeman (2004) asserts that when the criterion for what constitutes merit is too narrowly defined, human potential is often underutilized. In several content-specific circumstances her assertion is clear—heuristic problem solving versus logical iteration in mathematics or freestyle lyrical expression versus formal composition. In this case the problem confronted by students is not necessarily their particular learning style, but their presence itself. The sense of being unwelcome results in the underutilization of human potential, but it is also a threat to a students’ sense of self worth. This is a lingering threat that is present in varying degrees throughout the Diaspora. To avoid falling into the common traps of defi ning success merely by standardized test scores or college acceptance rates, we explicitly acknowledge a more inclusive defi nition of success. Significantly, there are individuals who would defi ne success for these students by their ability to learn the mores of their schooling environment. Those who advocate assimilation would honor the students who are able to separate themselves from their home environments, and substitute the knowledge, traditions, and beliefs of their new environment for that from which they came. We assert, however, that success is defi ned as balance between the multiple dimensions of these students’ evolving identities. That means that successful students are able to stay true to their roots while taking advantage of the opportunities afforded them in their new space. Success manifests itself emotionally, affectively, socially, and academically. Successful students resist the threat to their sense of self worth and win by positively affi rming their value. They do so by confronting several specific obstacles. In the section that follows, we draw on three of the aforementioned challenges for both sets of students to demonstrate their ability to succeed despite considerable obstacles. Three of the most significant challenges faced by these students are as follows: the feeling of being let down by one’s home community, the long journey from home to school, and the academic and cultural dissonance that often accompany education in the students’ new setting. Instead of analyzing the obstacles in a vacuum however, we choose to consider the talents made evident by students’ ability to prevail in the face of such ominous barriers.

20 Jillian C. Ford and Kamau Bobb THE ABILITY TO SHINE LIGHT ON DARKNESS Universally, young people have the ability to look upon challenging situations with a positive lens. As such, we discuss their talents in overcoming feelings of being let down under subheading “The value of strong roots”; the long journey from home to school under subheading “Exploration past familiar horizons”; and academic and cultural dissonance under subheading “Finding welcome where there is none.”

The Value of Strong Roots In the case of both students who participate in busing programs as well as refugee students in U.S. schools, there is an understanding that one’s home community does not have the ability to support the students’ talents appropriately. As we have said, this creates a potentially devastating state of affairs when the students arrive in their new environments only to find that they are not valued there either. Successful Black students are often able to draw on a hidden talent at this point, by recognizing the multiple ways in which their home communities have indeed provided support and strength. Importantly, “home” means different things to both sets of students. For the students in M-to-M and similar programs, home is familiar, filled with people, food, music, and traditions that create the culture in which the students were raised. More often than not, the students’ home culture is distinct from the dominant culture in the schools that they attend far from home. For these students, home is located a bus ride away from school and is a place from which the bused students depart every morning and to which they return every evening. For refugee students, home also has multiple meanings. On the surface, “home” for refugee students in U.S. schools represents the place the students live, likewise a walk or a bus ride away from the schools that they attend. Most refugees, however, consider “home” as the place from which they were forced to flee. In this country, Black refugees remember their homes in Africa and Haiti, and the vast majority of them would choose to go home if the situation in their home country was safe. For refugee students in U.S. schools, memories of—and longings for—their overseas home depend largely on age, journey, family adjustment, peer reception, and levels of acculturation and assimilation (Huyck & Fields, 1981). Like the bused students mentioned above, the culture of the refugee students’ home is often largely different from that of the school that they attend. Successful Black students in White academic settings and Black refugees in the U.S. often draw strength from their home communities as a way to insulate themselves from being brought down by the racism they face in their new settings (D’Augelli & Hershberger, 1993; Waters, 1999). In much the same way, students who participate in busing programs are able to pull strength from their home communities, when they are viewing

Defending Self Worth 21 their communities from the removed space in which they fi nd themselves at school. Though their academic home community may not have validated them in appropriate ways, Black students who succeed in White schools are able to rely on their families and those parts of their communities that provide ongoing support and encouragement. For some students, this support emanates from their religious community; for others, it comes from civic groups of which they are a part. Though many refugee students have experienced interrupted schooling by the time they reach U.S. schools, the schooling experiences they did have are often extremely different from those that they encounter in the United States. Regardless of governmental expenditure per pupil in students’ home countries, one of the most fundamental differences about which immigrant and refugee students comment is level of respect for teachers. Successful refugee students find strength in their families’ traditional belief systems that place an enormous weight on the value of education (Shields & Behrman, 2004). For many refugee students, the dire situation in their countries of origin is another motivating factor to achieve academically (Bixler, 2005). These students’ hidden talent is the intrinsic motivation with which they approach their studies— one that oftentimes sets them apart from their native-born U.S. peers.

Explorations Past Familiar Horizons There exists a curious connection between refugee students and students who participate in busing programs as relates to impoverished Black communities in the United States. That is, Black communities that face economic and social hardships are often both the point of arrival for the former group of students and the point of departure for the latter group. As our intention is to consider students’ sense of self worth, it is relevant to acknowledge that there is a clearly defined hierarchy of improvement for these two sets of Black students. Fleeing from war-torn countries of origin, refugee families are often channeled into poor communities of color in the U.S. (Bankston & Zhou, 1997). This means that Black refugee students often learn about the U.S. through the lens of an already oppressed people. It also means that their “improved” circumstance is synonymous with the native-born Black students’ less-than-optimal situation. These levels of educational quality clearly illuminate the stratified context of public schooling in the U.S. Regardless of the home communities that both sets of students leave behind, the hidden talent that they exhibit during their journey is parallel. Instead of resenting their time away from home, successful students from these groups are able to incorporate the journey itself into the larger array of lessons learned. These students are able to comprehend their physical and emotional movement from home to school as a process and see it as a means to explore the world beyond where they could see from home. Indeed, it is this optimism that emerges as the students’ hidden talent to overcome the obstacle created by the long, often treacherous journey

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from home to school. They and their parents trust that there are better opportunities available, which creates an inner strength or optimism that propels such students forward in the face of long bus rides with stops at the bus depots and long plane rides with longer stays at refugee camps. Optimism in such cases serves as a shield against the grim reality of a path they travel.

Finding Welcome Where There is None Both sets of students possess a third talent that is hidden from plain view. Successful students who are schooled in environments far from home are able to create a sense of belonging despite others’ intentions to exclude them. Gloria Anzaldúa (1987) describes “borderlands [that] are physically present wherever two or more cultures edge each other, where people of different races occupy the same territory, where under, lower, middle and upper classes touch, where the space between two individuals shrinks with intimacy” (p. vii). In the case of both the native-born Black students who are bused to predominantly White schools, as well as the Black refugee students, Anzaldúa’s concept of the borderland is an apt framework for their experiences. For some Black students, those borderlands can be so intimidating that they struggle to succeed in environments far from home. For some White students, their experiences in the borderlands can be equally intimidating when they are confronted with the mystery and reality of Black students up close. Some Black students are able to decode what Delpit (1988) refers to as the “culture of power,” do well within it, and still maintain the strengths of their home culture. This is an expression of their third talent. They express the ability to forge a sense of welcome out of understanding the dominant culture and bridging individual divides with their peers and teachers. Any attempt to capture this third talent, however, would slip dangerously close to essentializing the experiences of two groups that possess countless differences both between and within them. There is no single way to pinpoint this last talent, as it is a deeply personal journey to fi nd one’s place in the world. We believe that there may be as many ways to characterize this ability as there are students from both groups we have explored. In fact, we acknowledge that the strength and depth of this talent come from so far within the individual students that it is hidden from everyone except themselves.

The Beauty of Their Talent The historical and contemporary circumstances of Africa and the African Diaspora are laced with legacies of pain and suffering. The continuous presence of African people suggests, however, that the experiences are also laced with endurance, triumph, and survival. The young people described

Defending Self Worth 23 above are important as examples of that spirit of survival. They are particularly important to examine here, in the U.S., because the educational circumstances for so many Black students are so bleak. The education policy community might be inclined to attempt to expose the hidden talents of these young people in order to build educational strategies around them. That inclination ought to be resisted. These talents represent personal commitments to survival that cannot be aggregated to form the basis of new federal or state policies to “save” Black youth. These students provide a hopeful respite from the grim and often intractable problems that afflict so many young people. Examining them and highlighting their positive qualities is itself helpful to an education policy community that is exasperated by the nagging problems that persist despite innumerable interventions.

REFERENCES Anzaldúa, G. (1987). Borderlands: La Frontera—The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books. Bankston, C. I., & Zhou, M. (1997). The social adjustment of Vietnamese American adolescents: Evidence for a segmented-assimilation approach. Social Science Quarterly, 78, 508–523. Bixler, M. (2005). The lost boys of Sudan: An American story of the refugee experience. Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press. Castles, S. (2004). Migration, citizenship, and education. In J. Banks (Ed.) Diversity and citizenship education: Global perspectives. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. D’Augelli, A. & Hershberger, S. (1993). African American undergraduates on a predominantly White campus: Academic factors, social networks, and campus climate. The Journal of Negro Education, 62, 67–81. Delpit, L. (1988). The silenced dialogue: Power and pedagogy in educating other people’s children. Harvard Educational Review, 58, 280–298. Evans, P. (2000). Fighting marginalization with transnational networks: Counterhegemonic globalization. Contemporary Sociology, 29, 230–241. Freeman, K. (2004). Looking at and seeing possibilities: The compelling case for the use of human potential. Comparative Education Review. 48, 443–455. Gitlin, A., Buendia, E., Crosland, K., & Doumbia, F. (2003). The production of margin and center: Welcoming-unwelcoming of immigrant students. American Educational Research Journal, 40, 91–122. Huyck, E., & Fields, R. (1981). Impact of resettlement on refugee children. International Migration Review, 15, 246–254. McBrien, J. L. (2005). Educational needs and barriers for refugee students in the United States: A review of the literature. Review of Educational Research, 75, 329–364. McBrien, J. L. (2005b). Discrimination and academic motivation in adolescent refugee girls. Unpublished dissertation, Emory University. Moore, J. (2004). 50 years after Brown: Segregation in the Miami-Dade County Public Schools. Equity & Excellence in Education, 37, 289–301. Ogbu, J. (1987). Variability in minority school performance: A problem in search of an explanation. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 18, 312–334. Orfield, G., & Yun, J. (1999). Resegregation in American Schools. Cambridge, MA: The Civil Rights Project, Harvard University.

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Orozco, M. (2002). Globalization and migration: The impact of family remittances in Latin America. Latin American Politics and Society, 44, 41–66. Portes, A. (1996). Globalization from below: The rise of transnational communities. In W. P. Smith & R. P. Korczenwicz (Eds.), Latin America and the world economy. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 151–168. Schultz, T. (1961). Investment in human capital. The American Economic Review, LI, 1–17. Shields, M., & Behrman, R. (2004). Children of immigrant families: Analysis and recommendations. Future of Children, 14, 4–15. Smith, M. P. (1994). Can you imagine? Transnational migration and the globalization of grassroots politics. Social Text, 39, 15–33. Stromquist, N., & Monkman, K. (2000). Defi ning globalization and assessing its implications on knowledge and education. In N. Stromquist and K. Monkman [Eds.] Globalization and education: Integration and contestation across cultures. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, Publishers, Inc. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (1951/1996). Convention and protocol: Relating to the status of refugees. (Brochure]. Washington, D.C.: UNHCR. Retrieved from http://www.unhcr.org/protect/PROTECTION/3b66c2aa10.pdf United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (2004). Protecting refugees: Questions and answers. [Brochure]. Washington, D.C.: UNHCR. Waters, M. (1999). Black identities: West Indian immigrant dreams and American realities. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Waters, T., & LeBlanc, K. (2005). Refugees and education: Mass public schooling without a nation-state. Comparative Education Review, 49, 129–147. Yonezawa, S., Wells, A., & Serna, I. (2002). Choosing tracks: “Freedom of choice” in detracking schools. American Educational Research Journal, 39, 37–67.

NOTES 1. We use quotations when referring to those immigrants that Ogbu (1987) has designated as voluntarily coming to the U.S., as we understand that such classification often grossly oversimplifies immigrants’ justification for leaving their homelands. Specifically, we recognize that neo-liberal forces on the global economy create the fi nancial necessity for many people to leave their countries of origin—such that they may make enough money for themselves and their family to survive—though immigration to the U.S. may not be their desired path. Although these individuals may not have been literally forced from their homes at gunpoint, we assert that they may have been forced from their homes nonetheless.

Part II

Educational Challenges and Perspectives Black Populations Globally

3

Race, Nation, and Schooling in Esmeraldas, Ecuador Ethan Johnson

INTRODUCTION For the fi rst time in the history of Ecuador people of African descent were able to identify themselves within the national census conducted in 2001. In analysis of the census data the government organization called the System of Social Indicators of Afro-Ecuadorian People (Sistema de Indicadores Sociales del Pueblo Afroecuatoriano) has developed an inclusive defi nition of what it means to be a person of African descent through the term AfroEcuadorian, which combines those who claimed both a Black or Mulato/a identity (Anton and Condor, 2007). According to census data based on self-identifications, the following represents the racial/ethnic makeup of the country: Afro-Ecuadorians comprise 5%, 7% are indigenous people, 10% are White people, and 77% claimed the Mestizo/a identity (Anton, 2003). While each of these groups is located throughout the nation, there are significant regional variations, as certain parts of Ecuador through historical demographic trends and shifts are associated with particular racial and cultural groups. What makes the city and province of Esmeraldas unique is that it is the only region in the country where Afro-Ecuadorians comprise the greatest proportion of the population according to census data (Anton, 2003). In Ecuador the term Mestizo/a historically and officially has referred to those who were racially and culturally mixed between European and indigenous people (Anton, 2005; Rahier, 1998). However, in my research I have found that students of African descent at the Jaime Hurtado Academy in the city and province of Esmeraldas often self-identified as Mestizos/as, while others ascribed to them a Black identity. These claims of a Mestizo/a identity are important because they challenge, though ambiguously, the official notions of national identity on the one hand and provide a way of understanding the much higher estimations of scholars and organizations representing Black people than that reported in national census data on the other (Anton and Condor, 2007; Handelsman, 2001). In this chapter, I examine the meaning of race in the city and province of Esmeraldas at multiple levels. This includes a historical examination of

28 Ethan Johnson Black people’s arrival, survival, and experience in the province during the colonial era. My purpose for this is twofold. First, I aim to explicate the specific social and historical context in which Afro-Ecuadorians are living in the city and province of Esmeraldas. Second, I want to reveal the significant and unique role Afro-Ecuadorians have played in the political and economic development of the region and nation. Additionally, I examine through the contemporary representations of Blackness and segregation the relationship between race and space within the landscape of the city of Esmeraldas. I claim racial meanings are shifting in the city of Esmeraldas and are revealed in how youth of African descent attending the Jaime Hurtado Academy negotiate their racial identities. As I narrow my focus onto schooling, I contend that racial meanings are being transformed as Black people have gained access to mainstream institutions. I demonstrate that while at one level the racial hierarchy is being challenged, at another youth of African descent attempt to escape their Blackness through self-identification as a Mestizo/a in order to avoid the negative stigma associated with Blackness. I demonstrate the ways schooling practices at the Jaime Hurtado Academy, that is, racial discrimination and the curricular silence regarding the important role Afro-Ecuadorians have played in the development of the nation, contribute to these efforts by Afro-Ecuadorian youth to escape their Blackness. Furthermore, the reproduction of racial inequality is also revealed in the comparison between public and private schools. As Black and poor people have gained access to public schooling, resources have shifted to the private schools where these groups are excluded through the intersection of race and class. This paper is based primarily on qualitative methods, that is, participant observation and interviews I conducted at the Jaime Hurtado Academy in the city of Esmeraldas Ecuador during the 2002/2003 academic year (see Johnson, 2007).

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The Colonial Era When Ernesto Estupiñan Quintero became the fi rst self-identifying Black person elected as mayor for the city of Esmeraldas in 2000, one of the fi rst things he did was to have a mural commissioned for the municipal building. Written across the mural are the words “Libre por rebelde y por rebelde grande” (Free by rebellion and by rebellion great). A key aspect of this mural is its depiction of the long history of struggle of runaway enslaved people or Maroons in the region of Esmeraldas. In this section, I attempt to reveal this history and the articulations of geography with political and cultural processes that brought about this unique story within the Spanish American colonial project.

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Any historical account of Esmeraldas that does not include the significance of the African, slave, and later Maroon leader Alonso de Illescas would be neglectful. Alonso de Illescas, who was originally stolen from the west coast of Africa, was enslaved in Spain for 8 years where he learned Spanish, Catholicism, to play the guitar, and the use of guns. His status as a Ladino slave, that is, his cultural expertise of the European world, is what arguably provided him with knowledge that placed him in an advantaged position in his relations with both the indigenous groups of the area and later the colonial government (Rueda Novoa, 2001; Tardieu, 2006). As the record demonstrates, he and his descendants clearly understood the motivations of the missionaries and colonists and used this knowledge to limit their influence over the Maroons (Lane, 2002). At approximately 25 years of age, in 1553, Alonso de Illescas was separated from his owner and moved to the “New World,” and in October of the same year the ship he was on stopped for provisions along the coast that is known today as the province of Esmeraldas. While anchored off the coast, the ship was pushed onto a reef by heavy winds and sunk, and 23 slaves, 17 men, and six women escaped into the dense tropical forest typical of this region (Garcia Salazar, 1989; Lane, 2002; Rueda Novoa, 2001; Tardieu, 2006). Allonso de Illescas, his offspring, and other slaves fleeing from ships stopping for provisions or wrecking along the coast are largely credited with establishing one of the most durable free slave societies of the Americas. In order to survive and maintain their freedom, the escaped enslaved people mixed culturally and physically with the indigenous groups living in this area (Garcia Salazar, 1989; Rueda Novoa, 2001). The Maroons also developed the practice of allying with the indigenous groups through the establishment of family relationships, which strengthened their positions numerically and bound the groups politically. Eventually, through a combination of military efforts and sociocultural adaptations, the Maroon groups came to dominate the region politically and economically (Garcia Salazar, 1989). Much of the history of Alonso de Illescas is based on the writings of a priest, Miguel Cabello Balboa, who was assigned to the region to bring the indigenous, Black, and Zambo people under the rule of the Spanish crown in the 1570s. The primary reason for Balboa’s mission was to convert and to settle in villages both the indigenous and Maroon groups of the area in order that their labor could be used to build a road, which would shorten the route to the coast from the capital city of Quito. Cabello Balboa was empowered to make Alonso de Illescas the governor of Esmeraldas and give formal pardon to all his family, recognizing them as free persons living under the Spanish crown (Tardieu, 2006). While this offer was surely not intended to have much substance, it does attest to the recognition the colonial government gave to Alonso de Illescas’ influence in the region (Tardieu, 2006). However, Alonso de Illescas and the other Maroon leaders tended

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to agree in words and not in their actions with the colonial government’s offers of autonomy. The geographical isolation of the region from the city of Quito located high in the Andes and its many estuaries provided the Maroons with many hiding places and although, from the mid-sixteenth century until its end, multiple military incursions attempted to subdue the Black and Zambo people of Esmeraldas, not one of these efforts was successful (Lane, 2002). In July of 1600, the colonial government in its desire for the construction of a road between Esmeraldas and Quito requests the presence of the Maroon leadership and one of Alonso de Illescas’ sons, Sebastian, and two other Maroon leaders travel to the capital city. They are received by the high court, which grants them specific rights, again acknowledging the political power that Alonso de Illescas and his descendants had over the region. While this offer no longer includes governorship, it does provide for pardon from fugitive slave laws, exemptions from payment of tribute, and agreements of official autonomy. (Rueda Novoa, 2001; Tardieu, 2006). The colonial record of this event reveals the very formal and official character of the ceremony. The most prominent political and religious leaders of the Spanish crown officially accepted the allegiance of Alonso de Illescas’ son, Sebastian, and other leaders of the Zambo Republic as free subjects of the crown. In an effort to strengthen the meaning of this event and the rights gained through this encounter, the Maroon leadership requested that members of the high court of Quito officially become their godparents, which was an extension of their strategies to develop bonds through family ties in their initial contacts with the indigenous groups in order to solidify their relations with them (Rueda Novoa, 2001; Tardieu, 2006). The colonial policy of requiring the Zambo Republic to form villages limited their autonomy and their influence over the indigenous groups. In addition, the province of Esmeraldas was split into two colonial jurisdictions in the early seventeenth century, which simultaneously separated the Maroon groups from each other while forcing them to confront separate colonial administrations. These changes significantly weakened and disrupted the social structure of the Maroon groups that placed the Illescas on top, while the colonial government’s influence in the region was strengthened (Novoa, 2001). Other critical factors shaping this period and the autonomy of the Maroon groups of the province of Esmeraldas were confl ict between the indigenous people and the Maroons and the colonists themselves (Rueda Novoa, 2001). Through the strategy of “compadrazco,” substantive bonds had developed between the Maroon and indigenous groups of the province of Esmeraldas. However, the Maroons had gained the upper hand through their political and military practices and their allegiance with the Spanish crown, resulting in various indigenous groups moving inland outside of the authority of the Maroons (Rueda Novoa, 2001).

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Additionally, within the province of Esmeraldas the missionaries and the colonists were in confl ict with each other over the labor of the non-White groups. The colonists argued in their communication with the high court of Quito that the missionaries permitted the Maroon dominance over the indigenous people, while the missionaries complained that the colonists abused their authority. This lack of a concerted effort between the colonists and the missionaries ultimately contributed to the ability of the Maroons to maintain their freedom (Rueda Novoa, 2001; Tardieu, 2006). Finally, the ambivalence and inability of the Spanish crown to permanently settle the province of Esmeraldas with large populations of colonists and missionaries is arguably the most important factor shaping the ability of the Maroon and indigenous groups of the region to maintain their autonomy throughout the colonial period and into the twentieth century. For various reasons associated with piracy and fiscal policy, the crown and other colonial officials resisted the development of a road and port in Esmeraldas, which ultimately impeded the development of larger settlements of colonists and missionaries, leaving the province of Esmeraldas and the people living there in relative isolation from the colonial authority (Phelan, 1967). The record indicates that throughout the seventeenth and fi rst half of the eighteenth centuries, the colonial government and the Maroon groups continued to respect to some degree their contract with each other (Tardieu, 2006). However, at the same time, because of the introduction of slavery largely associated with gold mining to the province of Esmeraldas and the increasing abuses by colonists upon the indigenous and Maroon groups, they begin to leave the villages and escape to the isolated estuaries of the region beyond the colonial reach of power. The Maroon groups grew in numbers because slaves of the gold miners coming in contact with the free Black people would escape and join these groups (Rueda Novoa, 2001).

The Republican Era Ecuador became a republic in 1830 and the city of Esmeraldas was officially founded within the republican government in 1854. Initially the federal government used Esmeraldas as a penal colony where it exiled defrauders of the government and other delinquent individuals because of its relative isolation from the more established commercial and political centers of the nation. However, the importance of the region grew with gold mining and the extraction of other raw materials for export. In order to pay off its debt for England’s assistance in the wars of independence, Ecuador leased huge tracts of land for gold mining and other uses to British business interests. It is during the nineteenth century where Esmeraldas became and continues to be the site where the greatest proportion of the export economy of the nation is produced (Preciado, 2000).

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During the latter half of the nineteenth century, political and economic developments of the nation were structured principally through conservative and liberal1 elements and the struggles between these groups. The province of Esmeraldas developed as one of the regions from where the liberals organized their military confl icts with the conservatives (Gerardo, 1983; Preciado, 2000). I would suggest two reasons Esmeraldas held this position. First, regarding Black people, who had been struggling for their freedom since the beginning of the colonial period in the region, many could identify with the liberal cause (Gerardo, 1983). Second, the physical isolation of Esmeraldas through a scarcity of infrastructures linking the political and economic centers of the nation facilitated it becoming a location liberals could defend themselves from and simultaneously launch attacks against the conservatives. Significantly, after the liberals come to power represented in Eloy Alfaro’s presidency on the backs of the Esmeraldean people, many of whom were Black people, the state continued to isolate and exclude Esmeraldas (Preciado, 2000). Because banana crops were devastated through disease and weather conditions in Central America in the 1950s, the United Fruit Company looked elsewhere for its business interests (Preciado, 2000). Because of its fertile soils, Esmeraldas was recognized as a prime site for banana production, and the United Fruit Company began intense investment in the region. By the 1960s, Ecuador, principally through Esmeraldas, became number one worldwide in the production of the plantain; Black people as in the colonial period are significant in the national scene, because they provide much of the raw material, that is, labor, for the banana export business and associated huge growth in the export sector of the economy. Again, as with gold, few of the profits stay in the country or Esmeraldas. Eventually, with soil erosion and the movement south along the coast toward Guayaquil of banana plantations, many small farmers in Esmeraldas lose their farms to bank foreclosures. By the end of the 1960s, the banana boom in Esmeraldas is over; however, in the 1970s, Ecuador becomes an oil-producing country and Esmeraldas is selected as the site where the refinery and port are to be built (Preciado, 2000). The expectations for the citizens of Esmeraldas were high in terms of the benefits they hoped to receive in connection to the oil refinery and port. A new modern road was built connecting the capital city and the rest of the province to the city of Quito and a fish port was also built to further develop the infrastructure of the city. With the refinery come increased migrations to the city of Esmeraldas, mostly from the neighboring province of Manta. The majority of the citizens of Esmeraldas are unable to fill the high-paying union jobs associated with the refinery because few have the necessary levels of education and training (Caicedo, 1995), and most only have access to low paid contract work. In the late 1970s oil prices rose worldwide as a result of an embargo by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and Ecuador and other Latin American oil-producing countries initially benefited

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as the U.S. then bought more oil from them. However, Ecuador, similar to other Latin American oil-producing countries, fell deeper into dept as the loans they took out largely on the prospective earnings from petroleum production became more difficult to pay back. Significantly, 40% (the largest share) of the gross national product (GNP) of Ecuador is produced from the oil tankers lining up off the shores of Esmeraldas. It is reported Ecuador pays 50% of its GNP to pay off its foreign debt. With approximately half of Ecuador’s population located in Quito and Guayaquil and their connected suburbs, Esmeraldas, already marginalized and isolated within the polarized political and economic framework of the nation, could hope to receive few of the diminished benefits related to the profits of oil production. Within the nation, it is little wonder the province of Esmeraldas is found among the bottom position socioeconomically among the 21 provinces and where Afro-Ecuadorians experience the highest levels of poverty in the nation (Anton, 2003; Preciado, 2000). While official census data indicate 40% of the province of Esmeraldas self-identified as Afro-Ecuadorian, it has estimated that in the province of Esmeraldas Afro-Ecuadorians represent closer to 70% of the population (Handelsman, 2001; Rahier, 1998). While Ecuador did not become officially a plural ethnic nation until 1998, the city and province of Esmeraldas are popularly and academically recognized within the nation as the region where the densest populations of Black people live. Regarding the racial composition and low socioeconomic level throughout the province, nationally there exists a racial/spatial topography shaped through historically situated political and economic processes.

THE RACIAL LANDSCAPE OF THE CITY OF ESMERALDAS Various scholars have shown that in Ecuador and elsewhere in Latin America there exists a powerful relationship between race and space (Anton, 2003; Rahier ,1998; Wade, 1993)—that is, as a result of historical process largely associated with colonialism, Black and indigenous people are regionally concentrated. Rahier explains “the Province of Esmeraldas and the Chota-Mira Valley are looked down upon by whites and white-mestizos” (1999a, p. 105) at the national level and the White-Mestizo elite of the city of Esmeraldas attempt to impose and reproduce the racial spatial ordering of the nation onto the province of Esmeraldas. Higher status is given to the regional, political and economic center of the province, the city of Esmeraldas, and secondarily to the southern resort town of Atacames. As one extends north away from the center, these rural regions and the “blue blacks” living there are associated with “savagery and backwardness” (Rahier, 1999a, p. 106). The racial and cultural topography of the nation and province is transposed onto the landscape of the city of Esmeraldas and the bodies of Black people living there.

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Stratification and Segregation According to census data, the average level of those who live at or below the poverty line is 60% and the average for Afro-Ecuadorians is 70% (Anton, 2005). However, within the city and province of Esmeraldas, there are important differences, where 56% and 79% of Black people live in poverty, respectively (Anton, 2005). Among Afro-Ecuadorians, those living in the province of Esmeraldas experience the highest levels of poverty, while those living in the city of Esmeraldas experience the lowest levels of poverty among all Afro-Ecuadorians. This contrast between the city of Esmeraldas and the province in which it lies can be illuminated through analysis of the rural/urban divide that characterizes the nation. In Ecuador, Black people are primarily located in urban areas, however, in the province of Esmeraldas, the proportional representation of Black people living in rural areas and the province overall is by far the highest compared to any other province (Anton, 2003). At the national level, poverty is concentrated in the rural areas. This means that the combination of being a Black person and living in a rural area greatly increase one’s chances of living in poverty in Ecuador (Anton and Condor, 2007). The lower levels of poverty in the city of Esmeraldas can largely be explained through its position as the political and economic capital of the province. As an economic center, the city of Esmeraldas is where the greatest investment in economic and social development has occurred and the Afro-Ecuadorians living there have been able to make gains into the public sector in ways incomparable to other cities. As I have shown elsewhere (Johnson, 2009), this occurred primarily after 1970s, where previously Afro-Ecuadorians were largely excluded from mainstream institutions. I suggest these gains are in part due to the city of Esmeraldas being the only capital city in the nation where Afro-Ecuadorians are the largest racial and cultural group of the population. As I have shown elsewhere, Black people were represented within all levels of the hierarchy of these institutions in the city of Esmeraldas (Johnson, 2009). Furthermore, the public sector is the single largest employer of the residents of the city of Esmeraldas (Caicedo, 1995). However, while the public sector is highly under-funded, it does provide a level of access to relatively stable incomes for Black people incomparable to other regions of the nation where they are the minority and largely excluded from working in mainstream institutions (Anton, 2003). Based on my observations outside of the public sector, Black people were primarily represented in informal forms of employment. For women, this often meant working as domestics in the households of Mestizo-White middle class people. A common practice in middle class households was to have young Black females work as live-in maids. This situation is bereft with power, where often these live-in household workers live at the whims

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of their employers (Walmsley, 2004). In my experience, I did not observe a non-Black person working as a live-in domestic. Black men and women were highly represented in the selling of fish, meats, fruits, and vegetables in either of the two city markets or in carts they pushed through the city. I lived two or three blocks from the center of the city, and every morning mostly men would come pushing their carts through the streets selling fish, meats, and vegetables, while women sold their goods in the local markets. Many Black men also worked as casual laborers in the building industry or contract work associated with the oil refi nery. While Black men did not exclusively perform these types of work, they were highly represented among them. In contrast, those owning private businesses along the main streets throughout the city were overwhelmingly not Afro-Ecuadorian people. A self-identifying Mestizo student informant explained: I am going to tell you something. Here in Esmeraldas the best people that have the best businesses, the best houses, houses of two, three, four or five floors, are the people of the Sierra, the people of Manabi, the Serrano and the Manaba, they are the ones that live the best here. And why? Because unfortunately, I don’t know if it is a question of ethics or a question of race . . . they say that the Black (person) is lazy, he/she likes to be comfortable and in large part they are. (translated by author) Besides this student’s perceptions, which based on my observations correctly describe housing and economic segregation in the city of Esmeraldas, he also expresses the common association of Blackness with negative stereotypes. In Ecuador, the social structure is legitimated and maintained by a racial ideology that locates Whiteness on top, with Mestizos/as as intermediaries and Black and indigenous people at the bottom. My informants were very aware of the racial hierarchy and often provided evidence of how it was transposed onto the bodies of Black people in interviews. For example, a self-identifying Black female student stated: Well here there is a saying that says that all Blacks are loud, that the Black is scandalous. Always let’s say and if someone yells they say ‘ay shut up you seem like a Black. A self-identifying Mestiza parent commented: Mestizaje has its pros and its cons like in all things in question. Like the common expression we say here ‘to improve the race’, no? For sure, Black men and women have married whites, they have crossed their races. So some Black women with fi ne features result, at times even blue eyes, with wavy hair and they are very nice looking women and very nice looking men, no?

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And a self-identifying Black teacher stated: There is a feeling here that Black is bad and teachers and students spread it. There is also a type of not wanting to identify oneself with their race, with their ethnicity among Blacks. They denigrate their Black brother, a type of complex, a type of shame of being Black. That is part of racism. These informants’ understandings demonstrate the significance that Blackness has in shaping the opportunity structure within the White-Mestizo/a dominated private sector, as the following self-identifying Black teacher informant claims: For example, in the opportunities for employment in our environment, in the companies in the few private companies there are, there does not exist the well defi ned possibilities for a Black, for example, to access very easily a job. Applying for a job two Blacks and two non-Blacks I would say it like this, those administrators and company owners prefer the non-Blacks. They prefer them and I have seen it. Racial segregation in neighborhoods was also evident in the city of Esmeraldas. The above informant who pointed out Mestizos/as own the best houses and businesses in the city of Esmeraldas also stated that in Esmeraldas “ . . . notice that the majority of Black people live in the poor neighborhoods.” However, neighborhood segregation in the city of Esmeraldas, much like in the rest of Ecuador and Latin America, is distinct from that of the U.S. Poverty is much more extensive than in the U.S., and as a result, Black and non-Black people share neighborhood spaces to a greater degree. The city of Esmeraldas is different from all other municipalities in Ecuador in that it is the capital city of an important province where Black people have gained access to the mainstream institutions. I suggest that this specific context plays a role in diminishing the perception of racial inequality and discrimination and ultimately developing a counter-hegemonic discourse. Afro-Ecuadorians access to mainstream institutions and their sharing of spaces of poverty with other racial and cultural groups obfuscates the racial discrimination and inequality that shapes the daily lives of Afro-Ecuadorians.

The Representation of Blackness Upon his election as mayor of the city of Esmeraldas in 2000, Ernesto Estupiñan Quintero, the fi rst self-identifying Black person to hold this position in the history of the city, commissioned a mural and two statues to contribute to the cultural landscape of the city of Esmeraldas. The mural, which is painted on a prominent wall of the municipal building and is entitled

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“Libre por rebelde y por rebelde grande” (free by rebellion and by rebellion great), stands out in contrast to many of the murals and sculptures that are found throughout the city for a number of reasons. First, the mural is inclusive of the various racial and cultural groups that have contributed to the political and economic development of the province of Esmeraldas. Second, Afro-Ecuadorians are not represented as essentialized subjects in comparison to other murals and sculptures found throughout the city. The statue Ernesto commissioned is of Jaime Hurtado and is one of the most recent erected in the city of Esmeraldas. He is from the province of Esmeraldas and is often claimed by Black people as a local hero who fought for the rights of poor and Black people. He belonged to the MPD, or the Popular Democratic Movement party. This party is the dominant Marxist party in Ecuadorian politics and Jaime Hurtado was its leader. He was assassinated 5 years ago in the city of Quito. His killers were never captured. He is the only Black man to run for president in Ecuador and was what would be the equivalent of a congressperson in the U.S. Jaime Hurtado is the first selfidentifying Black person to reach such a position. These relatively new official representations challenge the dominant images of Blackness. In contrast to the mural in the municipal building that asks Esmeraldeans to see themselves as racial and cultural equals, the other sculptures and murals scattered throughout the city are explicit in their depiction of a racial hierarchy locating Whiteness over Blackness (Johnson, 2007, 2009). Arguably, these new representations challenge and contest the dominant discourse locating Blackness at the bottom of the social hierarchy. The racial/spatial organization of society is revealed at multiple levels. Regionally, Black people are marginalized within the national space in the city and province of Esmeraldas. In the city of Esmeraldas, this arrangement is reflected largely in the private/public divide of socioeconomic resources and on the cultural landscape of the city. Increasing the level of resolution of analysis to schooling at the Jaime Hurtado Academy sheds more light on racial inequality and its reproduction.

THE RACIAL CONFIGURATION OF SCHOOLING In this section, I argue that schooling at the Jaime Hurtado Academy simultaneously justifies and reproduces the racial hierarchy. For example, Garcia and Walsh (2002) comment on the ideological function of schooling in Ecuador: In Ecuador, everyone knows that the education that they impose on us in our Black communities reflects the intention to consolidate a national project that does not recognize cultural differences and to the contrary promotes the idea that everyone is equal. (p. 323, translated by author).

38 Ethan Johnson The concept of equality is perpetuated through the denial of the significance of racial and cultural differences. I reviewed three social studies textbooks used in the final years of high school at the research site, which were designed for use in all public high schools throughout the country and were published in 2000 and 2001. Each of these textbooks ignores the political, cultural, and economic contributions of Black people to the nation as I outlined previously. For example, the twelfth-year text (Estrada, 2000), which covers the republican period of Ecuador up to the 1970s, refers to Black people only one time in reference to their manumission from slavery in 1851. Thus, in regards to social studies texts used in high school, the Ecuadorian state continues to maintain a racist policy toward Afro-Ecuadorians. They are systematically made absent, although they have played and continue to play an important role in the political, economic, and cultural development of the nation (Anton, 2005; De la Torre, 2002; Handelsman, 2000). These policies represent attempts to assimilate racial and ethnic groups into a framework of national economic and cultural development in which the significance of racial and ethnic diversity disappears (GrandaMerchan, 2003). Despite these official efforts of cultural homogenization, racism was a normalized practice at the Jaime Hurtado Academy. During interviews, student informants described teachers who openly made negative comments about Black students. For example, Laura, a twelfth grader that identifies as a Mestiza person, stated the following: There was a teacher that to one friend that was real dark, he made jokes about her because she was black and all that and they made jokes, they joked about her hair. Other student informants made similar remarks. For example, Teresa, a selfidentifying Black person in the eleventh grade, made the following statement: There is a teacher that says that he is not racist, he says to me I am not racist, I speak to any black person, like that. But, nevertheless, he does it. He is racist, because he, for example, if we are doing some class work and he sees a person of the color black doing something, he says hey you black don’t do that. Or hey you black I don’t know what, in other words he insults them, and then says that’s why you are black, like that, insulting, insulting the race and other people. Besides the ideological character of education in Ecuador, schooling in the city of Esmeraldas is racially segregated and unequal regarding economic and cultural resources, which cannot be disconnected from the high levels of illiteracy (12%) and low levels of high school (38%) and college (2%) completion (2006). There are no statistics that substantiate the racial or ethnic distribution of students in public and private schools in the city of

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Esmeraldas; however, given that Afro-Ecuadorians are the largest group in the city of Esmeraldas and experience high rates of poverty, their disproportionate representation in public schooling is ensured because the majority cannot afford private school tuitions. There are two types of private schools in the city of Esmeraldas. The most prestigious and expensive are the private schools that receive no subsidies from the national government and rely only on private resources. The others were called “fiscomisionales” (public/religious schools). The teachers’ salaries at fiscomisionales are paid by the national government; however, when the national government cannot pay teachers, these schools are able to continue to pay their teachers through the tuitions they collect, which avoids strikes. Additionally, teachers at private and fiscomisional schools are not affiliated with the national teachers union (UNE) and subsequently do not have collective bargaining rights. I visited two private schools in the city of Esmeraldas; one was the German school and the other was the fiscomisional Mary Magdelen. During my visit to the German School, I noted few Black students comprising its student body. In one class I visited, for example, there was one student I identified as an Afro-Ecuadorian out of approximately 35 students. Mary Magdelen is the most prestigious fiscomisional in the city of Esmeraldas. While the lack of students of African descent in this school compared to their proportional representation in the city was not as stark as the German school, it was nevertheless apparent. The racial divide of the student bodies attending private and public schools was not the only difference between these schools. A self-identifying White-Mestizo chemistry teacher at the Jaime Hurtado Academy who also was the principal at the German school explained: The schools that function better are those that function privately, there they can control better maybe the lack of resources because they can raise funds independently. But here in this school, there are people so poor that to me, understand, it hurts me to see it, a piece of paper like this worth 5 cents I donate to the students who don’t even have enough to pay for their bus fare. So how can I require students to help me buy a vile of sulfuric acid, that hurts me, that’s how it is. The private schools’ fundamental advantage over the public schools is access to greater economic and cultural resources. Public schools, because they are dependent on the state, are unable to meet the basic academic and social needs of their students (EducAccion, 11/6/02). In addition, public schools are further constrained because of the general low socioeconomic position of the families of the students attending them (EducAccion, 11/6/02). In contrast to the research site, my observations of private schools revealed institutions that were clean and well maintained and did not

40 Ethan Johnson lack the basic necessities of running water, electricity, or desks. At the Jaime Hurtado Academy, there were 10 working computers for a student body of 1,000 to use and no internet service. In addition, there were no materials for conducting experiments in the biology and chemistry labs, and many times there was no running water at the school. At Mary Magdelen, there was a computer lab with over 30 working computers with internet access for students. In addition, national teacher strikes had an impact on learning at the research site. Private schools were unaffected by disruptions and strikes due to the national government’s failure to pay teachers on time; they receive their funds for staff remuneration and facility expenses primarily from tuition fees. In addition, high rates of teacher absence apart from the national teacher strikes plagued the research site. For example, the vice principal in charge of discipline at the research site commented on the problems of teacher absence and students out of class: You see three courses outside. In other words, you see three teachers that have not come and you see a bunch of students, and this strikes one’s view. What is this bunch of students doing outside of class? But they are not all of them. You look over there, and the courses are working. So this is the situation. But this is one of the disadvantages that our campus has provoked not by the authorities but by the absence of the teachers at the time to teach their classes. Unremarkably, within this context of neglect students were often treated as passive learners. I witnessed at various times during classroom observations important concepts and issues concerning the lives of students such as “solidarity,” “ideology,” “Ecuador and oil production,” “how life began,” nutrition, and drug addiction. However, I did not observe teachers encouraging students to discuss among themselves and engage each other concerning such socially relevant topics. I suggest students were being prepared to be passive rather than active student learners. Students’ accounts at the research site echoed the nature of teaching and learning I observed. For example, one student commented, Yes, there are times when we do not understand them at all and they say take notes. If you do not understand me, it is the same because it is not my problem if you do not understand me. There are times that it scares us to say, “Teacher, I did not understand,” because if we say it, they will say, “How are you going to understand if you are in another world? Here one comes to study, not to be looking outside or coming here to be thinking about other things.” There are few teachers that say, “He who does not understand can tell me to explain to them and I will do it.”

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Another student made similar comments juxtaposing his experiences at a private school he attended previously: It’s that the teachers have their own form of teaching to students. It is that they do not develop the students. In Light and Liberty (private school name), they let students act in class, that the student be the person who directs the class. On the other hand here, here no. Here some teachers don’t want to let students develop and this does not permit the student to expand. Instead, it closes the student. At the Jaime Hurtado Academy, students described teaching and learning primarily as a practice done to them. Indeed, my observations demonstrate that they were not asked or encouraged to contribute their ideas or experiences within the classroom. Taken as a system, where the significance of race was “officially” absent and access to resources was denied, schooling supported and maintained the racial hierarchy and it is within this context that I examine students’ negotiation of racial identity in the next section.

RACIAL IDENTITY AT THE JAIME HURTADO ACADEMY Various organizations representing Black people in Ecuador have defi ned those claiming both Black and Mulato/a identities in the 2001 census as Afro-Ecuadorian. This is important because these groups recognize that the Mulato/a identity, which is often used to distance oneself from Blackness, is a racial term developed through historical processes associated with slavery and racial and cultural mixture between Black and European people (Anton and Condor, 2007). The term Afro-Ecuadorian reflects an attempt by groups and activists struggling against racial discrimination and inequality to develop a more inclusive and broader defi nition of people of African descent (Anton, 2007; Telles, 2002). There are no official statistics to substantiate the racial composition of the Jaime Hurtado Academy; however, I conducted a survey of 128 (slightly more than 10% of the student body) students at the research site. One of the categories in the survey asked them to describe how they selfidentified racially. According to the survey data, the responses of the students are similar to the 2001 census data, which report that 44% of the population of the city of Esmeraldas is Afro-Ecuadorian, 40% Mestizo/a, 10% White, and 5% other (Anton, 2003). Both the survey I conducted and the census data are based on the respondents’ self-identifications. However, I show through analysis of my interviews that students of African descent often appropriated the Mestizo/a identity. This is significant in two ways. First, it suggests that the Afro-Ecuadorian population in the city of Esmeraldas is significantly greater than that supported by the census data. Second, this appropriation of the Mestizo/a identity by people

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of African descent problematizes previous scholarly work that has argued that Black people are not part of mestizaje as it occurs in Ecuador (Rahier, 1998). During interviews, four students that claimed for themselves the Mestizo/a identity also provided evidence that others identified them as Black people. For example, when I asked Javier if there was discrimination at the research site, he stated the following: Javier: Yes. One time, the teacher, back then of mathematics, it was in the third year, Josefi na Olivo. Researcher: A Teacher? J: Yes, she said to me, “Hey you Black boy.” In the interview I conducted with Javier’s mother, she self-identified as a Black person, although she acknowledged a mixed racial ancestry. She also claimed that she was racist toward Black people and did not want her children to be identified as Black. Javier corroborated this when in the interview with him. he stated, “My mother told me I was Mestizo because my father is White.” Another Mestiza self-identifying student similarly provided evidence that her parents had played an important role in shaping her decision to claim the Mestiza identity. For example, Veronica made the following comments when I asked her whether she thought there was discrimination toward Black people in the city of Esmeraldas: Veronica: My father is racist, augh, he’s horrible. And imagine I am not gringa [White]. He says like that “a Black lover and you damage the race,” and I say to him, what a pity for you. Researcher: He is Black? Veronica: No. Researcher: How is your father then? Veronica: Look, he is of light skin. It’s not that he is White. Hell no, only that he is of lighter skin. My mother is also of lighter skin, and I don’t know what happened in the genetics. I don’t know what happened in the genetics, because they are lighter than me. But my father is racist. Look what he says, “a Black lover, you are going to be with a Black lover to damage the race and whatever.” So, yes, it grieves me when he says that to me. Because is it worth it that you live with a White man that treats you badly, that doesn’t love you, that treats you badly, that doesn’t love you, that treats you like dirt? It is better to live with a Black that you love, no? In the interview, I conducted with Veronica, she claimed a Mestiza identity, and in the above citation, Veronica indicates that her father does not identify her as a Black person either, which is revealed through her father’s

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desire that she not “damage the race” by having a relationship and children with a Black man. However, their claims of her non-Black identity were ambiguous. She explained that she felt pressured to end relationships by the parents of two young men she was romantically involved with because of her dark complexion. She described how this made her feel like she wished she could change the color of her skin. Another student, Elisa, simultaneously self-identified as a Black person and a Mestiza. For example, she made the following statement when I asked her how Black people are thought of in the city of Esmeraldas: The Black is categorized as a lazy person in the sense that Blacks, they see us in the sense that we are lazy that we do not like to progress in that sense. Above, Elisa identified as a Black person, indicated through her use of the fi rst-person plural pronoun above; nevertheless, later in the interview she qualified her racial identity through her ancestry when I asked her to identify herself. I identify myself as Mestiza because my mother is a child of White and Black and my father is from the highland, is Indian, Cholo. For this I identify myself as Mestiza. Elisa had a light brown complexion and sometimes wore her hair in an Afro style. She told me that her sister, who had a different father than she did and a darker complexion, did not like being Black and wanted to be White. Elisa was also forthright about her dislike of men with a dark complexion for marriage or sexual partners. There were discrepancies between how I classified my student informants and how they identified themselves. In all, I identified 10 of the youth informants as Black people, which included the 3 students discussed in this section and 6 others. My determinations were based on hair texture, complexion, and phenotype as markers of Blackness. Of the three students cited in this section, Elisa’s and Javier’s complexions were lighter than the six students that did claim a Black identity, while Veronica had a similar complexion. Besides skin color, I could not determine any physical marker that could explain our differing assertions of identity. I suggest that these students’ self-identifications are efforts to diminish their Blackness within a society that has simultaneously denigrated Blackness while silencing Afro-Ecuadorians’ contributions to society (Anton, 2007; De la Torre, 2002; Rahier, 1998; Telles, 1995; Wade, 1993). Anton writes, Confronting it (racism) the discriminated has no other option but to assume counter strategies of denial and assimilation, possibly their

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Ethan Johnson only mitigating instrument and path to social acceptance, which reveals an aberrant process of negotiation of one’s identity. (p. 6–7, translated by author)

However, such an analysis does not take into account the specific socio-historical context of these negotiations of racial identity that I have attempted to elucidate in this article.

CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS In Ecuador the contestation over racial and cultural meanings is at a high point and is evident in the recent changes in the constitution that officially acknowledge Afro-Ecuadorians and indigenous people as equal members of the nation with specifi c cultural and territorial rights. However, there has been little change regarding the treatment and experience of these groups. The province of Esmeraldas remains one of the poorest regions, although it has contributed significantly to the political and economic development of the nation. Nevertheless, within the city of Esmeraldas, Afro-Ecuadorians have the lowest levels of poverty compared to any other municipality or region in the country. The confluence of the large proportion of Black people and the resources invested in the social and economic infrastructure of the capital city of the province have provided a scale of opportunity for participation in the public sector and consequently social mobility not possible in other parts of the country. I suggest that this aspect of the city of Esmeraldas inhibits the perception of racial inequality and discrimination. While Afro-Ecuadorians have made gains into the public sector, they are rarely represented in the private sector, where economic power is centralized. Additionally, Afro-Ecuadorians continue to be negatively represented in juxtaposition to White people, although there is evidence this is being challenged. I have shown that the disproportionate poverty of Afro-Ecuadorians virtually guarantees their presence in an underfunded and neglected public school system where their academic and social needs are net met and they are unable to gain skills they need to compete effectively in society. Furthermore, schooling at the Jaime Hurtado Academy reinforced the racial hierarchy in two ways. At one level the curriculum denied the significance of race, while at another Black students experienced discrimination in the classroom. My interpretation of this context is that at an abstract level, Ecuador, as a nation of Mestizos/as, has broadened the terms of national identity and citizenship to include Afro-Ecuadorians. In the city of Esmeraldas, where Afro-Ecuadorians are in charge of mainstream institutions,

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it appears that the expansion of national identity is a reality. However, as I have demonstrated, the promise of membership as equal citizens remains unfulfi lled. Blackness and Black people are at the bottom of the social structure. With the slipperiness of racial identity in Latin America, people of African descent often make moves to improve their life chances by moving toward Whiteness. The claims and appropriation of the Mestizo/a identity revealed in the article are a result of this context. I assert this appropriation does not indicate that dominant groups now consider Afro-Ecuadorians full citizens. Within the context of the city of Esmeraldas, the dominant discourse of national identity is reinterpreted and transformed by Black people to accommodate Blackness. Ironically, the appropriation of the Mestizo/a identity subverts resistance to practices of racial discrimination and prejudice because those claiming one are no longer Afro-Ecuadorians and subsequently no longer victims of racial inequality. The implications of my research are important. The data indicate that the proportion of Afro-Ecuadorians is significantly higher than that reported in the last census and I suggest that my fi ndings can also be extended to the nation, although this is inconclusive. Furthermore, my research indicates that education plays an important role in the development of a salient identity of Blackness. For example, Peter Wade suggests that the greater ability of indigenous groups in the Andean nations to resist, organize, and develop counter-hegemonic discourses is due to the official recognition of indigenous people within the national curriculum as part of the bureaucratic infrastructure of the colonial era and early period of nation building, while Black people have been made invisible (Wade, 1997). Unless schooling through its curriculum and pedagogy does not address the critical role of race in the development in the nation, students of African descent will continue to move away from Blackness, which will simultaneously subvert the development of an Afro-Ecuadorian social movement. REFERENCES Anton, J. (2003). Caracterización del Pueblo Afroecuatoriano. Report for Sistema Integrado de Indicadores Sociales de Ecuador. Anton, J. (2005). Pueblos indígenas y afrodescendientes de América Latina y el Caribe: Relevancia y pertenencia de la información sociodemográfica para políticas y programas. Paper presented at the Comisión Económica Para América Latina y el Caribe, Santiago, Chile. Anton, J. (2007). Afrodescendientes: Sociedad civil y movilización social en el Ecuador. Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, 12 (1), 233–245. Anton, J., & Condor, J. (2007). Etnicidad y exclusión. Report for Sistema Integrado de Indicadores Sociales de Ecuador.

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Caicedo, Diogones Cuero (1995). Petroleo, realidad y sindicalismo. Quito, Ecuador: Efecto Grafico. De la Torre, C. (2002). Afroquiteños, ciudadanía y racismo. Quito: CAAP. Estrada, A. M. (2000). Breve historia del Ecuador e historia de límities:sexto curso [A brief history of Ecuador and history of its borders: Sixth course]. Quito: Maya Ediciones. Garcia, J., & Walsh, C. (2002). El pensar del emergente movimiento afroecuatoriano: Reflexiones de un proceso. Estudios y otras practices intelectuales Latinoamericanas en cultura y poder (D. Mato, Ed.). Caracas: Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales. Garcia Salazar, J. (1989). Cimarronaje en el pacífi co sur: historia y tradición. El caso de Esmeraldas, Ecuador [Cimarronism in the South Pacific: history and tradition. The case of Esmeraldas] (Unpublished master’s thesis), Johns Hopkins University. Granda-Merchan, S. (2003). Textos ecolares and interculturalidad en Ecuador [School texts and interculturality in Ecuador]. Quito: Corporación Editora Nacional. Handelsman, M. (2001). Lo Afro y la plurinacionalidad: El caso ecuatoriano visto desde su literature [The Afro and national pluralism: The Ecuadorian case seen from their literature]. Quito: Ediciones Abya-Yala. Johnson, E. (2007). Schooling, Blackness and National Identity in Esmeraldas, Ecuador. Race, Ethnicity and Education, 10(1), 47–70. Lane, K. (2002). Quito 1599: City and Colony in Transition. Albequerque: University of New Mexico Press. Maloney, Gerardo (1983). El Negro y La Question Nacional en La Nueva Historia de Ecuador. Quito, Ecuador: Corporacion Edition Nacional: Grihalb. Phelan, J.L. (1987). The Kingdom of Quito in the Seventeenth Century: Beaurocratic Politics in the Spanish Empire. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Preciado, A. (2000). Esmeraldas: Marco referencial para su estudio, y caracterizaión socioeconómica (Master’s thesis), University of Chile. Rahier, J. M. (1998). Estudios de negros en la antropología ecuatoriana: Presencia, invisibilidad y reproduccíon del orden ‘racial’/especial [Black studies in Ecuadorian anthropology: presence, invisibility and reproduction in the racial/ spatial order]. Memorias del primer congreso ecuatoriano de antropología [Memories of the fi rst Ecuadorian Congress of Anthropology]. Quito: AbyaYala. Rahier, J. M. (1999a). Body politics in black and white: senoras, mujeres, blanqueamiento and miss Esmeraldas 1997–1998, Ecuador. Women and Performance, 11 (1), 102–119. Rueda Novoa, R. (2001). Zambaje y autonomía: Historia de la gente negra de la Provincia de Esmeraldas [Zambaje and autonomy: History of black people in the province of Esmeraldas]. Esmeraldas, Quito, Ecuador, Municipalidad de Esmeraldas: TEHIS y Abya-Yala. Tardieu, J.P. (2006). El Negro en la Real Audiencia de Quito: Siglos XVI–XVIII [Black People in the Royal Kingdom of Quito: 16th-18th Centuries]. Quito: Ediciones Abya-Yala. Telles, E. (1995). Who Are the Morenas? Social Forces, 73 (4), 1609–1611. Telles, E. (2002). Racial ambiguity among the Brazilian population. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 25 (3), 415–441. Wade, P. (1993). Blackness and race mixture: The dynamics of racial identity in Colombia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Wade, P. (1997). Race and ethnicity in Latin America. London: Pluto Press.

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Walmsley, E. (2004). Blackness and belonging: Race, representations and embodiment in an Ecuadorian city (Unpublished doctoral thesis), University of Manchester.

4

Black Canadians’ Perspective on Educational Opportunities Clancie Wilson

While I am reporting on Black Canadians’ perspectives on educational opportunities, it is imperative to keep in mind that educational opportunities are influenced by many factors—factors such as socioeconomic status (Carter, 1984; Coleman et al., 1966; Entwisle & Alexander, 1992; Entwisle & Hayduk, 1982; Reynolds, 1989); teacher expectations (DryFoos, 1994; Ferguson, 2005; Good, 1981; Irvine, 1991; Leacock, 1985; Rist 1970; Steele, 1992); prejudice, discrimination (Lightfoot, 1978; Spencer, Cunningham, & Swanson, 1995); race (Codjoe, 2001; Dei, Mazzuca, McIssac, & Zine, 1997); parental involvement (Bronfenbrenner, 1974; Dauber & Epstein, 1989; Dye, 1989; Epstein, 1992, 1995; Epstein & Dauber, 1988; Hess & Holloway, 1984; Snodgrass, 1991; Stevenson & Baker, 1987; Slaughter and Epps, 1987); ample resources (Slaughter and Epps, 1987); influence of peer groups (Fordham & Ogbu, 1986); negative stereotypes (Steele, Spencer, & Aronson, 2002); as well as economic and social changes (Wilson, 1987). A succinct historical overview is presented in order to better understand the educational perspective of Black Canadians and Black Americans. Gutek (1970), citing Dewey, reveals that the failure to link past experiences would ignore the role history plays in our present existence. He further, citing Dewey, states that: The institutions and customs that exist in the present and that gave rise to present social ills and dislocations did not arise overnight. They have a long history behind them. Attempts to deal with them simply on the basis of what is obvious in the present is bound to result in adoption of superficial measures which in the end will only render existing problems more acute and more difficult to solve. (p. 6) Similarly, Franklin (1989) illuminates comparable views in his narrative. He asserts that: Every generation has the opportunity to write its own history, and indeed it is obliged to do so. Only in that way can it provide its contemporaries with the materials vital to understanding the present and to

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planning strategies for coping with the future. Only in that way can it fulfi ll its obligation to pass on to posterity the accumulated knowledge and wisdom of the past, which, after all, give substance and direction for the continuity of civilization. (p. 49) This chapter, in addition to providing an historical perspective, also examines both Black Canadians’ and Black Americans’ perspectives on educational opportunities and some implications of cultural differences on academic achievement. Additionally, it investigates Black Canadians opportunities in education utilizing Ogbu’s premise of involuntary and voluntary minorities’ perspectives of education, as well as examines whether Blacks who willingly moved or forcibly relocated to Canada would have a different perspective than their African American counterparts on educational opportunities.

LINKAGES OF THE PAST WITH THE PRESENT History shows that cultural transformation can be identified in many forms (Jansen, 2005). One form is the internalization of one’s own culture as the norm by which everyone is evaluated. Another form of cultural transformation is to put forth a false status to the indigenous and/or colonizing subject through the “authority of Western knowledge” at the same time the indigenous knowledge is deprivileged, undesirable, or devalued (Dei, 2000). Angelina (2000) contends that vestiges of colonialism constituted White supremacy, racism, sexism, and patriarchy and was sustained by an intimate relationship with education and government. Angelina further states that “European supremacy is based on the civilized or uncivilized dichotomy, and it effectively justified colonization.” The colonizers are depicted as the advanced civilization while the colonized are depicted as backward nations. This conception permits “ideas about the biological base of racial inequality” (Angelina, 2000, p. 66). Forced relocation or the colonization of Blacks from Africa to other parts of the world started around the 1600s and reached America (Jamestown, VA) by 1619 (Fishel & Quarles, 1967). Blacks were initially used as indentured servants but were relegated to slaves toward the end of the 1600s (Fishel & Quarles, 1967; Mensah, 2002). However, Black slavery in the 1600s was insignificant in Canada, as most slaves were Indians; the labor shortage in the 1700s prompted the importation of Blacks in significant numbers (Bolaria & Li, 1988; Mensah, 2002; Winks, 1971). Blacks were held as slaves from the 1700s until the nineteenth century, throughout the founding of the present Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Ontario (Mensah, 2002; Solomon, 1992; Walker, 1980). Many American slaves made their way behind British lines during the War of 1812 often settling in Nova Scotia where they joined the Black refugees, the Black Loyalists, and Maroons (Pachai & Bishop, 2006; Solomon, 1992). These groups,

50 Clancie Mavello Wilson though small in number, formed a unique Black community, and “with the passage of time, the boundaries between the groups became increasingly blurred, as the groups were subsumed in the shared African diasporic culture” (Pachai & Bishop, 2006, p. 9). The Black Loyalists fought alongside the British during the American Revolutionary War, and won their freedom expecting equitable treatment and as promised, free land in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick (Solomon, 1992). Nova Scotia is a community that holds great significance as it contains the largest indigenous Black population in Canada (Pachai, 1997b; Sanders, 1999). However, it should be noted that Black and White Loyalists who entered Canada did not receive equitable treatment. Rather, Blacks had to wait longer than Whites for their allotment of land, and when they eventually received their land, it was in a poorer location, was substantially smaller than promised, and was rocky in quality (Solomon, 1992). Further, Pachai and Bishop (2006) provide a similar account of the treatment of the Black Loyalists taken to Nova Scotia by the British Government both during and after the American War of Independence. They reveal that “Nova Scotia was a picture of the ‘softer side’ of slavery—if one can use such words to describe a brutalizing institution at a time when there was no such thing as equality between white and black. Nevertheless, the legacy of slavery affected race relations in Nova Scotia for centuries, as blacks suffered negative stereotyping and dehumanization in the eyes of whites” (p. 8). Franklin’s (1989) views of slavery in America convey a similar message. He states that: From the time that Africans were brought as indentured servants to the mainland of English America in 1619, the enormous task of rationalizing and justifying the forced labor of peoples on the basis of racial differences was begun; and even after legal slavery was ended, the notion of racial differences persisted as a basis for maintaining segregation and discrimination. At the same time, the effort to establish a more healthy basis for the new world social order was begun, thus launching the continuing battle between the two worlds of race, on the one hand, and world of equality and complete human fellowship, on the other. (p. 132) Although Black Canadians can be traced back to the seventeenth century, it was only after the introduction of the point system in 1967 that Blacks began to arrive in Canada in significant numbers (Mensah, 2002). The Black population in Canada is highly heterogeneous including: Canadian-born descendants of those who came through the slave trade; the descendants of those who migrated from the U.S. during and after the Civil War and Blacks who immigrated from the Caribbean, Africa; and other individuals who recently emigrated from other countries (Mensah, 2002). Black Canadian and Black American populations are diverse and,

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like other ethnic groups, exhibit differences among their members (Ogbu, 1998; Spencer & Markstrom-Adams, 1990). A theme continued in the writing by Janigan, Burke, Finlayson, and Wood (1986) as they revealed diversity among Black Canadians by comparing more recent immigrants with Canadian-born Blacks. They reported that the more recent immigrants to Canada possessed skills surpassing those of Canadian-born Blacks, which added to the strain between the communities. The Black population in the U.S. is, as previously stated, also highly heterogeneous. However, unlike Canada where some Blacks willingly moved to escape slavery, Blacks arriving to America during the 1600s through the 1800s did not willingly leave Africa but were brought to America by force. According to Mensah, the Canadian census (based on race rather than ethnicity) reported Blacks as the third largest visible minority group, and reside more prominently, in Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan, in that order (48% live in Toronto [274,935]; 21.3% live in Montreal [122,320]; 5.4% in Ottawa-Hull [30,805]; 2.9% Vancouver [16,400]; 2.1% Halifax [12,000]). While Mensah reports that the number of Black slaves as well as Blacks who willingly immigrated to Canada was significant, their numbers diminished significantly after the Civil War, as many Blacks returned to the U.S. This, then, might account for the low number of indigenous Blacks presently residing in Canada. Ghanaians and Somalis are the largest visible minority group, but Haitians and Jamaicans also have a sizable representation (see Mensah, 2002; Pachai, 1997a; Winks, 1997). While data based on race might seemingly simplify data collection, it fails to acknowledge or point out variations among minority groups and, thus, implies sameness. Further, the indigenous (Canadian-born) Blacks in Nova Scotia with Canadian citizenship are proficient in at least one of Canada’s official languages. However, these characteristics do not insolate them from high levels of racial discrimination, especially in employment (Mensah, 2002). While there are some differences among their Caribbean counterparts in terms of cultural attributes such as native language and religion, commonalities do exist. Both Caribbean and African immigrants tend to settle in urban areas (central Canada, primarily Toronto and Montreal), and they are subjected to racial discrimination, are marginalized, in terms of income, and do not fit into a White society. However, unlike their American counterparts, Black Canadians tend not to live for decades in concentrated cramped high-rise quarters, but rather tend to be more dispersed, albeit less well off economically than their White counterparts, in suburbia as well (Mensah, 2002). Mensah (2002) states that “despite the historical differences between race relations in Canada and race relations in the United States, Canadians and Americans are roughly similar in their attitudes and behaviors towards racial minorities.” Non-Whites are commonly harassed and subjected to discriminatory practices in nearly all aspects of Canadian life, particularly in the area of employment. As

52 Clancie Mavello Wilson with Black Americans, even when qualifications are equal, the income of visible minorities is generally lower than that of their White counterparts (Bolaria & Li, 1988; Mensah, 2002).

CULTURE AND IMPLICATIONS The 1997 Census Bureau Report indicates that Blacks residing in the U.S., by far, outnumber those residing in Canada. Blacks represent 2% of the Canadian population (Winks, 1997), and 12% of the population in the U.S. (36.4 million) according to the 2004 Census Report, which is based on race rather than ethnicity. Collectively combining ethnic groups in this manner, although less cumbersome, tends to disregard cultural differences. This is particularly noteworthy given the role culture plays in learning and development. However, the U.S. 2000 Ancestry Census Report conveys ethnic distinctions. This report seeks to identify ethnic origin, heritage, descent, or roots reflecting place of birth. Because the 2000 Ancestry Census Report addressed questions related to ethnicity, it lowered the African American count by 12 million, from 36.4 million to approximately 23.8 million. The Ancestry Census questions allowed individuals to report their ancestry more specifically, such as Jamaican, Haitian, or Nigerian, and thus were not counted in the African American category. What do these variations within the Black race tell us, particularly when all Blacks in the U.S. and, less so in Canada, are viewed as one race and are thought to represent one culture? Spencer (1999) asserts that it is important to consider the role of culture because it influences how individuals form a sense of self within ones’ context (e.g., home, school, peer groups, community). Her Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory (PVEST), an expansion of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model (1979), conveys how individuals view themselves and process their identity within their own cultural context, rather than from the perspective of the broader society. Unlike other models, PVEST provides a contextual framework that describes how African Americans, particularly adolescents living in high stress or multiple stress environments, interpret their social, cognitive, and personal experiences. Moreover, this model is a learning device to aid youth in the processes of “making meaning” of their immediate world, which is in contrast to the cultural deficient learning theory that gained momentum during the 1960s. As previously mentioned, research during the 1960s offered differing theoretical claims of factors influencing cognitive development, often reporting culture deficiency as a reason for African American youths’ school failure (Bourdieu, 1977; Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977; Deutsch, 1967). A deficit model that compared African American achievement outcomes to those of White youth also led researchers to view the behavior of African American youth as deviant (Hare & Costenell, 1985). Such views

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tend to indicate that the child, coming from disadvantaged environments, must in essence give up his or her culture and adopt the middle class culture and values if he or she wishes to succeed academically (Miller, 1967). Although the “overt” push by America’s educational system to endorse and enforce the adaptation of White middle class values in order to succeed academically has somewhat abated, its underlying framework remains in place today. Historically, America’s educational system has been and continues to be a vehicle used to transmit the cultural heritage from one generation to another (Gutek, 1970). Moreover, Shirley (1986) and Lareau (1987) argue that prior knowledge, similar attitudes, and language can enhance one’s position culturally. They postulate that higher income status does not automatically imply that all middle class parents will take advantage of opportunities afforded them. However, they are more likely to be familiar with the school’s curriculum than working class parents and to intervene more readily in the school setting. Again, Lareau (1987) contends that because schools mirror the experiences and values of middle class parents, their children adjust better to school and perform better academically. Consequently, since many schools adhere to middle class values and standards, it is understandable that these parents would be more involved in school activities (Lareau, 1987). If, then, the White middle class culture is being transmitted, the culture deficit model remains relevant today, and thus Ryan’s (as cited in Brown, 1986) indictment of public education’s dysfunction for minorities warrants reexamination. Ryan reports that: We are dealing, it would seem, not so much with culturally deprived children as with culturally depriving schools. And the task to be accomplished is not to revise, and amend, and repair deficient children but to alter and transform the atmosphere and operations of the schools to which we commit these children. Only by changing the nature of the educational experience can we change its product. To continue to define the difficulty as inherent in the raw materials—the children—is plainly to blame the victim and to acquiesce in the continuation of educational inequity in America. (p. 2) In that same vein, Garcia Coll, Meyer, and Brillon (1995) reveal that when researchers fail to examine cultural normative behavior patterns within each culture group, the children from those cultures are prevented from actualizing their own full potential as individuals. They further contend that “when minority groups are evaluated by the majority using majority values, behaviors, and attitudes as standards, they will more than likely be judged as inferior” (p. 191). Successful navigation for children from their own cultural context to the cultural context of schools requires bidirectional understanding of both cultures (Delpit, 1995; Holliday, 1985a, 1985b; Ladson-Billings, 1994; Ogbu, 1988). Ford (1992a) contends that

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youth who are unable to negotiate the two cultures simultaneously will confront more obstacles to academic achievement. In contrast, White middle class individuals would suffer less frequently from feelings of alienation. Deutsch (1967), understanding the academic advantages provided children who enter school from a culture that is not in confl ict with the school, suggests that school provides some continuity between its culture and the “differing” child’s culture. Many Black Americans are not only confronted with cultural differences but also encounter everyday challenges such as living in low resource neighborhoods, discrimination, poverty, and single-parent households (Spencer, 2005). Hernandez (1993) asserts that the number of children in single-parent families has more than doubled for African Americans since the 1940s. The increase in the number of children living in poverty, according to Spencer and Dornbusch (1990) has dire consequences and can interfere with effective parenting. Thus, the added burdens of such factors (e.g., poverty, living in low resource neighborhoods, discrimination) contribute to the burdens impoverished Black Americans experience and often lead to prolonged stress. Rutter (1979) cautions that conditions causing a single risk factor are not likely to inflict serious consequences, but the likelihood that an increase in risk factors will precipitate damaging outcomes increases fourfold when two or three stresses occur together and tenfold when four stresses co-occur. According to Rutter, it would be difficult to function “holistically” when three or more stressors occur simultaneously. Yet, research has documented that a high percentage of Black American parents and children are confronted with multiple stressors. For example, a disproportionate number of Black parents live below the poverty level (according to the Children’s Defense Fund Report on the state of America’s children, some 61% of single Black parents are below the poverty level), and many Black families live in high-risk neighborhoods and are subjected to prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination to name a few. Given these stressors, a historical perspective as put forth by Boykin (1983) should be taken into consideration before one can understand this particular culture group. The African American perspective, not the European American perspective, is descriptive of the African American experience and calls for a closer historical examination of “each cultural” view of self.

INVOLUNTARY AND VOLUNTARY PERSPECTIVES Voluntary immigrants as defi ned by Ogbu (1998) are individuals who willingly moved to a particular place seeking political or religious freedom. Similarly, Mensah (2002) reported that of late, Blacks typically go to Canada in search of better wages and favorable social and political milieu that uphold basic human rights and freedom. Involuntary immigrants are individuals that have been conquered, colonized, or enslaved. Involuntary

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immigrants, unlike voluntary immigrants, do not choose to leave their place of residence but are forced to do so. As previously stated, educational opportunities are influenced by many factors. Ogbu’s (1993) 20 years of studying different types of minorities led him to investigate voluntary and involuntary immigrants in an effort to explain the educational underachievement of minority students. According to Ogbu (1998), involuntary immigrants enter a society against their will and were more inclined to be denied true assimilation and are consigned to unskilled positions. Conversely, Ogbu (1998), in an effort to explain why some minorities do less well in school than other minorities, examined school-age children of voluntary (immigrant) and involuntary groups (nonimmigrant). But, he did not focus specifically on the psychological impact experienced by minorities denied a choice in deciding their fate, nor did he discuss the ramifications or the long-term psychological implications of forced immigration. He did, however, point out that the experiences by immigrants denied a choice were woven into the fiber of their life course and the life course of their descendants. Ogbu (1998) further contends that the education of the descendants of immigrants continue to be influenced by the forces of their Forebears as evident in Colin Powell’s statement. Powell (as cited in Ogbu, 1998) asserts that: My Black ancestors may have been dragged to Jamaica in chains, but they were not dragged to the United States. That is a far different emotional and psychological beginning than that of America Blacks, whose ancestors were brought here in chains. (p. 166) Given Powell’s assertion, and Ogbu’s thoughts concerning Blacks who see themselves as voluntary (as they had an attitude of “choice,” “I elected to come here”) rather than involuntary minorities, will Blacks in Canada experience a different emotional and psychological beginning because a number of their ancestors willingly moved to Canada? Involuntary minorities, Ogbu (1993) asserts, are more likely to do less well in school, are less economically successful, and generally experience more persistent cultural and language difficulties than do voluntary minorities. According to Ogbu (1993), involuntary groups in the U.S. are American Indians and Alaskan Natives, the original owners of the land, who were conquered, as were early Mexican Americans in the Southwest; Puerto Ricans who consider themselves a colonized people; African Americans who were brought to the U.S. as slaves; migrant workers; refugees such as the Hmong’s, Cambodians, Laotians, and indigenous Vietnamese who entered the U.S. not of their own free will but by forced circumstances. While some studies confi rm Ogbu’s premise in explaining the academic failure of minority students, others, though agreeing with his basic premise, were inconclusive. For example, Jenkins, Harburg, Weissberg, and Donnelly (2004) found that Black college students whose fathers were

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voluntary immigrants stayed in college longer than Black students whose fathers were native to the U.S. Ogbu’s own study, which was based on observing different types of minorities in the U.S., noted that children of voluntary immigrants behaved quite differently with respect to schooling when compared with the children of their African American peers. In essence, Blacks from Africa and the Caribbean who choose to enter the U.S. are more likely to do better than their African American (involuntary) counterparts (Ogbu, 1993). However, an ethnographic study by Hayes (1992), when comparing Mexican voluntary immigrants with involuntary immigrants, reported similarities between voluntary and involuntary students’ school success as well as in attitudes toward education. In other words, there were no noticeable differences between the academic prowess of Mexican (voluntary) immigrants and their (involuntary) counterparts in the U.S. Interwoven in Ogbu’s (1998) discussion on reasons related to why involuntary minorities experience more difficulty in school is skin color, particularly Africa Americans, whose skin color precludes them from passing as White or from joining the White community. Additionally, involuntary individuals, particularly Blacks, because of their abrupt abduction from their place of origin, the cruel transition to their new place of residence, and time passed, will most likely not have a link with their place of origin and are likely to have a negative reference based on their entrance to the U.S. While voluntary minorities tended to have a more positive frame of reference of their situation in the U.S. A cultural frame of reference allows one to take on some aspects of the host country’s culture while retaining aspects of their culture (Ogbu, 1993). In contrast, involuntary minorities lack the positive dual frame of reference and, thus, according to Ogbu (1993), tend to develop an identity system that is in opposition to the social identity system of the dominant majority. In addition, Ogbu (1998) suggests that involuntary minorities evaluated their schools more negatively, were more mistrustful of their teachers, and tended to have ambivalent assumptions regarding school success in the U.S. On the one hand, the importance of education is put forth as a theory in getting ahead, while on the other hand, employment discrimination diminishes the impact of school success leading to a good job. The impact of “denial” of choice as a hindrance to school success is embedded in Ogbu’s (1993) discussion, as he contends that Blacks denied the freedom of “choice” to enter the U.S. were more resentful, perceived their forced incorporation as an unforgettable loss of freedom, and did not view the U.S. as a land of opportunity. The loss of freedom of choice contributed to other distinctions between voluntary and involuntary minorities. College graduates of involuntary individuals more often alluded to their disappointment and disillusionment in working hard to attain a college degree but not being afforded “the same professional status and economic payoffs as their educationally equal Euro-American peers” (Ogbu, 1993, p. 488).

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Also, embedded in Ogbu’s (1998) examination of school success is the long history of discrimination that, in many instances, led involuntary minorities to distrust White-controlled institutions, a belief that the school system will not educate their children as they educate White children. Moreover, he suggests that involuntary minorities are defi ned, to some extent, by their difference from the White society and see the school curriculum as an attempt to impose White culture on them. In addition, Codjoe (2001) highlights the effects of racism on the academic success of Black students in both Canada and the U.S. and maintains that the issue of racism must be dealt with if one is serious about dealing with school failure in this population. Likewise, Dei (2000) suggests that rather than dismiss race and difference as inhibitors to school success, one should deal with these issues as well as culture and power as “essentialized notions.” Will Ogbu’s (1998) position on voluntary and involuntary minorities, in explaining differences in school performance, be in line with those held by voluntary minorities and involuntary minorities in Canada? Keep in mind that voluntary and involuntary responses are not monolithic, their responses, as posited by Ogbu (1998) and vary in their actions and reactions in dissimilar ways, but the general response from voluntary groups are often varied in similar ways than did the involuntary immigrants. Will Black Canadians, particularly Black Canadian-born individuals, have similar views on educational opportunities as their American counterparts?

PERSPECTIVE ON EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES The education perspective of voluntary and involuntary immigrants previously discussed is contingent on many factors that influence life experiences, and the public school experiences are among those factors. Religious schools (although there are neutral schools available for students choosing not to attend a provincial school) are still an integral part of the school system in all provinces in Canada (some more than others), and in many instances, the state provides fi nancial support to these private schools (Bergen, 1990). In the U.S., laws separating church and state and government funding are clearly delineated, whereas the separation of church and state is somewhat more blurred in Canada. More often than not, the emergence of education in the U.S. has been viewed as a means of cultural transmission and cultural reconstruction (Brown, 1986; Gutek, 1970). If this premise of education is accepted, then whose culture is to be transmitted? Research indicates that it is the culture transmission of the White middle class (Brown, 1986; Lareau, 1987). The adaptation of this instructional service would, in essence, ignore the needs of many children from diverse cultures. This is particularly noteworthy, as people within a given culture do not learn the same way (Ford, 1992a; Garcia Coll et al., 1995; Irvine & Irvine, 1995; Irvine, 1991). Although Frances (1992)

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reports that Blacks get a fairer education in Canada (compared to the U.S.), as each province tries to ensure equality in funding for all schools, as well as provide extra funds for schools with a disproportionate number of special needs children. The fairer education position is revealed by Pachai (1997b) in his paper on the education experience of the African Nova Scotians. He disclosed, however, that while four Black schools were opened for Black children to attend during the late 1700s, the schools lacked support and funding by the broader community and only taught reading, spelling, and sewing, as writing and arithmetic were considered unnecessary for this population. Yet, as Pachai (1997b) reveals, the establishment of schools for Black children to attend existed long before the late 1800s when schools were legally free. Even with such educational differences between Black Canadians and Black Americans, both Black Canadian and the Black American students are similar in their achievement as both groups have been plagued by underachievement (Dei et al., 1997; Ford, 1992b). Smith, Schneider, and Ruck (2005) in their study reported that not only do Black high school students in Toronto and Halifax underachieve, but their African American counterparts suffered a similar fate. They further point out that although underachievement of Black students is a widespread concern in both countries, little empirical examination has been undertaken in Canada. Similarly, Ford (1992b) and Smith et al. (2005) contend that a disproportionate number of Black Canadian and American students showed poor school performance and failure. The report of Smith et al. (2005) revealed that less than 30% of Black Nova Scotians between 20 and 24 years of age had completed high school and 70% of Black Nova Scotian high school students were enrolled in non-university preparatory programs. Also, they reported that 45% of the Black students in Toronto were enrolled in lowlevel vocational and occupational programs. In comparison, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (2002), 27% of Black American high school students were enrolled in college preparatory classes. Other statistics presented by Nettles & Perna (1997) in the African American Data Book, Volume II (1997) indicated that African American students were overrepresented in special education, vocational, and alternative schools. African Americans represented 16% of the public school population, but 29% of students in special education schools, 30% of students enrolled in vocational programs, and 23% of students attending alternative schools. Smith et al. (2005) examined the academic achievement-related beliefs of Black high school students from two Canadian cities, Toronto, Ontario, and Halifax, Nova Scotia. Their study surveyed 430 Black high school students, 287 from Toronto and 143 from the Halifax regional municipality and revealed significant regional differences (57% of the students surveyed were from Toronto; 28.8% born in the West Indies; 8.1% African born; 5% Canadian born; 90.8% of the students from Halifax were born in Canada; 2.1% were born in the West Indies; 4.2% African born). It appeared that

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most participants believed that schooling could lead to success for them. However, the “Canadian born group and their parents were far less oriented to education than all other groups, whereas the African born group was far more education-oriented” (Smith et al. 2005, p. 355). Dei (personal communication, November 10, 2006) resurrected, in 2005, the proposal for Black Focused/African-Afro centric school for Black Canadian youth. Dei (personal communication, November 10, 2006) indicates that the longer students are in school, the less well they do. He based his discussion on a Secondary Student Survey done by the school board that tracked students who entered grade nine and (after 5 years) compared the number of students graduating to the number of students who dropped out. The follow-up report of 1987 revealed the graduation rate for Black students as 44% and the dropout rate at 42%, compared to a 59% graduation and 31% dropout rate for White students. Moreover, the 4- to 5-year follow-up report revealed that not only did the number of Black students who had entered high school have a higher dropout rate in contrast to White students but also First Nations, Aboriginal, and Portuguese students. A more recent June 2003 report conveyed little changes and revealed that Black students are still poorly served (G. Dei, personal communication, November 10, 2006). The African American Data Book (1997) similarly reported that student enrollment decreased as students’ grade-level increased. That is, Black American students were more apt to drop out of school as their grade levels increased. (Based on the 2002 National Center for Education Statistics [NCES] report, 81% of Black students between 20 and 24 years of age completed high school, representing an improvement over the 1993 [NCES] comparison showing that only 70.4% Black Americans between 20 and 24 years of age completed high school.) G. Dei (personal communication, November 10, 2006) has proposed a Black Focused School as one means of narrowing the academic gap and decreasing the dropout rate and heightening the academic success of Black Canadian students. To those who contend that Black-Focused Afro centric schools would be a front for segregation, Dei (personal communication, November 10, 2006) counters “that there is a difference between forced segregation and segregation by choice.” Above all, he continues “that racial solidarity alone cannot guarantee academic success, and he adds that all Black students are not failing in school.” However, a Black-focused school would provide a supportive environment that centers on the child’s culture, history, and personal location, and spiritual identity. Such programs, as Dei (personal communication November 10, 2006) envisions, would be established within the guidelines of the Canadian public school as is the all-girl schools, or the French immersion programs, or the specialized arts program, or the boy-only literacy classes in the junior grades. If such an undertaking were implemented in the U.S., it would most likely be affi liated with a startup Charter School.

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Dei’s personal communication (November 10, 2006) and the study by Smith et al. (2005) provided some insight into understanding the Black Canadian perspective on educational opportunities. One would have expected, according to Ogbu’s premise of involuntary and voluntary minorities, that Black Canadians who willingly moved to Canada would have a different perspective than their African American counterparts in the U.S. on education opportunities, and thus their children would have more academic success than their American counterparts.

CONCLUSIONS Involuntary minorities, according to Ogbu, are more likely to do less well in school, are less economically successful, and generally experience more persistent cultural and language difficulties than voluntary minorities. Given Ogbu’s position, it was expected that the Blacks who willingly move to Canada would have a different perspective than their African American counterparts on educational opportunities. However, according to the literature review, it appears that Ogbu’s premise on children of involuntary minorities doing less well than the children of voluntary minorities was not evident in the comparison between Black-born Canadians and Black Americans. The literature review revealed that Canadian-born students of individual’s who voluntarily entered Canada did less well than their more recent voluntary immigrants. Children of more recent immigrants also generally did better than their involuntary counterparts. There were no noticeable differences, according to previous and contemporary writings, between perspectives on educational outcomes or the success rate of voluntary versus involuntary minority groups. It appears that children of Canadian-born Blacks were themselves and their parents less oriented to education than all other Black Canadian groups. One plausible explanation for the less oriented beliefs of Canadian-born Blacks might be attributed to the report that more recent Black immigrants enter Canada with skills that surpass those of Canadian-born Blacks. Such credentials might afford more recent Black Canadians more fi nancial opportunities as well as establish them a more recent link with their place of origin. Also, the emotional and psychological outlook interwoven in Powell’s statement has implications for Canadian-born Blacks, as their link with their place of origin is more distant and could leave them with a feeling of “entrapment” and the recipient of more prolonged discriminatory practices than more recent immigrants. Although the above discussion provides some insight into variations between Black Canadian groups, it does not explain why Blacks who willingly moved to Canada did not have a different perspective on educational opportunities. The literature review offers possible answers for similar views by Blacks who willingly immigrated to Canada and those brought by force to live in

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the U.S. In essence, the boundaries between the Black-born Canadians, the descendants of Black refugees and Black Loyalists, have become blurred and viewed as “one culture” in the shared African Diaspora. Another factor could be attributed to the diminished number of Blacks in Canada, as many Blacks returned to the U.S. after the Civil War, again blurring the voluntary group from the involuntary group of Black Canadian descendants. Lastly, racism and discrimination are a common thread linking both Black Canadians and Black Americans, as both groups experienced discrimination, negative stereotyping, and prolonged racial injustices that persisted long after slavery. As Franklin pointed out in his discussion of slavery in America, we are still battling between the two worlds of race, the new world social order on the one hand, and equality and complete human fellowship on the other. It would seem, then, that the attitude toward Blacks, whether free or enslaved, in the U.S. or Canada, conveyed a similar message. That is, the persistence of racism and discrimination remained long after slavery, a bond, although negative, that all people share who experience the European colonial encounter, a common thread that links dissimilar Black groups in similar ways. REFERENCES Angelina, W. (2000). Post-colonial recovering and healing (Report No. RC 022 654). Baltimore, MD: Center for Research on Elementary Schools. (ED445869) Bergen, J. J. (1990). The emergence and expansion of private schools in Canada. In J. Lam (Ed.), Te Canadian public education system: Issues and prospects (3–29). Calgary, Alberta: Detselig Enterprises Limited. Bolaria, B. S. and Li, P. S. (1988). Racial oppression in Canada. Toronto: Garamond. Halifax: Fernwood. Bourdieu, P. (1977). Cultural reproduction and social reproduction. In J. Karabel & A. H. Halsey (Eds.), Power and ideology in education (pp. 487–511). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J. C. (1977). Reproduction in education, society and culture. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Boykin, A. W. (1983). The academic performance of Afro-American children. In J. T. Spence (Ed.), Achievement and achievement motives (pp. 321–371). San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Company. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1974). Is early intervention effective? In F. G. Jennings (Ed.), Teachers college record (vol. 76, pp. 279–303). New York: Columbia University. Brown, T. J. (1986). Teaching minorities more effectively: A model for educators. New York: University Press of America. Carter, L. (1984). The sustaining effects study of compensatory and elementary education. Educational Researcher, 13 (7), 4–13. Codjoe, H. M. (2001). Fighting a ‘public enemy’ of Black academic achievementthe persistence of racism and the schooling experiences of Black students in Canada. Race Ethnicity and Education, 4 (4), 343–375. Coleman, J. S., Campbell, E. Q., Hobson, C. J., McPartland, J., Mood, A. M., Weinfeld, F. D., & York, R. L. (1966). Equality of educational opportunity. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

62 Clancie Mavello Wilson Dauber, S. L., & Epstein, J. L. (1989). Parent attitudes and practices of involvement in inner-city elementary and middle schools. (Report No. PS 018 319). Baltimore, MD: Center for Research on Elementary Schools. (ED314152). Dei, G. J. S. (1999). “The Denial of Difference: Reframing Anti-Racist Praxis,” Race, Ethnicity and Education 2(1): 17–38. Dei, G. J. S. (2000). Rethinking the role of indigenous knowledges in the academy. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 4 (2), 111–132. Dei, G., Mazzuca, J., McIssac, E., & Zine, J. (1997). Reconstructing drop-out: A critical ethnography of the dynamics of black students’ disengagement from school. Toronto, Ontario: University of Toronto Press. Delpit, L. D. (1995). Other people’s children. New York: New Press. Deutsch, M. (Ed.). (1967). The disadvantaged child and the learning process. New York: Basic Books. DryFoos, J. (1994). Full-service schools: A revolution in health and social service of children, youth and families. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Dye, J. (1989). Parental involvement in curriculum: Parents, teachers and children working together. Educational Research, 31 (1), 20–35. Entwisle, D. R., & Alexander, K. L. (1992). Summer setback: Race, poverty, school composition, and mathematics achievement in the fi rst two years of school. American Sociological Review, 57, 72–84. Entwisle, D. R., & Hayduk, L. A. (1982). Early schooling. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Epstein, J. L. (1992). School and family partnerships. In Encyclopedia of educational research (pp. 1139–1151). New York: MacMillan. Epstein, J. L. (1995). School/family community partnership: Caring for the children we share. Phi Delta Kappan, 76 (9), 701–712. Epstein, J. L., & Dauber, L. L. (1988). Teacher attitudes and practices of parent involvement in inner-city elementary and middle schools. (ED314151). Ferguson, R. F. (2005). Teachers’ perceptions and expectations and black-white test score gap. In O. S. Fashola (Ed.), Educating African American males: Voices from the fi eld (pp. 79–128). Oaks, CA: Corwin. Fishel, L., & Quarles, B. (1967). The Black America: A documentary history, rev. ed. Glenview, Scott, Foresman and company, 1970 (First published as the Negro American in 1965). The University of Michigan. Ann Arbor, Michigan. Ford, D. Y. (1992a). The American Achievement Ideology as perceived by urban African American students. Urban Education, 27 (2) 196–211. Ford, D. Y. (1992b). The American achievement ideology and achievement differentials among preadolescent gifted and non-gifted African American males and females. Journal of Negro Education, 61 (1) 45–64. Fordham, S., & Ogbu, J. U. (1986). Black students’ school success: Coping with the burden of acting white. The Urban Review, 18 (3), 176–206. Francis, D. (1992). Why Canada’s system is color-blind. Maclean’s, 105 (21), 13. Franklin, J. H. (1989). Race and history: Selected essays. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. Garcia Coll, C. T., Meyer, E. C., & Brillon, L. (1995). Ethnic and minority parenting. In M. H. Bornstein (Ed.), Handbook of parenting (Vol. 2, pp. 189–209), Biology and ecology of parenting. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Good, T. L. (1981). Teacher expectations and student perceptions: A decade of research. Educational Leadership, 38 (5), 415–422. Gutek, G. L. (1970). An historical introduction to American education. New York: Crowell. Hare, B. R. & Costenell, L. A. (1985). No Place to Run, No Place to Hide: Comparative Status and Future Propsects of Black Boys. In M. B. Spencer, B. K.

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Brookins & W. R. Allen (Eds.) Beginnings: The Social and Affective Development of Black Children (pp. 117–130). Hillsdale, N. J.: Erlbaum. Hayes. L. G. (1992). Attitudes toward education: Voluntary and involuntary immigrants from the same families. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 23, 251–267. Hernandez, D. J. (1993). American Children: Resources From Family, Government and the Economy. New York: Russell Sage Foundations. Hess, R. D., & Holloway, S. D. (1984). Family and school as educational institutions. In R. D. Parke (Ed.), Review of child development research (Vol. 7, pp. 179–222). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Holliday, B. G. (1985a). Towards a model of teacher-transactional processes affecting black children’s academic achievement. In M. B. Spencer, G. K. Brookins, & W. R. Allen (Eds.), Beginnings: The social and affective development of black children (pp. 117–130). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Holliday, B. (1985b). Differential effects of children’s self perceptions and teachers’ perceptions of black children’s academic achievement. Journal of Negro Education, 54, 71–81. Irvine, J. J. (1991). Black students and school failure: Policies, practices, and prescriptions. Westport, NY: Praeger. Irvine, J. J., & Irvine, R. W. (1995). Black youth in schools: Individual achievement and institutional: Cultural perspectives. In R. L. Taylor (Ed.), African-American youth: Their social and economic status in the United States. Westport, CT: Praeger. Janigan, M., Burke, D., Finlayson, A., & Wood, C. (1986, January 20). A Black view of Canada. Maclean’s, V99 P24(2). Rogers Publishing Ltd. Toronto, Ontario. Jenkins, A. H., Harburg, E., Weissberg, N. C., & Donnelly, T. (2004). The influence of minority group cultural models on persistence in college. The Journal of Negro Education, 73 (1), 70–79. Ladson-Billings, G. (1994). The dreamkeepers: Successful teachers of African American Children. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Lareau, A. (1987, April). The importance of cultural capital. Journal of Social of Education, 60, 73–85. Leacock, E. (1985). The influence of teacher attitudes on children’s classroom performance: Case studies. In K. Borman (Ed.), The social life of children in a changing society (pp. 47–64). Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Lightfoot, S. L. (1978). Worlds apart: Relationships between families and schools. New York: Basic Books. Mensah, J. (2002). Black Canadians: History, experiences, social conditions. Halifax: Fernwood. Miller, H. L. (1967). Cultural diversity and human development. In D. Slaughter (Ed.), Black children and poverty: A development perspective (pp. 11–27). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. National Center for Educational Statistic’s: 2002 Research Triangle Institute, Raliegh, N.C. Nettles, M. T., & Perna, L. W. (1997). The African American Education Data Book Volume II: Preschool through High School Education. Fairfax, VA: Frederick D. Patterson Research Institute of the College Fund/UNCF. Ogbu, J. U. (1988). Cultural diversity and human development. In D. Slaughter (Ed.), Black children and poverty: A development perspective (pp. 11–27). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Ogbu, J. U. (1993). Differences in cultural frame of reference. International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development, 16 (3), 483–506. Ogbu, J. U. (1998). Voluntary and involuntary minorities: A cultural-ecological theory of school performance with some implications for Education. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 29 (2), 155–188.

64 Clancie Mavello Wilson Pachai, B. (1997a). People of the Maritimes: Blacks. Halifax: Nimbus. Pachai, B. (1997b). Education in Nova Scotia: The African Nova Scotian experience. Truro, NS: Nova Scotia Teachers College, Department of Education and Culture African Canadian Services Division. Pachai, B., & Bishop, H. (2006). Images of our past: Historic Black Nova Scotia. Halifax: Nimbus. Reynolds, A. J. (1989). A structural model of fi rst-grade outcomes for an urban, low socioeconomic status, minority population. Journal of Educational Psychology, 81 (4), 594–603. Rist, R. (1970). Student social class and teacher expectations: The self-fulfi lling prophecy in ghetto education. Harvard Educational Review, 40, 411–451. Rutter, M. (1979). Maternal deprivation, 1972–1978: New fi ndings, new concepts, new approaches. Child Development, 50, 283–305. Sanders, C (1999). Black and Buenose: The contemporary history of a community. Nova Scotia Canada: Pottersfield Press. Shirley, D. (1986). A critical review and appropriation of Pierre Bourdieu’s analysis of social and cultural reproduction. Journal of Education, 168, 96–112. Slaughter, D. T., & Epps, E. G. (1987). The home environment and academic achievement of Black American children and youth: An overview. Journal of Negro Education, 56, 3–20. Smith, A., Schneider, B. H., & Ruck, M. D. (2005). “Thinking about makin’ it”: Black Canadian students’ beliefs regarding education and academic achievement. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 34 (4), 347–359. Snodgrass, D. M. (1991). The parent connection. Adolescence, 26, 83–87. Solomon, R. P. (1992). Black resistance in high school. New York: State of New University Press. Spencer, M. B. (1999). Social and cultural influences on school adjustment: The application of an identity-focused cultural ecological perspective. Educational Psychologist, 34 (1), 43–57. Spencer, M. B. (2005). Grafting identities and accessing opportunities post-brown. American Psychologist, 60 (8), 821–834. Spencer, M. B., Cunningham, M., & Swanson, D. P., (1995). Identity as coping: Adolescent African American males’ adaptive responses to high-risk environments. In H. W. Harris, H. C. Blue, & E. H. Griffith (Eds.), Racial and ethnic identity (pp. 31–52). New York: Routledge. Spencer, M. B., & Dornbusch, S., (1990). American minority adolescents. In S. Feldman & G. Elliot (Eds.), At the threshold: The developing adolescent (pp. 123–146). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Spencer, M. B., & Markstrom-Adams, C. (1990). Identity processes among racial and ethnic minority children in America. Child Development, 61 (2), 290–310. Spring, J. (1997). Deculturalization and the struggle for equality: A brief history of education dominated cultures in the United States. New York: The McGrawHill. Steele, C. (1992). Race and the schooling of Black Americans. Atlantic Monthly, 68–75. Steele, C. M., Spencer, S. J., & Aronson, J. (2002). Contending with group image: The psychology of stereotype and social identity threat. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 34, 379–440. Stevenson, D. L., & Baker, D. P. (1987). The family-school relation and child’s school performance. Child Development, 58, 1348–1357. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2005). Digest of Education Statistics (Table 9. Enrollment by Race and Ethnicity of age

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18 and Older by Highest Level of Education Attained). Retrieved February 12, 2007, from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d05/tables/dt05_009.asp Walker, J. W. (1980). A history of Blacks in Canada: A study guide for teachers and parents. Ottawa: Minister of State and Multiculturalism. Wilson, W. J. (1987). The truly disadvantaged: The inner city, the under class, and policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Winks, R. W. (1971). The Blacks in Canada: A history. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Winks, R. W. (1997). The Blacks in Canada: A history (2nd ed.). Montreal: McGillQueen’s University Press.

5

Black Students, Schooling, and Education in the United Kingdom Cecile Wright

INTRODUCTION Within educational discourse, Black and minority students have been regarded historically as a problem in and for the British educational system (see, for example, Gillborn & Gipps, 1996; Gillborn & Mirza, 2000; The Swann Report, 1985; Eggleston, et al. 1986; Wright, Weekes, & McGlaughlin, 2000). It is argued that the presence of Black students within the school setting creates disquiet for those seeking to build a consensus about the types of learning environment that promote excellence for all students (see Sewell, 1997). Thus, the presence of Black Students in schools is an issue not of educational outcome but treatment. Indeed, Mirza (2005, p. 111) writing about this issue comments, There is a saying, “the more things change the more they stay the same,” and whilst racist treatment of our children may not be so blatant as 35 years ago we are still plagued by the problem of racial differentiation in educational treatment and outcome for Black Caribbean young people. The questions for us three and half decades on are, why do these racial inequalities still persist and how is racism in our educational system expressed in new and different times?

MAPPING BLACK STUDENTS’ EXPERIENCES Qualitative studies since the 1980s have sought to look within the school setting to explore and understand the experiences and processes that create racial differentiation in treatment and outcome. Most studies show differential treatment of students on an ethnic/racial basis and focus on the amount and the quality of attention and engagement from teachers (see, for example, Mirza, 1992; Wright et al., 2000). Moreover, the setting and the banding arrangements in schools placed these groups of students in

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lower sets where exam entry and choice were restricted (e.g., Wright, 1992; Gillborn,1990). Gillborn and Youdell (2001) highlight this phenomenon by demonstrating how schools respond in a competitive, market-driven environment dominated by league tables, which rank schools in terms of the proportion of students gaining five or more higher grades at the General Certificade of Secondar & Education. The end result culminating in more selection and extra support given to those students identified as likely to meet this threshold. The consequence, it is argued, is “a new IQism” (p. 210), which labels Black students as likely to fail and justifies rationing provision to support those, often middle class White, being students marked out for success. It is important not to be distracted by recent statistics and policy pronouncements that highlight improvements in the attainments of Black students in compulsory education (Department for Education and Skills [DFES], 2006), and although these improvements are welcomed, they do not get to the crux of the issue—that of teacher-student interaction and the ways in which these may enhance students’ experience of school. Furthermore research demonstrates how Black students gain schoolbased identities through the nature of their engagement with their teachers and teachers’ expectations of these students’ behavior. For instance, some studies show how the perceived behavior of Black students is often defi ned by teachers as deviant, anti-school, “troublesome,” and threatening their authority and has led to these students receiving a disproportionate amount of control and criticism compared to other student groups (e.g., Callender, 1995). In turn, this positioning of Black students’ results in their disproportionate involvement in fi xed term sanctions or permanent exclusion—the most extreme sanction available to schools (Wright, Standen, German, & Patel, 2005). It is interesting to note that existing within these studies is the confl ictual nature of engagement between Black students and their White teachers, and as a consequence, the teacher’s perception of Black male and female students as the “other” (Gordon, Holland, & Lahelma, 2002). This, it is argued, is partly influenced by cultural representations of Black girls and boys outside the classroom. Such studies show that teachers tended to share the ethnocentric assumptions of wider society and assumptions that “black youth” are confrontational, anti-authority, aggressive, and anti-education. Indeed, Mirza (2005) argues that the representation of “black youth,” “which has seeped into the classroom and the consciousness of teachers is an epidemic and a real crisis for the children and their parents.” Nevertheless, research evidence suggests that despite evidence of underachievement of Black young people, they are more likely to stay in full-time education beyond age 16 compared to White young people (DFES, 2005; Leslie, Abbott, & Blackaby, 2002). Alongside this fi nding has also been the encouragement to pursue further education that Black students receive from their families to continue their participation in education, despite the adverse experience within the compulsory sector (DFES, 2003).

68

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STRATEGY AND POLICY FRAMEWORK Given the nature of the crisis in education delineated above for the Black population in Britain, to what extent have the strategies implemented ameliorated this exigency? Since the late 1960s, a range of methods of interventions have been employed to address the poor educational outcomes of Black students. These measures have included providing positive role models for Black students in order to increase their self-awareness and self-worth, as well as incorporating a multicultural curriculum. In addition, some writers express an explicit need for Black studies, teachers’ awareness training, and an emphasis on teacher-parent partnerships (DFES, 2006; Runnymede, 2000). The clearest indication of the efficacy of these interventions would be reflected in more recent figures regarding both educational and labor market outcomes. However, one recent report draws attention to low proportions of Black males in further and higher education, suggesting evidence of a continuing problem at the earlier stages of schooling and the poor representation of the Black population in employment and certain sectors of the labor market (Fitzerald, Finch, & Nove, 2000; Cabinet Office, 2003). Despite the emphasis on multicultural or anti-racist practices, a focus on teacher awareness training, and role models, these interventions have not given rise to the desired transformation in Black young people’s situation in the British education system. Clearly, there is a need to connect analyses of the Black experience of schooling in Britain to a wider discourse on the role that the educational system plays in the maintenance of current structural inequalities, which it could be argued serves to deny Black students of both educational and career opportunities.

FAMILY, COMMUNITY ACTION, AND TRANSFORMATION Over the decades Black parents have expressed concerns about the persistent lack of access to quality education and the perceived stigmatization of their children. Informal and formal family and community social networks were accorded a significant role within Black young people’s continued participation in education. This method of intervention on the part of families and the Black community is intimately linked to Paulo Freire’s notion of “cultural action,” which is understood as “ . . . a systematic and deliberate form of action which operates upon the social structure, either with the objective of persevering that structure or of transforming it . . . ” (1972, p. 146). A more recent formulation of Freire’s notion of “cultural action” is the concept of “social capital.” From a Bourdieuian perspective, social capital can be understood as a resource associated with membership in social networks and group membership. The sustained rise in separate schooling, either in “Saturday Schools” or full-time schooling, explicitly embodies the mobilization of social capital/

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social action (Reay & Mirza, 1997), but also as a social movement for educational change. Thus, two key aspects emerged: Black supplementary schools, in addition to performing an important cultural role—namely the transmission of “cultural values/practices”—were valued for their capacity to generate social and educational capital that enabled families to challenge and resist the portrayal of Black young people as academic failures and at the same time to promote their children’s educational achievement in mainstream schooling and the (future) workplace.

CONCLUSION Since the 1960s the schooling of Black children within Britain has become a political issue. This situation prevails to the present day (DFES, 2006). Examining the experiences of schooling of Black young people in Britain requires an analysis of representations of blackness within the discourses and practices that maintain their high levels of underattainment and underperformance within the education system. Moreover, research suggests that these dynamics represent culturally exclusionary practices that are considered to be sustained by processes such as teachers’ stereotypes, White middle class discourses, institutionalized racism, and Euro-centric histories (Department for Education and Employment, 2001; MacPherson, 1999; Runnymede, 2000). These processes are, in turn, embodied in the micropolitics of everyday encounters. In conclusion, Black participation in the educational process and the labor market within Britain is characterized by a lack of access to quality education and successful labor market outcomes. In the case of the latter, the Cabinet Office report (2003) picks up on this theme: The limited economic integration of some ethnic minority groups can be linked to greater signs of isolation and alienation from the norms of society as a whole. This lack of “bridging capital”, between ethnic minority communities and Whites, has stimulated the creation of “bonding capital” amongst certain ethnic minority communities, who have then developed even stronger relationships between themselves, rather than Whites. The vast majority of employment opportunities in Britain are in the hands of White employers and in workplaces that are dominated by White employees. (p. 45) This chapter suggests that the structures and the pedagogies of schools and the education system, more generally, are perhaps, in a Durkheimian or Parsonian sense, an extension of the state whose effective structural functioning is dependent on making the Black experiences marginal and marginalized. Finally, it is noted that that counter-public spheres of community networks, “alternative learning provision,” and family relationships can

70 Cecile Wright encourage empowering narratives of identity, community, and transformation (Dove, 1993).

REFERENCES Cabinet Office (2003). Ethnic minorities and the labour market. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. Callender, C. (1995). A question of style: Black teachers and pupils in multi-ethnic schools. Language and Education, 9 (3), 145–159. Department for Education and Employment [DFEE] (2001). Reason for exclusion from school. London: DFEE. Department for Education and Skills [DFES] (2003). Aiming high: Raising the achievement of minority ethnic pupils. London: DFES. Department for Education and Skills (2005). Youth cohort study: The activities and experiences of 16 year olds: England and Wales 2004. SEFR. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. Department for Education and Skills (2006). The statistical first release National Curriculum Assessment, GCSE and equivalent attainment and Post-16 attainment by pupil characteristics, in England, 2005. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. Dove, N. (1993). The emergence of Black supplementary schools: Resistance to racism in the United Kingdom. Urban Education, 27, 430–447. Fitzerald, R., Finch, S., & Nove, A. (2000). Black Caribbean young men’s experiences of education and employment. London: Department for Education and Employment Publications, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. Freire, P. (1972). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Harmondsworth: Penguin. General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE). Examinations taken by students age 16 in England and Wales. Gillborn, G., & Gipps, C. (1996). Recent research on the achievements of ethnic minority pupils. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. Gillborn, D. (1990). Race, Ethnicity and Education: Teaching and Learning in Multi-Ethnic School (Unwin Hyman, London) Gillborn, D., & Mirza, H. S. (2000). Inequality: Mapping race, class and gender: A synthesis of research evidence. Office for Standards in Education in Education. London: The Stationery Office. Gillborn, D., & Youdell, D. (2001). The new IQism: Intelligence: Ability and the rationing of education. In J. Demaine (Ed.), Sociology of education today (pp. 65–99). Palsgrave, London. Gordon, T., Holland, J., & Lahelma, E. (2002). Spaciality and schooling. London: Macmillan Press. Leslie, D., Abbott, A., & Blackaby, D. (2002). Why are ethnic minority applicants less likely to be accepted into higher education? Higher Education Quarterly, 56 (1), 65–91. MacPherson, W. (1999). The Stephen Lawrence inquiry: Report of inquiry by Sir William MacPherson of Cluny. Presented to Parliament by Secretary of State for the Home Office Department by Command of Her Majesty. London: Stationery Office. Mirza, H. S. (1992). Young, female and black. London: Routledge. Mirza, H. S. (2005). The more things change, the more they stay the same: assessing Black underachievement 35 years. In B. Richardson (Ed.), Tell it like it is: How our schools fail Black children (pp. 111–119). United Kingdom: Trentham Books, Stoke on Trent.

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Reay, D., & Mirza, H. S. (1997). Uncovering the genealogies of the margins: Black supplementary school, British Journal of Education, 18 (4), 477–499. Runnymede, T. (2000). Curriculum 2000: Monocultural or multicultural? London: The Runnymede Trust. Sewell, T. (1997). Black masculinities and schooling: How Black boys survive modern schooling. United Kingdom: Trentham Books, Stoke-on-Trent. The Swann Report (1985). Education for all. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. Wright, C. (1986). School processes: an ethnographic study, in J. Eggleston, D. Dunn and M. Anjali (Eds) Education for Some: the educational and vocational experiences of 15–18 year old members of minority ethnic groups (Stoke-onTrent, Trentham Book). Wright, C. (1992). Race Relations in the Primary School. David Fulton Publisher. Wright, C., Weekes, D., & McGlaughlin, A. (2000). Race, class and gender in exclusion from school. London: Falmer Press. Wright, C., Standen, P., German, G., & Patel, T. (2005). School exclusions and transition into adulthood in African Caribbean communities. York, United Kingdom: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

6

Education and Black People in Portugal Fernando Ka

Black people’s presence as slaves in Portugal dates from the fi fteenth century (Chilcote, 1967). According to some historians, like Chilcote, Black slaves were spread across Portugal—some predicted even becoming 10% of the total population in Lisbon, the capital city. As in other countries, Black men and women were forced to come to Portugal, removed from their families and from the countries where they were born (Boxer, 1975). The contributions of these men and women are still not well recognized in terms of what they have contributed to Portugal. As a matter of fact, Portuguese historians have silenced these historical and current contributions in Portugal. This country has a tradition, such as slavery, racism, and the social and economic segregation of Black populations. As such, certain inconvenient matters are considered authentic taboos, which prevent public debate about these issues. Therefore, it is necessary to speak about the past first in order to better understand and/or avoid injustices from the past and to develop strategies to address the current conditions of Portuguese Black populations. This chapter fi rst provides historical overview of Black populations in Portugal followed by a brief context of the socioeconomic situation, and a description of the educational conditions of Black people in Portugal. The chapter concludes with recommendations to address the educational challenges of Black populations in Portugal. It is imperative to enhance educational opportunities to enhance social and economic outcomes for Afro-Portuguese and to better align Portugal with other European countries, such as England and France.

HISTORICAL OVERVIEW Portugal’s contemporary problems with its African population are longstanding and stem from its past. The Portuguese former colonies of Angola, Guinea, and the Cape Verde Islands, Mozambique, and São Tomé constitute the foundation of the African populations residing in Portugal (Chilcote, 1967). Portugal is a population today of approximately 10 million people. According to Tyson-Ward (2002), “The largest ethnic minorities continue

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to be of African origin, including Cape Verde, the largest group at around 40,000, and Angola” (p. 259). The African population currently makes up approximately 1% of the country’s population. As in any country, Portugal’s historical relationship with its largest minority groups lays the foundation for the current relationship and condition of Afro-Portuguese. The Portuguese considered the original voyagers, explorers of different continents and conquests. Historians have indicated that the Portuguese voyages of discovery in the Atlantic Ocean began in the 1400s, about 1419 (Boxer, 1970). It is suggested that Portugal had risen to a place of dominance akin to the U.S. As an example, Boxer suggested, Portugal during that time was the wealthiest, most powerful country in the world, with a large empire and colonies in Asia, Africa, and America. Interestingly, according to the African American Registry (2011), Portugal began the African slave trade after encountering Africans during its explorations and forays into Africa. This article suggested that Portugal brought the fi rst Black slaves to Lisbon in 1441, and they continued to be imported in such numbers that by 1550, the population of Portugal was approximately 10% Black. Consequently, Blacks have a long history in Portugal. In Africa, the predominant Portuguese colonies were Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau. According to historians, after wars with African nationalists, in 1961, Portugal began extending Portuguese citizenship to Africans in all of its territories (Carrington & De Lima, 1996). It is speculated that more than a million accepted the invitation to reside in Portugal. It was after 1974, directly following a coup in Angola, that Portugal withdrew from all of its African colonies, including Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, the Cape Verde Islands, Sao Tome, and Principe, and Angola (Chilcote, 1967). This led to another large influx of several thousand colonial ex-patriots (Carrington & De Lima, 1996). Portugal has a huge moral debt to Africa for its historic past and therefore cannot under any circumstances underestimate the Black people’s presence in its territory. Above all, the Afro-Portuguese who still live on the fringes are practically excluded from the national educational system, with the hope that one day they can get better qualification for the labor market. More and more demanding, they turn up unexpectedly with the disappointment of an unachievable dream from an exclusive society. No one can deny that the education for black people in a multiethnic and pluricultural society is a basic instrument for their individual fulfi llment and contribution to their social well-being, generally, as long as the country understands that all individuals’ success is a surplus return on investment value for all. On the contrary, if individuals are unable to participate in education and have been historically unable to participate, they will be forced to live in structural poverty. Portugal should repair its historical past with its relationship with Black people, helping in a serious way to educate those who in the past as in the

74 Fernando Ka present have contributed to the development and glory of the country. However, ethically, it seems that it has not yet awakened to this obligation. However, in order to understand the education condition of Black people in Portugal, it is important to understand their socioeconomic condition. It is well established that the socioeconomic situation of individuals has a tremendous impact on their chances in life.

THE FAMILY SOCIOECONOMIC SITUATION Researchers, such as Marchand and d’Orey (2008), have indicated that the differences between representations and values of parents belonging to different cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds may facilitate or hinder adaptation to school children coming from different ethnic and socialcultural contexts. They further make the case that children of immigrant parents face different and frequent contradictory cultural and social values defended by their parents on one hand and by the host country on the other hand. This would certainly be the case in Portugal where the Black population over time has emigrated from African countries. Although immigrants from African countries to Portugal since the 1980s found that they were average in their labor market participation, they were more likely to be unemployed (Carrington & De Lima, 1996). These researchers also found that African immigrants were overrepresented in unskilled labor and underrepresented in professional positions. It is this economic condition that continues to have an impact on the economic and social condition of Black populations in Portugal, keeping them in lowskilled and higher poverty positions. The social and economic condition of education of Afro-Portuguese has a tremendous impact on the education situation of children and teenagers. On the one hand, parents do not have adequate time to spend with their children due to their work timetable. They leave home early and return home too late to attend to their children’s studies. On the other hand, many of them do not have enough schooling themselves to assist students, and there are many who do not know how to read or write. Besides this, few families can support or afford the expenses of school materials. At this time, Portugal is in a deep economic crisis, which is predicted to become worse. The weak economic situation of the country, particularly acute in the Black population community, has dire consequences. This population will suffer the most due to unemployment, specifically in building construction, where most of the Black people work. It is very difficult to fi nd an Afro-Portuguese in professional positions in the Portuguese society, although, as previously stated, the Black people in Portugal represent 8%–10% of the total population, particularly in Lisbon. Even so, they are unable to receive necessary assistance according to their social, economic, and cultural status. Although Black populations

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have participated in the Portuguese development since the fi fteenth century, nowadays, Portugal does not recognize the importance and contribution of Black people. It is important for the Portuguese government to address the social and economic gap between Black children and other Portuguese. Their school success will consist, undoubtedly, on addressing infrastructures for such issues as after school programs, places where they can receive assistance to do their homework and be supported in their studies by appropriate teachers while they are waiting for their parents to come home. Unfortunately, there are many underfed children and teenagers (by the way, I am a witness to this reality because of the organization over which I preside that provides support to many families with foodstuffs weekly and monthly). Consequently, the social and economic position of Afro-Portuguese must be addressed in order to address the educational challenges that this population faces. By every indicator, Black populations in Portugal are uneducated and undereducated at every level.

EDUCATIONAL CHALLENGES OF BLACK POPULATIONS Education should be a sine qua non condition that could ensure the support of increasing the Black people to the uppermost places of society. Nevertheless, the Portuguese education system has not taken into consideration the difficulties and the social and economic conditions of the children and young immigrants coming from the former colonies as well as the children and the young Afro-Portuguese. These groups have few opportunities to complete at least the ninth grade (basic education) and very few have the chance to fi nish high school (twelfth grade–secondary education). In Portugal, basic education comprises nine years divided into three stages of four, two, and three years. Secondary education—public, private, and cooperative—is compulsory and consists of a three-year cycle after basic education. In secondary education, there are two types of courses, general and technical/vocational. There are approximately 768,000 students enrolled in primary and 766,000 enrolled in secondary school. According to my work as a politician and community activist, the educational opportunities for Afro-Portuguese are unfavorable. The number of Black people with compulsory schooling (ninth grade) is so insignificant that it is not 1% of the student population, even though the Black Portuguese population is estimated between 8% and 10%. This means that Portugal has a great deficit concerning the Black people’s educational opportunities. As such, the country has not demonstrated appropriate interest in educating the Black population. I make the case that the Black population in any society, especially in Portugal, must significantly modify public education to enhance opportunities for all its citizens. Otherwise, there will be great danger in continuing to create greater social inequities.

76 Fernando Ka The unsuccessful schooling among the Black community is frightening, and many conditions have contributed to these students’ failure. There are teachers swayed by racial prejudice who see Black students as less intelligent than their White colleagues. They do not understand the cultural differences. As Marchand and d’Orey suggest (2008), there often is a discontinuity between teachers and students from different backgrounds. This is particularly acute with Afro-Portuguese because teachers often know little about their background, home condition, and/or culture. Generally, the Black student situation in Portugal is different from that of their White colleagues. White students generally have more familiar support than Black students, and as suggested previously, they have better socioeconomic conditions. Therefore, they have better probabilities for school success. My position is supported by researchers such as Cabrito (2004) who indicated, “Through education, individuals have been able to seize a new social statute profit from its associated symbolic and material powers” (p. 34). Higher education in Portugal is divided into two subsystems: University and Polytechnic, public or private. Similar to the lack of success and participation in primary schooling, Black populations’ access to and participation in higher education is extremely difficult. University participation for a great number of Afro-Portuguese is a mirage. Only a few can participate in higher education. This situation is exacerbated by the employment condition of Afro-Portuguese. Many give up and are looking for jobs, which makes being able to afford to attend higher education difficult for Black populations that are typically from poorer families. On the one hand, as they are not well prepared for the professional labor market, only less qualified jobs are available to them. Often, people in Portugal are judged not by their capacities but by their skin color. In multiracial societies, there are many preconceived opinions based on a person’s skin color. The best way to overcome these obstructions is to improve the educational opportunities and outcomes for all people, regardless of color. The Portuguese education system, supposedly democratic and universal, in practice, is unfavorable for Afro-Portuguese. The support that some state schools give to some Black students is not enough, as it is only limited to meals and book supplies. The many students in absolute poverty conditions fi nd it difficult to benefit from the social and schooling supply, although it is positive. It would be better for the Portuguese government to invest in other measures that could better meet the real needs of the poorest students. Portugal cannot reach the same development level as its fellow partners of the European Union, as it wishes, if it does not invest seriously in education and professional training of good quality for all of its citizens, including Black people. If nowadays we speak about a globalized world with all its results, we cannot stay indifferent to the exclusion of an important part of humanity

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who still live on the threshold of structural poverty, as has been seen in other multiethnic countries, namely in Europe and the U.S., continents that neglected education of the Black populations living in their countries. The investment in education for the Black community in any society, specifically in Portugal, will be, no doubt, one of the main instruments to fight for the awareness of justice and equality for all. The Portuguese State must significantly modify its policies to be more favorable to the educative success of Black people.

ENHANCING EDUCATIONAL OUTCOMES It is my point of view that the Portuguese government must make every effort to support the education of students financially, socially, and economically. It must develop infrastructures that will facilitate learning outcomes for all students. Otherwise, the government will be deceiving itself and the people about the real causes underlying the problematic educational condition among Afro-Portuguese. An argument the government often makes for the educational outcomes for Black and White students is that the White student population is also affected in the same way. This proposition does not take into consideration the differences in history and economic differences between AfroPortuguese and Whites. The Portuguese State cannot keep pretending that the learning opportunities are the same for all students. The number of Black students who give up school precociously or who do not complete compulsory school is disproportionately higher than that of White populations. Therefore, it is unfair to compare the two groups. However, Blacks must fight to change the situation they face. Otherwise they will betray the protection of their own rights in societies in which they belong. Even today, Portugal maintains the same fi rm political attitude after decolonization about Black people, Afro-Portuguese. The country has not shown great interest in educating Black people. The government has done little to modify the situation that affects Black students’ success, always presenting old excuses that White and Black people enjoy the same opportunities of success. In Portugal, as indicated, Black populations’ participation in higher education is almost null. Indeed, the Portuguese government could implement some proactive practices to increase the number and percentage of Black students participating in higher education. First, the government could provide public university grants for those who are most in need. These measures could also be extended to the private university. That is, the government could negotiate some compensation for this academic sector for students who are underrepresented. The best way to fight against the racial prejudices in a multiethnic society is to promote greater access to the highest education level to those who would have the most difficulties to reach there, regardless of their social

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and economic situations. These obstacles constitute a big challenge for students who have inadequate resources. We, the Black people in the Diaspora, cannot wait for miracle events to set us free from the “ghetto.” Even though our slave ancestors were forced to work hard and in inhuman conditions to create wealth for others to benefit from which we are completely excluded, we must fight for our rights beyond the pale. Life experiences teach us nobody gives anything to anyone. All together, we must fight to achieve our inalienable rights. Education is one of the main ways that can equalize opportunities for all.

REFERENCES African American Registry. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.aaregistry.org/ historic_eveents/view/black-history-Europe. Boxer, C. (1975). The Portuguese seaborne empire, 1415–1825. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Cabrito, B. (2004, April). Higher education: An education for the elites? The Portuguese case. Higher education in Europe, xxix (1), 33–45. Carrington, W. J., & De Lima, P. J. F. (1996, January). The impact of 1970s repatriates from Africa on the Portuguese labor market. Industrial and Labor Review, 49 (2), 330–347. Chilcote, R. H. (1967). Portuguese Africa. Englewood-Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc. Marchand, H., & d’Orey, I. (2008, June). Values of Portuguese/non-Portuguese mothers of kindergarten children and of kindergarten teachers. Intercultural Education, 19 (3), 217–230. Rise of African Resistance. (2011). Retrieved from http://encyclopedia.jrankorg/ article. Tyson-Ward, S. (2002). Portuguese language life & culture. Chicago, IL: McGraw Hill.

7

The Educational Experiences of Caribbean People in France Crystal Fleming

Madina1, a 44 year old security guard, was born in Paris. Wearing a black jacket, dangling black earrings, a cream scarf, and jeans, she was stylish and vivacious the day we met over coffee at a brasserie. Her Guadeloupian father and Martinican mother were fi rst-generation migrants to mainland France. When I asked if she had ever experienced discrimination, Madina recounted this jarring incident in a Parisian school that occurred when she was 7 years old: I suffered enormously . . . there were reprimands in the school playground [and] there were all kinds of unspoken punishments . . . I was a very timid student . . . [but] when there was noise in the class, they blamed me and when [teachers] blame you, you’re punished, but not a punishment like what they do to others, no, no. I remember one time— and it’s true that this will stay with me until I die—when . . . others went out for recess, [the teacher said]: “You, you stay in the room, with your two feet in the trash can” . . . as a child, you didn’t have the right to discuss it. . . . At the time, Madina did not understand why she was forced to stand in a trash can and humiliated in this way. Looking back, she interpreted the episode as another incident among many in which she felt rejected because of her perceived ethnoracial background. When she and her family moved to a town southeast of Paris, she felt less stigmatized by her peers: I went to the suburbs [and] I saw other immigrant populations who were there. There were Italians, there were Spaniards. We were there. There were people from the countryside and we all were poor among the poor, but in the [school] we made a kind of clique, and . . . I told myself: “Now I’m not alone,” because they discriminated against us, but [they had to] watch out—there were more of us. Significantly, Madina saw herself—a French citizen of Caribbean origin—as belonging to an “immigrant” population. Though she was able

80 Crystal M. Fleming to bond with children of similar backgrounds, Madina resolved to move to the Antilles. “At 12 years old,” she said, “I already knew that I couldn’t stay here.” Madina’s traumatic experience is emblematic of the challenges many Antilleans face in French schools. Caught between two—or more— worlds, migrants from “overseas France” (French islands and territories that lie outside of the geographic boundaries of mainland France) often encounter difficulties as they navigate the cultural and racial politics of classrooms in which they are (sometimes for the fi rst time in their lives) viewed and treated as minorities. As Madina’s case demonstrates, these challenges are not limited to fi rst-generation sojourners from the French Antilles seeking higher education and opportunity in mainland (or metropolitan) France. Even Caribbeans born and raised in the outskirts of Paris sometimes fi nd themselves confronted with feelings of isolation (being “alone”), harsh acts of discrimination, verbal teasing, physical taunts, and discrimination often linked to the color of their skin. Ironically, their ethnoracial “visibility” in metropolitan classrooms is accompanied by a symbolic ‘invisibility’ due to a lack of representation in the historical and cultural material included in the centralized French educational system. The paradox of both being marked and unmarked, visible and invisible, contributes to the complex challenges Antilleans face in being both Caribbean and French. This chapter explores the schooling experiences of fi rst- and secondgeneration Caribbean migrants living in metropolitan France, focusing in particular on their accounts of feeling culturally or racially marked as different yet historically invisible and overlooked in the material taught in the classroom. The analysis I explore here is drawn from a larger qualitative study comparing how Caribbean activists and non-activists in metropolitan France interpret the history of Atlantic slavery. Using 23 months of fieldwork between 2008 and 2010 and over 90 in-depth interviews with Caribbeans in the Paris region, I sought to gain insight into cultural resources mobilized by agents of memory (activists, intellectuals, public officials) and members of the Antillean public to represent the history and consequences of the transatlantic slave trade. Yet, as I conducted open-ended interviews with Antilleans involved in the commemoration of slavery, I noticed recurring themes in French Caribbeans’ stories of migration from the islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe to mainland France: narratives of social and symbolic exclusion in metropolitan schools. Consequently, I began to explore these experiences systematically in interviews I conducted with “non-activist” Antilleans who were not directly involved in the commemorative movement. First-generation migrants spent the majority of their childhood growing up in the overseas departments, though some did experience short periods of schooling in mainland France. Members of the second generation, by contrast, spent the majority of their childhood growing up in the metropole

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and mostly experienced Antillean society and culture during vacations with family members. All respondents in this sample were born with French nationality and had at least one parent of French Antillean origin (some respondents had one parent that was of European, sub-Saharan African or North African origin). Most of the respondents were middle class and many had acquired advanced degrees, though it should be noted that the second-generation sample was younger and included a higher proportion of working class individuals than the fi rst generation. Differences between the groups should be understood as exploratory and read with these caveats in mind. My analysis is informed by their responses to the following questions: (1) “In general, do you feel that you have been treated fairly or unfairly?” and (2) “Did you learn about the history of slavery at school?” I also analyzed spontaneous narratives related to these two subjects. In my discussion of racism and group boundaries, I use the term “race” to refer to group categorization based on phenotype [i.e., skin color, hair texture, facial features] (Wimmer, 2008). My use of the term ethnoracial includes ethnic and racial categories but treats national or religious membership as separate phenomena. Thus, throughout the text, I refer to terms like “African,” “Black,” “White,” “European,” and so on as ethnoracial, but “French” as ethnic. The French islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique occupy an unwieldy and complex position in French history and memory. They have been, at different times in the past, slave-holding colonies, post-slavery colonies, and finally departments constitutionally recognized as part of the French nation. After colonizing the Caribbean islands of Saint Domingue (Haiti), Martinique, and Guadeloupe in the seventeenth century, France established profitable plantation economies for the cultivation of sugar and bananas by kidnapping and enslaving Africans. While the Haitian revolution produced the first Black nation in the Western world (1804), Martinique and Guadeloupe remained under French domination. Following the abolition of slavery in the French overseas territories (1848), Martinique and Guadeloupe retained their colonial status until 1946 when they were administratively and legally assimilated into the French republic and transformed into “départements.” The term “metropolitan France” (France métropolitaine) dates to the colonial period and was originally used to distinguish the French nation from its colonies. Today, the term is generally used to differentiate mainland France from overseas France (l’outre mer), which includes five overseas “departments” (Réunion, Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, and, as of 2011, Mayotte). Migration from the French Caribbean to the metropole has dramatically increased since the 1960s, producing a significant population of Afro-Caribbean descent living in the Paris region. According to figures collected by Beauchemin et al. (2009), the number of fi rstand second-generation migrants from the overseas departments living in mainland France (455,000) is greater than the populations of Guadeloupe (401,784) or Martinique (397,693).

82 Crystal M. Fleming Sociological and demographic research on minorities in France tends to focus on immigrant populations, while the experiences of migrants (born with French citizenship outside of the geographic boundaries of mainland France) have been largely obscured in debates over diversity and discrimination in France (Condon, 2000). Landmark studies of integration, including a report (Tribalat, Simon, & Riandey, 1996) commissioned by the Institut National d’Études Demographiques (INED), overlook internal migrants from the overseas departments (départements d’outre mer, or DOM) and territories (territories d’outre mer, or TOM). A notable exception can be found in Trajectoires et Origines (Beauchemin, Hamel, & Simon, 2009), a recent study of diversity in metropolitan France that includes a sample of fi rst- and second-generation migrants from the DOM-TOM. Numerous scholars and observers have argued that immigrant communities in France face exclusion and discrimination on the basis of their culture (i.e., language or religion) or citizenship status (Bail, 2008; Balibar, 1991; Taguieff, 1988). However, France is also home to a growing population of minorities born “French” who experience racism despite their citizenship and acculturation (Bickerstaff, 2010). The Antillean case is particularly “good to think,” as it highlights the significant boundaries that even minorities born in France and raised within the French educational system must often confront. Unlike North Africans from the Maghreb, most Antilleans do not face exclusion on the basis of their religion given the prevalence of Catholicism among the Antillean population. Yet, they do share some of the challenges faced by immigrant communities, including housing discrimination (Condon & Ogden, 1993) and unemployment (Condon, 2000), as well as discrimination on the basis of their accent (particularly the case for fi rst-generation migrants). Afro-Caribbeans in France are also subject to exclusion on the basis of their skin color and phenotype. Unlike Beriss (2004), who determined that Antillean activists rarely talk about race or “Blackness,” I found that the majority of Antilleans involved in the commemoration of slavery in metropolitan France self-categorized as “Black” (noir). This finding was equally true for Antilleans I interviewed who were not involved with the commemorative movement. Indeed, even respondents who downplayed a Black identity, identified as racially mixed (métis) or rejected a Black identity nonetheless often used the term “Black” as a description for themselves, particularly when recounting their encounters with various ethnic groups (including Whites) or their experiences with discrimination. While ethnic and racial statistics are officially banned by the French government (i.e., there is no question regarding ethnicity or race on the census), members of groups who are not considered “white” are routinely categorized on their basis of their presumed ethnic or racial background in contexts. The Antillean migrants I interviewed in Paris generally felt that they were categorized as “Black” in their everyday interactions—even if they were not considered “Black” in their home societies in Guadeloupe and Martinique. Whereas Caribbean and Latin American

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cultures recognize a range of phenotypic variations in skin tone, hair texture and facial features along the spectrum between “Black” and White,” Antilleans often told me that they knew they were perceived as “Black” (and inferior) in mainland France—a painful lesson that many of my respondents vividly encountered in metropolitan classrooms. People of African descent in predominately White nations typically face two broad challenges in educational settings. First, they must often contend with being numerical minorities, if not in their schools, then in the societies in which they live. This minority status is often intertwined with economic and social disadvantages that include (but are far from limited to) their educational attainment (Patterson, 2005). Secondly, they are often subject to classroom environments that marginalize the historical trajectories, contributions, and struggles of their own group members. Thus, Black populations throughout the Diaspora—particularly in contexts where they form numerical minorities—must often navigate both social and symbolic marginalization in their schooling experiences. For Caribbean migrants in France, these challenges are even more complex due to their transatlantic crossings between the islands and mainland France. The first- and second-generation migrants I interviewed frequently recalled moving back and forth between metropolitan and Antillean classrooms for short or prolonged durations, often due to their parents’ shifting job prospects or family difficulties. These voyages sometimes require young Antilleans to adjust and re-adjust to vastly divergent metropolitan and Caribbean educational settings.

CIRCULATION THROUGH METROPOLITAN AND OVERSEAS SCHOOLS The geographic distance between the islands and mainland France is further magnified by the cultural, linguistic, and political gulf that separates the Antilles from Europe and the complex movement of Antilleans between the two regions. Caribbean migration to mainland France increasingly takes the form of circulation between the islands and the metropole (Condon & Ogden, 1996) as Antilleans build their lives in a “transatlantic social space” (Byron & Condon, 1996; Condon, 2005). While students in Martinique and Guadeloupe are born French and attend schools structured by the centralized French educational curriculum, their lived environments are far removed (both literally and figuratively) from the everyday experiences of young people in metropolitan France. The most obvious difference is demographic: The vast majority of individuals living in the French Antilles are of African origin (generally owing to their ancestors’ having been captured and deported to the Caribbean during the transatlantic slave trade). Whereas people of African descent comprise the majority population in Guadeloupe and Martinique, French Caribbean migrants to mainland France are ethnic minorities living in a predominately “White” society.

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The experience of Michel, a 27-year-old accountant, is typical of Antilleans who experience schooling on both sides of the Atlantic. Like many second-generation Caribbean migrants in mainland France, Michel visited the Antilles as a child, sometimes for vacation, but occasionally for longer periods. His circuitous path between schools in metropolitan Paris and Guadeloupe brought with it a host of demographic and cultural transformations. He fi rst attended preschool in mainland France but then moved to Guadeloupe at the age of four when his mother ran into difficulties with work in Paris. In Guadeloupe, where schools, in principle, share the same structure and curriculum as in mainland France, Michel skipped the second year of preschool and was placed directly into fi rst grade. When he moved to Grigny, a working-class suburb outside of Paris the following year, Michel had to make up the second year of preschool that he had missed in Guadeloupe. He remained in Grigny for elementary school but later moved to Sceaux, an affluent Parisian suburb, during the last year of primary school and remained there for middle and high school. Michel remembers Grigny as ethnically mixed, given the presence of fi rst- and second-generation immigrants from Asian and African nations as well as European countries like Italy and Poland. He recalls that his classes in Grigny did not require a lot of homework, because teachers anticipated that the diverse student body often came from disadvantaged immigrant households where parents were sometimes unable to help their children with their work. In Sceaux, on the other hand, he was one of only two Blacks in his school and more challenging work was required at home. In Grigny, he was one of the best students, but in Sceaux he struggled academically: “Right away I had to face how good I really was, and I was able to realize that I wasn’t good at all, and so afterwards it was really hard.” The only other Black student in his class was the son of an ambassador to Senegal and the two were not particularly close: At fi rst I thought that he was going to be like my buddies in Grigny and then he didn’t want to do any of the same kinds of things. He didn’t enjoy hanging out in the street . . . Um, I really did have a hard time fi nding my balance . . . At 9 years old, I felt the difference between Grigny and Sceaux, these two places, and I was relieved to go back to Guadeloupe [for vacation] in July. Michel also stood out because of the cultural environment: In Sceaux, right away everyone said that I was violent, whereas at Grigny, well, we played around . . . I think that I totally had fun in Grigny in the sense that, you know when you squabble over things, you’d show up, two boys, and if you tussle around with each other, it wasn’t a big deal. In Sceaux, it was hard to even fi nd someone to tussle with.

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The kind of playful fighting that was the norm in Grigny made Michel stand out as a problem child in Sceaux. Remarkably, one of Michel’s teachers took the unusual step of asking his mother to enroll him in yoga classes in order to lessen his aggressive behavior. Michel’s circuitous educational journey between schools in metropolitan France to Guadeloupe and back again forced him to traverse contrasting racial and class contexts, adjusting and readjusting to new social and cultural norms along the way. Clara, 28, also describes becoming sensitive to skin tone and being made to feel different in school when she moved from Guadeloupe to metropolitan France: I never really saw all the Whites I hung out with in Guadeloupe as White. I mean really, it wasn’t a question. I always had one or two Whites in my classes and I didn’t grow up with racial questions in my head. It’s in coming here, in fact, that suddenly, I became aware of this question, but for me, I don’t know, I had never considered them different from anyone else . . . Coming here for college, even though you’re confronted with people who are really nice . . . but you don’t get through 48 hours before someone asks you “Where are you from? Where did you grow up?” [And when you say] “Guadeloupe” [they say] “But what are you doing here?” since here it’s cloudy, ugly, it rains, and as if I come from a sunny place, a paradise . . . I don’t know, they really made me understand that I was different—an immigrant, that I was chosen as Little Miss Exotic . . . I didn’t grow up with that because we were all different, as an Antillean, we are all different [but] we are all the same, you know? So there you go. No color question. So coming here, they made me understand that I was different. Lionel, a 40-year-old journalist and fi rst-generation migrant from Guadeloupe, echoed Clara’s experience of becoming aware of racial differences— and his minority status—when he transitioned to a metropolitan school: When I arrived in France, at the age of 11, that’s when I saw that there were several races. Well you know, they really made me feel that I was a Black person. And then there were Whites. While I was educated in Guadeloupe with Whites, I had White professors. For me, it was a professor—it wasn’t a White man . . . I didn’t see skin color. For me, I didn’t see the difference. And when I arrived [here] at the age of 11, 12 years old, I quickly understood that I was Black. And when I was in middle school, the fi rst day you fi lled out a little form with the application—father and mother’s occupation—and the next day, we were dispatched and I always found myself with the only other Blacks. We were in a corner and this happened all the time. At fi rst, I thought: “That’s weird. Maybe it’s normal?” But after thinking about it, I understood that you’re labeled right away . . . Honestly, it really

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Crystal M. Fleming affected me, because I didn’t understand why . . . But afterwards, you meet people who come from other places, places other than France, of African, Maghrebin origin and it’s through these exchanges with these people that we realized that you had to be tough, because that’s important to me . . . not letting yourself be walked all over. Because at fi rst, I didn’t see it.

It is of course possible that Lionel found himself with other Black kids for reasons other than race (i.e., socioeconomic background or other dimensions that might have been taken into account with the “little form” he had to fill out), it is important to note that he viewed the experience through a racial lens and felt discriminated against as a consequence. What is also striking in this account is the role of postcolonial interactions—between African and Caribbeans—in shaping Lionel’s understanding of his marginalization. Not only did being in metropolitan France prompt, for the first time, his awareness of being categorized as Black, he also came to understand his experience as similar to that of other groups who were, in one way or another, marked as “foreign.” Moreover, Lionel learned from his experiences of marginalization that it was necessary to resist (“you had to be tough”) and to stand up for himself in the face of racial marking and discrimination.

DISCRIMINATION AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION In addition to migrants’ stories of attending ethnoracially divergent schools in the French Caribbean and Parisian banlieues, I also heard many accounts of racial discrimination and social exclusion. Reports of such incidents were far from universal. Indeed, only one third of the non-activist Caribbeans mentioned encountering discrimination in educational settings. First-generation migrants in particular told accounts of mistreatment—not only did they report the typical difficulties one would expect for students transitioning to a new environment, but some also experienced racial taunts, bullying, violence, and acts of humiliation. Even some second-generation migrants (born and raised in mainland France) felt that they had encountered unfair treatment over the course of their education. Antilleans described encountering overt racial hostility as well as more subtle forms of exclusion in the classroom. Phillippe, a 50-year-old singing coach, described the difficulties he faced after leaving Guadeloupe at the age of four and attending primary school in Paris suburb during the 1960s: Phillippe: When I was in France, I experienced a lot of racism. They called me “dirty nigger” (sale nègre) and everything . . . at school [it was] professors, students . . . (laughter) I’ve really had a hard time. And I remember, even in kindergarten, the children would gang up against me and the teachers would close their eyes . . .

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The children would gang up, throw sand in my eyes. Others would grab my hands, they would beat me . . . and the adults wouldn’t say anything. They pretended not to see . . . C.F.: Were there other Blacks at your school? Phillippe: Yes, there were some. But there weren’t many Blacks . . . I was one of the few Blacks in the class . . . it was in the suburbs, but frankly . . . it’s surprising! When you’re a child and you go through something violent like that, you say to yourself, ‘What’s happening? What’s going on here?’ . . . It was very hard because there was a great deal of violence, a great deal of meanness, actually . . . I was sad at the time . . . I was alone. I was all alone. You’re forced to extricate yourself from that. You’re forced to make yourself by yourself. That’s what it is. You either make it or you die. Phillippe’s account highlights feelings of isolation and exclusion (“I was all alone”) that many Antilleans face in predominately White metropolitan schools. Olivier, a 40-year-old entrepreneur and second-generation migrant from Martinique, encountered overt anti-Black racism at an elite university he attended in Paris in the late 1980s: I experienced racism at university from the professors . . . I had a professor . . . who thought that Blacks were less capable than Whites. He didn’t stop saying it. And when he saw that there was a Black who didn’t necessarily get a good grade, he systematically attributed this to the fact that statistics prove that Blacks [are less capable] . . . And when that’s your professor of econometrics who tells you that, it shocks you. He responded to the incident by attending classes one day dressed “like a rapper,” in order to demonstrate his anger about being stereotyped and affi rm a Black identity: I arrived in baggy pants, [with] the chain . . . the cap turned to the side. I went back to the class like that . . . It shocked them. And I stayed there with my cap. I wanted to show them . . . do a kind of clear stereotype of a form of negritude, in such a way that ‘Okay, you think of me as a nigger. I’m going to show you to what it is’ . . . After breakfast [the professor] said: ‘Listen, we take off our hats.’ And I said, ‘Yes, but I have a problem with my hair.’ I stayed like that. And he looked at me [as if to say]: ‘What has happened to him? He’s gone crazy or what?’ No one wanted to talk to me. They were like ‘What happened to him?’ and I stayed for several days like that, dressed in that way. And it was a way of being rebellious—rebellious and saying: ‘Here you go—fuck all of you,’ and to show that I could stay like that, I can show you that I can dress like that, that I can do what I want to do.

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Showing up to university dressed in a “stereotypical” manner was Olivier’s way of signaling that he knew he was being racially marked and rebelling against the professor’s insulting remarks. Yet, not all Caribbeans took antiBlack racism personally. Pascal, a 62-year-old retired flight attendant from Martinique, moved to Paris at the age of nine. He remembered taking his minority status (and the verbal taunts he experienced) in stride: Pascal: I was the only Black in the school, you know, with everything that goes with that, but I didn’t take it badly. C.F.: With everything that goes with that? Pascal: Well yeah, you know, children’s insults, you know like the guy who wears glasses . . . they’d called him ‘blind as a bat’ . . . And of course since I was Black, there were words. In some ways it was kind of logical, you know. It wasn’t necessarily mean. It was, well, it caused fights. Of course I stood up for myself, didn’t accept being treated like that because . . . that kind of thing didn’t exist in the DOM-TOM and, well, I took it in the same way that someone gets called ‘blind as a bat’ and gets into a fight [because of it]. I never took it any other way, because during the same time, I made friends . . . so things went pretty well . . . [I] wasn’t at all rejected, because there were plenty of [other] minorities. As one of the oldest respondents in the sample, Pascal experienced being a Caribbean minority in the 1950s, before the great wave of migration from the DOM-TOM that began to accelerate in the 1960s. On the one hand, he felt the anti-Black teasing he experienced at school was serious enough to warrant self-defense. Yet at the same time, he saw the taunts as part of the ordinary banter and teasing of children’s play—not a mark of rejection. His attitude toward the discrimination he experienced may reflect the time period in which the incidents took place or the perspective of his age at the time of the interview. In either case, his recollections demonstrate that some Antilleans did not feel particularly victimized by their minority status—even in the face of discrimination.

SCHOLASTIC DIFFICULTIES AND RACIAL TENSIONS Aside from overt hostilities (i.e., name calling), French Caribbeans also described encountering academic mistreatment (i.e., being unfairly evaluated by teachers or tracked into specialized courses) and scholastic difficulties. Maryse, a 27-year-old student from Martinique and a second-generation migrant, remembered being underestimated by a teacher in primary school: “In second grade, French class, I was 9-years old and [the teacher] thought that 9 out of 20 was too high of a grade for me.” Three years later, she experienced a similar encounter with a professor who did not believe she

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was capable of performing well on a history exam and suspected her of cheating: I can’t say, because I don’t have any proof to confi rm that it was unfair . . . I’m thinking about middle school . . . One time I was taking a history exam and I had learned a book by heart . . . so I took 3 weeks to study it and learn it. So the day of the exam, I regurgitated it, and the prof called me in the next day. This made an impression on me because the day he called me in was also my birthday and he accused me of cheating, even though I was seated at the fi rst table in the amphitheater and our bags were far away from us because you know in the French university system, your bags are always very very far. You should only take a pen. Cell phones are prohibited, all that. So I found that it was— well, it created some confusion. I asked myself, ‘Why?’ . . . I was really shocked, because after all, I was only 13 years old . . . And . . . I was pretty much a good student. Jocelyn, a 48-year-old fi rst-generation migrant from Guadeloupe, also described an episode in which he was accused of cheating: I was in third grade and I was doing my homework at school. There’s a friend who cheated on me and they said that I cheated on him. I said, ‘No, I didn’t cheat on him.’ They said, ‘You’re the one who cheated.’ I said, ‘No,’ and my friend . . . lived in the same neighborhood as me and he said, ‘No, sir. I’m the one who cheated. He deserved a better grade than me.’ And the math professor was upset—shocked by this. Both Jocelyn and Maryse interpreted these accusations of cheating as instances of discrimination because competence was being unduly questioned. Feeling underestimated can also result from encountering different academic standards and expectations in metropolitan and overseas France, despite the presumed uniformity of the Republican educational system. Both fi rst- and second-generation respondents recalled having to adjust to higher academic standards than they had been used to (either in the Caribbean or in Parisian banlieues). Members of the fi rst generation in particular mentioned feeling ill-prepared (or being perceived as ill-prepared) because of their prior schooling in the Caribbean. For example, Marc-Antoine, a 26-year-old broker, remembered a teacher in Paris who implied that his Martinican education was subpar: There was one time a professor asked me a question, at the beginning of the school year. I had just arrived [from Martinique] and she asked who [in the class] had already studied the tax system. I said that it was in our curriculum but that I had not fi nished the unit on the tax system in Martinique. She told me, “Hey, that’s odd—you don’t study this in

90 Crystal M. Fleming Martinique?” So I didn’t say anything, but there were other girls who had done the same unit as I did—but in Paris—and they hadn’t finished the unit either. And I said “Hey, it’s odd that in Paris they didn’t fi nish the unit either.” She looked at me and . . . she understood . . . I didn’t take the remark personally, I thought that maybe she was trying to tell me something, but I made her understand that the implication she was trying to make about the fact that I was coming from the Antilles wasn’t supported at all, because even in Paris they weren’t able to do it, so afterwards she didn’t make any more remarks about the fact that I had my diploma in Martinique. Both fi rst- and second-generation migrants told stories of encountering scholastic difficulties as they transitioned to predominately White schools. Some described racial tensions that drove them to work harder in the classroom. Max, an activist in a commemorative organization, felt pressure to excel because of his skin color: When I was at school, at that time, I had said that no child lighter than me would do better than me at that school. And when there were Whites—never, no White should be ahead of me. And it never happened. Clara, mentioned earlier, also realized that it “wasn’t very advantageous to be Black in France” and felt the burden of having to be the best in her class: I would have to prove that I was . . . competent, intelligent, and that’s how I transformed myself over the years into a wonder woman, you know, the best in the class, valedictorian, who went to the best schools, whose work was irreproachable . . . I don’t know where this pressure came from because honestly, in fact, they never put pressure on me. I never consciously experienced a racist attack. Honestly, I was always very privileged, I went to the best schools and everything eventually worked out, I had a roof over my head, no problems, always able to fi nd a job . . . so I’m far from the experience of the suburban youths who have a hard time. Unlike Clara, Thierry, an entrepreneur and business owner, grew up in the suburbs but went on to pursue higher education at an elite university in Paris. His childhood friends were “an African—a Senegalese—a Haitian, and an Asian” and he did not encounter overt discrimination in school growing up. Though he did not feel discriminated against until arriving in college, he experienced significant culture shock, however, when he left the suburbs and found himself surrounded by predominately White, uppermiddle class peers:

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In college I felt a different kind of treatment—not from the profs, but from the students . . . I arrived from my high school, from my neighborhood, with my little baseball cap, my ring . . . no books . . . It was tough. There were nothing but bourgeois [students] there who had preconceived notions about a whole lotta things . . . I didn’t really speak to them because I was in another world. I was lost. I went through six months, in fact, and I didn’t speak to anyone! . . . I had my walkman, I’d take it off, take my classes, get out of there, and it was hard because there was a gap in the level [expected of you]. I had my high school degree where I never beat myself up over a bad grade. I thought, ‘Well, it’ll be the same in college.’ . . . I was lost, although they had the same high school degree that I did. [They came from] nothing but prestigious high schools—as if by chance—and they were prepared differently . . . we aren’t prepared in the same way. When I would go to the cafeteria and sit down, I’d hear to my left: ‘Saturday there’s such and such exposition—we really have to go there!’ Exposition? What’s that? . . . I had a horrible year. Although Thierry did not describe incidents of overt racism, he felt culturally excluded and ill-prepared. Status-conferring practices like attending art expositions were forms of cultural capital (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1979) far removed from the Thierry’s experience growing up in the banlieue. His experience, like Michel’s, the accountant from Grigny, underlines the extent to which Antilleans sometimes confront exclusion on the basis of both class and ethnic background. Finally, academic tracking was mentioned by some migrants as a form of school-based discrimination. Lionel, a 40-year-old journalist and fi rstgeneration migrant from Guadeloupe, thought that he and his siblings were discriminated against when teachers took them out of the general track and placed them into vocational courses (filière professionelle): At school . . . they suggested the vocational track rather than the general curriculum, while I remember our grades clearly. We weren’t the worst—we were average . . . while the average Whites were tracked into the general curriculum. But for us, it was the vocational track automatically, so I don’t think we were treated fairly. When I asked him why he thought he and his siblings were removed from the regular courses, he pointed to skin color: “Because that was what was set aside for people of color. There were exceptions, but in principle, it was really radical. There was no way out.” Lionel’s sentiments are indicative of broader patterns among French migrants from the DOM-TOM. The feeling of being unfairly tracked extends to second-generation Antilleans, as demonstrated by Monguérou, Brinbaum, and Primon (2009) who show that second-generation migrants from overseas departments report

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discriminatory educational tracking at twice the rate of members of the majority population. The phenomenon is clearly structured along gender lines: 43% of second-generation Antillean men compared to 28% of second-generation Antillean women were placed in ‘vocational’ courses after middle school (Monguéron et al., 2009).

HISTORICAL INVISIBILITY IN THE FRENCH CURRICULUM The school, as an institution of socialization and a technology of acculturation, has traditionally played a central role in what French politicians and officials have referred to as a “civilizing mission”—an ideology which portrayed colonization as an attempt to humanize and rehabilitate supposedly inferior populations by bringing not only modernization but also cultural capital to the colonized (White, 1996). Thus, schools were conceived as a means of assimilating colonial subjects into dominant French culture. More broadly, schools are also conduits of a nation’s collective memory: Commemorative narratives transmitted in the classroom both draw upon and contribute to collective representations of a nation’s identity through institutionalizing interpretations of the past (Zerubavel, 1995). In this way, schools help orient collective memory by conveying which historical periods, events, and actors are—and are not—worthy of being remembered. While French Caribbeans sometimes “stand out” in metropolitan schools because of their skin color or sociocultural background, they are remarkably absent from the curriculum they study in the classroom. Across the board, the Caribbean activists I interviewed emphasized the need to rehabilitate the history of transatlantic enslavement from obscurity. Key to their claims-making is a demand that the history of transatlantic slavery be taught, rather than ignored, in French schools. In the wake of increased commemorative activity concerning colonial slavery in the late 1990s, the Ministry of Education enacted a series of significant, if not fully applied, changes to the teaching of the unique history and culture of overseas France. As late as 1995, the national curriculum for history courses made no mention of slavery in elementary school, 2 yet by 2002, the “Black trade” (la traite des noirs) was included under the heading “From the beginning of modern times to the end of the Napoleonic Epoch (1492–1815)” and the abolition of slavery is acknowledged in a section on nineteenth century history (Vergès et al. 2005). Similarly, middle school curricular guidelines largely overlooked transatlantic history until the early 2000s, with few exceptions. In 1997, middle school history teachers were instructed to cover the defi nitive abolition of slavery in 1848 but not the fi rst (and failed) abolition of 1794. Even at the high school level, transatlantic history has traditionally occupied a marginal place in the educational curriculum. The 2001 Taubira Law, which made France the fi rst nation to recognize the

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transatlantic slave trade as a “crime against humanity,” called for the integration of colonial slavery into the French educational curriculum and the establishment of the Committee for the Memory of Slavery (Comité pour la Mémoire de l’Esclavage).3 In its 2005 report, the committee (Vergès et al., 2005) noted that colonial slavery was uniformly reduced to a two-page dossier in high school history classes. Since 2000, the overseas departments of Guadeloupe, Martinique, Réunion, and Guyane have had access to tailored curriculums designed to allow students to learn elements of their local history and geography, including greater attention to colonization and slavery. These, “adaptations,” however, are not included in the educational curriculum for students in mainland France. Notwithstanding the importance of these recent changes and the impact of the Taubira Law in improving the teaching of Atlantic history (Durpaire, 2002), most of my respondents described the classroom as a space in which the history of their enslaved ancestors was largely ignored and silenced. Respondents frequently reported that they were taught “nothing” or “very little” about the transatlantic slave trade, and that what they did remember learning was condensed to “a page” or even “a paragraph.” Only a third of the fi rst-generation migrants reported learning the history of slavery and colonization in some detail at school, sometimes due to the exceptional efforts of Caribbean teachers who intentionally went above and beyond the standard curriculum. Francois, a 67-year-old first-generation migrant, had fond memories of one teacher in particular: I had a really awesome prof . . . that . . . would take us outside, we’d go sit down under a mango tree or something like that and he would tell us the history of Guadeloupe . . . He was an awesome prof, frankly, in every way . . . I thought it was normal, that everyone went under the mango trees [to learn history] . . . He really talked to us about all of the history, there really weren’t any taboos. Fred, a 25-year-old migrant from Martinique, felt that his teachers taught the history of slavery because of their political support for independence: It’s really once you get to high school, around 15, 18 years old that they talk about it with us. The profs deliberately—how would you say it? They bent the rules, because officially, it’s not in the plans . . . but I learned about slavery because I had profs who had political leanings for independence and autonomy, so that explains it too. Similarly, Michelle, a 24-year-old student who also grew up in Martinique, learned the local history of the island in the context of school fieldtrips: We learned what you call local history, that is to say, the history of Guadeloupe, in one year. And then that’s it . . . [Teachers] told us “Our

94 Crystal M. Fleming fi rst grandparents were slaves. We’re going to visit a coffee plantation or a sugar business.” There are outings like that, into the fields . . . They explain to us “Here you go, they were our great grandparents from Africa who . . . were slaves.” These examples highlight the contingent nature of respondents’ exposure to knowledge about slavery and the extent to which migrants relied upon the efforts of a small number of teachers who deliberately went beyond the standard curriculum to include lessons on the history of slavery. By contrast, none of the respondents born and raised in mainland France recalled learning more than the minimal details about the history of slavery through formal education. As Alain, a 36-year-old fi rst-generation migrant, recounts: “At school, it’s not something you learn in your books.” Overall, they emphasized the brevity with which the topic was covered. When asked if she learned about slavery at school, Delphine, a 31-year-old second-generation migrant, remarked, “I think so, but it didn’t really leave a mark on me. It was so short.” Fanny, a 23-year-old second-generation migrant, is typical in her response: “It’s not in the curriculum . . . at least [there aren’t] chapters dedicated to slavery.” About a fi fth of the non-activist respondents remembered personally learning or hearing that their parents had learned that their ancestors were the Gauls in the classroom. Of these interviewees, all but three were fi rst-generation migrants—an indication of recent transformations in the French educational curriculum. In many cases, Antilleans expressed their disappointment and irritation at having their enslaved ancestors effectively denied and relegated to nonexistence in the classroom. Youri, a second-generation migrant, was both amused and offended that his mother had not learned about her enslaved ancestors in Caribbean schools: Youri: My mother told me when she was small—you should know that she was born in 1957—at school they didn’t talk about slaves. They made them learn “your ancestors the Gauls” when it wasn’t true! C.F.: Did you learn that at school as well? Youri: No, it was my mother at school at the time. Your ancestors the Gauls! I mean, it’s really absurd! The Gauls weren’t Black! (laughter) It’s a little absurd that they taught this to people in the Antilles. C.F.: Did you talk about it with her? Youri: Yes! But . . . They didn’t know what they were repeating. They were repeating it without even knowing . . . No, their ancestors were Africans. Stéphane, a 52-year-old migrant from Martinique, did not fi nd the trope of Gallic ancestry unusual as a child:

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C.F.: Did you learn the history of slavery in school? Stéphane: Of what? I learned that my ancestors were the Gauls at school. (laughter) C.F.: Oh really? Stéphane: Of course. C.F.: What did you think of that lesson? Stéphane: My ancestors the Gauls? (laughter) I remember a comic in the newspaper Militant that showed the Gauls in the past inventing a time machine. So [they] get in the machine and end up in Martinique. They arrive behind a school and . . . they see a bunch of Blacks learning “our ancestors the Gauls.” They go back in time and they say to their wives “Hey, so what have you been up to when we go off to war?” (laughter) That’s what it is for me. Noour ancestors the Gauls? I didn’t ask myself any questions when we learned that. C.F.: Did you ask yourself questions about it afterwards? Stéphane: That’s a very profound question . . . In Martinique, we have an educational system that has [been] anchored in France . . . It’s very complicated. But it’s changed since then. It’s true that it was stupid to teach “our ancestors the Gauls” in Martinique. It didn’t make any sense. Both Youri and Stéphane responded with laughter when discussing the French tradition of having students read (and verbally recite) that their ancestors were the Gauls. I often observed other Antilleans reacting in a similar manner—chuckling and shaking their head in exasperation as they reflected on the absurdity and symbolic violence of teaching Caribbean children that their ethnic heritage was (solely) White and Gallic. Although alternative sources of knowledge about slavery lie beyond the scope of this chapter, many of the Antilleans I interviewed had gained some familiarity with Atlantic history (and their slave ancestry) through literature, historical texts, fi lm, as well as informal conversations with friends and family members. Writing at the close of the nineteenth century (Renan, 1996) famously argued that nations are built not upon the bonds of race or language, but through shared memories of a glorious past and the will to forget difficult and divisive pages of history. It is not surprising, then, that leaders of nations with a slave-holding past have often sought to refashion collective memories in ways that minimize damage to their national reputation. For that reason, the ending of slavery throughout the Atlantic was often accompanied by memory work that either justified the slave-holding past or suppressed it through inattention and avoidance. In France, the abolition of slavery in its overseas territories was coupled with explicit efforts to suppress the memory and negate the ongoing consequences of the slavery past. In mainland France, the history of slavery has never

96 Crystal M. Fleming been a preoccupation for the average French citizen—even debates over the abolition of slavery, which concerned a number of French intellectuals and philosophers, never captured the nation’s attention or achieved a similar degree of general acknowledgement one sees in the U.S., where slavery took place within the geographic boundaries of the nation. While the typical American is aware that slavery took place (though they may be ignorant of the specific historical details), many French are still only vaguely aware that France was deeply implicated in the transatlantic slave trade over the course of several centuries. The invisibility of the DOMTOM in the French educational system has played a significant role in silencing Atlantic history in France.

CONCLUSION The aim of this chapter was to explore the role of ethnoracial distinction and marginalization in shaping French Caribbeans’ classroom experiences. In particular, I sought to convey the ways in which Antilleans fi nd themselves at once socially marked, yet conspicuously absent from the curriculum covered in school. Circulating between schools in overseas and metropolitan France, French Caribbeans frequently fi nd themselves navigating shifting ethnoracial contexts and occupying spaces in which they are seen as minorities. This is particularly the case for upwardly mobile migrants pursuing advanced degrees in predominately White educational settings. In addition to these challenges, even second-generation migrants—born and raised in mainland France—said they encountered a range of scholastic difficulties, academic mistreatment, and overt racial discrimination. Overall, Antilleans’ accounts of being ethnoracially marked and excluded demonstrate that French racism is not entirely due to citizenship or migration status. Finally, these incidents of “visibility” contrast sharply with the symbolic marginality Caribbean students experience when the history of their enslaved ancestors is excised from the history of France. What, if anything, can we learn from the schooling experiences of Antilleans in France? Given the complex relationship between the overseas departments and the metropole, one might be tempted to view the educational experiences of Caribbean migrants in France as exceptional or peculiar. Yet there is much about the French Caribbean case that connects to ongoing challenges people of African descent encounter in societies in which they are numerical minorities. Students who are categorized as “Black” in post-slavery and postcolonial societies must often confront social and symbolic exclusion in their classrooms. Such mistreatment and mis-education contributes to the marginalization of African Diaspora populations more broadly, even in “color-blind” France.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Jovonne Bickerstaff, Audrey Célestine, Barbara Moore, and the editors of this volume for their thoughtful suggestions and comments on earlier drafts of this chapter. Of course, any errors are my own. NOTES 1. Names have been changed to protect the innocent. 2. The 2002 history curriculum limits discussion of Atlantic slavery to CE2CM1-CM2 history classes. 3. Since 2009, the group was renamed the Committee for the Memory and History of Slavery (Comité pour la Mémoire et l’Histoire de l’Esclavage).

REFERENCES Bail, C. A. (2008). The configuration of symbolic boundaries against immigrants in Europe. American Sociological Review, 73, 37–59. Balibar, E. (1991). Is there a neo-racism? In I. W. Etienne Baliba (Ed.), Race, nation, class: Ambiguous identities (pp. 17–28). London: Routeledge. Beauchemin, C., Hamel, C., & Simon, P. (2009). Trajectoires et origines: Enquête sur la diversité des populations de France (Documents de Travail #168). Paris: Institut national d’Études Demographiques. Beriss, D. (2004) Black Skins, French Voices: Caribbean Ethnicity and Activism in Urban France. Boulder: Westview Press. Bickerstaff, J. (2010). Ethnic vs. racial identification: Variation in the anti-racist responses of fi rst generation Black French. Unpublished conference paper presented at Responses to Discrimination and Racism: Comparative Perspectives, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J. C. (1979). The inheritors : French students and their relation to culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Byron, M., & Condon, S.Stephanie Condon. (1996). “A Ccomparative Sstudy of Caribbean Rreturn Mmigration from Britain and France: Towards a Ccontext-Ddependent Eexplanation.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 21:91–104. Condon, S. (2005). Transatlantic French Caribbean connections : return Return migration in the context of increasing circulation between France and the islands. In D. C. Robert, B. Potter, & J. Phillips (Eds.), The experience of return migration: Caribbean perspectives (pp. 225–244). London: Ashgate. Condon, S. A., & Ogden, P. E. (1993). The state, housing policy and Afro-Caribbean migration to France. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 16, 256–297. . Condon, S. A., & Ogden, P. E. (1996). Questions of emigration, circulation and return: Mobility between the French Caribbean and France. International Journal of Population Geography, 2, 35–50. Condon, S. (2000). Migrations antillaises en métropole: Politique migratoire, emploi et place spécifique des femmes. In Cahiers du centre d’enseignements, de documentation et de recherches pour les études féministes (CEDREF) (Vol. 8–9, pp. 167–200). Durpaire, F. (2002). Enseignement de l’histoire et diversité culturelle: “Nos ancetres ne sont pas les Gaulois.”. Paris: Hachette Education.

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Monguérou, L., Brinbaum, Y., & Primon, J. L. (2009). Parcours et expériences scolaires des jeunes descendants d’immigrés en France. In C. H. a. P. S. Cris (Ed.), Trajectoires et Origines: Enquête sur la diversité des populations en France Documents de Travail (pp. 47–54). Paris: Institut National d’Études Demographiques. Patterson, O. (2005). Four modes of ethno-somatic stratification: The experience of Blacks in Europe and the Americans. In G. C. Loury, T. Modood, & S. M. Teles (Eds.), Ethnicity, social mobility and public policy: Comparing the USA and UK (pp. 67–122). Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. Renan, E. (1996). What is a Nation? In G. a. S. Eley & R. Grigor (Eds.), Becoming national: A reader, (pp. 41–55). New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press. Taguieff, P.-A. (1988). La force du préjugé: Essai sur le racisme et ses doubles. Paris: La Découverte. Tribalat, M., Simon, P., & Riandey, B. (1996). De l’immigration à l’assimilation: Enquête sur les populations d’origine étrangère en France. Paris: Editions La Découverte INED. Vergès, F., Condé, M., & Comité pour la Mémoire de l’Esclavage. (2005). Mémoires de la traite négrière, de l’esclavage et leurs abolitions: Rapport à monsieur le Premier ministre. Paris: La Découverte. White, B. W. (1996). Talk about school: Education and the colonial project in French and British Africa, (1860–1960). Comparative Education, 32, 9–25. Wimmer, A. (2008). The making and unmaking of ethnic boundaries: A multilevel process theory. American Journal of Sociology, 113, 970–1022. Zerubavel, Y. (1995). Recovered roots: Collective memory and the making of Israeli national tradition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

8

Challenging Swedish Exceptionalism? Teaching While Black Ylva Habel

In contrast to most contributions in this book, this article does not revolve around teaching Black student groups, but around the pedagogical challenges I face as a Black film and media studies scholar in pedagogical situations where I teach predominantly White students about media representations of the African Diaspora. Taking my point of departure in Swedish everyday discourse that negates the significance of race, I will attempt to visualize some of the obstacles and challenges that I have encountered in teaching situations where White resistance against thinking about racial difference and postcolonial perspectives is expressed in various ways. Several scholars have referred to the trials and tribulations involved in encouraging White students to unlearn the colorblindness that has long been a cherished part of their individuated outlook. As I will argue, teaching them to let go of sanctioned ignorance about racial issues in a Swedish context can be a bumpy ride—both for the students and me. It is a mixed blessing writing about Black educational experiences in Sweden at this historical moment. On the one hand, we are currently witnessing one out of several renewed surges of interest to examine our country’s belated awakening to our local condition of the postcolonial (Helgesson, 2001). Buzzwords circulate in the borderland between academia and the public sphere, seminal theoretical texts are translated, and panel discussions are held. On the other hand, the nationalist party, The Swedish Democrats (SD), got almost six percent of the Swedish votes in the September 2010 election, thereby entering parliament for the fi rst time—getting 20 seats. A neo-racist party with a known Nazi background, the SD has spent the last couple of years polishing up their image by communicating a slightly more subdued anti-immigration policy than formerly. Moreover, between fall 2009 and 2010, a racist serial killer, copycatting the Laser Man’s nightly deeds from the early 1990s, shot at several people of color, raising terror in the city of Malmö in southern Sweden. And the same week as I am about to send this article to the editors, scandalous news about a racist fraternity prank are spread in the media. A group of White students from one of the country’s most prestigious universities had dressed up as

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Black slaves for auction at a party last weekend, made up in blackface, with lynching ropes around their necks and all. One of the party highlights was the auction itself, where each of the “slaves” was sold. What are we to make of this situation? Like all imagined communities, the makeup of Sweden’s national selfimage is a complicated affair. Thus, in order to situate my discussion about the pedagogical challenges I face in that context as a Black university teacher—as well as those I can embody by my presence when teaching predominantly White student groups—something fi rst needs to be said about our country’s lingering attachment to collectively held conceptions of political, historic and cultural innocence vis-à-vis racial issues. In recent years, the research network “The Nordic Colonial Mind” has defi ned this positioning as Nordic exceptionalism (Larsen et al.). In accordance with their and several other scholars’ critique of Nordic countries’ repeated failures to acknowledge and assume responsibility for the legacies of colonialism (Keskinen, Touri, Irmi, & Mulinari, 2009, p. 1–16), I would like to begin by highlighting a particular, presentist dynamic of colorblindness in the everyday that contributes to denying Sweden’s share in the colonial past. As I will exemplify in the following, this discourse contributes to making Black people invisible in ways that can be difficult to address.

RACISM—EVEN IN SWEDEN? WHITE POSITIONINGS IN THE EVERYDAY Several Swedish scholars, such as Katarina Mattsson and Mekonnen Tesfahuney (2002/2008), Lena Sawyer (2001), and Tobias Hübinette (2010), have argued that Sweden imagines itself as a race-less, tolerant country, purportedly less affected by postcolonial relations than other nations, by virtue of its welfare politics, and its democratic, egalitarian principles. Indeed, antiracist attitudes constitute important parts of our official national selfimage (Demker, 2010; Hübinette, 2010; Hübinette & Tigervall, 2008; Lundstedt, 2005; Mulinari, 2002/2008). To some extent, unacknowledged forms of individuated entitlement connected to Whiteness (Cherniavsky, 2005; Yancy, 2004) have intersected with welfare state discourse to construct an automatic, principally inclusive collectivity—based on an understanding that equality stands in a metonymic relation to sameness (Daun, 1996, p. 181). But as the cultural geographer Katarina Schough (2008) shows in her study Hyperborean: Images of Sweden’s place in the world, this particular shade of Whiteness is not only a contemporary, welfare discourse-related phenomenon. She traces the concept of a “Hyperborean abode” to the fifteenth century’s Swedish “centric” cartographical historiography, which describes an ideal, deterritorialized place in the far North “beyond the Northern winds,”

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inhabited by a high-born, Nordic race. According to the circular Hyperborean figure of thinking, she argues, Swedes are accorded an exceptional White status, allowing them to ascribe themselves a morally and culturally superior position in the world. The Hyperborean identity, which according to Schough is strongly interlinked with conceptions of purity and political innocence, has contributed to our collective amnesia regarding the nation’s complicity in the imperialistic enterprise. During the colonial process, she argues, Swedes on colonized territories defined themselves as unaffiliated, exploring “knights in the service of science or culture” (Schough, 2008, p. 38). As such, they were able to insert themselves into the imperial adventure as quasi-detached, participating observers—at every turn having the option of stepping into or out of the midst of events to critique the cruelty of the imperial arrangement that enabled and convenienced their global mobility. This god-trick, which allowed an abstracted presence, was situated both as interjacent and above colonial masters and subjects: The position of being the observer—along with that of being the whitest of the White, and thereby outside of reach for the colonial power’s racist ranking—accords the Hyperborean a double moral advantage. As participator in the colonial project, the Swede is self-evidently superior to the natives, but he is also morally superior to the colonizer, whose dirty business he can condemn when it appears as too much of a degenerated culture. Therefore, the shadow of colonization’s cruel consequences will not fall on the traveler brothers’ consciences. (Schough, 2008, p. 52 [translation]) Even if latter-day, updated versions of this exceptionalist national self-image have been vigorously contested by the rise of intersectional, postcolonial, critical race and Whiteness studies in Sweden (de los Reyes, Molina, & Mulinari, 2002; Hübinette, 2005; Manga, 2002; Mattsson, 2001; McEachrane & Faye, 2001; Tesfahuney, 1998), they are forcefully reproduced and repeatedly posit attempts to address questions around colonial legacies, such as racism, as biased. According to the Hyperborean logic, critique against the power dynamics of the postcolonial situation should be articulated from a sober, disembodied, and disinterested position outside all forms of purportedly vested interests. This particular shade of Whiteness can still be exceedingly difficult to question, underpinned as it is by a widespread conviction that Sweden as a nation has had no real part in the imperial adventure and, therefore, remains untouched by colonial and postcolonial social dynamics. Accordingly, when questions of racially based social inequalities are approached in the present, they are difficult to ventilate. Skin color, often considered a non-issue in the public sphere, is consistently played down or erased in Swedish cultural and political discourse. As argued by several

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researchers (Balibar & Wallerstein, 1991; Essed, 1991; Gilroy, 2000, 2004b; Jonsson, 1998; Mattsson & Tesfahuney, 2002/2008; Tesfahuney, 1998), the ascendancy of neo-liberal cultural racism, or “racism without races,” has entailed the use of an ubiquitous, more subtle code language, in which the naturalized use of “ethnicity” and “culture” or “multiculture” signal various shades of non-Whiteness. Therefore, liberal colorblindness more often than not constitutes the default value of our culture; speaking with Toni Morrison (1992), Evasion has fostered another, substitute language in which the issuers are encoded, foreclosing open debate. The situation is aggravated by the tremor that breaks into discourse on race. It is further complicated by the fact that the habit of ignoring race is understood to be a graceful, even generous, liberal gesture. To notice is to recognize an already discredited difference. To enforce its invisibility through silence is to allow the black body a shadowless participation in the dominant cultural body. According to this logic, every well-bred instinct argues against noticing and forecloses adult discourse. (pp. 9–10) Similarly, naming and discussing Blackness in a normalized fashion is exceedingly difficult in Sweden, especially for Whites. This, of course is not a unique situation (Essed, 1991); yet, the persistence with which Swedish Whiteness is communicated as disengaged with globally circulating signification deserves particular attention here. As Lena Sawyer argues, White Swedes often claim to have a “special” relationship to race—unsoiled by race thinking (2001, p. 139). Awkward silences tend to ensue in everyday conversations with many White people if you venture to defi ne yourself as Black. Often, despite their basic knowledge of what that means, politically, they respond by literalizing the relationship between “Blackness” and the Black person’s particular shade of complexion: “But you’re not Black—you’re brown/tanned!” This exclamation is often followed by the statement: “I don’t think of you as Black!” (by the way, they do not see that their dubbing you an honorary White might be regarded as offensive). In Afro-Swedish writing, similar dialogue scenarios are more and more frequently referred to (Adeniji, 2010; Habel, 2008; Polite, 2007). Since many White Swedes do not want to be concerned with matters of skin color at all, they correspondingly flinch perceptibly at being called White: “But . . . I don’t feel White—I’m more . . . pink” (Habel, 2008, p. 46). As indicated by these observations, varying degrees of de-politicizing, protective naivety management are fi ltered through everyday social interaction in order to maintain an image of Swedish identity as tolerant (Demker, 2010), colorblind, and non-racist. It should be added that this quotidian signifying process also involves active discursive participation by racialized people themselves. For instance, in interview-based research on racism in

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Sweden, it is not uncommon that non-White Swede informants play down or negate the presence of racism (Hübinette & Tigervall, 2008; Motsieloa, 2003; Schmauch, 2006). As I have argued elsewhere, this disinclination to see and acknowledge racism in the everyday is not to be read as lack of critical analysis on their part, but rather as a form of subconscious, strategic blindness necessitated within hegemonic race-less discourse to retain a sense of dignity and self-esteem (Habel, 2008, p. 43; Hübinette & Tigervall, 2008). In accordance with Toni Morrison’s (1992) observation in the above quote, a certain tremor arises in many quarters when racial issues are addressed in our culture. Despite the fact that both subtle and spectacular racist incidents probably take place as often in Sweden as elsewhere, a commonly held opinion until recently was that real racism does not really exist here. As was shown in the aftermath of the latest election, when the Swedish Democrats got into the Parliament, the Swedish collective stock response to the undeniable evidence of existent racism gaining momentum and visibility was astonishment and shock: “How can this be—even in Sweden?” About a decade ago, cultural geographer Allan Pred (2000) examined Swedish contemporary history through the lens of immigration policies and 1990s racist outbursts in the book Even in Sweden: Racisms, racialized spaces, and the popular geographical imagination. Apart from Richard Dyer (1997), Philomena Essed’s (1991), and Ruth Frankenberg’s (1993, 1997) writing, this study has become one of the most influential theoretical references in Swedish humanities’ research on racialized discourses on migrants, racial and cultural difference. Pred argued that Sweden’s welfare state history and our role as international model country had made us unable to self-reflexively examine social injustices and segregating housing policies as racist. It should be added that he wrote from the standpoint of his longstanding attachment to the country, where he had spent almost half of his life since the early 1960s. A clear note of sorrow and disenchantment runs through his discussion—exemplified in this slightly sardonic passage: In hidden or less apparent forms, as well as in blatantly open forms, racisms are currently flourishing even in Sweden, a country long stereotyped by Western intellectuals as an international champion of social justice, as the very model of solidarity and equality, as the world’s capital of good intentions and civilized behavior toward others. (Pred, 2000, p. 6) However, regardless of Pred’s acrid note, this “even” recurrently surfaces as a mantra of disbelief in his disillusioned discussion. He both critically assesses and, in a sense, nostalgically embraces the delapsing exceptionalist Swedish self-image.

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Likewise, the ways in which the word has been evoked in Swedish public discourse ambivalently signals both a need for critical reflection on, and a desire to hold on to, and rehabilitate a distinction that was always fictive. I would argue that the word “even” continues to mark the local conditions of possibility for critical analytical interventions today (McEachrane & Faye, 2001, p. 7), regardless if the word itself is articulated or not. The confused anxiety that persistently arises when critical questions regarding race are brought up—marked by a stubborn attachment to innocence—continues to hamper Swedish scholars from addressing the issue without fi rst having to explain the relevance of the discussion per se (Habel, 2008). Given these circumstances, it is still very difficult to budge the widespread opinion that Swedish Whiteness is a more objective, sober, and disinterested type of Whiteness than elsewhere. Roughly speaking, two knowledge positions are produced in our culture, which tend to silence postcolonial critique with individualized expressions of rejection. Both, you could say, are grounded in unconsciously grounded bad faith (Yancy, 2004). On the one hand, there is the ignorant White subject, allegedly unaccustomed to questions of race, and therefore automatically innocent (Sawyer, 2001); on the other, there is the enlightened, liberal White subject, who has nothing to learn from engaging in questions of racism—and who is therefore enabled to play with racial signifiers without risking to offend anyone (Habel, 2008; Kamali & Sawyer, 2006). I would argue that these two types of position-taking, in turn, roughly reproduce three forms of negating discourse, some of which have implied by the above: normative colorblindness, sanctioned ignorance, and White liberal doubt. Together, they make up a cluster of discursive circumstances that work to silence, or obstruct serious attempts to discuss these issues. Of course the positions cannot really be kept apart but ramify into each other (Habel, 2008); yet, their specific power-evasive ways of reasoning make up a recognizable type gallery of sorts, with specific tempers. When it comes to discussing the matter of racism or racial stereotypes, “White liberal doubt” cannot possibly believe that racism has much to do with the given question we are attempting to address; racism is something else: serious, tangible, and perceptively menacing. Racism may exist in society at large, but not in this particular context. If, as George Yancy (2004) claims, “White worldmaking” and its outlook are generally constituted by an axiomatic, often non-verbalized link between being and knowing, “White liberal doubt” is often more articulate about grounding his or her hypothesis about the social world in the unreflected assumption that “what Whiteness knows is what there is” (p. 11). The “normative colorblind,” in turn, may acknowledge that stereotypes can be disturbing and hurtful, but will be reluctant to historicize and contextualize their meaning. According to this mentality, stereotypes might be

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regarded as unpleasant, or inelegant cultural representations indeed, but since the word “race” should be deleted out of our vocabulary as obsolete, the subject must not be delved into. Otherwise, we will only play into the hands of the racists. We are all alike, and if we start talking about difference, it will only divide us against each other. Some clumsy people just happen to be uniformed—they mean no real harm. This position shares several traits with the “goodwill White,” who, Janine Jones argues, “defi ne[s] racism simply as racial prejudice. By not seeing racism as a system of advantage based on race, the goodwill White avoids the considerable pain, guilt, and shame that might be elicited by a defi nition of racism that clarifies how she benefits from racism and perhaps serves as an active, intentional, though unconscious, participant in it” (p. 69). In contrast to good intentions to do away with racism, she claims, the goodwill White is confused as to his/ her actual desires for the future of racial relations, and therefore “often fail[s] to empathize” with Black people (p. 71). Jones further writes that the goodwill Whites’ inability to form the belief that they are White skews the nature of the relationships that exist between Whites and Blacks. It affects their ability to empathize because they are unable to import an ingredient essential to empathy: an appreciation of their own situation. Goodwill Whites’ desire not to see themselves as whites may partly explain their desire not to see black as Blacks. (p. 70) For similar reasons, “normative colorblind” prefers not to discuss racism, and if pressured toward the limits of the White comfort zone, he or she will assume an insipid, morally tinged, and often silent reserve against further engagement in the issue. The figure “sanctioned ignorance” might be just one of those uninformed White people—purportedly innocent, clumsy, unconcerned, and playful. She or he is a child of a totally de-contextualized present, and convinced that we all live in a post-racial, post-racist society, where cultural meanings can easily be harnessed and steered by personal intentions—here and now. According to this figure, we need not concern ourselves with how certain negative words and meanings persistently get attached to some bodies at not others in our culture (Habel, 2008; Hübinette, 2010). To do so would be utterly humorless. To speak with Tobias Hübinette, “Sanctioned ignorance” playfully uses racial slurs to manifest his or her freedom, and above all, a refusal to capitulate to what he or she perceives to be empty political correctness (Hübinette, 2010). Most importantly, she/he knows that she/he can do this with impunity. Discussions about racism and stereotypes are relatively far and apart in the Swedish public arena, but when they do take place, they tend to be derailed by a compact, but purportedly benevolent refusal, tinged by one

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of these temperaments. Furthermore, the topic recurrently gives rise to an allegedly naïve desire to locate and investigate the intentions, denominations, and distinctions involved in the words “race” and “racism” themselves—a maneuver that eclipses the social implications of the discussion. A whole set of questions comes to the fore, such as What is racism, really? What distinguishes it from xenophobia? Should we even be talking about race, since there is no such thing as “race”—we are all human beings? What do racial stereotypes mean, really? Are they about anyone, really . . . and should anyone be entitled to be offended—really? The last question implies that we can collectively—and objectively—assess the hurtfulness of insults directed at various minorities. It can be added that during the last 2 years, Swedish populist discourse has persistently de-legitimized any attempts to claim that stereotyping words can be hurtful; one exponent of this quick backlash is provided by David Eberhard’s book No one takes shit in the country of the easily offended (2009). Under these circumstances, just starting a very basic critical discussion in public fora such as panel discussions and debates involves Sisyphean labor; and in order to be accepted, it needs to be kept on a markedly low level of problematization to accommodate the pain/knowledge threshold of White organizers, moderators and participants. Since such events take place within an implicit framework of hospitality, a relayed problem is that non-White participants invited to the discussion often quickly outstay their welcome. Indeed, the more or less serene position taking described above may very easily blow up in your face if you venture to criticize it; indignation, anger and/or rejection forecloses further discussion. The anthropologist Ghassan Hage (2003) elucidates a kindred problem in Australia, where it has become virtually impossible to mention the word racism, especially after the “United Nations conference in racism” in 2001. There, “it was internationally established,” he argues, that “most colonized and previously colonized Third World-looking people don’t know much about racism. They’ve shown themselves to be notoriously oversensitive and unreliable when it comes to this subject, and are very likely to misunderstand what is actually happening to them” (p. x). In another passage he writes that: It is true that . . . a considerable number of Indigenous people and Arab and Muslim Australians felt demeaned, inferiorised and excluded from the rest of society . . . But does being demeaned, inferiorised, treated insensitively and excluded mean you are being subjected to racism? It is no longer easy to answer this question, for it is no longer up to the victims to decide if a person is racist. Racists declare themselves to be so. And the fact that no one in Australia has done so just shows the depth of anti-racism in this country. So strongly do the anti-racists feel that if you refer to one of them as racist without their agreeing, they are likely to sue you. (p. xi)

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Even if we have not yet seen such violent expressions of refusal in Sweden, conceptions that racism is underpinned by intentions and acts of volition are very usual in the public arena (Pripp & Öhlander, 2008). If you don’t mean anything racist, you have not performed a racist act. This dominant supposition is difficult to budge. The White students referred to in the introduction, who recently dressed up as slaves as part of a student prank, can be seen as a case in point.

BLACK TEACHER, WHITE STUDENTS As implied by the above, everyday colorblind discourse often contributes to lock discussions on race issues into an echo chamber of presentism and de-contextualization. Correspondingly, it back-pedals attempts to visualize afrophobia as particular dimension of racism. As a Black academic teaching predominantly White students about the Black Diaspora, I recurrently need to face this challenge, which ranges from legitimizing the subject to “qualifying” my own presence in the classroom. Before addressing this problem, something fi rst needs to be said about the position of the Black Diaspora in Sweden. Today, Afro-Swedes are certainly visible as a growing minority in Sweden (Sawyer, 2000; Schmauch, 2006), yet exceptionally marginalized in political and cultural terms. Even if the history of the Black presence may go back as long as in many other parts of Europe, it enjoys an ambivalent status: on the one hand it is recurrently spectacularized as purportedly recent—something intriguingly cool, different, and exotic (or abject) in quotidian culture. On the other, the presence and achievements of Black people is often overlooked or erased in historical records (Diakité, 2005). Like African Diasporas around the globe, Swedish Blacks are marginalized in most social settings that purport to be inclusive. However, in contrast to Blacks in England, the Caribbean and the U.S., we have no history of sustained political struggle. We practically lack parliamentary political representation, and discussions around cultural representation have only got off to a bumpy start in recent years. While grounds of discrimination like gender, sexuality, age, disability, and xenophobia are recurrently negotiated and made visible in public media, skin color is often not seen as a relevant category to discuss. However, some headway has been made. Recently, a Swedish organization for Black actors and playwrights TRYCK, an equivalent of the British PUSH was formed, with the objective to alert both theatrical managers and the general public to the fact that only a miniscule share of Black actors are cast in theater productions today. Another important event took place in the fall of 2008, when the Afro-Swedish National Organization held an African History Week to celebrate the 166th anniversary of the abolition of transatlantic

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slavery in Sweden. By commission of the Government Offices’ section for human rights, they furthermore issued the short publication directed to schoolchildren, Slavery then and now. It should also be added that the histories and experiences of Afro-Swedes have more or less only begun to be addressed during the last decade; in autobiographical writing, reports, and articles, several Black voices testify to the ways in which colorblind denial creates a sense of wordlessness around Blackness in Sweden (Adeniji, 2010; Gärding, 2009; Habel, 2008; Kalonaityté, Kawesa, & Tedros, 2007; Motsieloa, 2003; Polite, 2007; Sawyer, 2000; Stephens, 2009). In order to visualize the particularity of our local condition, I need to emphasize an aspect of the above again: regardless of the fact that the Black minority is visible in everyday Sweden society, it is rarely named, or historically situated as such by dominant society. In quotidian culture, Afro-Swedes and other people of color can still be regarded as anomalies, exposing them to the allegedly harmless, but disturbingly unimaginative, and persistent question, “where they really come from” (Hübinette & Tigervall, 2008, p. 13). Oivvio Polite (2007) describes this as an unreflected White desire for ordering non-White bodies: “Before the most trivial conversation can begin, I have to be assigned a place (p. 47). Anna Adeniji (2010), in turn, refers to the unexpected experience of being defi ned as “odd-looking” by a White friend who presented her to his toddler (p. 85). The sanctioned, affected White ignorance about Black people works to disallow us as being a part of the population. This impulse, which is seldom examined, entails a strong imperative to conform to White standards, and structurally discourages Black engagement in communitybuilding and supportive activities on any larger scale. It would not be bold to claim that a significant number among the Swedish Black minority fend for themselves in the everyday. Tina Campt (2004) observes that Black populations in Northern Europe are at “the margins of [the] diaspora,” often lacking direct community-based links to the collective memory of the Middle Passage and Afrodiasporic cultural production (p. 170). The scarcity of such structural and “diasporic resources” (Campt, 2004) entails that the discursive spaces that Black scholars, activists and cultural profi les in Sweden are able to establish are often very provisional. And some simply give up. As argued by Madubuko A. Diakité (2005) in his essay “African Diasporans in Sweden: An Unfi nished Story,” many Black cultural and academic profi les who came to Sweden from the African continent or the U.S. in the more progressive 1960s and 1970s, have had to leave in order to sustain and salvage their careers. Looking at the Swedish educational system at the university level, the number of Black scholars is close to miniscule; so far, I am probably the only Black person in the country with a Swedish Ph.D. in cinema studies (in a year or so, there will be one more). Even if we have centers for “ethnicity

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studies,” there are, as yet, no departments for postcolonial, Afrodiasporic or critical race studies here. This is not to say that there is a general lack of interest for these perspectives in Swedish academia, on the contrary, they are increasingly integrated in some part of the course design across the humanities, and the field is defi nitely growing. Yet, it has not, so far, accommodated more than an evanescent number of people of color. So when I teach undergraduate curricula that include course material on postcolonial feminism, critical race and critical Whiteness perspectives, I fi nd myself in an exceedingly minoritized position. In her book Diversity: Gender, color, and culture, Philomena Essed (1991) draws attention to the fact that when she meets a group of predominantly White Dutch students at course introductions, she is the “first woman of color they had ever had as a supervisor” (p. 128). The same often goes for me. Many a time, problems arise by my mere embodied presence as a Black teacher; this, by the way, goes for all types of subjects in the curriculum, not only those already mentioned. At course introductions, some White students eye me as a curiosity from top to bottom—and later “test” me in various ways—since a Black woman in an intellectual, officially powerful profession appears as a contradiction in terms to them. Speaking with Bell Hooks (1994), I am “at odds with the existing structure” (p. 135). Sara Ahmed conceptualizes this destabilized position as being “thrown”; she writes, quoting Nirmal Puwar: “The moments when the [non-White] body appears ‘out of place’ are moments of political and personal trouble . . . when bodies arrive who seem ‘out of place’ in such institutional worlds we have a process of disorientation: people blink, and look again. The proximity of such bodies makes familiar spaces seem strange: ‘ people are “thrown” because a whole world view is jolted’” (Ahmed, 2007, p. 159). Likewise, in such situations, I am symbolically “thrown” or, as Ahmed writes later, stopped for “questioning” (pp. 161–162). During the ensuing lectures, devoted to, for example, complicated theory, these course participants, often in pairs, titter and whisper more or less through the entire class and exchange meaning gleeful looks whenever I gesticulate or mention a theoretical concept. Such forms of invalidation and delegitimizing of me and/or the teaching situation are recurrently played out as an unacknowledged authority struggle (Donadey, 2002, p. 93). During the last 10 years, I have experienced a variety of teaching situations where lectures or seminar discussions have become slightly destabilized by White student practicing some variety of this resistance. In the following, I will to exemplify some of the everyday obstacles and challenges that I have encountered. As implied by the introductory discussion above, the Swedish disinclination to address the social significance of skin color involves both wellbehaved and menacing impulses; both are underpinned by assumptions that we have already, more or less, arrived at a general politics of tolerance

110 Ylva Habel and neutrality. In the classroom, such taken-for-granted attitudes need to be unpacked and addressed carefully. Discussing the educational challenges she had experienced as a Black university teacher in the mid-1990s, Philomena Essed (1991) claimed that Europe had yet to begin addressing racism as a problem (p. 127). In a Swedish context, this statement is still valid today. Despite the fact that there is now a fair amount of articulate research and governmental reports produced on the subject (Kamali, 2005; Kamali & de los Ryes, 2005; Kamali & Sawyer, 2006; Mattsson, 2001; Schmauch, 2006; Tesfahuney, 1999), the formation of governmental policy, public opinion, and debate is often clearly out of sync with this critique. Before going on, it can be added that roughly between 2005 and 2007, the group of scholars who put together the above series of volumes within the framework of the governmental Investigation on power, integration, and structural discrimination became the targets of vehement attacks in public debate, fi rst and foremost for their alleged impertinence of assuming that such a thing as “structural discrimination” existed in Swedish society. In a British context, Paul Gilroy (2005) discusses a similar phenomenon: I know that to raise awkward questions about how racism and ethnic absolutism shape governmental or juridical institutions or how they can affect academic inquiries that may seem far distant from the overspecialized subfields in which histories of racial ideas and racializing discourse are usually confi ned is to become suspect. Academic probity and scholarly seriousness are placed under the most intense scrutiny. More than that, the very attempt to hold “racism” together as an object to be analyzed will be unacceptable to many. To dispute racial common sense by drawing attention to these thorny and embarrassing issues is to invite dismissal as a spokesman for “political correctness” or “presentism.” To take racism seriously is in effect to sacrifice much of what distinguishes the academy as a special place in which contentious and heterodox arguments will be politely heard with patience and in good faith before being refuted in a public culture for which we all assume responsibility. (p. 9) Through the last three decades, the Swedish discussion context on racism has been taken through a succession of failed starts—as well as a multitude of symbolic antiracist manifestations—and I think it would not be unfair to claim that colorblind resistance has kept us returning to the most basic defi nitions of what it means, and what expressions it can take. As the quote from Gilroy indicates, opening up for critique entails the risk of being shut down by massive impeachment. Returning to Philomena Essed’s discussion about teaching experiences in the classroom, there are conspicuous similarities between the discursive

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conditions of possibility in Sweden and the Netherlands. She argues that there is a marked taboo in Dutch culture against naming racism as racism—the word must be avoided at all costs. To some extent, she sees this as a problem where the discursive limits of language one the one hand and an everyday understanding on the other, are at odds with each other. Writing about classroom experiences, she argues: Sometimes my students complained that they felt alienated by the language and by the concepts in which certain theories were developed. To give an example, the denial of racism hampered Dutch development of theories in this area for a long time. In classroom discussions, students sometimes had to swallow before they could say “Black,” “race” or “racism”—terms that were used in the English-language articles but that were taboo in Dutch. Yet the students recognized many of the practices referred to as racism in the English-language articles from their own observations or experiences in the Netherlands. (p. 133) Likewise, I have often witnessed a perceptible resistance among Swedish students—both White and Black—to use these words; in accordance with Essed’s observation, a gap opens up between the contexts and concepts they encounter in the course material and the more nonverbalized context of race relations they see in the Swedish quotidian cultural production. They therefore tend to leave aside or reject the purpose of naming and critically reflecting upon the social significance of skin color—even when explicitly called upon to do so in class discussions, assignments, or home exams. Despite the fact that I recurrently visualize conventional problematics regarding word choice in Eurocentric discourse around the Afrodiasporic minority, many students persist in calling Black people “non-Swedish,” “non-Europeans,” “Africans,” “people with an immigrant/other ethnic background,” “colored,” “dark-skinned,” or simply “different.” Correspondingly, when referring to Whites, they say “Europeans,” “Swedes,” “Western people,” or just “normal/ordinary people.” When I recurrently remind them about the usefulness in reflecting upon the meaning of this slippage of word choice and the presumptions about identity, racialized embodiment, and national belonging/non-belonging that they imply, some roll their eyes, while others silently make a note of it. Regardless of attitude, most of them soon revert to this vocabulary all the same. Another marked difference between the problematics Philomena Essed refers to and those I encounter is that Swedish White students are more prone to regard the lacunae in our cultural discourse of conceivability as a sign of their own basic soundness. Even if attitudes toward colorblindness have changed slightly in recent years, it is still imperative and even defi nes the felt normalcy of public opinion. You should not pay attention to race;

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if you do, you run the risk of being reduced to a dogmatist or even being called a racist yourself. Thus, the most recurrent obstacle arising in the classroom can be the White students’ refusals and evasions of the subjects at hand. In itself, White student resistance against discussing race and postcolonial issues is not an unusual phenomenon, as several researchers have found (see Davis 2010; Donadey, 2002; Hooks, 1994). However, compared to the U.S. teaching context described by Anne Donadey and Dawn Rae Davis, the level of respect for the subject among resistant White students in my classroom can often be considerably lower. While the students they refer to recurrently voice personalized frustration at being de-centered by feminist postcolonial course material, the types of resistance I have encountered revolves more around the idea that the topics I bring up at lectures or in discussions are things of the past. Speaking with Sara Ahmed again, students may imagine that I stubbornly or paranoically hold “on to something (Whiteness) that . . . [my] arrival shows has already gone” (p. 164). Given that the group dynamic of each class of students plays into how various topics can be discussed from semester to semester, some phenomena are perennial or even gain momentum. One of the most difficult aspects of approaching White students’ resistance is the sense of contentment enabling them to distance themselves from engaging in, for example, critically discussing racial stereotypes. Similarly, some students in the class are prone to dismiss straightforward stereotypical representations as “old” (“Come on! We’re beyond that!”). It should be added that when they start the course, most of them, especially the youngest, are already acquainted with the basics in feminism, antiracism, and queer theory, but realizing that critical thinking does not exempt most of them from the privilege of being White in the world is far more difficult for them. Paradoxically, their familiarity with these perspectives can even be used to fortify rather than examine Swedish exceptionalism. If, during lectures or seminars, I screen clips of actuality footage from colonial territories, world exhibitions, or racist images from imperial advertising— such as Pears Soap—more than just a few students will always respond with unconcealed laughter. The cruder the images, the greater the mirth. As shown by Lena Sawyer (Kamali & Sawyer, 2006), this “White laughter” at blatant racist representation is not unusual within the Swedish academic context. It is, she argues: a way for Whites to resist being linked with [and] included in these meanings, to get confi rmation from others in the audience that “we are not those kind of Whites.” . . . by laughing and making eye contact with other people in the audience, Whiteness is at the same time made visible, negotiated, and I would also say, being re-established. By quickly working to re-position oneself as ‘above’ such meanings

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through affi rmation . . . this White laughter, in its effort to distance oneself from racism, sidesteps the ways in which these racial stereotypes and sexualized meanings are actually painful for many people today. . . . (p. 67) Furthermore, in contrast to the White resistance that Anne Donadey and Dawn Rae Davis elucidate in their articles, the friction I am often confronted with is more about outright rejection and disqualification. If we discuss race issues during class, some students assume the passive position of a distant, critical observer—or, unabashedly question the relevance of the subject altogether. In a discussion around the historical significance of the Middle Passage, for instance, students can counter the subject with bluntly relativizing statements such as “There has always been slavery in the world—from the Greeks and onwards” or voice the sapient claim that “I think we should stop digging in the darkest aspects of the past, and move on.” The more aggressive responses I get when bringing up questions of skin color indicate that some White students think it unsound, divisive, and excessively political to discuss them at any length on a course about fi lm and media. What do these things have to do with the elementa of cinema and media studies? Other recurrent phenomena are the exceedingly contradictory evaluations that I can receive. The ones ranging from the best to average focus upon the content of the course, the course design, and the themes discussed, while the slightly critical to very critical ones tend to focus on my person rather than my teaching. A given bunch of evaluations a couple of years ago would be almost incredibly heterogenic and could read as follows: some evaluations express the assumptions that I do not myself understand the theories I talk about in class, while another states that I am “too academic.” One describes me as impersonal, while another calls me too personal. A couple of course evaluations indicate that students imagine that I speak from a strictly subjective position—and they sometimes mistake mainstream postcolonial theoretical entries for my personal views. In accordance with Gayatri Spivak’s (1993) observation about the authentic position she is ascribed when “speaking as” (p. 60) a Third World woman to Western audiences, my lectures on some theoretical concept are heard by students as evidencing “authentic Black experience.” Within that category of evaluations, it is often stated that I have devoted too much time to racial issues. Over the years, some students have argued in course evaluations that postcolonial thinking is incompatible with cinema studies and have more or less demanded that the course be taken off the curriculum. An illustrative reference to the confusing logics of racializing evaluations is given by Patricia Williams (1991), Professor of Law, who also draws attention to the wildly diverging images of her that students express. It deserves to be quoted at some length:

114 Ylva Habel It is the end of a long academic year. I sit in my office reviewing my students’ evaluations of me. They are awful, and I am devastated. The substantive ones say that what I teach is “not law.” The nonsubstantive evaluations are about either my personality or my physical features. I am deified, reified, and vilified in all sorts of cross-directions. I am condescending, earthy, approachable, and arrogant, things are out of control in my classroom, and I am too much the taskmaster. I am PNCNG (Person of No Color and No Gender) as well as too absorbed with ethnicity and social victimhood . . . I am obscure, challenging, lacking in intellectual rigor, and brilliant. I think in a disorganized fashion and insist that everyone think as I do. I appear tired all the time and talk as if I’m on speed, particularly when reading from texts. My writing on the blackboard is too small. “The failure of this class was a group effort,” writes one student. “When Professor Williams got off to a rocky start, rather than cooperating with her, the class would adopt an adversarial posture. For instance, knowing full well that professor Williams did not look to the sides of the room very often, certain individuals would raise their hands quietly and leave them up without saying a word, thereby sending titters all through the class; this unnecessarily heightened the perception of students that the professor was in over her head.” (p. 95) Needless to say, it is difficult, if not impossible for a Black teacher in a minoritized position to communicate to an overwhelming majority of White colleges that such contradictory evaluations can indeed revolve around White students’ resistance. Of course you can mention extreme cases of obstructive student behavior, such as bullying to the director of studies, but it often ends there. This brings me back to the de-legitimating practices to which Black teachers may be exposed, and which can be difficult to respond to without outing some of the racialized processes that become subsumed in teaching situations. According to Jennifer M. Bucceri et al. (2007), these can be named microagressions: “brief, everyday exchanges that send denigrating messages to people of color . . . [they] are often unconsciously delivered in the form of subtle snubs or dismissive looks, gestures, and tones. These exchanges are so pervasive and automatic in daily conversations and interactions that they are often dismissed and glossed over as being innocent and innocuous” (p. 273). Similarly, it is hard to know whether you are being subjected to microagressions or not. Here is one example: since late coming is very usual in lecture situations nowadays, I once warmly commended a large student group for all being on time during the second lecture of a course. Afterwards, some of the students apparently decided that this was not for me to comment upon and arranged for half of the group

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to march into the lecture hall exactly half an hour late the next time. What was this about? Another, more blatant example was given in a seminar situation, where a group of students had been assigned to give case study presentations on discourse analysis. One group had chosen the nationalist party the Swedish Democrat’s campaign fi lm as their case; as things turned out, however, they quickly transformed their presentation into a straightforward advocacy for the party’s racist politics. Even if I felt sick to my stomach, I did not counter any of their political arguments but rather commented upon the fact that they had misunderstood the objective of the assignment. When I asked the rest of the seminar participants it they had any comments upon the presentation, all were silent. I was baffled: during the preceding lecture, the group had been very receptive and talkative. There had been no friction whatsoever. Countering White student resistance can be something of a roller-coaster experience, and there is no way of knowing when and why a classroom situation can suddenly turn into a hostile one. Of course, lectures and seminars have passed without presenting any of the difficulties exemplified here, but things happen often enough. Students of color are also aware of this and tend to be silent during class or seminar discussions that could expose them to insensitive remarks. Only once during my teaching career have I heard Black students ventilate their views on the directions a discussion had taken. During this occasion, which was a combined screening and lecture, the discussion extended long after class, so I told the students that those who had to leave could do so. After a while, only a few White students remained, and all of the five Black students. Now the discussion took an entirely different turn; earlier, during most of the class, most of the Black students had remained silent. When the White students that had been the most vocal had left, the Black students voiced their impatience and frustration over the low level of problematization of our earlier discussions. “So, why didn’t you say anything about this?” I asked and got the answer that they were only too tired of being silenced by their White peer’s verbose refusals to delve into the subject of race and racism. Such experiences become all the more painful when there are hardly no discursive spaces in which to ventilate them. As I understood these students’ reactions, this class was far from a safe space to them.

UNLEARNING COLORBLINDNESS Swedish exceptionalism clearly constitutes a perceptible obstacle in lecturing and seminar situations, and I have grown more and more convinced that the Nordic context needs to be addressed in ways that take into account these particular difficulties. One of the teaching strategies I have tried in

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order to counter refusals to engage with the subject is to shift the historical and theoretical emphasis when introducing students to postcolonial theory, critical race, and critical Whiteness studies. When I first started teaching on these topics, I wrongly assumed that students would readily engage in and be drawn into processes of critical reflection. This assumption illustrates the extent to which I also had deep investments in the image of Swedish Whiteness as more benign and less power-laden then elsewhere (Habel, 2008). Fairly quickly, however, I discovered that White student groups would resort to various forms of compartmentalizing, de-contextualizing strategies that allowed many of them to remain more or less unconcerned by the topics brought up. As said earlier, many of them are disinclined to believe that the imperial media discourse that they encounter in, for instance, Anne McClintock’s text “Soft-soaping Empire” has any bearing on the cultural signification that surrounds them today. They laugh and shrug the whole thing off. If, on the contrary, I show them media examples of more subtle, contemporary examples of stereotypes—taken from contexts they can identify with—many of them take these images to depict things neutrally “as they are.” Slightly provoked into another direction, I wanted to see what types of responses I would get if I showed them comic representations that outed racist discourse in a hyperbolic manner. Some of the clips I screened in class were taken from 3 Non-Blondes, Ali G, Borat, Little Britain, and the Swedish standup comedy series Stockholm Live. This experiment seemed to be an utter failure; students laughed all right, but my impression was that they felt even more let off the hook than earlier course groups. Showing them outright offensive recent Swedish stereotypes in popular visual culture did not work very well either, since they would often resort to the practice of “White laughter” discussed earlier. According to the power-evasive White positionings I referred to in the above, stereotypes in popular culture, such as candy, toys, feature fi lms, children’s books, or standup comedy, are often regarded as if they can unproblematically be unhinged from the power dynamics in the physical world “out there.” In U.S. cultural history, Black stereotypes have been acknowledged as instrumental in a post-slavery culture intent on keeping Black people in their place. Whatever turns discussions have taken since then, this historical circumstance has never been lost out of sight. As Ella Shohat and Robert Stam claimed in the mid-1990s, the US discussion climate on race and representation evidenced a “hair-trigger sensitivity about racial stereotypes” (Shohat & Stam, 1994, p. 182). Swedish colorblind discourse, in contrast, remains aloof to such issues, which necessitates us to more or less reboot every discussion as if there was no need to move on. In a sense, we are still doing basic spadework—still going through the fi rst steps of trying to recognize and defi ne what could be called an offensive stereotype. It would not be bold to claim that there is a structural lack of curiosity over where racial slurs and stereotypes

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come from. Among the general public, the reluctance against informing oneself is massive and more often than not countered by commonsensical rejections. Such positionings also surface in the classroom and often obstruct discussions. The strategy of literally bringing the subject closer to home in deadpan style has proved more successful in lecturing situations. Since many students imagine that Sweden has not taken part in the imperial adventure, I have made a point of showcasing our historical involvement in colonial practices and our complicity in producing racist discourse. During the fi rst lectures of a course, key historical entries are highlighted, such as the Swedish possession of the slave fort Carolusburg/Cape Coast Castle (mid-1600s), and the Caribbean island St. Bartholomew (1784–1878). The early part of the course furthermore involves illustrative examples from Carl Linneaus’ (1707–1778) influential thinking around racial categories. Later during the part of the course that addresses contemporary history, students are introduced to Sweden’s internationally prominent position in eugenics research, the establishment of the Race Biological Institute (1921) and the implementation of Swedish sterilization policies in the mid-1930s. Methodologically, many of these examples are shown within a framework of a fairly thoroughly performed Foucauldian discourse analysis. This, of course, is not an original strategy; nevertheless, it enables me to emphasize that racism is not an accidental, exceptional, marginal phenomenon placed outside of history but has been a central, open, and normalized part in all social processes involved in the production of knowledge. This is not only a way to enhance the level of engagement among resistant White students but is also meant to de-dramatize the subject, in order to enable them to revise their conceptions of what constitutes racialization and racism.

CONCLUSION To begin summarizing this discussion, it should be pointed out that the prevalence of Swedish exceptionalism does not mean that cultural negotiations of race are scarcer in Swedish-mediated culture than elsewhere. Rather, in accordance with a Foucauldian understanding of disciplinary boundaries and orders of discourse, images of race are differentiated and mobilized according to parameters of genre, medium specificity, and cultural-political context. In Swedish television news, for instance, there are several anchorpersons of color, while the amount of actors and artists is miniscule in the fields of feature fi lms and stage art. Contemporary Swedish cultural output provides ample teaching material in this respect; specifically in feature fi lm and TV series, a White curiosity about racial

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difference recurrently comes to the surface and ambivalently cohabits with normative discourses of colorblindness. In teaching, I have used a variety of examples from these to discuss such representations with the students and found that they become more engaged when they are explicitly encouraged to scan the contemporary media arena to fi nd and analyze their own examples. Little by little, the general acceptance for discussing issues of race in the classroom have grown, yet there are also clear signs of an increased resistance, since nationalist sentiment is gaining ground here as elsewhere. As argued earlier, the exceptionalism that still hampers a more general awakening to the Swedish postcolonial situation, is underpinned by a narcissistic self-image of our country as a haven of neutrality and innocence in the world. This allows many White Swedes to mobilize what I have called naivety management as a protection against reflection and problematization. Despite the belated rise of postcolonial critique here, we reproduce conceptions about Sweden as a country beyond comparison, where common sense, education, and equality serve to inoculate us against real racism.

REFERENCES Adeniji, A. (2010). Jag har aldrig sett dig som svart [I have never seen you as Black]. Tidskrift för genusvetenskap, 1–2, 83–87. Ahmed, S. (2007). A phenomenology of whiteness. Feminist Theory, 8 (2), 149–168. Balibar, E., & Wallerstein, I. (1991). Race, class, nation: ambiguous identities, London: Verso. Brown, W. (2006). Regulating aversion: Tolerance in the age of identity and empire. Princeton; Oxford: Princeton University Press. Brune, Y. (1998, 2001). Mörk magi i vita medier: Svensk nyhetsjournalistik om invandrare, flyktingar och rasism [Dark magic in white media: Swedish news journalism on immigrants, refugees and racism]. Stockholm: Carlssons Bokförlag. Cherniavsky, E. (2005). Incorporations: Race, nation, and the body politics of capital. Minneapolis; London: University of Minnesota Press. Daun, Å. (1996). Swedish mentality [Svensk mentalitet]. (F. Teeland, Trans.). University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. Davis, D. R (2010). “Unmirroring Pedagogies Teaching with Intersectional and Transnational Methods in the Women and Gender Studies Classroom”, Feminist Formations, Vol. 22:1, Spring, pp. 136–162. de los Reyes, P. (2007). Att segla i motvind: En kvalitativ undersökning om strukturell diskriminering [Sailing in adverse winds: A qualitative survey on structural discrimination]. Arbetsliv i omvandling, 5. Arbetslivsinstitutet. de los Reyes, P., Molina, D., & Mulinari, D. (2002). Maktens (o)lika förklädnader: Kön, klass & etnicitet i det postkoloniala Sverige [The different guises of power: Gender, class, and ethnicity in postcolonial Sweden]. Stockholm: Bokförlaget Atlas.

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Demker, M. (2010). Svenskarna långsiktigt alltmer positiva till invandrare [Swedes increasingly positive in their attitudes to immigrants]. In S. Holmberg & L. Weibull (Eds.), Nordiskt ljus: Trettiosju kapitel om politik, medier och samhälle: SOM-undersökningen 2009 [Nordic Light: Thirty-seven chapters on politics, media, and society: The SOM-survey 2009] (pp. 107–114). Göteborg: SOM-Institutet. Donadey, A (2002). “Negotiating Tensions: Teaching About Race Issues in Graduate Feminist Classrooms”, Feminist Formations, vol. 14:1, Spring, pp. 82–102. Dyer, R. (1997). White. London: Routledge. Eberhard, D. (2009). Ingen tar skit i de lättkränktas land [No one takes shit in the country of the easily offended]. Stockholm: Prisma. Essed, P. (1991). Understanding everyday racism: An interdisciplinary theory. Newbury Park: Sage. Frankenberg, R. (1993). White women, race matters: The social construction of whiteness. London: Routledge. Frankenberg, R. (Ed). (1997). Displacing Whiteness: Essays in social and cultural criticism. Durham; London: Duke University Press. Gärding, C. (2009). Afrosvensk i det nya Sverige [Afro-Swedish in the new Sweden]. Afrosvenskarnas Riksförbund, Malmö: Notis Förlag. Gilroy, P. (2000). Against race: Imagining political culture beyond the color line. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Gilroy, P. (2004b). Migrancy, culture, and a new map of Europe. In H. RaphaelHernandez (Ed.), Blackening Europe. The African American experience (pp. xi–xxii). London: Routledge. Gilroy, P. (2005). Postcolonial melancholia. New York: Columbia University Press. Habel, Y. (2008). Whiteness Swedish style. Slut/The End, 2, 41–51. Hage, G. (2003). Against paranoid nationalism: Searching for hope in a shrinking society. Annandale, N. S. W.: Pluto Press. Helgesson, S. (2001). Befi ntlighetens gestalt: Sverige och den kulturella globaliseringen (Locality: Sweden and cultural globalization). In M. McEachrane & L. Faye (Eds.), Sverige och de Andra: Postkoloniala perspektiv [Sweden and the others: Postcolonial perspectives] (pp. 265–281). Stockholm: Natur och Kultur. hooks, B. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. London: Routledge. Hübinette, T. (2005). Comforting an orphaned nation: Representations of international adoption and adopted Koreans in Korean popular culture. Stockholm: Department of Oriental Languages, Stockholm University. Hübinette, T., & Tigervall C. (2008). Adoption med förhinder: Samtal med adopterade och adoptivföräldrar om vardagsrasism och etnisk identitet (Adoptions with obstacles: Dialogues with adopted adults and adoptive parents on everyday racism and ethnic identity). Mångkulturellt Centrum. Jones, J (2004). “The impairment in empathy in goodwill Whites for African Americans”, in George Yancy, ed., What White looks like, Routledge, pp. 65–86 Jonsson, S. (1998). De andra: Amerikanska kulturkrig och europeisk rasism [The Others: American cultural wars and European racism]. Stockholm: Norstedts förlag. Kalonaityté, V., Kawesa, V., & Tedros, A. (2007). Att färgas av Sverige: Upplevelser av diskriminering och rasism bland ungdomar med afrikansk bakgrund i Sverige [To be colored by Sweden: Experiences of racism among young people of African descent]. Diskrimineringsombudsmannen.

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Kamali. M. (2005). Sverige inifrån: Röster om etnisk diskriminering: Rapport från Utredningen om makt, integration och strukturell diskriminering, SOU 2005:69 [Sweden from within: Voices on ethnic discrimination: Report from the investigation on power, integration, and structural discrimination]. Swedish Governmental Official Reports. Kamali, M. (Ed.). (2006). Den segregerande integrationen: Om social sammanhållning och dess hinder: Rapport från Utredningen om makt, integration och strukturell diskriminering, SOU 2006:73 [Segregated integration: On social cohesion and its obstacles: Report from the investigation on power, integration, and structural discrimination]. Swedish Governmental Official Reports. Kamali. M., & de los Reyes, P. (Eds.). (2005). Bortom vi och dom: teoretiska refl ektioner om makt, integration och strukturell diskriminering: Rapport från Utredningen om makt, integration och strukturell diskriminering, SOU 2005:41 [Beyond we and them: Theoretical refl ections on power, integration, and structural discrimination: Report from the investigation on power, integration, and structural discrimination]. Swedish Governmental Official Reports. Kamali, M., & Sawyer, L. (Eds.). (2006). Utbildningens dilemma: demokratiska ideal och andrafi erande praxis: Rapport från utredningen om makt, integration och strukturell diskriminering, SOU 2006:40 [Dilemmas in education: Democratic ideals and othering practices: Report from the investigation on power, integration, and structural discrimination]. Swedish Governmental Official Reports. Keskinen, S., Tuori, S., Irni, S., & Mulinari D. (Eds.). (2009). Complying with colonialism: Gender, race and ethnicity in the Nordic region. Aldershot: Ashgate. Lundstedt, A. (2005). Vit governmentalitet: Invandrarkvinnor och textilhantverk—en diskursanalys (White governmentality: Immigrant women and textile handicraft—a discourse analysis) (Dissertation). Stockholm: Arbetslivsinstitutet: Arbete i förvandling, 14. Manga, E. (2002). Gudomliga uppenbarelser och demoniska samlag: En studie av det excentriska idéarvet i Cecilia Rodriguez katolska tänkande [Divine epiphanies and demonic intercourse: A study on the excentric legacy in Cecilia Rodriguez’ Katotholic thinking] (Dissertation). Göteborgs Universitet. Mattsson, K. (2001). (O)likhetens geografi er: marknaden, forskningen och de Andra [Geographies of Difference: Market, research and the Others] (Dissertation). Uppsala Universitet: Geografiska regionstudier. Mattsson, K., & Tesfahuney, M. (2002/2008). Det slutna folkhemmet: Om etniska klyftor och blågul självbild (The closed People’s Home. Ethnic divides and the blue-yellow self-image), I. Lindberg & M. Dahlsted (Eds., pp. 28–41). Stockholm: Agora. McEachrane, M., & Faye, L. (2001). Sverige och de Andra: Postkoloniala perspektiv [Sweden and the Others: Postcolonial perspectives]. Stockholm: Natur och Kultur. Morrison, T. (1992). Playing in the dark: Whiteness and the literary imagination. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Motsieloa, V. (2003). Det måste vara någonting annat: En studie av barns upplevelser av rasism i vardagen [It has to be something else: A report on children’s everyday experiences of racism]. Stockholm: Rädda Barnen. Mulinari, D. (2002/2008). “Det är inte rasism . . . ”—om facket och invandrarna [“It is not racism . . .”—On the union and the immigrants. In I. Lindberg & M. Dahlsted (Eds.), Det slutna folkhemmet. Om etniska klyftor och blågul självbild [The closed People’s Home. Ethnic divides and the blue-yellow selfimage] (pp. 42–60). Stockholm: Agora.

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Polite, O. (2007). White like me: Utvalda texter om rasism, 1992–2007 [White like me: Selected texts on racism 1992–2007]. Skärholmen: Danger Bay Press. Pred, A. (2000). Even in Sweden: Racisms, racialized spaces, and the popular geographical imagination. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Pripp, O., & Öhlander, M. (2008). Fallet Nogger Black: Antirasismens gränser [Nogger Black: The limits of antiracism]. Stockholm: Agora. Sawyer, L. (2000). Black and Swedish: The cultural politics of belonging in Stockholm (Dissertation). Ann Arbor, MI: UMI. Sawyer, L. (2001). Första gången jag såg en neger—en svensk självbild, Törnroslandet: Om tillhörighet och utanförskap [The fi rst time I saw a negro—A Swedish self-image]. Dog rose country: On belonging and alienation. Integrationsverket, Norrköping. Schmauch, U. (2006). Den osynliga vardagsrasismens realitet [The reality of invisible everyday racism) (Dissertation). Umeå University, Department of Sociology. Schough, K. (2008). Hyperboré: Föreställningar om Sveriges plats i världen [Hyperborean: Images of Sweden’s place in the world]. Stockholm: Carlssons Bokförlag. Shohat, E., & Stam, R. (Eds.). (1994). Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the media. London: Routledge. Spivak. G. (1993). Questions of multiculturalism. In S. During (Ed.), The cultural studies reader (pp. 59–66). London: Routledge. Stephens, K. (Ed.). (2009). Afrikansksvenska röster: En antologi om afrikansksvenskars situation i, och tankar om, Sverige [African Swedish voices: An anthology on African Swedish people’s situation and refl ections about Sweden]. Malmö, Notis Förlag. Tesfahuney, M. (1998). Imag(in)ing the other(s): Migration, racism, and the discursive constructions of migrants (Dissertation). Uppsala: Department of Social and Economic Geography, Uppsala University. Tesfahuney, M. (1999). Monokulturell utbildning (Monocultural education). Utbildning och Demokrati, 8 (3), 65–84. Williams, P. J (1991). The alchemy of race and rights: Diary of a law Professor. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press. Yancy, G. (Ed.). (2004). What white looks like: African-American philosophers on the whiteness question. London: Routledge.

INTERNET REFERENCES The Afro-Swedish National Organization (http://www.afrosvenskarna.se/index. php?id=6&no_cache=1). Ahmed, S. (2004). Declarations of Whiteness: The non-performativity of anti-racism. Borderlands: e-journal, 3 (2). Retrieved from http://www.borderlands.net. au/vol3no2_2004/ahmed_declarations.htm Bucceri, J. M., Capodilupo, C. M., Esquilin, M., Holder, A. M. B., Nadal, K. L., Sue, W. D., & Torino, G. C. (May-June, 2007). Racial microaggressions in everyday life: Implications for clinical practice. American Psychologist, 62 (4), 271–286. Retrieved from http://aanavi.com/articles_fi les/racial-microaggressions-in-everyday-life—-derald-wing-sue002c-et-al.pdf Diakité, M. (2005). African Diasporans in Sweden: An unfi nished history. Retrieved from thelundian.com/afroswedes.pdf

122 Ylva Habel Hübinette, T. (2010). Words that wound: Swedish whiteness and its inability to accommodate minority experiences. Retrieved from http://www.tobiashubinette.se/racial_slurs.pdf

9

Education of the African Diaspora in Germany John Long

On board Germany’s national airline, Lufthansa, on one of my frequent trips to Germany, I wondered where were all the Black “folks?” I had been flying back and forth to Germany on a regular basis since 1995. I had never flown with a German of African descent flight attendant. Yet, as a frequent fl ier on American air carriers, such as United Airlines, I was hosted by a number of African American flight attendants. This dearth of the presence of members of the Diaspora on the German airline is typical among the professional ranks in Germany, such as the lack of policemen, professors, salespersons in the better department stores, doctors, lawyers, skilled craftsmen, and university-educated individuals, politicians, and of course corporate executives. There are no official statistics on the number of members of the African Diaspora in Germany. There are no accurate census figures of members of the Diaspora who migrated from Africa, nor accurate statistics on Africans born in Germany or Germans of African descent. Yet, scholars familiar with the Diaspora in Germany estimate that the number of Germans of African descent range from 300,000 to 500,000 and the number of Africans ranges from 200,000 to 400,000 (Anderson-Reed, 2000). In observing the occupations of many German-born members of the African Diaspora, they generally fall into the following categories: the professional class, vocationally oriented service, and self-employed. The numbers of university-educated individuals tend to be employed in positions where they are overqualified. They tend to be self-employed as consultants, operate small businesses, or hold temporary teaching positions. Only a very small percentage teach at a university or are on a tenure track appointment. Those who hold professional degrees in the areas of law, medicine, engineering, and business are few in numbers. Many of the individuals with a university education work in social service areas, such as social work. Those who have not completed either college or a university work for banks or businesses as technicians or have jobs connected to the service industry. Unfortunately, there are a number of individuals who have long periods of unemployment. This research, then, began with and was guided by my curiosity: I wanted to know why members of the African Diaspora, particularly those

124 John W. Long Germans of African descent (Afro-Germans), were underrepresented in professional occupations. I asked a number of Afro-Germans this question. Many became defensive, saying that they have the opportunity to pursue professional occupations, but they are just not interested in doing so. However, when one examines the history of Germany’s relationship with the African Diaspora, it is a history of subjugation and marginalization (Anderson-Reed, 2000). It is discouragement by teachers and parents, the lack of mentors, and the class-based school system, which is described later in this chapter (Optiz, Oguntoye, & Schultz, 1992). This chapter examines the educational experiences of the members of the African Diaspora and how these experiences were dictated by the German society. It describes how Germany’s class-based educational system, its problematic past of colonialism, racism, and its nihilistic tendencies, affected the education of members of the African Diaspora. The chapter is limited primarily to examining the education of those members of the Diaspora who grew up in Germany. It focuses on those members of the Diaspora who are either citizens or permanent residents of Germany. First, there is a term that must be defi ned in order to help the reader. The term is the African Diaspora. In the context of the German experience, in this research, Diaspora included the following groups: Africans from the continent of Africa, Africans of German descent, those whose mother (in most cases) or father is German, and the other parent is of African descent, and Africans who are citizens of countries outside of Africa, such as African Americans or African-Brazilians. The Africans of German descent have identified themselves as either Black Germans or Afro-Germans. Diaspora, in some cases, will be used when describing the entire African Diaspora. Africans of German descent will be referred to as Black German or AfroGerman throughout the chapter. Those Africans from countries other than Africa will be identified as African or Afro with their countries of origin. The underutilization and the exclusion of members of the African Diaspora in the German educational system was highlighted and brought to international attention by Germany’s poor showing on an international achievement test, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). The PISA survey is the most comprehensive and rigorous international yardstick of secondary-school students’ attainments. The PISA 2001 assessment took place in 57 countries, which together accounted for nearly 90% of world GDP according to its developer, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Organization. The examination is for 15-year-olds and it tests scientific knowledge, reading performance, and mathematical abilities. The results were aggregated to identify and track the progress of children of immigrants. German students were ranked in the bottom quartile, below the U.S., to the shock of German society and the world. Prior to the results, Germany was perceived as having a world-class educational system. However, the educational experts and the business community in Germany knew about

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the weaknesses of the German educational system, that is, its highly social class-based organization. Its highly selective pre-college secondary schools, the Gymnasium, skewed the quality of education and gave the public an unrealistic view of the system. The examination exposed the structural inequality of educational opportunities for the children of minorities, immigrants, and the working class. Despite their intellectual abilities and desires, these children are less likely to succeed or enter the high-quality schools than the children from German middle and upper class families. Thus, the education of members of the African Diaspora is affected by the structural inequality of the educational system and racial subjugation of the Diaspora by Germany. To better understand these conditions, one must understand the German educational system and Germany’s relationship with Africa and Africans.

HISTORY OF THE GERMAN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM The German school system is different from that of the U.S. The Grundschule (elementary school) is grade first through fourth. After the fourth grade, the parents of the children and their teachers choose an educational track that is aligned with the child’s occupational choice, according to the German Information Bureau. The secondary levels consist of the Gymnasium (college preparatory), the Realschule (intermediate), and the Hauptschule (general). In addition, there is the Oberschule (advance vocational). However, with a few exceptions, the German student’s education and occupation are sealed by the fourth or fifth grade, depending on the German state. At completion of that grade, the child must select, usually by the school and the child’s parents’ social status in German society, either a vocational, professional, or university track. Once the track is selected, the student will attend the secondary school aligned to that particular track. For example, if the child is the son or daughter of a craftsman, despite the child’s intellectual capability, that child will enter the Berufschule, the vocational school. The child of the middle class family would either attend one of the profession preparation secondary schools, the Realschule or Gymnasium. Children of African Diaspora families were for many years not allowed to attend secondary schools or were limited to the Berufschule that educated them for lowskilled trades (Massaquoi, 1999; Opitz et al., 1992). This educational system was established and codified by the Prussian Kingdom, which united Germany under the German Empire (1871–1918). Only the children of the nobility and upper class were allow to attend preparatory (secondary) schools for the university or professional occupations. The Empire established compulsory primary education (8 years) for the masses. By the late nineteenth century, the Empire increased the number and types of secondary educational institutions to meet the demands of the

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growing industries in Germany. By the 1920s (Weimar Republic), the present German school system had been established. Again, this system was very inflexible. Once individuals were placed on a track, it would practically take a lifetime to move up educationally.

GERMANY AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO AFRICA To understand the relationship between Africans and Germany, one must understand Germany’s attitude toward race and foreigners over the centuries. Today, many Germans still refuse to recognize that Germany is a land of immigration, despite 38% of children born in Germany having an immigrant background (Atlantic Times, 2008). Raphfael Seligmann, a noted German columnist, found that the German government had in many instances perpetuated this xenophobic attitude. He said, “As early as the 1990s, one in 10 residents of Germany was a foreigner. Yet the conservative government of Helmut Kohl [Chancellor of Germany at that time] persisted in the attitude that anything that didn’t fit within its worldview [Germany for Germans] simply couldn’t be” (Atlantic Times, 2008, p. 16). Only recently, 1998, German citizenship was based on ius sanguinis (literally: bloodlines, blut, und boden), meaning a child’s citizenship is determined solely by that of its parents. For years, many Germans interpreted that the bloodline must be from the father’s side. This was done to disenfranchise children born of the union of German women and African men. Seligmann noted that by 1990 the third generation of guest worker families was already living in Germany, but, by law, they still did not have German citizenship. German law on citizenship is different from the laws of other countries with large immigrant populations, such as Canada, the U.S., and also France, where, literally, ius soli (law of the land, meaning birthright, i.e., born in the country) is the rule. The roots of these ideas lie in Germany’s history. Eze (1997) and Mack (2003) found in their work that White racial superiority was prevalent among Enlightenment thinkers. The concept of racial European and German superiority was perpetuated as early as the sixteenth century from the works of the noted philosopher, Immanuel Kant (1775), and Arthur De Gobineau (1915), nineteenth century philosopher, felt that there was a natural inequality of human races. Obviously, Africans were deemed inferior based on climate and other racist reasons. These views established the framework for Germany’s racial and xenophobic attitudes toward Africans during the colonization period in Africa. The Nazi regime took this concept to an extreme with the purpose of elimination of age-old “enemies” to purify the so-called German race. Germany was one of the European countries that possessed African colonies. Its African colonies consisted of what is now the Cameroons, Togo, Tanzania, and Namibia. The partition of Africa by the Europeans

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was codified by the Berlin Congo Conference in 1885. This conference was called by the Bismarck of Germany. Economic superiority and cultural and racial hegemony dictated the treatment and the status of Africans (Westphal, 1991). Westphal also noted that in order to maintain economic and cultural advantages of the Africans, German officials and business concerns practiced the following: denial of educational opportunities; restriction the population to low-wage or no-wage jobs; exportation of the natural resources of the colony for the benefit of the colonist; and forcible removal of the population from their land without compensation. For example, Westphal documented that the German army killed over 65,000 Africans between 1885 and 1900 in settling what is now Namibia. The education of Africans was greatly restricted to basic education, up to the sixth grade (Anderson-Reed, 2000). Others were able to obtain higher education based on the needs of the German Empire or through the various German religious societies. Studying in Germany was tightly control. Opportunities for university-level training in Germany were more restrictive than in other countries such as Great Britain. Michael Franz Zahn, a progressive German theologian and missionary, fought against German colonial imperialism and was a proponent of education and equality of Africans in the German African colonies. Anderson and Horner (1977) described how Zahn fought against the prohibition of teaching English (the lingua franca in the West African area during that time) in the missionary schools in Togo, the German colony in West Africa. According to Anderson and Horner, Zahn saw this ban as purely nationalistic and fostered subjugation of the Africans. He said, “There was more at stake. German colonialists feared that Black Africans might catch up with the lead of Whites. They regarded an African command of the English medium as a stepping-stone toward black emancipation” (p. 124). These attitudes have had a major affect on the low status and the education of members of the African Diaspora. The majority of these students are restricted to either the second or third tier secondary schools (Realschule, Beruf, or Hauptschule).

AFRICANS IN GERMANY Africans have been associated with Germany as early as the Middle Ages. Maurice, an African in the African Roman Legion, was venerated as a saint in the ninth century. He became the patron saint for a number of Swiss and German kingdoms between the sixth and ninth century (Suckale-Redlefsen & Suckale-Redlefsen, 1987). Through the late nineteenth century, the majority of Africans from the German colonies served in some capacities in the royal court and in the colonial offi ces. Those individuals in the colonial offi ces and universities were not permanent residents. However, a small number of

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Africans began to migrate to Germany in the late nineteenth century. Many settled in cities such as Hamburg and Berlin (Anderson, 2000). Anderson identifi ed about 200 Africans working in Berlin during that period. They worked in menial jobs and in the entertainment industries, such as the circus. During the late nineteenth century, there were exhibits called Exhibition of People. Through these exhibits, Germans were exposed to Africans and other groups. Unfortunately, many of the Africans were exhibited in zoos, as though they were animals (AndersonReed, 2000). A number of these individuals settled down and married the German women who were associated with the Africans, because 90% of the Africans were men. These individuals were not allowed to work in the factories with Germans. Anderson (2000) noted that this period was in the midst of the industrial revolution in Germany. For example, Siemens Industries, a large concern, had factories that employed over 5,000 people. Yet, Africans were not allowed to work in those factories, according to Anderson. The children of these couples were allowed to attend elementary school with other German children, but they were not allowed to go to secondary school because of their working class status and being African. These new Germans, Germans of African descent, were victims of two equally bad situations. First, they were in a minority group, and next they were working class Africans carrying the badge of inferiority, within a minority, that is, the poor and working class. Julia Michael, the daughter of one of the early African immigrants, provides a glimpse into the lives of the early African immigrants. Let me tell you about how my father was. My father did what was expected of him and completed his studies [Oxford University]. However, he was, how can I tell you, quite a charmer of women and he couldn’t see himself working as a pastor. Do you understand? Then he returned to Cameroon and told my grandfather: “I cannot do this. It’s not for me.” He had his diploma and everything. Then his father told him: “That’s it!” He was promptly disinherited. So, my father said, “Goodbye, I am going to Europe.” That’s how my father came to Europe. Until the ship landed in Hamburg, he worked on board doing just about everything from boiler man to cook. Then he went to Hagenbeck’s—Circus Hagenbeck. Do you know that at that time it was a large animal compound? That’s where he ended up. He simply slipped into the circus. He also knew the people that Theo and I had to stay with. All in all, he was in three of these Voelkerschauen. Our father was quite an intelligent person. He was one of the important people in the Cameroon community. There were many from Cameroon in Berlin at that time, about 200, I think. Most of them were sent by their parents to Germany. For example, there was this fellow, Victor Bell. We called him King Bell because he was the son of a king. As a small child I often sat on his lap. He was the big boss. Unfortunately, my father died early, in 1934 (Anderson-Reed, 2000, p. 74).

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Julia left school and home at the age of 16 and joined the circus to get away from her foster parents and the Nazi regime. She went to France and remained there for 27 years. Julia and the other members of the African Diaspora were practically invisible in the German society during that period. So long as they did not bring attention to themselves or attempt to operate out of their class, they were not harassed by the government. Thus, those who had the intellectual capacity or dreams were not able to fulfi ll those dreams until after World War II.

AFRICANS AND THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC The end of World War I (1918) resulted in the elimination of the German Empire and the creation of the German Republic, along with the transfer of German colonies to France and England. The Republic was referred to as the Weimar Republic. Prior to and the first few years of the early German Republic, Africans and their families were characterized as mere decoration, according to Theodor Michael, the young brother of Julia, who was born during that period. African American entertainers began to perform in Germany, along with sales of American jazz records (Anderson-Reed, 2000). Over 50,000 African soldiers from the French and Belgian colonies occupied German states adjacent to the Rhine River that bordered France and the Netherlands (Anderson, 2000). As a result of the occupation by these troops, Africans living in Germany began to attract the attention of the German nationalists. Radical right-wing groups began to promote anti-African campaigns. The Social Democratic Party passed a resolution against the occupation of the French African Corps (the so-called “Black Disgrace”) on German soil. They considered the African people of “lower race” and “unworthy of human being.” Stories of brutality by Africans and of their uncontrollable sexual urges began to circulate among the Germans by the Socialist National Party (Nazis) (Opitz et al., 1992). Children of mixed-race couples became the center of attention of rightwing groups, particularly those children born from the union of African soldiers and German women. Names such as “bastard,” “half-breeds,” and “mulattos” began to circulate in describing German children of African descent (Anderson, 2000; Opitz et al., 1992). These attitudes began to affect the education of the members of the African Diaspora. As the Nazis began to take power and influence, educational and occupational opportunities for these individuals became more restrictive. Young people, such as Theodor Michael, were forced out of schools.

AFRICANS AND THE NAZI REGIME “We only hire Aryans” was the common phrase that described the emerging Socialist National Party (Nazi), according to Anderson (2000). They

130 John W. Long were advocating the elimination of Jews, Africans, and other non-Aryans. Though members of the Diaspora were not targeted for elimination, as in the case of the Jews, the Nazis forced them into virtual servitude. They lost the few rights they had as German citizens. Many were forced into concentration camps during World War II. As did Julia Michael and her brothers and sisters, a number of the members of the Diaspora escaped to other parts of Europe (Anderson, 2000). Many of the children of mixed marriages between German women and Africans were victims of a sterilization campaign carried out by the Nazi. One of the many highlighted cases was of the over 400 children of German women and mostly African soldiers from the French Colonial Army. These children were labeled the infamous Rhineland Bastards (Anderson, 2000; Opitz et al., 1992). Those individuals remaining in Germany lost all their rights. Many of their children were forced out of school. Some were allowed to attend elementary school, and a few were able to attend vocational secondary school. None were allowed to enter the prestigious university preparatory school, the Gymnasium. In addition, the children were strictly forbidden to participate in youth programs or to join the armed forces. The stories of two individuals, as captured by Anderson-Reed (2000) who grew up as members of the African Diaspora, provide a picture of the experiences and education of the Diaspora during the Nazi regime. Theodor Michael, the brother of Julia Michael, was orphaned at a very young age due to the deaths of his parents, his African father and German mother. Theodor explained that he was able to obtain an elementary education, but he was prevented from attending secondary education. As a youth he appeared in a number of propaganda movies. As a teenager, he was forced to work long hours under poor conditions in wartime factories. He was only able to complete his education after World War II. He overcame many barriers to pursue careers as a reporter, an actor, and a German foreign service officer. Another story is about Hans Massaquoi (1999), told in his own words. Hans’ father was the son of the Consulate General of Liberia, who was posted in Hamburg. Hans’ mother was a German woman who worked in the hospital. Hans migrated to the U.S. after World War II. Hans wrote a memoir of growing up as a member of the African Diaspora in Germany during World War II. Massaquoi’s (1999) memoir, Destined to Witness, provides one a glimpse of the experiences of members of the Diaspora during that time. Hans and his mother were able to survive under great pressure from the Nazi regime. Hans’ mother lost her job in the hospital and was denied employment opportunities and governmental benefits, because her son was a non-Aryan child, African and German. Hans was allowed to attend school. He was able to complete vocational secondary school and work as a machinist.

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Massaquoi (1999) noted in his memoir that the biggest obstacle was not his classmates, but it was the teachers who were hard-line Nazis. Hans was prevented from joining the Hitler Youth League. All German youths strived to participate in the league. He could not wear the brown shirt that characterized the Nazi organization. If there were special assemblies, he was not allowed to participate in them. He also wanted to join the army, but he was not allowed because he was a non-Aryan. Despite those obstacles, he was able to come to the U.S., enter the Army, graduate from the University of Illinois, and have a 39-year career at John Johnson Publisher, the noted African American publishing house that produces the popular Jet and Ebony magazines.

POST-WAR STATUS OF THE AFRICAN DIASPORA The post-war era ushered in another generation of members of the African Diaspora and they faced the same issues that affected their parents, according to Opitz et al. (1992). Western Germany and parts of Berlin (in East Germany) were occupied by the U.S., the United Kingdom, and France. East Germany was occupied by Russia. At the end of the war, there were very few members of the African Diaspora in Germany. The members of the occupation forces produced over 94,000 children. The children born from the relationship between African American soldiers and German women represented less than 10% of the so-called occupational babies. This small number of children was significant, because they represented the majority of the African Diaspora in Germany and attracted more attention than the occupation babies fathered by White allied soldiers (Opitz et al., 1992). The age-old colonial and National Socialist racial ideology still festered among Germans. Derogative terms of “half-breed,” “mulattoes,” and “occupation babies” were used to conjure prejudice and nationalism. Again, as in the Weimar Republic, it was the racist view of one of the German political parties (SPD). One of its committee deemed that these babies were “special problems.” They continued: “Among the occupation babies, the 3,093 Negro mulattoes form a special group, presenting a human and racial problem of special nature” (Opitz et al., 1992, p. 88). The conditions of these particular occupation babies became so bad that it came to the attention of the African American Civil Rights organization, the National Association of Advancement of Color People, and the U.S. Army. According to Fehrenbach (2005), the deplorable treatment of these young people reached and prompted the U.S. Army, the occupational force, to order the German authorities to treat these children as they would treat any other Germans. Fehrenbach also noted that the U.S. forced the German government during the 1950s to do something for these children that the U.S. would not do for its African American citizens in the U.S.—that was to grant equal treatment and opportunities to them as German citizens.

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School placement of these children, who represented the African Diaspora, was based on perceived low expectations and intelligence of these students by German society. Opitz et al. (1992) found pseudo-scientific studies by German researcher and the newspapers reinforcing inferiority of these mixed-race children and castigating the mothers of these children. The results were the placement of these children in secondary schools based on these racial perceptions as opposed to promotion based on their abilities. For example, the girls were programmed to occupations such as laundress and maids. The boys were steered to positions such as stage performers, car mechanics, and musicians (Opitz et al., 1992). Who are these youths? Over 75% of these children were being raised by their mothers or relatives of their mothers. These young people were usually the only person of color in their towns, unless they were living in large cities such as Berlin and Munich. A number of circumstances beyond their control prevented them from maintaining contact with the fathers. Superiors denying marriage licenses to Blacks based on racial prejudices were the major reasons (Fehrenbach, 2005). The mothers of the children faced a number of challenges. They had to support their children alone because of separation from their fathers and families. Many were shunned by neighbors and relatives. They were called “Nigger whores” (Hugel, 2008; Opitz et al., 1992). Opitz et al. (1992) also found that in schools, where they prepared to help facilitate and integrate the impending large enrollment of this new group (Germans of African descent), the youths were accepted and excelled up to their abilities. However, they noted: “In cities where no such “campaigns” were initiated, the number of Afro-German school graduates with diplomas commensurate with their abilities were very low (Opitz et al., 1992, p. 94). These racial attitudes of abilities and occupation by the German society in the 1950s and 1960s have been become self-fulfilling prophecies on the part of the members of the African Diaspora in German. As a result there is a dearth of policemen, doctors, lawyers, and airline pilots of African descent. Germans of the African Diaspora growing up in Germany were bombarded with a negative view of their African heritage and a sense of inferiority by the German society. May Opitz (1992) sums up the struggles of the Germans of African descent: “For the groups [the Diaspora] . . . in spite of their German citizenship and their having grown up in the German society, they are neither wanted nor recognized in this [German] society” (p. 137).

THE AFRO-GERMAN MOVEMENT A number of Germans of African descent (Afro-Germans) began to take pride and began to celebrate their African heritage in the middle 1980s. Many of them grew up with barely any contact with their African or

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African American heritage. They were in an awkward position in the German society. They were not accepted by the German society and they were alienated and unfamiliar with their African heritage. With the assistance of African Americans, such as Audre Lorde (1992), this group began to reassert their African heritage and took on a hyphenated identity (Afro-German) similar to the practice of identity in the U.S., African American, Irish American, etc. Audre Lorde, an African American scholar, was visiting professor at one the universities in Berlin, Germany. She noticed how these individuals were marginalized in their country. She encouraged them to organize and write their history and thoughts. This encouragement from Lorde (1992) led to the creation of two organizations that are still in existence, Afro German Women (ADEFRA) and the Initiative of Schwarze Deutsche (The Black German Initiative). These groups ascended as the protectors and promoters of Afro-German community. They began to hold conferences and marches against racism. One of the most informative books, Showing Our Colors (Opitz et al., 1992), was written by some of the leaders of the movement. They began to make contact with the African American communities in the U.S. A major conference, Showing Our Colors: The Congress of Black German and African Americans, was held between Black German and African American community leaders in 1997. Spokespersons for the Afro-German community began to emerge and speak out against racism and to organize the Afro-German community. May Opitz et al. (1992), Katharine Ogotonye (1997), and Ika Hugel-Marshall (2002) are just a few of these individuals.

THE NEW AFRICAN COMMUNITY By the 1960s, Africans began to return to Germany at relatively large rates, not as low-skilled workers, but as university students. This included African women and married African couples, which was very rare before World War II. Included in this group were individuals from such war-torn countries such as Sierre Leone, Liberia, and Rwanda. This was the result of short-lived liberal policies toward asylum of the German government (Anderson-Reed, 2000). This policy also resulted in more children of Africans from sub-Sahara African countries born in Germany. These naturalized German citizens added another dynamic to the school system. Many of these students had problems adjusting to the German schools. Many of the parents were not familiar with the German system and uncomfortable with the German language. They were relatively new to Germany, that is, second generations. These students did not have the benefits of good German instruction. These individuals also ignited old colonial feelings of African

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inferiority within many Germans. As a result many of these students were in the bottom tier of German secondary schools, the Hauptschule. Graduation from these schools does not prepare these young people for meaningful professional or vocation occupations. Thus, these individuals usually dropout or end up in low-skilled jobs. Diaspro-Afro, a documentary (Medienprojekt Wuppertal, 2000) about the experiences of children of African immigrants, documents the conditions and status of these second-generation Africans. These young people according to the Diaspro-Afro documentary (2000) described how they are marginalized in school and daily life. They were constantly referred to as Niggers, a very derogative term in the Diaspora by the Germans. One of the individuals mentioned that teachers on numerous occasions told them to return to the “bush,” meaning returning to the jungles of Africa. These individuals found that they face discrimination in daily life, in school, and job placement. The documentary also found that many of the young people have gravitated to music, such as hip hop, as outlets to express themselves. Interestingly, the Diaspro-Afro documentary (2000) captured interDiaspora confl icts between Germans of African descent (Afro-Germans) and Africans born in Germany have been problematic. It has created ideological splits and jealousy between the two groups. It also takes place in the school system. The Germans of African descent (Afro-Germans) usually are in the fi rst or second tier secondary schools as compared to their African peers, who are usually in the third tier secondary school. In the Afro-German case the mother is usually German and familiar with the system. The Afro-German is lighter in skin color, they usually speak better German than their African-born classmates, and they are as ignorant of the continent of Africa as their White German classmates. In conclusion, as pointed out in this chapter, members of the African Diaspora have a number of hurdles that they must overcome in order to have equal opportunities in the area of education. Remnants of German nationalism have been major barriers for each generation of members of the African Diaspora. The class-based German educational system has been an instrument of institutional racism, where class and race prevail. There appears to be a glass ceiling for many of the African Diaspora to higher education and the professional class. For many, it is self-imposed because discrimination has been so prevalent in the past that one assumes there are no opportunities. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, and policemen are the exceptions, not the rule. The leaders in the Diaspora communities must begin to concentrate more on developing programs that will open doors of educational opportunities for the youths and professionals. There must be more inter-Diaspora cooperation. The Diaspora must work more closely with members of the African Diaspora from such places as the U.S. and the United Kingdom. These groups have had some success in overcoming barriers.

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REFERENCES Anderson, G. H., & Horner, N. A. (Eds.). (1977). International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 21 (3), 124–127. Anderson-Reed, P. (2000). Rewriting the footnotes, Berlin and the African Diaspora. Berlin: Die Ausländerbeauftrage des Senats. Atlantic Times. (2008). De Gobineau, A. D. (1915). The inequality of human races. (Adrian Collins, Trans.). New York: G. P. Putnam’s Son. Deutsches PISA Consortium. (2001). PISA 2000, International comparison of basis competencies of students. Basic kompetenzen von Schülerinnen und Schülern im internationalen Vergleich. Rübelmann, Hemsbach, Germany. Fehrenbach, R. (2005). Race after Hitler. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Publisher. Hugel-Marshall, I. (2002). Invisible woman: Growing up Black in Germany. (E. Gaffney, Trans.). New York: Fischer, Continnium. Kant, I. (1775). On Countries that are known and unknown to Europe. In C. E. Eze (Ed.). Race and the Enlightenment: A reader (1997). Walden, MA: Blackwell. Little, M. H., Jr. (1998). The Black military experience in Germany: From the First World War to present. In D. McBride, L. Hopkins, & C. A. Blackshire-Belay (Eds.). Crosscurrents, African Americans, Africa, and Germany in the modern world. Long, J. W. (Ed.). (2003). The African Diaspora, one soul-many people. Berlin: U.S. Embassy. Lorde, A. (1992). Foreword to the English Language Edition. In M. Opitz, K. Oguntoye, & D. Schultz (Eds.). Showing our colors: Afro-German women speak out. London, England: Open Letters. Mack, M. (2003). German idealism and the Jew: The inner anti-Semitism of philosophy and German Jewish responses. Chicago: University of Chicago. Massaquoi, H. J. (1999). Destined to witness, growing up black in Nazi Germany. New York: Morrow. Medienprojekt Wuppertal. (2000). Diaspro-Afro [Documentary]. Medienprojekt Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany. Oguntoye, K. (1997). A history of an Afro-German, the lives of Africans and Afro-Germans in Germany from 1884–1950. Eine Afro-Deutsche Geschichte, Zur Lebenssituation von Afrikanern und Afro-Deutschen in Deutschland von 1884–1950. Berlin. Opitz, M., Oguntoye, K., & Schultz, D. (1992). Showing our colors. (A. V. Adams, Trans.). Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts. Suckale-Redlefsen, G., & Suckdale-Redlefsen, R. (1987). Mauritius: Der Heilige Mohr. Houston, TX: Menil Foundation.

10 Education and Pasifika Communities in Aotearoa/New Zealand Camille Nakhid

INTRODUCTION Pacific peoples1 fi rst migrated in significant numbers to Aotearoa2/New Zealand in the 1950s, following the Second World War. The Pacific population in the country increased from just 2,200 people to almost 232,000 between 1945 and 2001 and now makes up 6.5% of the total population. Auckland, one of the country’s largest cities, has the largest Pacific population outside of the Pacific Islands (Statistics New Zealand). This chapter looks at the changes that have occurred for Pasifi ka3 (Gorinski & Fraser, 2006) peoples in the area of education. Although Pasifi ka peoples still achieve lower levels of educational qualifications than the total population and have higher rates of suspensions and lower retention and graduation rates, their educational success can be seen in the reduction of the disparity between their levels of educational achievement and that of the total population. The majority of Pasifi ka peoples no longer have English as a second language, their median income has risen closer to that of the total population, and their labor force is more diversified.

DEVELOPING PASIFIKA COMMUNITIES Migration to Aotearoa/New Zealand was encouraged by immigration policies that favored the employment of low-skilled labor for the manufacturing industries. The islands in the Pacific, primarily Samoa and Tonga, provided this labor at a time when the unemployment rate in Aotearoa/New Zealand was below 1%. The Pacific peoples that migrated had low levels of qualifications and English skills and made up less than 1% of Aotearoa/New Zealand’s population. As a migrant group, they were subjected to, and endured, labor segmentation, cultural segregation, negative expectations of them by the wider society and racism, and experiences similar to those of other migrant groups selected to low-paying, low-skill occupations. Traditionally ranked among the lowest on socioeconomic indicators such as educational attainment, levels of qualifications, home ownership,

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income levels, employment, hospital admissions, and life expectancy, Pacific peoples have made significant gains in a number of areas. A number of reasons can be credited for these positive changes including the strong community links and networks developed among the early Pacific peoples, the communal and familial links, and contacts that have been maintained with their home country, and the support of Maori4 (the tangata whenua5 of Aotearoa). Pasifi ka peoples have also gained political voice and representation, sought state funding of programs that will assist their opportunities to secure housing, devised strategies to improve their educational performance, and engaged in the development of policies that would not have a negative impact on their ability to attain their aspirations. The concept of Pacific communities is meant to reflect the diversity of Pasifi ka heritage among those peoples that were born in New Zealand or in the Pacific islands and takes into account the differentiation in these communities based on factors such as ethnicity, age, qualifications, gender and occupation (Pacific Health Research Council, n.d.). The primary reason for a focus on the educational successes of Pasifi ka peoples is that high educational achievement is accepted as a major predictor of socioeconomic mobility, income levels, and wellness factors. In 2001, the median annual income in real terms for Pacific peoples was lower ($14,600) than the national median by 11% and lower also than it was in 1986 ($17,200), though it had recovered from the low ($12,100) that had resulted from the economic recession of the 1990s. Pacific peoples, however, particularly younger Pacific people, have increased levels of formal education and lower rates of unemployment, are less represented in the primary and manufacturing industries, and have

Graph 10.1

Growth of Pacific population in New Zealand, 1945–2001.

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Graph 10.2 Proportion of Pacific and total adults with no qualifications, 1986–2001.

Graph 10.3 Employment by industrial sector for Pacific people, 1991–2001. (Statistics New Zealand [http://www.stats.govt.nz/default.htm].)

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greater representation in the growing service industries, greater levels of self-employment, and increasing levels of real personal and household incomes (Statistics New Zealand, 1999). This chapter briefly describes Pasifi ka peoples’ labor migration and presence in Aotearoa/New Zealand from the late 1940s. It then focuses on Pasifi ka peoples’ inclusion and involvement in the New Zealand education system, in particular, the state’s goals for Pasifi ka education, and outlines their progress in the education sector. A review of these goals and of the educational status of Pasifi ka peoples reveals a number of important factors. One, to an increasing extent, research into Pasifi ka peoples’ education is being undertaken by Pasifi ka peoples themselves or with significant input by these communities. This has been largely influenced by a set of research guidelines developed by Pasifi ka and other researchers on behalf of the Ministry of Education for those wanting to research educational issues in Pasifi ka communities. Two, research has shown that early childhood education is a significant factor in the later educational success of students. In particular, it appears more beneficial to students if these early childhood education centers reflect the students’ culture and cultural capital. There has been an increase in the number of early childhood education centers specific to students’ Pacific heritage as well as an increase in the number of Pasifi ka children attending these early childhood education centers. This has led to the development of early childhood education qualifications focusing on the effective and relevant teaching of Pasifi ka children at this level. Three, there has been a recognition of the need for more trained Pasifi ka teachers in the classroom. This has been supported by the awarding of scholarships to Pasifi ka teacher trainees. Four, the need to have the links between Pasifi ka communities and their school communities strengthened has been identified. Five, a number of tertiary institutions now have centers for Pasifi ka studies taught mainly by Pasifi ka academics or offices within these institutes with responsibility for ensuring equity in educational outcomes for Pasifi ka. The most notable progress in terms of student enrollment, Pasifi ka teacher qualifications, and learning institutions has been in the early childhood sector as the number of Pasifi ka student enrolments, licensed centers, and licensed Pasifi ka teachers increase. If comparable successes are to be achieved in the secondary and tertiary sectors, a number of strategies are recommended. There needs to be an increase in the range of subjects taught by Pasifi ka teachers in secondary schools, particularly in the core subjects of mathematics and science. Teacher training for secondary teachers should place greater emphasis on methods of effective and equitable teaching of Pasifi ka students for those teachers and career advisers that intend to teach in schools with predominantly Pasifika students. In tertiary institutions, academic staff should be encouraged to learn appropriate ways of teaching that will affect the academic aspirations of Pasifi ka students and their families. Education for Pasifi ka communities must decide how it should locate

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itself within a national and global education agenda. The final section of this chapter explains that in order for Pasifi ka education in Aotearoa/New Zealand to remain relevant to students, teachers and their communities it must reflect Pasifi ka pedagogies rather than designing itself according to national/global educational ideals.

LABOR MIGRATION OF PASIFIKA PEOPLES TO AOTEAROA/NEW ZEALAND Pasifi ka peoples entered the Aotearoa/New Zealand labor market in response to the country’s economic development (Ongley, 2004, p. 199). From 1945 to early 1970, Aotearoa/New Zealand experienced an economic boom as mass production and consumption expanded and the country was able to market its agricultural products. International migration assisted the boom conditions and the government’s immigration policies ensured that the supply of migrants matched labor demand. Low-skilled or unskilled manual workers came largely from the Pacific Islands with varying rights of entry into Aotearoa/New Zealand. Cook Islanders, Niueans, and Tokelauans had unrestricted entry as Aotearoa/New Zealand citizens, Samoans could receive permanent residence but numbers were based on a quota, and other Pacific migrants came on temporary work visas. Migration from the Pacific Islands was slow throughout the 1950s and 1960s but accelerated and peaked from 1971 to 1975. Pacific migrants were drawn into the manual and manufacturing jobs and were likely to have less formal qualifications and specialized skills than other migrants. In 1973–1974, the oil crisis and the entry of Britain into the European Economic Community (EEC) meant that the United Kingdom was no longer a favorable market for Aotearoa/New Zealand’s agricultural exports. Both these factors contributed to an economic crisis that prompted changes to the country’s immigration policy and a consequent targeting of Pacific Island migrants on expired work and visitor visas. Unemployment rose from below 0.1% to 5.6% between 1974 and 1983, mainly affecting workers in the secondary industry in which there was a majority concentration of Pasifi ka, and leading to an increase in their unemployment rate from 4% to 10%. The economic crisis forced a restructuring of Aotearoa/New Zealand’s economy and the introduction of neo-liberal policies of “deregulation, free trade, and privatization” (Ongley, 2004, p. 203). The growing service industries, new technologies, the decline in the large-scale secondary industries, and the privatization of state sector industries such as railways and forestry led to severe job losses primarily affecting Pasifi ka and Maori who were the main employees in these areas. The lack of skills and education among these groups meant that they could not meet the needs of the service industries and high-technology labor market that could be met only by professional, technical, and business skills and capital. Unemployment

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continued to increase for all groups, with Pasifi ka and Maori worse affected. From 1986 to 1992, Pasifi ka unemployment rose from 6% to 26%, Maori from 11% to 26%, and Europeans to 6%.

PASIFIKA PROGRESS IN EDUCATION6 The demographics of Pasifi ka ethnic communities distinguish them from other ethnic groups. Ninety-seven percent of Pasifi ka peoples live in an urban area. Eighty-four percent live in Aotearoa/New Zealand’s five largest urban areas compared with 48% of the country’s total population. The total Pasifi ka population is expected to increase by 60% between 1996 and 2016. At present, one in 10 children is a Pasifika child and this is expected to rise to one in five by 2051. In July 2003, 6.57% of Pasifi ka children were enrolled in early childhood education, and 8.23% of school students were Pasifi ka. This is expected to increase to 11% in 30 years. Some schools have up to 90% Pasifi ka students on its roll. A majority of the Pasifi ka school population (68%) were in decile7 1, 2, and 3 schools in 2003 compared to 26% of the total population. A total of 67.5% of Pasifi ka students were enrolled in the primary sector and 29.3% in the secondary sector. Pasifi ka students made up 4.7% of all domestic tertiary students in 2003 and 5.2% of the Pasifi ka population, an increase from 4.7% in 1997. Thirty percent of these students were in degree-level courses and 4% in postgraduate (Ministry of Education– Pasifi ka Education Overview [http://www.minedu.govt.nz/index.cfm?layo ut=document&documentid=4712&indexid=5746&indexparentid=4329]). Pasifi ka students made up 9% of all students but represented 11% of all stand-downs8 compared with New Zealand European/Palagi 9 students with only 42% of all stand-downs but 56% of the school population. Suspension10 cases for Pasifi ka students has increased since 2000 from a rate of 7 per 1,000 to a rate of 9 per 1,000 students in 2004, making up

Table 10.1 Proportion of 2002 School Leavers Going Directly to Tertiary Education, by Level of Study 2003 Pasifika School Leavers

All School Leavers

10%

22%

4%

2%

Certificate

40%

29%

Total

53%

56%

Degree Diploma

Source: New Zealand Schools Nga Kura o Aotearoa 2004 (aHarkness et al, 2005, p. 7)

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12% of all suspensions compared to 36% for New Zealand European/ Palagi students. There is a high non-completion rate of secondary school qualifications among Pasifi ka students, though high-performing Pasifi ka students have the same rate of performance as non-Pasifi ka high-performing students. Pasifi ka students also have lower achievement rates in the primary and junior secondary schools (as early as Year 5) in reading, mathematics, and science. In 2003, 53% of Pasifi ka school leavers went onto tertiary study, three-quarters of whom enrolled in lower-level certificate courses. This compares with 56% of non-Pasifi ka school leavers that enter directly into tertiary studies with 40% studying at the degree level. Pasifi ka students progress from Year 12 to Year 13 at a slightly higher rate than non-Pasifi ka (Harkness et al., 2005b, p. 7) but take longer to gain their qualifications and gain them at a lower level. Pasifi ka students that gain qualifications in their fi rst year of National Qualifications Framework11 (NQF) study are most likely to gain qualifications in their second and third years. However, they are less likely to gain a qualification in their future years if they did not gain a qualification in their fi rst year though are more likely than their non-Pasifi ka candidates to continue to participate on the NQF and gain qualifications. The low rate of National Certificate of Table 10.2

Proportion of Pasifika and Non-Pasifika Candidates Who Gained an NCEA Qualification in 2004 Total number of candidates

Year 11

Pasifika

Proportion of candidates achieving Level1 3

4,006

Proportion of candidates achieving nonNCEA quals

Total Proportion achieving an NCEA

33

1

63

64

37

19

56

1

65

9

76

2,299

21

28

10

2

58

Non29,425 Pasifika

54

13

4

3

71

Pasifika

3,154

Non40,225 Pasifika Year 13

Proportion of candidates achieving Level 1 33

Non48,891 Pasifika Year 12

Proportion of candidates achieving Level 2

Pasifika

Note: Due to rounding, percentages in the table may not add to the total

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Table 10.3 Pasifika and Non-Pasifika Year 12 Candidates by Achievement in Credits (Level 2 or Higher), 2004 Candidates Candidates Candidates Candidates Total Number who attained who attained who attained who attained 90+ credits at 60-89 credits 30-59 credits 1-29 credits of at Levels 2+ at Level 2+ at Level 2+ level 2+ Candidates N Pasifika

3,154

NonPasifika

40,225

363

%

N

%

12

747

24

15,239 38

10,455

26

N 1,207 7,810

%

N

%

33

937

30

19

6,033

15

Educational Achievement12 (NCEA) attainment by Pasifi ka is of concern, as qualifications gained at secondary schools are necessary for deciding future options for study (Harkness et al., 2005b, p. 15). Of equal concern is that Pasifi ka students in Year 11 are less likely to take externally assessed achievement standards in the core learning areas of English, mathematics, and science. Students who achieve in these subjects are more likely to gain university entrance as these school qualifications provide access to higher qualifications and employment opportunities (Harkness et al., 2005b).

THE STATE’S GOALS AND TARGETS FOR PASIFIKA EDUCATION In April 2001, the Ministry of Education’s Pasifi ka Education Plan contained the state’s goals and targets for Pasifi ka education. Recognizing the need to increase Pasifi ka achievement in all areas of education, the Minister for Education identified four areas where government policy was most likely to achieve this goal. These areas included “promoting more effective teaching with Pasifi ka students,” “improving English language proficiency for Pacific students to support student learning and effective teaching,” “building capacity with Pacific communities to support effective teaching,” and “raising achievement levels” (Pasifi ka Education Plan, 2001). The Pasifi ka Education Plan 2001 had a number of goals and targets across the education sectors—early childhood, compulsory, tertiary—and progress on its implementation was evaluated. In Early Childhood Education (ECE), the goals were to increase Pasifi ka children’s participation in early childhood education, as well as the number and quality of Pasifi ka ECE services. The expected targets to be met by 2005 were for enrollment levels of Pasifi ka children in early childhood education to match national levels and to have available places in recognized ECE services to match this enrolment. This meant doubling the current number of licensed

144 Camille Nakhid Pasifi ka ECE services. The progress reports indicated an increase in Pasifi ka ECE participation from 76% in 2001 to 85% in 2004, remaining the same in 2005. In July 2000, 68 Pasifi ka ECE services were licensed, increasing to 96 in July 2005. The National Diploma in Teaching (ECE Pasifi ka) (Level 7) was registered on the NQF in 2002 and two programs were started in 2004. In compulsory education, the goals remain the same—to increase Pasifi ka students’ achievement and the effectiveness of teaching for Pasifi ka students, and to increase Pasifi ka representation and strengthen their retention on schools’ board of trustees. The targets were, by 2010, to have positive shifts in performance on national and international assessments, for example, PISA, TIMSS,13 and NEMP, the proportion of Pasifi ka students leaving school without formal qualifications to match that of all school leavers, to increase the proportion of Pasifi ka school leavers attaining at least Level 2 NCEA from 52% in 2004 to at least 60% by 2010, increase the number of registered teachers that are effective for Pasifi ka students and increase the number of Pasifi ka teachers, reduce the rate of Pasifi ka suspension by 20% over the next 3 years, and increase Pasifika board of trustees’ representation to 4.2% from 3.1% by the end of 2007. In tertiary education, the goals were also similar to those in the Pasifi ka Education Plan 2000—to increase Pasifi ka participation and improve retention as well as to increase these students’ achievement and progression. An additional goal was to identify and address the needs and aspirations of Pasifi ka communities. The targets are an increase in the Pasifi ka participation rate at degree-level and above from 3.4% in 2004 to 5% by 2010, increase the 5-year retention rate at qualification level from 42% toward 45% by 2010, and increase the Pasifi ka 5-year degree-level completion rates from 32% to 40% by 2010. In addition, Tertiary education organizations (TEOs) must also be able to demonstrate how they have consulted with Pasifi ka communities to address Pasifi ka aspirations.

PASIFIKA RESEARCH In the last 20 years, the nature and type of research on Pasifika communities have changed. The type of research that is carried out, the researchers themselves, the research agendas that have been set, the methodologies used when carrying out research, and the research environment surrounding Pasifi ka communities have been challenged by Pasifi ka peoples themselves and have been reconsidered by both researchers and participants. Employing a “Pacific” research approach is expected to increase the effectiveness of outcomes particularly as an increasing number of Pasifi ka communities are requesting greater involvement in the research process (Pacific Health Research Council, n.d.). This has influenced the outcomes and results of the research in terms of who receives the completed research,

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the policies that emanate from the research, and the capacity building of Pasifi ka researchers. These changes to the way in which research involving Pasifi ka peoples is conducted are necessary and timely as these aspects of the research process have the capacity to influence the recommendations of the research and the direction of future research. It has also assisted in changing the perspectives and attitudes of the dominant group toward Pasifi ka communities and has set a framework that could guide research with other minority migrant groups in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Pacific research is defi ned as research involving Pacific participants (Pacific Health Research Council, n.d., p. 10). For Pacific researchers, a problematic question is whether research on Pacific peoples as a “group” is generalizable (and acceptable) to each Pacific Island community or if research on these communities should be specific to the Pacific nation concerned. This pan-Pacific approach is distinct from an ethnic-specific approach that acknowledges the cultural characteristics of each of the Pacific nations (Anae, Coxon, Mara, Wendt-Samu, & Finau, 2001). The relationship between educational qualifications and socioeconomic status has been well documented and may explain why much of the research on Pasifi ka peoples has focused on determining the reasons for their academic status. Education is also the area where Pasifika graduates in higher education are most likely to be. According to Coxon et al. (2002), much of the research on Pasifi ka education has been fairly recent, within the last 15 years, and reflects the calls from Pasifi ka communities to address their educational needs and to recognize the negative impact of the state’s neoliberal policies in the late 1980s to late 1990s on the educational status of marginalized groups. Traditionally, much of the educational research on Pasifi ka peoples has been carried out by non-Pasifi ka researchers (Nakhid, 2003). Nakhid believes that the perspectives taken by these researchers reflect their unquestioning acceptance of the assumptions held by the dominant culture of Pasifi ka peoples. The common research methodology has been to compare and differentiate the values of Pasifi ka peoples with that of the dominant group and to identify these differences as the causes of Pasifi ka students’ underachievement. Inaccurate perceptions held by the researchers have thus led to recommendations that have been ineffective and inappropriate in improving Pasifi ka academic achievement. Pasifi ka researchers caution against using existing dominant, non-Pasifi ka research frameworks and encourage the use of Pacific values and protocol embedded in family and village to carry out research (Anae et al., 2001). A number of data collection methods have been identified and proposed by Pasifi ka researchers as more appropriate to research on Pacific peoples.14 In 2001, the Ministry of Education’s Pasifi ka Research Framework Team commissioned two reports: a Literature Review on Pasifi ka Education and Guidelines for Pasifi ka Education Research (Coxon et al.,

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2002). The literature review provided information about what areas of Pasifi ka education had been researched and which had not and identified those areas that were a research priority in order to address policy requirements aimed at improving achievement and reducing disparities for Pasifi ka students. The research guidelines are intended for use by government researchers on “research involving Pacific peoples and Pacific education issues.” Pasifi ka researchers argue that there are certain Pacific epistemological assumptions that must be considered in any research methodology involving Pasifi ka peoples (Anae et al., 2001). These include sensitivity to contemporary Pacific contexts, embracing existing Pacific notions of collective ownership, embracing collective shame, embracing collective authoritarian structures, and the capability to withstand the test of time. The Health Research Council of New Zealand in its Guidelines on Pacific Health Research suggests a number of principles that should underpin ethical research relationships with Pacific peoples such as relationships, respect, cultural competency, meaningful engagement, reciprocity, rights, capacity building, and participation. The role of Pacific research is to develop a Pacific worldview that is “underpinned by Pacific values, belief systems, and ways of structuring knowledge, which will become core values and ideologies’ of any educational research relevant to Pasifi ka peoples” (Anae et al., 2001, p. 8).

PASIFIKA EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION One of the most significant developments in enhancing the learning and teaching of Pasifi ka has been the provision of early childhood education specific to the Pacific Island heritage of the child. In addition to recognizing that early childhood education is a predictor of higher school achievement, Pasifi ka peoples have indicated their desire to maintain their cultural identity, develop their language, culture, and education, as well as improve their social circumstances. The Ministry of Education has developed a 10-year plan called Pathways to the Future: Nga Huarahi Arataki focused on increasing Pasifi ka students’ participation in early childhood education. In 1990, around 3,300 Pasifi ka children were enrolled in licensed early childhood education services and this had increased to 12,062 by 2004. In July 2005, there were 114 licensed and/or chartered services using a Pasifi ka language as the medium of instruction at least 12% of the teaching time. Of these 114 services, 56 were immersion15 involving 1,644 children. Thirty-seven immersion services used Samoan as the language of communication, 12 used Tongan, four used Niuean, and three used Cook Island Maori. The remaining 58 services were identified as bilingual16 and involved 2,016 children. Thirtythree bilingual services used the Samoan language, 14 used Cook Island

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Maori, four used Tongan, three used Niuean, three used Tokelauan, and one used the Fijian language. The government’s requirement that early childhood centers had to be licensed and to have a certain percentage of its teachers that are licensed, together with an increase in the number of Pasifi ka children in ECE, has caused the rise in the number of Pasifi ka teacher trainees in the ECE sector. Those that want to teach in Pasifi ka ECE centers can complete a Diploma in Teaching (Pasifi ka). Teaching training colleges also offer Certificates in Pacific Islands Early Childhood Education (Parent Helper) Level 417 and Pacific Islands Early Childhood Education (Pasifi ka Management) Level 6,18 as well as a Diploma in Teaching (Early Childhood Education, Pasifi ka) Level 7.19 The Auckland University of Technology and Te Tari Puna Ora o Aotearoa/ ew Zealand Childcare Association offer the National Diploma in Teaching (Early Childhood Education Pasifi ka) the content of which reflects Pasifi ka cultures. The University of Auckland offers the Diploma of Teaching (Early Childhood Education Pacific Islands), a 3-year, full-time qualification with papers delivered in English and a Pasifi ka language. Both qualifications prepare teachers for Pasifi ka medium and mainstream teaching.

PASIFIKA TEACHER TRAINING Demand for primary teachers, particularly those from Pasifika cultures, continues to grow and teacher training for Pasifi ka communities is necessary if we are to successfully address the high number of stand-downs and suspensions for Pasifi ka students. However, in order to meet this demand, teacher training must fi rst produce successful teacher graduates. Pasifi ka teacher trainees identified a number of factors that they believed were barriers to their attaining successful outcomes as teacher graduates and those that facilitated their achievement (Anae, Anderson, Benseman, & Coxon, 2002). Barriers included family, church, and work commitments, the costs of tuition, the relationship between the lecturers and students, the availability of student support, the presence of Pasifi ka content in the course work, the low numbers of Pasifi ka academic staff, and government policies such as student loans (Dickie, 2000). Dickie recommends that teacher education institutions should take into account the different cultural constraints and responsibilities of Pasifi ka students, and the way that these students view learning—as a group activity rather than an individual or independent one. Mara, Tuhipa, Falisima, and Greenwood (1996) add that schools need to make effective use of Pasifi ka students’ cultural capital. Both Dickie and Mara see the aim of teacher training institutions as providing opportunities for teacher trainees to become familiar with the diverse cultures of Pasifi ka peoples and to identify best practices for

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teaching Pasifi ka students. The low numbers of Pasifi ka students gaining levels of achievement at secondary schools suggest that teacher training programs need to consider incorporating a specialty in Pasifi ka education for those teachers wanting to teach in schools where the majority of students are Pasifi ka. In addition, the low rate of Pasifi ka students in tertiary institutions as well as their completion and retention rate may also be reasons to consider training tertiary academic staff in the teaching of Pasifi ka students.

FACTORS INFLUENCING PASIFIKA STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT Some schools have been identified as having high attainment rates of university entrance for their Pasifika students compared to other schools with similar deciles, and this variation in achievement is said to be a result of school influences (Harkness et al., 2005a). Harkness et al. suggest that to improve learning outcomes for Pasifi ka students in secondary schools, learning programs must focus more on achieving higher level qualifications (Level 3) and university entrance. The study by Anae et al. (2002) on the actual and perceived barriers to tertiary education participation by Pasifi ka peoples aimed to contribute toward future education policy affecting Pasifi ka communities. The results of this qualitative study showed that low expectations of Pasifi ka students by their secondary schools, poor career advice, and inappropriate subject selection at the senior secondary school resulted in a failure to achieve tertiary entry qualifications, one of the main barriers to access to tertiary study. Students that were ill-informed about the academic processes and standards of the tertiary environment lacked the readiness for tertiary study and this is seen by many as a major reason for failure to achieve at the tertiary level. Bridging programs that act as pathways to degree entry and private training establishments (PTEs) that offer qualifications in workplace training to assist students who are unsuccessful in mainstream education are considered valuable options by Pasifi ka students. Student loans were a major influence on students’ decisions to continue study. Free tuition was offered for low-level programs that led to lowpaying employment opportunities and did not encourage study at higher level, while continuing on to higher level study meant acquiring more loans to add to those already obtained for bridging and foundation programs. Scholarships are offered, though students need convincing that they would receive them in spite of their previous academic achievements. A number of programs were considered by Pasifi ka students to be successful and to be relevant to them and to the needs of their communities. These included foundation/bridging programs that developed academic skills in mathematics, communication, and computing and programs of

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relevance to issues in Pacific/New Zealand society such as health, early childhood education, and discipline based programs. There were particular features of programs that the students identified as generating positive outcomes for them. These were student-centered teaching, teaching that ensured academic and social engagement between learners and lecturers; a commitment to achieving high standards and having expectations that all students can achieve; providing the academic support such as academic tutorials and individual assistance including goal setting to achieve these standards; access to resources such as libraries, texts, and computers; access to pastoral care; and opportunities to progress from one level of qualification to the next. Pacific languages were also seen as contributing significantly to academic success, particularly for older, fluent speakers (Anae et al., 2002, p. 65). Pasifi ka students also reported the importance of support systems and networks both at secondary level and tertiary level. They credited their success to having supportive families, friends, and role models who were mainly their teachers at secondary school or the senior students at tertiary level. For many students, the teacher was most influential in their decision to pursue tertiary education and the teacher’s influence encouraged their interest and motivation to pursue tertiary education. These positive influences and experiences of their secondary school teachers changed for the students at university. Pasifi ka students found that lecturers did not regard them as individuals and did not seek to encourage them, and the relationship between them and their lecturers was impersonal.

PASIFIKA COMMUNITIES AND SCHOOL COMMUNITIES Gorinski and Fraser’s (2006) literature review of the nature of the engagement between schools and Pasifi ka parents and communities identified a number of strategies that support parent-school engagement. These strategies emphasized the principles and practices of inclusion that allowed for consultation, collaboration, communication and “impowering”20 of Pasifi ka communities. Mara et al. (1996) suggest a number of ways to encourage parental support and involvement including the use of parents as tutors, parent workshops so that parents can learn new skills and knowledge relevant to their children’s learning, and learning programs to assist parents in supporting their children’s learning at home and in school. Gorinski and Fraser (2006) also found that the quality of the monitoring and reporting of their children’s achievement at school, a regular schedule of the school’s activities and programs, bilingual community liaisons, culturally relevant curriculum, career education to support family aspirations, and meaningful opportunities for parent involvement in school activities were all of significant interest to parents.

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THE CHALLENGE FOR PASIFIKA EDUCATION WITHIN GLOBALIZATION Pasifi ka education is a part of the political climate of education and is challenging the ways in which the politics and cultures of the education system of Aotearoa/New Zealand have been traditionally understood. It is aware of the importance of including a Pasifi ka culture in teacher education programs while simultaneously preparing students to engage successfully in a competitive global market. Education for Pasifika communities should reflect the challenges that are to be expected from any national or international curriculum. Pasifi ka education for Aotearoa/New Zealand’s Pasifi ka communities must consider how to locate itself within a global education agenda. The presence and impact of globalization on education in the country should not obscure Pasifi ka identities or devalue the contribution of the country’s Pacific communities. Aotearoa/New Zealand has the largest migrant Pasifi ka population in the world, and as primary rolls continue to increase so does the demand for primary and secondary teachers, particularly those from Pasifi ka cultures. Education for Pasifi ka communities must be certain of its relevance for students who will engage in a globalized world. It must decide whether policies and programs should reflect indigenous Pacific Islands’ learning philosophies or the more contemporary “Pasifi ka” perspectives, or whether there is more to be gained by developing an educational structure that reflects those nations in control of the processes of globalization, and whether this can be done without alienating its teachers and students. Globalization blurs distinctions once made on the basis of foreign currencies and single citizenship. Globalization is a process that affects all communities, regions, and continents, and ironically, this allows Pasifi ka peoples the opportunity to contribute to its ongoing direction in ways that benefit both Pasifi ka communities and those in contact with these communities. Although it will be a challenge for the smaller Pasifi ka communities to sustain an education that is different and distinguishable, the greater challenge of education for Pasifi ka communities is to improve social mobility and justice among Pasifi ka peoples and to allow for recognition of a Pasifi ka way of life. Pacific societies have distinctive values and knowledge systems (Thaman, 1993). Indigenous knowledge belongs to a community, and “access to this knowledge is gained through contact with that community” (Semali & Kincheloe, 1999, p. 5). However, a number of problematic questions regarding indigenous knowledge are identified by Semali and Kincheloe, for example: Can a community own a knowledge system? What are the social, cultural, and academic implications of integrating indigenous knowledge into education without devaluing one knowledge system over the other?

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If Pasifi ka education is to have meaning to Pasifi ka and the wider communities, these communities must be able to own and control the pedagogical practices within it. The cultural dimensions of a Pasifi ka education are likely to differ among the local Pasifi ka communities and between these communities and Aotearoa/New Zealand’s other communities. The different histories and cultures that make up Pacific communities make it difficult to have a “common curriculum” that would be relevant for Pasifi ka peoples though it could begin by incorporating indigenous “knowledge, skills, beliefs, and values” of the cultures of the Pacific nations (Thaman, 1993, p. 250). The different cultural perspectives of the Pacific need not deter from the goal of maintaining cultural identity (p. 254). Pasifi ka culture, while enduring, is also changing, and this should be reflected when redeveloping existing programs, allowing for changes from both its students and the Pasifi ka communities. Community engagement in education should have the capacity to raise the status of its own communities and to have equitable control of the education sector. Taafaki (2000, p. 107) argues for “two fundamental prerequisites” that must inform the association between culture and educational programs: First, educational programmes, while reflecting a profound respect for diversity, must be developed within their cultural context. Second, educational programmes must provide the knowledge and skills which will allow the full evolution of the culture. In an era where education is regarded as driving “economic activity and international competitiveness (Welch, 2001, p. 478), a Pasifi ka education system must be able to endure the cultural and economic constraints placed on it by national agendas and global directions. International institutions seeking to diversify their incomes by attracting international student enrolments, particularly at higher education or offering to teach their own programs at other institutions, international study and travel, and scholarships from recognized international institutions present challenges to the maintenance of a Pasifi ka education. The development of Pasifi ka education is an important beacon to other migrant communities intent on achieving their own educational goals. NOTES 1. Pacific peoples are defi ned by the 1996 New Zealand Census as those New Zealand residents who originate from the six Pacific nations of Samoa, Tonga, Niue, Cook Islands, Tokelau, and Fiji and include both island-born and New Zealand-born (Statistics New Zealand, 1999). 2. Maori word for New Zealand. 3. The Ministry of Education uses the term “Pasifi ka peoples” to differentiate other people who view themselves as being Pacific, based on New Zealand

152

4. 5. 6.

7.

8. 9. 10. 11.

12.

13. 14.

15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

Camille Nakhid being a country in the Pacific region. The Ministry of Education’s ethnicity coding (Harkness, Murray, Parkin, & Dalgety, 2005, p. 29) has a single ethnicity for each candidate assigned on a hierarchical basis. Pasifi ka ethnicities are assigned according to the size of their populations (Maori ethnicity is fi rst in the hierarchy). Coxon, Anae, Mara, Wendt-Samu and Finau (2002) believe that education policy and practice should also take into account the smaller Pacific communities of French Polynesians, Solomon Islands, Tuvaluans and I Kiribati. Native people of Aotearoa/New Zealand. Tangata whenua means “people of the land.” A number of government reports such as the “Education Statistics of New Zealand” and the “School Sector Report” look at Pasifi ka achievement and report on the highest qualification of Pasifi ka school leavers. The National Education Monitoring Project (NEMP) assesses curriculum areas and skills of Year 4 (8–9 years) and Year 8 students (12–13 years). The “Focus on Pasifi ka achievement in reading literacy: Results from PISA 2000” (Programme for International Student Assessment, 2000) gives results for 15-year-old Pasifi ka students and focuses on reading literacy and factors associated with high achievement of Pasifi ka (Harkness et al., 2005b, p. 7). State schools in New Zealand are given a decile rating from 1 to 10 by the Ministry of Education. A school’s decile rating indicates the extent to which the school draws its students from low socioeconomic communities determined by factors such as household income, occupation, household crowding, and income support. Decile 1 schools (low decile) are the 10% of schools with the highest proportion of students from low socioeconomic communities. Decile 10 schools (high decile) are the 10% of schools with the lowest proportion of these students (New Zealand Parent Teacher Association [http://www.nzpta.org.nz/docs/decile_rating_system.pdf]). Stand-down is the formal removal of a student from school for a specified period, no more than 10 days in a school year. Palagi is a Samoan word for European. Suspension is the formal removal of a student from school until a decision can be made by the board of trustees. The National Qualifications Framework (NQF) is a way of structuring national qualifications in the Aotearoa/New Zealand education system so that they are nationally recognized and have consistent standards. It provides recognition and credit for all learning of knowledge and skills. (See New Zealand Qualifications Authority at http://www.nzqa.govt.nz/framework/ about.html#nqf.) National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) is New Zealand’s main national qualification for secondary school students and part of the NQF. (See New Zealand Qualifications Authority at http://www.nzqa.govt. nz/ncea/index.html.) Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. For more information on Pasifi ka research approaches and methodologies, see Nakhid (2003b) “Mediated dialogue”; Thaman (2003) “Weaving the Kakala”; Tamasese, Peteru, and Waldegrave (1997) “Fa’afaletui” model; Maua-Hodges (2000) “Tivaevae Model”) “Fonofale” model of health (Ministry of Health, 1995). A total of 81–100% of teaching contact time. A total of 12–80% of teaching contact time. Equivalent to the 1st year of a college degree Equivalent to the 3rd year of a college degree Equivalent to the 4th year of a college degree

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20. See Nakhid (2003a, p. 8) for an explanation of the use of the word “impower.”

REFERENCES Anae, M., Anderson, H., Benseman, J., & Coxon, E. (2002). Pacific peoples and tertiary education: Issues of participation. Auckland Uniservices Ltd, University of Auckland. Anae, M., Coxon, E., Mara, D., Wendt-Samu, T., & Finau, C. (2001). Pasifika education research guidelines—Report to the Ministry of Education, Auckland Uniservices Ltd. Retrieved from http://www.minedu.govt.nz/web/downloadable/dl7653_v1/pacrsrch—guide.doc Cook, L., Didham, R., & Khawaja, M. (1999). On the demography of Pacific people in New Zealand. Statistics New Zealand. Retrieved from http://www.stats. govt.nz/browse_for_stats/people_and_communities/pacifi c_peoples/demography-of-pacific-people-in-nz.aspx. Coxon, E., Anae, M., Mara, D., Wendt-Samu, T., & Finau, C. (2002). Literature review on Pacific education issues—Final report. Auckland Uniservices Limited, University of Auckland. Dickie, J. (2000). Pacific nations students in primary teacher training: Investigating their learning needs. Unpublished master’s thesis, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington. Gorinski, R., & Fraser, C. (2006). Literature review on the Effective Engagement of Pasifika Parents & Communities in Education. Retrieved from http://www. minedu.govt.nz/index.cfm?layout=document&documentid=10996&indexid=6 191&indexparentid=10232 Harkness, C., Murray, S., Parkin, M., & Dalgety, J. (2005a). Pasifika achievement: engagement and choice. Ministry of Education, Demographic and Statistical Analysis Unit. Retrieved from http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/ publications/pasifi ka_education/2119 Harkness, C., Murray, S., Parkin, M., & Dalgety, J. (2005b). Pasifika achievement: High level analysis. Ministry of Education, Demographic and Statistical Analysis Unit. Retrieved from http://www.educationcounts.edcentre.govt.nz/ publications/pasifi ka_education/2123 Mara, D., Tuhipa, T., Falisima, T., & Greenwood, A. (1996). Teacher education: Implications for Pacific students and their communities. In The proceedings report: National Symposium 1996 Pacifi c Islands Learning: The answers are within us (pp. 70–79). Wellington: Education & Training Support Agency. Maua-Hodges, T. (2000). Ako Pai Ki Aitutaki: Transporting or weaving cultures. Research Report of Field Experiences to the Cook Islands. Wellington: Wellington College of Education. Ministry of Education Early Childhood Education. (2005). http://educationcounts.govt.nz/statistics/ece/licensed_services_and_licence-exempt_groups/ licensed+services_and_licence-exempt_groups_2005 Ministry of Health. (1995). Guidelines for cultural assessment in mental health services. Wellington: New Zealand Ministry of Health. Nakhid, C. (2003a). “Intercultural” perceptions, academic achievement and the “identifying process” of Pacific Islands students in New Zealand schools. Journal of Negro Education, 72 (3), 297–317. Nakhid, C. (2003b). Comparing Pasifi ka students’ perceptions of their schooling with the perceptions of non-Pasifi ka teachers using the ‘mediated dialogue’ as a research methodology. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies, 38 (2).

154 Camille Nakhid Ongley, P. (2004). Ethnicity, migration and the labour market. In P. Spoonley, C. Macpherson, & D. Pearson (Eds.). Tangata Tangata—The changing ethnic contours of New Zealand (pp. 199–220). New Zealand: Thomson Dunmore Press. Pacific Health Research Council. (n.d.). http://www.hrc.govt.nz/sites/default/fi les/ Guidelines%20on%20Pacific%20Health%20Research%202005.pdf Pasifi ka Education Plan 2001–2005. Ministry of Education: Wellington, New Zealand. Semali, L. M., & Kincheloe, J. L. (Eds.). (1999). What is indigenous knowledge?: Voices from the academy. London: Falmer Press. Statistics New Zealand. (1999). Pacific progress: A report on the economic status of Pacific peoples in New Zealand Summary version (1999). Retrieved from http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/people_and_communities/ geographic-areas/mapping-trends-in-the-auckland-region/ethnicity/aspx Taafaki, I. J. (2000). Cultural rights: a curriculum and pedagogy for praxis. In M. Wilson & P. Hunt (Eds.). Culture, rights, and cultural rights: perspectives from the South Pacific. Wellington: Huia Publishers. Tamasese, K., Peteru, C., & Waldegrave, C. (1997). O le taeao afua—the new morning. A Qualitative Investigation into Samoan Perspectives on Mental Health and Culturally Appropriate Services. Wellington: The Family Centre. Thaman, K. H. (2003). Culture, teaching and learning in Oceania. In K. H. Thaman (Ed.). Educational ideas from Oceania—Selected readings (pp. 3–12). USP. Thaman, K. H. (1993). Culture and the curriculum in the South Pacific. Comparative Education, 29 (3), 249–260. Welch, A. R. (2001). Globalisation, post-modernity and the state: Comparative education facing the third millennium. Comparative Education, 37(4), 475–492.

11 Situating Russia in the Contemporary Globalized Context of African Americans and Black Populations Worldwide Challenges and Opportunities Kassie Freeman Historians, such as Hine and McLeod (1999), in their book Crossing Boundaries: Comparative History of Black People in Diaspora, and Okepewho, Davies, and Mazrui (1999), in their book, African Diaspora, have examined the historical influence of the Diaspora on the identities and experiences of Blacks. For example, their works raise such questions as the following: How did the Africans manage to create a viable life for themselves after they arrived in the New World? How were they able to negotiate the social, political, cultural, and other spaces they encountered (Okepewho et al., 1999, p. xi)? However, neither book linked the historical condition to the contemporary context, although it is widely accepted that Black people’s engagement with life-paths that bring economic and political upward mobility is very much linked to their past. Even so, McLeod (1999) perfectly captures the rationale for the necessity suggested in this research in her statement: What the African Diaspora paradigm affords us, therefore, is an opportunity for a genuinely comparative perspective that illuminates the particular historical experiences of African peoples both on the African continent and in its Diaspora. Quite unlike the traditional paradigms of power which locate Africa and her descendants at the periphery of every discourse, this paradigm of empowerment properly situates Africa and her Diaspora actively within the complex of New World history. (p. xix) Although these researchers’ examinations have focused on the broader questions of the diasporan experiences and Russia did not participate in the African slave trade, there were later Blacks who became a part of the Russian society (Blakely, 1986). The purpose of this chapter then, in the same way as outlined by McLeod, is to situate the contemporary context of Black populations in Russia at the center of the examination rather than at the periphery.

156 Kassie Freeman What are similarities of Black populations’ experiences in their participation in society, particularly when the controlling population is non-Black? What can be learned from the connected experiences of Black populations globally that will help illuminate or explicate the pattern of exclusion/ underutilization of Blacks’ participation in society? As Ahern (2007) states, “There is a long tradition of a visible Black population in European Russia which has gone largely unexplored” (p. 1). Fortunately, there are a few Russians, such as Matusevich (2007), who have written extensively about the linkages between Africa and Russia. Even so, aside from Maxim’s extensive work, much of the exploration of Blacks in Russia has been literary explorations. Yet, there are extremely important reasons to situate Russia in the globalized context of the current dilemmas in which Blacks are confronting in terms of educational and economic challenges and the daily human rights abuses they confront. Across Europe and America, although from different cultural backgrounds, there are similarities in both the challenges and the treatment that Blacks confront. An examination of the historical experiences of African Americans in contrast to current Africans’ experiences in Russia can shed new light on these questions. It can also lay the foundation for research that is so vitally important to better understanding the experiences of Black populations globally in countries where they are the minority population. A better understanding of the history of Blacks in Russia can shed light on the dilemmas that Blacks face worldwide.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF AFRICANS IN RUSSIA To be sure, there are similarities in the experiences of Blacks in the Diaspora. Yet, understandably there are differences. McLeod (1999) stated her position in this way: “People of African descent in the New World (the Americas and the Caribbean) share a common set of experiences: domination and resistance, slavery and emancipation, the pursuit of freedom, and struggle against racism. Similarly, Audre Lorde (1992), referencing differences between Afro-German women and other Black women, indicated that “particular histories have fashioned our particular weapons, our particular insights” (p. xiii). Yet no single explanation can capture the varied experiences of Black people in the Diaspora (McLeod, p. xix). Yet, in also indicating our sameness, Lorde posed a fundamental question: “As members of an international community of people of color, how do we strengthen and support each other in our battles against the rising international tide of racism?” (p. xiii). In response to this question, she stated: “To successfully battle the many faces of institutionalized racial oppression, we must share the strengths of each other’s vision as well as the weaponries born of particular experience” (p. xiii). In no arena is

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the battle more apparent and similar for Black populations than in their pursuit of education. As James Anderson has so rightly indicated in numerous writings and speeches (e.g., 1988), to understand the educational experiences of Blacks, it is necessary to examine the historical context of their existence. Although, as Lorde has indicated, Blacks in different countries have experienced particular histories, as it relates to their humanity and their pursuit of education, Blacks across societies have had similar experiences. The common historical linkage among Blacks in the Diaspora is captured by Opitz, Oguntoye, and Schultz (1992) who wrote in reference to Afro-Germans: “In the course of colonial exploitation, enslavement, and domination ‘Negro’ (from Latin niger, i.e., Black) became an especially negative epithet. The thinking underlying this label attempted to link physical characteristics with intellectual and cultural ones” (p. 7). That is, across cultures, being Black has historically been thought of as being intellectually inferior and being without a culture or having a primitive or uncivilized culture. What, then, makes understanding the history of Blacks in Russia different and important? Why does understanding the relationship between Blacks and Russians help to situate the current state of Blacks, including African Americans, in their challenges and opportunities in a globalized world? The history of the relationship between Blacks, beginning with Africans and including African Americans, was interesting because unlike most colonial powers, it was targeted and deliberative. Historians generally divide their examination of Russia’s relationship with African descendants into two broad periods: Russia’s Imperial Age (the reign of Peter I, 1682–1725) and Soviet Russia (Blakely, 1986). According to Blakely, the Imperialist Age, which began so many important developments in Russian history, “is also the most convenient starting point for a study of the Negro in Russian history and thought” (p. 3). What makes better understanding Russia’s relationship with African descendants important is Tsarist’s Peter I calculated to establish broader relationships across the globe. Unlike western European powers, Russia did not participate in the African slave trade. It was through Peter I’s vision to open access for Russia, particularly his new capital, St. Petersburg, as a “window into Europe” (Blakely, 1986, p. 3). According to some historians (Blakely, 1986; Wilson, 1974), because there were no Negro inhabitants of the original lands, it was mainly through the subsequent expansion of contacts with the outside world that Blacks came to be involved in the Russian experience. It is important to remember that although African descendants were not brought to Russia through the slave trade and there was a virtual absence of slavery, many Blacks were situated in Caucasus (outside of the mainstream) and others occupied roles as servants and slaves. This early period in Russian history can be contrasted to the Soviet period for which most people are familiar because it highlights the period more specifically of

158 Kassie Freeman “The Negro Question” (Blakely, 1986, p. 105). According to Wilson (1974), it was the Fourth Comitern Congress held in Moscow in December 1922 that was the real beginning of an active policy on the Negro question. With its beginning in 1917, driven by Marxist ideology, Soviet Russia’s goal was to position itself as the self-proclaimed champion of the oppressed and antithesis of the capitalism and imperial around the world. Having been historically oppressed by virtue of their prevailing economic, political, and economic conditions, it is no surprise that Soviet would target Black populations of Africa and the Americans to participate in a revolution against prevailing powers. It is necessary to understand the “Negro question” from the perspective of the perception (the Soviet Union) and the perceived (the “Negro”), according to Blakely (1986). The Soviet’s initial interest was desire for domination and political, to incite worldwide revolution. As such, it was a primary avenue to further destabilize America. The Civil Rights Movement further heightened the Soviet’s interest in America. Because of the Black condition in America and around the world, the Soviet Union was enticing and was viewed as a potential “promise land.” The lure for many African Americans to the Soviet Union was to escape the brutality of slavery. Individuals, such as Homer Smith (1964), were lured to Russia. However, once there, he found it ironic that Russians would attempt to dramatize the “Negro” condition in America when similar treatment for African Americans existed there. The Soviet strategy was to entice African American participation by offering educational opportunities and establishing relationships to the most visible African American artists. As Homer Smith (1964) wrote, he was asked by a Russian publisher to write an article about the Negro condition in the United States. However, he stated the article was never published, although he was paid 1,000 rubles because “I had made the mistake of writing a balanced article, showing both the dark and bright sides of Negro life in America. What was wanted, no doubt, was only the dark side” (p. 84). The intent was to romanticize Black opportunities in Russian society through an intentionalized emphasis on relationships with leading African American scholars and artists.

AFRICAN AMERICAN EXPERIENCES IN RUSSIA THROUGH THE LENS OF LITERARY EXPLORATIONS As stated by Baldwin (2002), “‘Black internationalism’ cannot be understood without documenting the specific interaction between Soviet ideology and Black American aspiration toward racial liberation and a society free of racism” (p. 3). Some of the leading scholars who both participated in and promoted this ideology were McKay, Hughes, DuBois, and Roberson. The “Negro question” as it was captured in the dialogue between the Soviet

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Union and African Americans was captured by these writers and fueled a desire in African Americans to look beyond its borders to escape racism. Consequently, it is crucial to understand the influence of these writers on African Americans because they both influenced other writers and can be thought of as opening possibilities for African Americans who wanted to explore the Soviet Union as an alternative to their treatment in America. For example, there is documentation from various writings, including media coverage of DuBois, McKay, and Roberson’s experiences with and in the Soviet Union. These interactions, according to Baldwin (2002), served a reciprocal purpose. On the one hand, they demonstrated the reception these artists received from the Soviets. On the other hand, they served to have an impact on these individuals’ perceptions of the Soviet Union, “their sense of status, place, and belonging.” Together, these elements produced a dialogue that was key to the formulations of Black internationalism that emerged from these encounters. Reclaiming the transnational routings of this Black radicalism—that led these men to the Soviet Union in the fi rst place and to contemplate U.S. race relations from a new perspective” (p. 5). It is as Baldwin (2002) indicated, “Although in the twentieth century the concept of the ‘international’ has distinct links to Soviet rhetoric, the interplay between black American culture and the Soviet Union in the formation of internationalism has not been suffi ciently explored” (p. 3). Although writers, such as, Hughes, Robeson, DuBois, and McKay had different experiences with Russia, according to Baldwin, these artists were led to the Soviet Union to consider race relations from a different, broader perspective. Each of these literary legends, through their interactions with Russia, not only broadened cultural boundaries but also enhanced their individual contributions to the literary world. For example, although Hughes had to renounce his opinions of the Soviet Union in the 1950s, according to Baldwin (2002), earlier drafts of his memoir “make manifest Hughes’s enthusiasm in the 1930s for the experience of racial equality to which the Soviet experience in Central Asia exposed him, they also provide a means of tracking the instrumentality of feminine identification to this experience” (p. 88). Like Hughes, there is no question that these writers’ interactions with Russians had reciprocal influences, not only on them personally, but also on the literary world and even now. That is, these American artists’ writings were enhanced, as were those of Russian artists. The example of Dostoevsky and DuBois serves as an excellent example of the valuing and influence that each had on their writings. Their writings, according to Peterson (2000), are “recognized as the foundational documentary accounts of modern Russian and African American cultural nationalism” (p. 60). It is ironic, then, that after such harmonious beginnings between Russians and Africans and African Americans, the relationship has somehow shifted to Blacks living in Russia fearful for their safety and/or lives.

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CURRENT BLACK POPULATION CHALLENGES IN RUSSIA From those past relationships with Africa to now, Blacks fi nd themselves in an unsettling, hostile climate in Russia. Crimes against Blacks have risen sharply as in other parts of Europe. In 2005, according to Meyer (2007), there were 31 murders and 382 assaults against people of color. It is noteworthy to better understand the rationale of these attacks to compare and contrast similarities with other countries.

Education Participation It is through the lens of educational experiences that societies can truly see how they value differences. Examining education as a commodity, who and how different individuals have the opportunity to invest and participate in education and how individuals benefit from their return on investment demonstrates how really a society welcomes and values different groups, in this case African descendants. Given the linkages between education, economic development, and oppression, it is surprising that so little research is conducted in this area. Freeman’s (2005) research has demonstrated these linkages. Even so, there is a dearth of research regarding these linkages. In most countries, struggles ensue over who should participate in education and particularly over who should pay. As Meyer’s (2007) writings suggest, “The attacks hit especially hard at natives of Third World countries who have come to Russia to study, because of the country’s comparatively low tuition costs or because they are blocked from studying in the West by stringent visa regimes” (p. 2). Even though this is the case, many African descendants endure such treatment because, as one student indicated, “But you realize that you came for a noble cause, to get an education, and you are obliged to go through with it” (Meyer, 2007, p. 3). It is this very climate that is deterring or intended to deter who comes to study in Russia, as Meyer (2007) noted. Some of the misperception is that African students are taking college places away from Russians. It is ironic that the very country that used to be so welcoming of African descendants to study and thereby to enhance their economic opportunities has now created the notion that Blacks who come to their country to study are taking opportunities from Russians.

Fault Belongs to the Victim (Drugs and Crimes) As in most countries, and Russia is no exception, the current treatment of Blacks is placed on them, either by the perception that they are taking from the society and giving nothing back or they are creating problems through criminal activities. As one African student noted, “Sadly . . . the stereotype of the drug dealer in the media here is the Black student” (Jackson, 2006, p. 2).

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Differentiation is not made between African descendants who are citizens or who are longtime residents of Russia and recent African immigrants. There is an over-looming culture of fear for Blacks in Russia. So much so that, as one African stated, “life means always being home by 9 p.m., never using public transit, and hearing abusive remarks when he goes out in public with his White wife” (Meyer, 2007, p. 2). Most Blacks are targeted as criminals and, therefore, treated harshly by police and other Russians, often perpetuated by the media. As often seen in the media, Africans are often highlighted as the scapegoats for the Russian society’s ills and the media often fosters images of African students as drug dealers (Jackson, 2006).

Knowing Thou Place A common perception about individuals who are different, particularly by ethnicity, is that they have a place and they should stay in it. This perception creates difficulties for everyone because it creates a culture of fear. As an example, a Black man living in Russia is quoted as saying, “Life means always being close to home, being limited in activities, and generally living a life of fear” (Meyer, 2007). This captures what happens when the notion is that individuals, by virtue of their ethnicity, have a place in society, that is, in Russia, and it is unacceptable to go beyond it. Yet, the larger public is a silent partner in keeping individuals, in this case, Blacks in Russia, in their place. Their world is limited by time and space, simply by virtue of their difference.

SITUATING RUSSIA IN THE CURRENT WORLDWIDE STRUGGLE FOR BLACK POPULATIONS: LESSONS AND OPPORTUNITIES It is necessary to better understand what happened to cause the historical linkages between Russia and African descendants to create an environment for the current hate crimes to be perpetrated and tolerated. In order to address these types of crimes globally, such lessons can be instructive for other countries. Other countries can benefit from the early relationship between Russians and African Americans where there was great enthusiasm between Russia and Africa. Yet, equally as instructive is better understanding what about the past relationship led to the current hate crimes committed against Blacks. Given Russia’s unique history in the Black world, either through its relationship with Africa and/or its relationship with African American literary elites, there are many lessons to be learned from Russia. Therefore, it is particularly important for a country, like Russia, that resisted participation in the slave trade to fashion different experiences for African descendants,

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particularly related to schooling experiences and the utilization of Blacks’ potential. Logically and intuitively, if Russia resisted the inhumane treatment of Africans during the slave trade, it should lead other countries in the treatment of Blacks, whether citizens, students, or visitors. This work merely begins the process of the examination of the transition in the relationship between Blacks and Russians. Yet, it is a relationship that bears much greater understanding, particularly for lessons that can be instructive for other countries.

REFERENCES Ahern, K. M. (2007). Blacks in European Russia 1700—2000. Retrieved from http//www.best.uni-Mainz.de/modules/AMS/article.php Anderson, J. D. (1988). The education of Blacks in the South, 1860–1935. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press. Baldwin, K. A. (2002). Beyond the color line and the iron curtain. Reading encounters between Black and Red, 1922–1963. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Blakely, A. (1986). Russia and the Negro: Blacks in Russian history and thought. Washington, DC: Howard University Press. Freeman, K. (2005). Black populations globally: The costs of the underutilization of Blacks in education. In J. E. King (Ed.). Black education and action agenda for the new century (pp. 135–156). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. Hine, D. C., & McLeod, J. (Eds.). (1999). Crossing boundaries: Comparative history of Black people in Diaspora. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Jackson, P. (2006, February 24). Living with race hate in Russia. BBC News Website, Moscow. Lorde, A. (1992). Foreword to the English language edition. In M. Opitz, K. Oguntoye, & D. Schultz (Eds.). Showing our colors: Afro-German women speak out. London, England: Open Letters. Matusevich, M. (Ed.). (2007). Africa in Russia, Russia in Africa: Three centuries of encounters. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. McLeod, J. (1999). “Introduction” in D. C. Hines & J. McLeod (Eds.), Crossing boundaries: Comparative history of Black people in Diaspora (p. xix). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Meyer, H. (2007). Dark-skinned foreigners in Russia blighted. Retrieved from http://www.africancrisis.org/ZZZ/ZZZ_News_008510.asp Okepewho, I, Davies, C. B., & Mazrui, A. A. (Eds.). (1999). African Diaspora: African origins and new world identities. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Opitz, M. Oguntoye, K., & Schultz, D. (Eds.). (1992). Showing our colors: AfroGerman women speak out. London, England: Open Letters. Peterson, D. E. (2000). The literatures of Russian and African American soul: Up from bondage. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Smith, H. (1964). Black man in Russia: A memoir. Chicago, IL: Johnson Publishing Company. Wilson, E. (1974). Russia and Black Africa before World War II. New York, NY: Holmes & Meir Publishers.

12 Structured Partialities The African Educational Experience in Ireland Larissa Malone

INTRODUCTION When I fi rst read an article entitled “Ireland Forced to Open Immigrant School” in The Guardian (MacDonald, 2007), a national British daily newspaper, I felt as if I had traveled back in time and I was reading the pages of a newspaper from the mid-twentieth century. As an American, I was all too familiar with the dangerous plight of segregation and how schools were reflective of the societal struggle for equality. The article was about how Black people in Ireland were having an extremely difficult time being admitted to local schools. Many of the individuals that were refused admission were accusing the schools of allowing their admission process to being openly racist. For example, some of the Black parents featured in the article quoted a representative from a school as stating that the reasoning behind refusing their admission was justified because “we only pick our own” (McDonald, 2007). Being an educator with a strong interest in multiculturalism, I truly had to do a double take to reassure myself that I was reading about a contemporary event and not from a caption of the American civil rights movement. My initial thought was, “Surely, a civilized, learned, Westernized country like Ireland knows the basics of handling integration and education and is aware of the outcome of Brown v. Board of Education.” My second thought was, “Shouldn’t Ireland, a country that has experienced a scattering of its own citizens, appreciate the struggle of individuals of the African diaspora?” In the article, the Republic of Ireland honored the obligation to educate all children by opening an alternative school, sponsored by a non-governmental organization that had a multicultural and non-religious ethos that opened its arms to the rejected population. While I had some satisfaction that the Black children were receiving an education, the article left me unsettled and desiring to know more about what led up to the circumstances surrounding this incident. While learning about how the educational system in Ireland was treating Black people, I also became interested in Critical Race Theory (CRT), an intricate evaluation of how race and power interplay in culture and society.

164 Larissa Malone While CRT has its birth in the legal community, the framework is readily applicable to many social science disciplines, such as psychology, sociology, and ethnic studies. It also has begun to be used as a way in which to examine and explain the structural inequities of educational institutions and how the current infrastructure and relationship between race and power inevitably lead to partialities. Although it is considered to be in the developmental application stages in education, CRT has been used successfully in researching experiences in schools and I thought it wise to use it in the examination of the history and political composition of Ireland, to understand the construction of Irish culture and identity, and how these factors have culminated in the separation of traditional and nontraditional Irish in their educational system. What political, cultural, and identity factors played a role in the construction of the Irish society’s framework? What circumstances existed in the infrastructure of the Irish educational system allowed for this to occur? In short, how did the Republic of Ireland get here? This essay explores the planning and development, the political landscape, and the population and social issues of Ireland and how these attributes have contributed to the education of African migrants. In addition, this research gives direction to future inquiries regarding the educational experiences of African descendants in the Republic of Ireland, as well as reiterating trends in the study of the African Diaspora.

CRITICAL RACE THEORY FRAMEWORK CRT has its roots in the domain of legal critical studies. The father of CRT is considered to be Derrick Bell, an attorney heavily involved in the process of desegregating the American school system after the landmark decision of Brown v. Board of Education. After personally leading the desegregation process for over 300 schools during the period in which the legal proclamation was forced, Bell ultimately was disillusioned of the possibility of racial equality in the U.S. (Delgado & Stefancic, 2005). Out of his experience was born a scholarship that critiqued the foundation of American society and the inevitable perpetuation of inequity because of the unavoidable linkage between race and power (Bell, 1980, 1987, 2004; Delgado & Stefancic, 2001). CRT has made its way into a variety of social science fields as a way in which to analyze the relationship between race and power. Ladson-Billings and Tate (1995) introduced CRT to the field of education, illustrating how it could be used as an effective research analysis tool. Their research showcased that the same long-standing race ailments that exist in many of America’s institutions, also exist in America’s schools. Their scholarship puts forth that the systemic link between race and power are at the foundation of American educational institutions. Ten years after Ladson-Billings and Tate’s publication, Dixson and

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Rousseau (2005) provided a compilation of relevant scholarship that used the CRT framework to analyze and critique the role of race and racism in various educational settings, including notable scholarship that captured the work of several researchers since CRT’s initial introduction to the field of education (Fernandez, 2002; Morris, 2001; Parker & Lynn, 2002; Solorzano & Yosso, 2002; Taylor, 2000; Teranishi, 2002; Villalpando & Delgado Bernal, 2002). Beyond 2005, the CRT framework continues to contribute to the field of education as an instrument of critical investigation in elementary, secondary, and higher education (Aleman, 2007; Decuir-Gunby, 2007; Harper, Patton, & Ontario, 2009; Hiraldo, 2010; Iverson, 2007; Picower, 2009). Although using CRT as a tool of analysis may differ slightly from scholar to scholar, most CRT researchers agree that the following principles form its theoretical framework: permanence of racism, Whiteness as property, interest convergence, the critique of liberalism, and counter-storytelling.

Permanence of Racism This is one of the major thrusts put forth by CRT, as it shapes the ideology from which this analytical tool flows. Permanence of racism is acknowledging the role race has played in shaping history and the role race continues to play in shaping most realms of our society, be it economical, political, or social. It is an acknowledgement that society’s institutions cannot have a different moral center than the individuals that are in charge of it, and all individuals, in varying degrees and in different levels of consciousness, allow race to matter. This is the vantage point that CRT operates from and is a key and essential element to the movement.

Whiteness as Property Just as African Americans were considered property during the period of slavery in the U.S. because of their skin color, Whites can also “package” their race as a commodity or object that can be possessed and used to gain access to privilege. Possession of this skin color has its benefits, such as entry to places and accessibility to people in society. The tenet of Whiteness as property also denotes exclusion for other races; if one does not have this property of skin color, he or she can be restricted from certain advantages. Whiteness as property was explicated by Harris (1993), where she discusses the legal interpretation of property as seen as more of a right than possession of a physical object. The principle of Whiteness as property is applied to the field of education in work that examines tracking and the disproportionate numbers of students of color in remedial education (DarlingHammond 1997, 2010), and the overrepresentation of students of color in underfunded urban schools systems (Kozol, 1991, 2005).

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Interest Convergence Interest convergence is defi ned as the willingness of White people to initiate or yield to policies of equity only when it is predicated upon a benefit to the dominant population (Delgado & Stefancic, 2005). Interest convergence usually requires the dominant culture to give up very little and allow people of color to only make marginal progress. Decuir and Dixson (2004) give an example of this in their work when illustrating that a young student of color was accepted and recruited to a prestigious school, only to realize on his fi rst day of school that their fi rst interest in him was not academic, but for his involvement in their athletic program. This example demonstrates that although, at face value, policies of equity have been implemented, sometimes they are put in place simultaneously to benefit the dominant group of a society.

Critique of Liberalism Meritocracy, the lofty idea that social mobility is largely due to one’s effort and not shaped by race, class, privilege, or wealth is a concept heavily criticized by CRT scholars. Colorblindness and the neutrality of the law are also closely linked to the ideology of liberalism and are considered dangerous concepts that are roadblocks to substantial civil rights progress, diffusing the possibility of real equity from taking place. Because the weights of race, class, and power are rarely dealt with or felt in their entirety, only small, miniscule, incremental changes are made toward social justice (Bell, 1987).

Counter-storytelling Typically, events of the past are presented as a master narrative, usually giving an idealized version of occurrences, with the voices of the mainstream being heard not only loudly and clearly, but also singularly. A goal of CRT is to counteract this trend by providing a platform for voices that are typically marginalized. By allowing the experiences of people of color to be heard, experiences that may differ from that of the master narrative, it provides the opportunity for a more accurate portrayal of events and allows for a more holistic picture to be painted of the multiple realities of an occurrence. Decuir-Gunby (2007) offers an excellent example of counter-storytelling in her work that examines the experiences of African American high school students at an independent school and how their experiences not only shape their race and class identities, but also broaden the defi nitional context of how their school is perceived. Some critics of CRT fi nd the highlighting of race as the single most important strand of oppression can narrow the complexity of discrimination in our society (Cole, 2009). Looking at race with broad strokes and acknowledging the inseparable way race, class, gender, and other “isms” are interlinked (Fine & Weis, 2003; Spring, 2003; Weis & Fine, 2005), however,

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places CRT in an inclusive context, with the term “race” encompassing so much more than just skin color or birthright heritage. The combination of these central tenets of CRT creates an interdisciplinary objective of debunking traditional concepts of discourse that place race as a secondary thought when considering a social justice issue in education. Instead, CRT infuses race centrally into the argument of educational equality and compounds the construction of race with class, and power, creating a strong linkage to historical and political contexts. With the ultimate goal of progressive social justice in mind, this theoretical framework assists in uncovering and exposing the influence of race in the development of government policy and societal infrastructures and, thus, is the framework of choice for my analysis of the educational system in Ireland. CRT has its roots in the U.S. and was developed primarily through examination of the experiences of people of African descent in the U.S. Its extension to other societies draws on the strength of research that has demonstrated the similarity of experiences of people of the African diaspora (Freeman, 2003; Okpewho, Davies, & Mazrui, 2001; Walker & Archung, 2003; Wright & Weekes, 2003) that use CRT to assist in revealing the common threads and help redefine and identify the barriers that prevent full integration and citizenship for individuals and groups living outside of the U.S. CRT’s cross-applicability has already been demonstrated in Critical Race Feminism (CRF), Latino Critical Race Studies (LatCrit), and Asian American Critical Race Studies (AsianCrit), and its use in a global context has promising perspectives. Though the interpretations and defi nition of race, ethnicity, and class differ from location to location, the uniting goal of equitable rights for all remains the same and it is this truth that substantiates the examination of the African experience in the Republic of Ireland through a CRT lens.

HISTORICAL, POLITICAL, AND SOCIAL CONTEXT The Republic of Ireland became an independent state in 1922 and is part of the European Union. It occupies one of the largest islands in Europe, inhabiting about five-sixths of this land mass. According to the Human Nations Development Programme (2009), which takes into account life expectancy, access to educational opportunities, and standard of living, the Republic of Ireland consistently ranks in the most progressive tier and is considered a “very high development” country, listed as number four in a longitudinal study that ranks the “top mover” countries over the last 40 years. With a population of over 4 million, the Republic of Ireland is regarded as a modern Westernized nation. National schools in the Republic of Ireland are mostly governed by the Catholic Church, with over 90% of schools falling into this category. Secondarily, there are also schools that are administered by other religious or

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cultural affi liations and a few educational institutions that operate independently of state funding. While admittance discrimination is against the law, preference given to students whose religious affiliations align with the school’s ethos is acceptable (Coolahan, 1981; McDonald, 2007). According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OCED), the Republic of Ireland is ranked fourteenth, in comparison to other nations on the Programme in International Student Assessment (PISA). Ireland is ranked above average for both science and math and has competitive statistics on other educational indicators, such as graduation rates, retention rates, and continued education beyond the compulsory years (DarlingHammond, 2010; Department of Education and Skills, 2010). A general sense of pride and strong national identity is often associated with the Republic of Ireland, the Irish people, and it descendents. The language and history of Ireland all contribute to the unique ethnic culture of the country, with many of its customs and traditions found in its Gaelic ancestry. Another large contributor to the uniqueness of Irish culture and its passionate sense of nationalism is its strong ties to the Roman Catholic Church, whose influence dates back centuries in the region. Throughout the nation’s history, many political and social decisions in Ireland are said to reflect the moral center of the Catholic Church, and thus, Catholicism is considered relatively central to the national identity of Ireland and the Irish way of life. While citizens of the Republic of Ireland may be proud of their heritage, for many years, the Irish had a tendency to leave their country behind and make their homes elsewhere in the world. Emigration from Ireland dates back to The Great Famine in the mid-nineteenth century and continued roughly through the late twentieth century, with small fluctuations from time to time due to varying population growth rates, limited periods of slower emigration, and insignificant increases in immigration to the country. The exception to this trend was during the 1960s when there was significant population growth, attributed mainly to the European Community, which resulted in many Irish people returning to their homeland due to economic growth and stability. In general, though, the Republic of Ireland saw their citizens leaving their homeland to seek political, social, and economic mobility elsewhere in the world (Mac Éinrí, 2001). Outside the borders of their home country, individuals who were part of the Irish Diaspora had varying acculturation experiences. While there are some Irish citizens that were accepted abroad, in general, many Irish re-locaters were not well-received in other Westernized countries. In the United Kingdom, for example, the Irish struggled with being accepted socially and were victims of such negative stereotyping as laziness, impoverishment, and immorality. This rocky relationship between the English and the Irish began on Ireland’s soil with the implementation of the Penal Laws that disenfranchised the Catholic Irish citizens and continued in the United Kingdom with the Irish often being treated like second class citizens

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upon arrival. Signs that read “Irish need not apply” and “No Blacks, No Dogs, and No Irish” that hung in public stores, shops, and local businesses during the mid-nineteenth century and extending into the early part of the twentieth century demonstrate the discrimination people of Irish descent experienced (Coogan, 2000). Similarly, in the U.S. during this same time period, Irish immigrants were met with discrimination. The Irish were habitually viewed as untrustworthy, unintelligent, and only suited for menial labor. Indeed, the hope for a brighter tomorrow in a new land was met with suspicion, blame, and bigotry. The Irish were even called “white Negro,” paralleling their social status to African Americans, who, at the time were legally considered subhuman. Their struggle to be socially accepted was even more complicated because of the Irish’s strong desire maintain their Catholicism and other traditions. Eventually, however, the Irish were accepted into the dominant culture of America, but this was after decades of struggle, enduring intolerance, and discrimination. It is worth mentioning here that a unique opportunity presented itself in the U.S., where the Irish could have developed solidarity with African Americans. Some prominent Irish even joined the abolitionist movement, recognizing the importance of ending bigotry and inequality. Eventually though, the Irish were able to become considered White, gaining acceptance despite religious and cultural differences, in part by purposefully distinguishing themselves from African Americans. This passage of the Irish in America from lowly immigrant to being part of the dominant race and their tumultuous relationship with the African American race is well documented and laid out succinctly in the work of Ignatiev (1995), which closely documents the Irish American’s struggle with identity, acculturation, and eventual assimilation. Back in Ireland, despite the negative treatment of the Irish abroad, the trend of Irish-born citizens leaving their home country continued steadily through the mid-1990s. In addition, very few non-Irish people moved into the country. This trend of emigration from Irish citizens coupled with the lack of immigration of foreign-born individuals making their home in Ireland led to a near stagnant population growth. In fact, it led to years of negative net migration, where the number of people leaving the country superseded the number of people coming into Ireland by far. During this time period, roughly from its declaration of independence to the late twentieth century, Ireland was mainly mono-ethnic (traditional Irish descent) and mono-religious (Roman Catholic), with few minorities and only small pockets of foreign-born residents as part of the general population. Irish nationalism was widespread and had deep historical roots among this relatively racially and culturally homogenous population. The national identity of the country had secure cultural boundaries, where iconic defi nitions concerning food, language, sports, religion, and other aspects of everyday life that defi ne a group of people were readily

170 Larissa Malone recognizable and understandably exclusive to those of Irish descent (Kee, 1972; White, 1996; Zuelow, 2009). The absence of new people making Ireland their home would come to an end during the era of the Celtic Tiger, which began in 1995 and lasted a little over a decade (Bartley & Kitchin, 2007). During this time period, Ireland experienced unprecedented economic growth, gaining one of the highest standards of living among European countries in a relatively short period of time. Many factors contributed to the sudden turnaround in the Irish economy, ranging from the attraction of subsidies for multinational corporations to years of increased investment in the education system that improved the quality of the workforce. A flourishing job market, historically low unemployment rates, and forecasted continued growth made Ireland very attractive to individuals looking for opportunity. The trend of negative net migration was over and the Republic of Ireland had more individuals coming to their country than leaving for the fi rst time in decades and a new Ireland emerged. The prospering economy, stable environment, and chance for fi nancial opportunity during the era of the Celtic Tiger attracted various migrants to the Republic of Ireland. One major group that came to Ireland consisted of Irish citizens who had left during times of economic downturn. Another major segment included groups that were part of the European Union, who wanted to benefit from the opportunities during this time of newfound prosperity. Thirdly, highly skilled workers were lured to Ireland by the possibility to participate in the growing Irish business community. Lastly, asylum seekers, persons fleeing other countries from fear of religious, social, or political persecution, were another major classification that was drawn to the Republic of Ireland, arriving with hopes of social and political stability, the possibility of employment opportunities, and desire to be part of the global phenomena occurring in a modernized country (Mac Éinrí, 2001). Asylum seekers came from Europe, Africa, and Asia. Between the years of 2000 and 2006 the countries that had the highest rates of asylum applications to Ireland were Nigeria, Romania, Czech Republic, Moldova, Congo, Ukraine, Zimbabwe, China, Sudan, Iran, and Iraq (Mac Éinrí, 2001). Of the foreign population immigrating to the Republic of Ireland, asylum seekers made up nearly 10%, with the numbers of individuals seeking residency in the country approaching 100,000 by the end of the Celtic Tiger era. In some years Africans consisted upwards of 25% of those seeking asylum (Cowley, Gilmartin, & Kitchin, 2008). While the booming economy was surely an attraction for asylum seekers, another major attraction that many felt made the Republic of Ireland a prime location to seek residence in was the liberal defi nition of citizenship in Ireland. During the onset of the Celtic Tiger Era, Ireland’s law read that anyone born on Ireland’s soil was entitled to citizenship. Known as jus soli, it is considered one of the most liberal citizenship policies and grants citizenship to anyone born on the geographic territory of a country. Globally,

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less than 20% of all countries practice jus soli, and is a rare practice in European countries (Ruhs, 2009). With jus soli in the Republic of Ireland’s constitution, a non-Irish individual could gain rights to permanent residency by simply having a child in Ireland. Ireland, for most of its history, had been completely racially homogeneous, and suddenly, one could not so easily tell who was Irish by fi rst glance anymore. The unprecedented number of foreign-born residents through this large influx of migration, coupled with the ease of becoming an Irish citizen, suddenly brought to the forefront the question of what qualified someone to be called Irish and how that might challenge the traditional imagination of Irish national identity. Some documentation indicates that jus soli was the motivator for individuals to come to the Republic of Ireland (Komolafe, 2010), although it is not really known how critical a role jus solis has played in influencing their decisions. Regardless of how popular this practice was, fear began to grow concerning Irish national identity. Asylum seekers became the target of this concern, and a dialogue began in the public sphere about whether Ireland was being taken advantage of by those born in other countries. Because Africans made up a large proportion of the non-native-born segment of society, the broad public assumption that most, if not all, Africans in Ireland were asylum seekers and that these Africans were subsequently taking unfair advantage of the relatively easy citizenship requirements spread quickly. In a very real sense, the categories of African and asylum seeker became synonymous and consequently associated with those that were seeking undeserving benefit from the Republic of Ireland. It became popular public opinion that Africans were swarming into the Republic of Ireland as asylum seekers and these Africans were not like the rest of the Irish population, but rather lazy and fraudulent (Cowley et al., 2008; Millar, 2005). In the media, it was evident that Africans/asylum seekers were a growing concern. Conway (2006) found that in one newspaper the topic of “migration,” “asylum seeker,” or “refugee” was mentioned 528 times from 1996 to 2004, years that are within the parameter of the Celtic Tiger Era. Haynes, Breen, and Devereux (2005) also discuss the frequency of the issue of asylum seekers and how this topic was becoming increasingly racialized in the media (as in Conway, 2006). This trend in the media is seen in the example of an article from The Age, where an Irish citizen is quoted saying, “I’m not a racist, but people from outside are abusing the system.” In another section of this same article, a second person is more straightforward in his association with negative views of Africans and asylum seekers when he is quoted as screaming, “Let’s get the f—-ing niggers out of Ireland” (Chrisafis, 2004). Droves of pregnant African woman rushing to make it into Ireland’s country border before they gave birth were the images that were conjured up in the minds of the Irish, as concern increased about the growing Black African community. Although asylum seekers composed less than 10% of the immigrating population coming in and Africans were only a portion

172 Larissa Malone of this small segment, the spotlight was often thrust upon this population. In 2002, a political figure stated that “the asylum seeker crisis was out of control and the country was being held hostage by spongers, wasters, and conmen” and then added more fuel to the fire by stating “putting large amounts of refugees from different ethnic backgrounds together was a powder keg waiting to explode” (Cowley et al., 2008). This political posturing translated to increased everyday racialized experiences, reflected in reports that indicated that those not native to Ireland were three times more likely to experience discrimination when seeking employment and that companies were more likely to interview applicants that had a recognizable and traditional Irish name (Ruhs, 2009). The issue of how to deal with an increasing multicultural population went from theoretical fear to tangible discriminatory reality fiercely and quickly. Although the fear of a cultural takeover was brewing in public and political circles, there were those who voiced equitable reason and publically dissented against the xenophobic attitude that seemed to be on the rise in the Republic of Ireland. National administrations and non-governmental organizations saw the importance of diffusing the growing racialized movement and placed emphasis on new initiatives that challenged the negative mantra that was being repeated by many Nationals against the recent arrivals (Cowley et al., 2008). During a moving public lecture, President Mary McAleese (2007) said, “Today’s emigrants to Ireland, whether they come from Poland or Nigeria . . . of all the people on the planet we have no excuse in Ireland for getting it wrong, and a lot of work is going on to trying to get it right.” Indeed, there was true recognition and a genuine movement to intercept the negative attention given to African asylum seekers. It was also a moment of public recognition that the question of what being Irish meant was actively trying to be negotiated by its countrymen. It was clear that Ireland had a choice to make between maintaining the status quo nationalism or develop a more expansive defi nition of what it meant to be Irish. Despite public recognition and acknowledgement that the Republic of Ireland needed to safeguard the treatment of newcomers and do more to ensure equity, the ultimate answer of who was really Irish was answered with the passing of the 2004 Citizen Referendum. This referendum modified the jus soli citizenship policy and mandated that a child born on Ireland soil was only granted citizenship if it could be proven that one of the parents were of Irish descent or that both parents had resided legally in the Republic of Ireland for 3 years consistently (Cowley et al., 2008; Ruhs, 2009). Supported by over 75% of the voters, many critics saw the entire proposal as a racially motivated scheme and the ultimate sign of intolerance under the guise of shoring up safe borders and protecting the economic well-being of the country. What it meant to be “Irish” had been redefi ned in no uncertain terms and the question of national identity had been answered by the people of Ireland.

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The Republic of Ireland has a rich and unique experience that is unparalleled in many ways to that of other countries. A long history of emigration makes them one of a few cultural groups that have experienced large-scale Diaspora, as few other European countries have experienced emigration for as long and as consistently as the Republic of Ireland. And few countries have seen a return of their native born alongside an unprecedented increase of migration at such a fast rate, as seen during the Celtic Tiger Era. The public negotiation of a national identity during a sensational economic time contributes to the level of complexity of the situation in the Republic of Ireland. Painting a picture of the historical, political, and social atmosphere of the Republic of Ireland sets the context in which further discussion can take place regarding the African experience in Ireland.

CRITICAL RACE THEORY AND AFRICANS IN IRELAND The redefi nition of Irish identity set the stage for the opening of an all-Black school in the Republic of Ireland mentioned in the introduction of this paper. The use of CRT as an analysis tool allows for the enquiry of the segregatory undertone of the headlines. Discussing the situation with knowledge of the political landscape and application of the historical perspective, both socially and legally, allows for a relative and appropriate exploration into the state of affairs surrounding the attention-grabbing caption.

Permanence of Racism The educational experience of Africans in the Republic of Ireland undeniably aligns with the negative experiences of Africans in other parts of the world. Individuals who are part of the African Diaspora have consistently been a part of a permanent global underclass. Though the details of the story differ, the outcome remains the same. The marker of skin tone and the way in which society sanctions and permits this factor to bring out the worst in individuals seem to occur time and time again. From South Africa to the U.S., to South America to Australia, racism has been unavoidable and unmovable, always the elephant in the room, regardless in what part of the globe that room is located. In the Republic of Ireland, the permanence of racism transcends any one area of society. The Irish Human Rights Commission, the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism, and other nongovernmental human rights organizations have publically made available a variety of research, documents, and statements that describes race discrimination in the workplace, selective and slow processing of African asylum seekers’ applications for refugee status, and violent and racially motivated criminal activity. All of this aligns closely with CRT’s tenet that race is a driving force shaping life experiences in the public and private spheres.

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Race shapes our institutions and is a factor that is not easily circumvented, but rather is key to the construction of both our everyday decision processes and long-term outcomes. Specific to education, the permanence of racism is essential to understanding the discrimination experienced by the African that school administrators denied admittance to in the Republic of Ireland. While racial discrimination is against the law, the preference given to students whose religious practices align with the school ethos can easily become problematic, given the close relationship of race and religion in many cases (McDonald, 2007). Even if citizenry had been achieved and proven, the personal interpretation of the law gives the right for “we only take our own” to be uttered by the school representative and is publicly justifiable because religion plays such a major role in everyday life the Republic of Ireland. The interlocking of religion with race is undeniable, in this case, as the school that opened to accommodate those that were not offered regular admission to the local schools turned out to be 95% Black (AlJazeera English, 2007). Here, religion has served as a proxy for race, which ultimately led to exclusion. This speaks loudly to the role that race played and the way in which integration was avoided based on race.

Whiteness as Property Due to the Irish’s similar experiences of discrimination, it could be anticipated that foreigners would have been welcomed. To the contrary, when immigration began to noticeably increase during the Celtic Tiger Era, groups identified as foreign born were perceived negatively and the willingness of many Irish to ease integration of Africans was not the case. The negative experience of the Irish abroad as a non-dominant culture did not translate into a universal national sympathy that sought to ease the discomfort of groups that found themselves in a similar situation in their homeland. Perhaps this is because of the way in which Irish sought to resolve their assimilation hardships abroad, especially in the U.S. After experiencing discrimination and second-rate citizenry in America, the Irish, rather than align themselves with other groups that were experiencing similar obstacles, distanced themselves from these groups. Actively collaborating with discriminatory practices of the dominant culture against African Americans, Irish Americans assimilated with the dominant culture because of the likeness of skin tone (Ignatiev, 1995). The value of White skin as a property was learned by the Irish and they took full advantage of it. The experience of the Irish American and their relationship with African Americans is best summarized by The Liberator (1854): “Passage to the United States seems to produce the same effect upon the exile of Erin as the eating of the forbidden fruit did upon Adam and Eve. In the morning, they were pure, loving and innocent, in the evening guilty” (as in Ignatiev, 1995).

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In the case of the educational experiences of Africans in the Republic of Ireland, the principle of Whiteness as property is revealed through the ability to exclude individuals that do not possess the commodity of Whiteness. The visual cue of skin tone allows schools to see readily who fits the usual and traditional mode of Irish citizenry. Rather than reflecting on the lessons learned from being part of a non-dominant group in a foreign country to generate a sincere sense of sympathy and understanding, the Irish drew from their legacy in which they separated themselves from those that were in struggle for social justice—those who did not have the benefit or ability to have Whiteness as their property. In particular, the property of Whiteness is used as a tool of exclusion from traditional Irish schooling, something that should be a right as a member of the Irish community. However, because Africans do not possess this property of Whiteness, they are disregarded during the school admission process, disenfranchising them from participating in the normal privilege and activity of Irish citizens.

Interest Convergence The implementation of educational policies that address human rights initiatives is often laden with benefits for the dominant culture. An example of this is a Black student’s admission to a prestigious educational institution that is predominantly White, only to be overrepresented in media advertisement, with that Black student becoming the face of multiculturalism. The Black student receives a quality education, but perhaps the main interest for admission is the bragging rights of the school to claim pluralism and diversity. In this situation, the dominant culture may have even put into place diversity guidelines that helped ensure equal rights, which certainly benefits underrepresented minority populations. Yet, the goal is to simultaneously boost diversity of the institution, which gives benefit to the dominant group. When the all-Black school was opened in Ireland, the attendees surely benefited from the opportunity to be educated in a school that was multidenominational and had strong intercultural themes. This was certainly an opportunity to be grateful for, and it was one that could possibly be seen as ideal by some. However, the opening of this school that addressed the needs of the African population of Ireland also answered some of the needs of the dominant culture as well. No longer did the Irish school have to “look out for their own,” but rather they were able to send Black students to a legitimate alternative school. The benefit of this arrangement was complementary because the opening of the all-Black school allowed the government to meet the legal obligation of compulsory education. It also enabled it to avoid the direct need to deal with issues of discrimination, the problem of migration, and the difficulties of integration. In short, Ireland did not have to modify or address fundamental principles that are core to

176 Larissa Malone the construction of Ireland’s educational system that need to be redesigned to address issues of human rights.

Critique of Liberalism Ireland has a reputation of being a welcoming country (Zuelow, 2009). No stranger to discrimination abroad, the country often sympathized with global social injustice. During the Celtic Tiger Era, the government foresaw problems that might jeopardize human rights issues and proactively implemented a Ministry of Integration to deal head on with issues that might arise (Bartley & Kitchin, 2007). However, not addressing the issues of race, class, and privilege in their entirety is often a roadblock to substantial progress, diffusing the possibility of greater equity to exist. Despite noble efforts, often masked underneath initiatives is a fear and hesitancy to embrace and accept real change. The 2004 Citizen Referendum that modified the policy of citizenship is an example of the problematic nature of liberalism. The campaign for the referendum was neutral in wording, calling for “common sense citizenship,” which was presented as benefiting all citizens of Ireland with no respect to race (Cowley et al., 2008). The issue of was essentially swept under the rug through liberalistic jargon, although race was an essential motivating factor for the introduction of the referendum. The rhetoric of equality was there, but the reality of equity was not. Just enough was done to accommodate marginal progress and to address the obligations of the state. However, disturbance of the status quo that required true self-sacrifice, a reexamination of national priorities, and a new defi nition of national identity was avoided.

Counter-storytelling What were the true motivating factors that attracted descendants of Africa to the Republic of Ireland? What appeal did Ireland offer for these asylum seekers to make this new country their permanent residence? What was the reaction to the proposal and passing of the 2004 Citizen Referendum among the Africans in Ireland? Was this a similar or different reaction from other groups? It is necessary to address these questions in order that discussion can go beyond speculation. If these questions go unanswered and the phenomena is not captured in the voices of those that have experienced this, then history is endangered of being written as a master narrative of lofty ideals that misses the interpretive voice of the lived experience. Although fully exploring these questions goes beyond the scope of this paper, there are venues providing insights into how Africans are experiencing their newly adopted home. In a video released in a public technological forum, African parents are gathered on the streets of Ireland and a call and response takes place between a mother with a bullhorn and her audience.

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“Who are our children?” The crowd responds in unison, “Irish Citizens!” (YouTube, 2006). This public rally and its dialogue show the desire that parents have for their children to be accepted and integrated into Irish society. Another video captures the reaction of a mother of a child attending the new Black school. She states, “It is good to mix everybody together so that we can become one” (AlJazeera English, 2007). These African voices demonstrate the appreciation for educational accommodation, but the desire for her child to have a chance to integrate into the mainstream. These two examples are just a small beginning to a perspective that needs to be researched and explored. When the school was opened, what was the reaction of the African population? What did this population feel was the driving force behind the decision and how did that get expressed, if at all? In order to present an accurate account, multiple perspectives must be considered and this is the importance of counter-storytelling when addressing the African educational experience in the Republic of Ireland. The power of voice, especially those representing segments of society that are not readily included and are historically underrepresented, cannot be overemphasized and is essential to a more complete reckoning of the social and historical context. Unfortunately, there is a little documentation and data available that gives voice to Africans in Ireland, in particular the reaction surrounding the Black school. This further strengthens the argument for the need of counter-storytelling, for little research has been conducted on the African educational experiences in Ireland. Additionally, the research that exists is often not from the perspective of Africans in Ireland, even if it is written from a social justice perspective.

CONCLUSION In the Irish experience in America, there was an opportunity for the Irish to gain solidarity with African Americans—an opportunity for the Irish Diaspora to unite with the African Diaspora to unite and fight for social justice together. It was a chance for Ireland to demonstrate itself as an inclusive and accepting nation and people. Instead, the need for self-preservation won, and the Irish joined the ranks of the dominant culture by building a wedge between them and the African American community. In early America, the Irish were minorities, a non-dominant group, much like African Americans. The Irish seized the opportunity to not be considered the underdog and eased their way into the dominant culture. Although no bigotry is excusable, perhaps it is understandable in the case of Irish in America, as they were negotiating their own space and struggling with how their heritage and identity could acculturate into this new world. In the current situation in Ireland though, this is not the case. This was the Irish’s native country and they are not in competition with another

178 Larissa Malone minority group, but rather they are the dominant population. Although there was negativity about Black foreigners in particular, there was a cry from some Irish that it was a moment for them to stand up for social justice. Indeed, there was no excuse for Ireland not to “get it right.” Despite the desire of some for civil rights to prevail, there loomed the persistent cloud of racism. The buildup to the exclusion of Africans in the Irish educational system further reiterates the active struggle and ongoing negotiation of the historical, political, and social contexts, as seen through the lens of CRT. In writing about the Irish Diaspora in America, Frederick Douglass states in 1853, “The Irish, who, at home, readily sympathize with the oppressed everywhere, are instantly taught when thy stop upon our soil to hate and despise the Negro . . . Sir, the Irish American will one day find out his mistake” (Ignatiev, 1995). Fast-forwarding to the twenty-first century, when the Irish, in their homeland, are confronted with descendants of the African Diaspora, social justice has yet to prevail. One can only speculate if the cultural absorption of African-born citizens was slow and steady, for surely the matter was complicated by the economic boom of the Celtic Tiger Era and the large migrating shift from emigration to immigration. Perhaps, the negotiation and redefinition of a national identity would not have been so critical and have such rigid boundaries. What does it mean to be Irish? The sons and daughters of Ireland answered this question in one breath of nativism. The outcome in Ireland’s educational institutions can be no different than the society in which these facilities exist, reflecting the historical, political, and social responses, which, in turn, reflect the moral center of the people.

REFERENCES Aleman, Jr., E. (2007). Situating Texas school fi nance policy in a CRT framework: How “substantially equal” yields racial equality. Educational Administration Quarterly, 43 (5), 525–558. AlJazeera English. (2007). Ireland’s immigration integration problem. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OCVG32sKmU&NR=1&feature=fvwp Bartley, B., & Kitchin, R. (2007). Understanding contemporary Ireland. London: Pluto Press. Bell, D. (1987). And we are not saved: The elusive quest for racial justice. New York: Basic Books. Bell, D. (1980). Shades of brown: New perspectives on school desegregation. New York: Teachers College Press. Bell, D. (2004). Silent covenants: Brown v. Board of Education and the unfulfilled hopes for racial reform. New York: Oxford University Press. Chrisafis, A. (2004, June 22). Ireland struggles with migration issue. The Age. Retrieved from http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/06/21/108766991223 4.html?from=storylhs Cole, M. (2009). Critical race theory and education: A Marxist response. New York: Palgrave McMillan. Coogan, T. P. (2000). Wherever green is worn: The story of the Irish diaspora. New York: Palgrave.

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Coolahan, J. (1981). Irish education: Its history and structure. Dublin: Institute of Public Administration. Conway, B. (2006). Who do we think we are? Immigration and the discursive construction of national identity in an Irish daily mainstream newspaper, 1996–2004. The Irish Migration, Race and Social Transformation Review, 1 (1), 76–94. Cowley, U., Gilmartin, M., & Kitchin, R. (2008). Race and immigration in contemporary Ireland. In C. Dwyer & C. Bressey (Eds.), New geographies of race and racism (pp. 141–151). Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing Limited. Darling-Hammond, L. (1997). The right to learn: A blueprint for creating schools that work. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Darling-Hammond, L. (2010). The fl at world and education. New York: Teachers College Press. Decuir, J. T., & Dixson, A. D. (2004). So when it comes out, they aren’t that surprised that it is there”: Using critical race theory as a tool of analysis of race and racism in education. Educational Researcher, 33 (5), 26–31. Decuir-Gunby, J. (2007). Negotiating identity in a bubble: A critical race analysis of African-American high school students’ experiences in an elite, independent school. Equity and Excellence in Education, 40 (1), 26–35. Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2001). Critical race theory: An introduction. New York: New York University Press. Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2005). The Derrick Bell reader. New York: New York University Press. Department of Education and Skills. (2010). Annual Output Statement 2010. Retrieved from http://www.education.ie/servlet/blobservlet/dept_annual_ output_2010.pdf?language=EN Dixson, A., & Rousseau, C. K. (2005). And we are still not saved: Critical race theory in education, ten years later. Race, Ethnicity and Education, 8 (1), 7–27. Fernandez, L. (2002). Telling stories about school: Using critical race theory and Latino critical theories to document Latina/Latino education and resistance. Qualitative Inquiry, 8 (1), 45–65. Fine, M., & Weis, L. (2003). Silenced voices and extraordinary conversations: Reimaging schools. New York: Teachers College Press. Freeman, K. (2003). Black populations globally: The challenges and promises in their educational experiences. Comparative Education Review, 47 (1), 1–2. Harper, S. R., Patton, L. D., & Ontario, S. W. (2009). Access and equity for African American students in higher education: A critical race historical analysis of policy efforts. Journal of Higher Education, 80 (4), 389–414. Harris, C. I. (1993). Whiteness as Property. Harvard Law Review, 106 (8), 1707–1791. Haynes, A., Breen, M., & Devereux, E. (2005). Smuggling zebras for lunch: Media framing of asylum-seekers in the Irish print media, Études Irlandaises, 30 (1), 109–130. Hiraldo, P. (2010). The role of critical race theory in higher education. The Vermont Connection, 31, 53–58. Ignatiev, N. (1995). How the Irish became White. New York: Routledge. Iverson, S. V. (2007). Camouflaging power and privilege: A critical race analysis of university diversity policies. Educational Administration Quarterly, 43 (5), 586–611. Kee, R. (1972). The green fl ag: A history of Irish nationalism. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Komolafe, J. (2010). Searching for fortune: The geographical process of Nigerian migration to Dublin, Ireland. Ìrìnkèrindò: A Journal of African Migration. Retrieved from http://www.africamigration.com/archive_01/j_komolafe_searching.htm

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Kozol, J. (2005). The shame of the nation: The restoration of apartheid schools in America. New York: Crown Publishing Group. Kozol, J. (1991). Savage inequalities: Children in America’s schools. New York: Crown Publishing Group. Ladson-Billings, G., & Tate, W. F. (1995). Towards a critical race theory in education. Teachers College Record, 97 (1), 47–67. Mac Éinrí, P. (2001). Immigration into Ireland: Trends, policy responses, outlook. Irish Centre for Migration Studies. Retrieved from http://migration.ucc.ie/irelandfi rstreport.htm McAleese, M. (2007, March 14) The changing face of Ireland—Migration and multiculturalism. British Council Annual Lecture. Retrieved from http://www. britishcouncil.org/home-about-us-world-of-difference-our-annual-lecture.htm McDonald, H. (2007, September 25). Ireland forced to open immigrant school. Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/sep/25/ schools/internationaleducationnews/print Millar, S. (2005, March 13). Black Africans “most likely to suffer racism in Ireland.” Times Online. Retrieved from http://www.timesonline/co.uk/tol/news/ world/ireland/article426458.ece Morris, J. (2001). Forgotten voices of Black educations: Critical race perspectives on the implementations of a desegregation plan. Educational Policy, 15 (4), 575–600. Okpewho, I., Davies, C. B., & Mazrui, A. (2001). The African diaspora: African origins and new world identities. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Parker, L., & Lynn, M. (2002). What’s race got to do with it? Critical race theory’s confl icts with and connections to qualitative research methodology and epistemology. Qualitative Inquiry, 8 (1), 7–22. Picower, B. (2009). The unexamined whiteness of teaching: How white teachers maintain and enact dominant racial ideologies. Ethnicity & Education, 12 (2), 197–215. Ruhs, M. (2009). Ireland: From rapid immigration to recession. Migration Information Source. Retrieved from http://migrationinformation.org/Profi les/print. cfm?ID=740 Solorzano, D. G., & Yosso, T. J. (2002). Critical race methodology: Counter-storytelling as an analytical framework for education research. Qualitative Inquiry, 8 (1), 23–44. Spring, J. (2003). American Education. New York: McGraw-Hill. Taylor, E. (2000). Critical race theory and interest convergence in the backlash against affi rmative action: Washington State and Initiative 200. Teachers College Record, 102 (3), 539–560. Teranishi, R. (2002). Asian Pacific Americans and critical race theory: An examination of school racial climate. Equity and Excellence in Education, 35 (2), 144–154. United Nations Development Programme. (2009). Human Development Report. Retrieved from http://hdr.undp.org/en/ Villalpando, O., & Delgado Bernal, D. (2002). A critical race theory analysis of barriers that impede the success of faculty of color. In W. A. Smith, P. G. Altbach, & K. Lomotey (Eds.), The racial crisis in American higher education (pp. 243–270). New York: SUNY Press. Walker, V. S., & Archung, K. N. (2003). The segregated schooling of Blacks in the southern United States and South Africa. Comparative Education Review, 47 (1), 21–40. Weis, L., & Fine, M. (2005). Beyond silenced voices: Class, race and gender in United States schools. Albany: State University of New York Press.

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White, T. (1996). What does it mean to be Irish? The transformation of political identity in Ireland. Southeastern Political Review, 24 (1), 137–157. Wright, C., & Weekes, D. (2003). Race and gender in the contestation and resistance of teacher authority and school sanctions: The case of African Caribbean pupils in England. Comparative Education Review, 47 (1), 3–20. YouTube. (2006). Non-Irish want Ireland. Retrieved from http:/www.youtube. com/watch?v=0LjpkGk5gyY Zuelow, E. (2009). Making Ireland Irish: Tourism and national identity since the Irish civil war. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.

Part IV

Conclusion

13 Concluding Thoughts Kassie Freeman and Ethan Johnson

With the worldwide debates about the impact of globalization on every aspect of cultures, from the environment to technology to the economy and education, it is astonishing that around the world, Black populations (broadly defi ned in this research as people of African descendant) remain underrepresented at every level of schooling. Yet, educational theorists (e.g., Schultz, 1961) have long since documented the linkages between educational participation, economic development, political participation, and environmental justice. That is, educational achievement cannot be dislocated from the larger socio-historical context in which it is happening. With such documentation, it is surprising that there is such a dearth of research and/or focus on the comparative struggles that Black populations share in their quest to participate in education—particularly when one considers that African descendant populations have been practicing globalization for centuries and is evident in the crosspollination of ideas and experiences between and among the multiple social movements of people of African descent in the Americas, Caribbean, Afro-Europeans, and Africans (Gilroy, 1993; Robinson, 1983). Furthermore, there are common threads that link the educational challenges and opportunities of people of African descendant globally. At every level of schooling, as this book demonstrates, Black populations across the Diaspora are marginalized, voiceless, underrepresented, and undereducated. Arguably the major challenge for both African descendants and the countries in which they reside is how to address this persistent and global experience. Although African descendant populations around the globe have been sharing and learning from each others’ experiences, it is rare and far between that a transnational effort has developed to address their experiences as a group. The current model for Black populations has been a Nationalist Model, where African descendants in different countries have attempted to address their problems internally and in isolation. It is a model that obviously has been ineffective. Writers across disciplines (e.g., history and the humanities) such as Edwards (2003) and Lorde (1992) have challenged the existing paradigm used to understand and examine the cultural link between Black people in

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the Diaspora. However, educational researchers have been slow to see or move beyond the Black national model of examining educational underrepresentation. Consequently, the necessity of refocusing and/or shifting to a different paradigm to examine the comparative, common educational experiences Black populations confront globally has been neglected. This book, built largely on case studies that locate the experiences of people of African descent within particular national and subnational contexts provides the reader, student, and scholar with the vehicle to consider the educational challenges facing the African Diaspora in a broader, cross-disciplinary, and cross-boundaries approach. That is, this text brings together a body of knowledge that makes it possible to begin to develop a Black Internationalist Model to examine educational challenges of Black people globally. A Black Nationalist Model is a particularized model where African descendants in each country focus on their challenges in isolation, whether issues of education, economics, or environmental justice. A Black Internationalist Model differs from a single-focus paradigm to one that builds on the collective, comparative experiences of Black populations globally. Contrary to common perceptions that there are more differences than similarities between the Black Diaspora, this research makes the case for an expanded paradigm to researching and developing an international agenda for better understanding educational challenges confronting Black populations globally. This book suggests that to more fully comprehend the educational dilemma of Black populations in particular countries, it is important to examine their experiences individually yet collectively. As Lorde (1992) indicated, although particular histories have fashioned the experiences of Black people in different countries, similar historical experiences make the case for expanding the research agenda on Black populations to a crosscultural, cross-national boundary global approach. This book asserts that to better understand the experiences of Black populations, a more in-depth comparison of the historical experiences and how the impact of these experiences have constructed the current educational milieu in which Black people fi nd themselves deserves consideration, supporting James Anderson’s (1988) position. As pointed out in this book, Black people around the globe have had similar historical experiences, and it is important for these to be examined collectively in order to determine where similar programs and models might be instituted. When cultural differences are taken into consideration, the wheel might not have to be reinvented. Another agenda that this book suggests is that not only is it important to expand the research agenda across borders and cultures to understand the educational experience of Black people, but it supports the necessity of examining the educational experiences of people of African descent across disciplinary boundaries. That is, better linkages between the different research agendas (whether K-12 and higher education or different aspects of educational phenomena) need to be established. Without question, each

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of the chapters in this volume have found that the educational experiences of Black people are inexorably linked to a larger socio-historical context, be it the economy, immigration, politics, and nationalism. This is critically important because at the current moment, the concepts of efficiency, accountability, and austerity, that is, things that can be measured quantifiably, have each achieved legitimacy as ways of understanding social inequality and developing and implementing policy. This largely colorblind discourse has very effectively silenced, buried, or made invisible the significance that race continues to have in shaping the educational experiences and opportunities of people of African descent. This dominance of the quantifiable has in large measure divorced the social context from education. What continues is the underutilization of human potential of people of African descent. To better understand the barriers constructed across cultures that have led to the underutilization of the possibilities of Black people’s human potential in countries where non-Blacks are the controlling populations, much more research needs to be conducted and best practices studied. In order to more fully understand this process, more research on each point where underutilization occurs has to be explored. To understand the costs, particularly the nonmonetary costs, as Bowen (1977) indicated, associated with the underutilization of Black potential so that countries better understand how everyone is losing is an imperative. The quote following from the Commission on Research in Black Education from Wendell Berry summarizes the imperative of countries to assess the underutilization of the human potential of Black populations: “If the white man has infl icted the wound of racism upon Black men, the cost has been that he would receive the mirror image of that wound into himself.” Finally, though, it is not enough for countries to assess the costs associated with the underutilization of the potential of Black populations, for this book suggests that at each point Blacks’ potential has been underutilized. In the twenty-fi rst century, countries will fi nd it necessary to develop strategies to address the societal and individual costs associated with Black populations’ underutilization while simultaneously increasing the utilization of the potential of Black people. Carnoy (1993) describes the way the process of increasing the spending on the underutilization of Blacks should work: “The vicious cycle of increasing social costs will gradually break. Down the road, as early-childhood investment reduces spending on adult social problems, more public funds will become available for general education and other activities that improve worker productivity and growth rates” (p. 241). However, countries have not yet been able to develop a formula for assessing the individual and societal costs to appropriately target their spending to enhance educational participation and outcomes for Black populations worldwide. For globalization to be successful for individual countries and countries collectively, the potential of all of their citizens has to be utilized. In order

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to balance this imperative, different paradigms and players have to be a part of the research agenda and the agenda has to be expanded from a Nationalist to an Internationalist Model.

REFERENCES Anderson, J. D. (1988). The education of Blacks in the South, 1860–1935. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press. Bowen, H. (1977). Investment in learning. San Francisco: CA. Jossey-Bass, Inc. Carnoy, M. (1994). Faded dreams: The politics and economics of race in America. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Edwards, B. H. (2003). The practice of Diaspora: Literature, translation, and the rise of Black internationalism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gilroy, Paul (1993). The Black Atlantic: Modernity and double consciousness. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Lorde, A. (1992). Foreword to the English language edition. In M. Opitz, K. Oguntoye, & D. Schultz (Eds.). Showing our colors: Afro-German women speak out. London, England: Open Letters. Robinson, C. (1983). Black Marxism: The making of the Black radical tradition. University of North Carolina Press. Schultz, T. W. (1961). Investment in human capital. American Economic Review, 51, 1–17.

Contributors

Kamau Bobb has over 10 years experience in science technology and innovation policy specializing in university level Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education, and minority and gender equity issues in STEM fields. Dr. Bobb is currently a Science and Technology Policy Analyst at SRI International. Beyond higher education, Dr. Bobb has conducted research on innovation and capacity building in developing countries. Through his dissertation research he has traveled in sugar producing Caribbean countries examining the transition of traditional resource extraction practices into modern knowledge-based industries. He has contributed to reports on the role of women and underrepresented minorities and the factors influencing their participation in computing to the Presidential Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and to the National Science Foundation. Crystal M. Fleming is Assistant Professor of Sociology at SUNY Stony Brook She recently completed her Ph.D. in the Department of Sociology at Harvard University. Fleming’s research examines issues relating to cultural sociology, comparative race and the public sphere, with a special focus on France and the United States. Her masters thesis explored the social and political discourse of African American slam poets in predominately black and predominately white venues. For her dissertation, Fleming analyzed French Caribbean identity and the commemoration of the transatlantic slave trade in contemporary France. From 2007 until summer 2009, Fleming was a visiting student at Sciences Po (Paris). She has appeared regularly in the French media to discuss issues related to diversity, inequality and race. Jillian C. Ford is an Assistant Professor of Secondary and Middle Grades Education at Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Georgia. She earned her Ph.D. from the Division of Educational Studies at Emory University in 2011, and her BA and MAT from the University of Virginia in 2001. Ford’s research focuses on political socialization, citizenship education, and sites of empowerment for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans-

190 Contributors gender, queer, intersex, and questioning (LGBTQIQ) youth. She believes fiercely in the connection between research and activism, and is part of the movement to transform the K–12 social studies education curriculum in the United States to be more inclusive and progressive. Before returning to graduate school, Jillian taught social studies at Tri-Cities High School in East Point, Georgia. Dr. Kassie Freeman recently served as the Interim President of the Southern University System, the nation’s only Historically Black College System, where she provided leadership and oversight for five campuses. Previously, she served as the Dean for Academic Advancement at Bowdoin College and the Dean of the Division of Educational and Psychological Studies and Professor of Education at Dillard University. She is considered a leading scholar on African Americans and college choice and comparative/international issues in higher education, having authored or edited four books and published in some of the top journals in the field. She was a Clinton appointee to the White House Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities and is former president of the Comparative and International Education Society, only the second African American elected as President. Ylva Habel Ph.D. holds a research fellowship fi nanced by the Swedish Research Council. She defended her dissertation, Modern Media, Modern Audiences: Mass Media and Social Engineering in the 1930s Swedish Welfare state, in 2002. Her current, post-doctoral project with the working title ”Black Impulse: The Stockholm Reception of the AfricanAmerican artists Josephine Baker and Paul Robeson”, focuses upon local media/reception discourses on stardom, race and gender. Discussions furthermore revolve around questions such as post-coloniality, diasporic travel and exile. Current research interests: postcolonial perspectives, reception, intermediality, authorship. Ethan Johnson is an Associate Professor in the Black Studies Department at Portland State University. His work focuses broadly on the educational experiences of youth of African descent concerning how they negotiate and interpret racial identity and racism. In addition, his scholarship compares and contrasts mainstream/White and Black people’s representations of Blackness in both popular culture and the mass media. Currently, he is working on two projects. One considers how students in an Afro-centric after school program make sense of their racial and cultural identities. The other considers through analysis of oral histories how communities of Black people in Ecuador negotiate within the current national context of multiculturalism their racial ad cultural identities in relation to the concept of ancestral rights.

Contributors

191

Fernando Ka was founder and chairman of the Guinean Association for Social Solidarity, the largest and most dynamic of the Afro-Portuguese’s Community’s Organizations. He was vice-President of the Council for the Sub-Saharan Afro-European Communities in Europe, with headquarters in Paris, France. He is a former member of the Portuguese Parliament, representing the African Portuguese community. Founding member of the Municipal Council for the Ethnic Minorities of the City of Lisbon. He has written articles in some of the most important Portuguese newspapers about the situation of the Afro-Portuguese Community. He organized an international conference on the African Portuguese political situation in Portugal and invited the black members of the British Parliament and the members of the Portuguese Parliament also. Dr. John W. Long is a Professor (Retired) at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and President of his own consultant group, Long & Associates. His long career in education has and continues to focus on the empowerment and support of the Black self-determination needs of the African Diaspora in the United States and Germany. He won the prestigious Fulbright Scholar Award, sponsored by the United States State Department, where he was the Senior Fulbright Professor at the Humboldt University at Berlin. His latest work included a Visiting Scholar position at the Margaret Walker-Alexander National Research Center, where he worked on the life of Professor Laurence Jones, the founder of one of oldest private black schools, Piney Woods Country Day School, Piney Woods, Mississippi. Larissa Malone is a doctoral candidate in the Cultural Foundations of Education Program at Kent State University. Previous to this, she worked as a member of administration and as a classroom teacher in both traditional and specialized environments. Her research centers on the master narrative of education and the acculturative response of the descendents of the African Diaspora, using a critical theory paradigm. Larissa is the recipient of a New Scholars Award from the Comparative International Education Society, as well as an Outstanding Achievement Student Award from Kent State University. A native of Northeast Ohio, she still resides there with her husband, Greg, and her three daughters, Natalie, Nyah and Noelle. Camille Nakhid is from Trinidad and Tobago. She has a BSc in Chemistry from New York, and completed a Diploma in Secondary Teaching in Chemistry and Mathematics, a Masters in Education Administration (Hons), and a Doctor of Education (EdD) in New Zealand. Camille’s research interests include: the sociology of education; the social construction of identity; appropriate research methodologies for marginalized and minority groups; race and ethnicity; and Maori and Pasifi ka academic achievement.

192 Contributors Dr. Clancie Mavello Wilson is presently an Assistant Professor in the School of Education at Roger Williams University. She earned a B.S. in Education from Tuskegee University; An M.A. in Early Childhood Education from Atlanta University; A Diploma for Advanced study in Teaching from Emory University and her Ph.D. in Developmental and Educational Psychology from Boston College. Dr. Wilson has more than 20 years of experience teaching in the public schools, several of which include being responsible for the mentoring of new teachers. She has also served as a head start director, a child development associate consultant for the child development consortium and as a Peace Corp Volunteer teacher in West Africa. Professor Cecile Wright current research focus is on race, ethnicity, gender and social class; education, postcolonial theory and black feminist theory. For example the book Race, Class and Gender in Exclusion from School Summary was a timely analysis and was concerned with the problems schools have in dealing with student exclusion when most educational policy encourages the practice. Professor Wright is a member of the Social Policy Interdisciplinary Research Group.

Index

A aboriginal children, 7–8, 11, 59 academic settings, 22. See also classroom environment acculturation, 7, 20, 82, 92, 168–169, 177, 191 achievement rates, 142 ADEFRA (Afro German Women), 133 African American Data Book, 59 African Americans and aboriginal experience, 7 and Afro Germans, 133 and Black Canadians, 48–49, 52, 54, 58–61 and Blacks in Russia, 156–159, 161 and educational struggles, 6 and Irish Americans, 169, 174, 177 and poverty stressors, 54 and PVEST, 52 as involuntary minorities, 55 in Canadian schools, 58 African American Registry, 73 African Diaspora, defi ned, 124 confl icts within, 134 contemporary circumstances of, 22–23 CRT and, 167 Irish Diaspora and, 177–178 media representations of, 99 professional representation of members of, 123–129 stories of two individuals of, 129–133 African Diaspora, 155 African History Week, 107 Afro-Caribbeans, 66, 55–56, 79–97, 116, 156, 181 Afro-Ecuadorians, 27–28, 33–39, 41, 43–47

Afro-Germans celebrating African heritage, 132–133 confl icts among, 134 Exhibition of People and, 128 in professional occupations, 124 post-war status of, 131–132 Afro-German Movement, 132–134 Afro-Swedish National Organization, 107 Alfaro, Eloy, 32 alienation, 6–10 American Indian, 7, 55, 62 American War of Independence, 50 Apprenticeships, prohibition of, 5 Ancestry Census Report, 52 Anderson, James, 3, 6–7, 157, 186 annihilation, 6–10 Annual Yearly Progress, 17 anti-affi rmative action, 14 anti-immigration sentiment, 17 policy 99 Anzaldúa, Gloria, 22 Aotearoa. See Pasifi ka Communities assimilation, 7, 9–10, 19–20, 38, 55, 81, 92, 169, 174 asylum, seekers of, 170–72 Atacames, 33 Atlanta, 15, 192 “authority of Western knowledge,” 49

B Balboa, Miguel Cabello, 29 banlieue, 86, 89, 91 Baldwin, 158–59 Bell, Derrick, 164 Berufschule, 125 Berry, Wendell, 187 “Black” as one race, 52

194

Index

Black Americans. See African Americans Black Australians, 7, 11, 106, 173 Black Britons, 4, 7, 9 Black Canadians, 48–65 Black community, 14, 21, 37, 50, 68, 76–77 Black culture, devaluation of, 4, 10 Black Disgrace, 129 Black Focused School, 59 Black Germans. See Afro Germans Black Germans Initiative, 133 Black Loyalists, 49–50, 61 Black Nationalist/Internationalist Model, 185–188 Black Nova Scotians, 58, 64 Black radicalism, 159 blaming the victim, 53, 79 borderland, 22–23 Britain. See United Kingdom British Government, 50 Brown vs. Board of Education, 163–64 busing , 14–17, 20–21

C Cabinet Office Report, 69 Campt, Tina, 108 Canada Black Loyalists in, 50 census data of, 51–52 education in, 57–60 immigration, 54–57 middle class in, 53 population diversity in, 50–51 PVEST data, 52 slavery in, 50 stressors in, 54 Catholicism, 29, 82, 167–169 celebration of heritage, 132 Celtic Tiger, 170–178 Census Bureau Report, 27, 33–34, 41, 45, 51–52, 82, 123, 151 census, race-based (Canada), 51 cheating, accusations of, 89 Children’s Defense Fund Report, 54 CIES (Comparative and International Education Society), 18 Citizen Referendum, 172, 176 citizenship, 51, 73, 82, 96, 126, 167, 170–172, 176 “civilizing mission,” 92 Civil Rights, 23, 131, 158, 163 Civil War, 50, 51, 61 classroom environment, 18–22, 83–83

classroom hostility, 86, 88 code language, 102 collective memory, 92, 101, 108 colonialism, 33, 49, 100, 124 colorblindness, 99–100, 102, 104–105, 107, 110–111, 115, 117, 166, 187 Commission on Research in Black Education, 187 Committee for the Memory of Slavery, 93 “common sense citizenship,” 173 “compadrazco,” 30 compulsory education, 67, 75, 77, 125, 144, 175 counter-storytelling, 166 course evaluations, 113 crimes against Blacks, 160–161 Critical Race Theory (CRT), 163–167, 173, 178 Crossing Boundaries: Comparative History, 162 “cultural action,” 68 culture deficit model, 53 culture, eradication of, 7, 9 “culture of exclusion,” 10 “culture of power,” 22 cultural capital, 8–9, 11, 63, 91–92, 139, 147 (social capital) cultural deprivation, 53 cultural frame of reference, 56, 63 cultural representation, 67, 104, 107 cultural transformation, 49, 57, 84

D Dei, G. 57, 59, 60 de Illescas, Alonso, 29–30 de Illescas, Sebastian, 30 Destined to Witness, 130 Diaspora. See African Diaspora, Irish Diaspora Diaspro-Afro, 134–35 DFES, 67–70 DOM TOM, 82, 88, 91, 96 Douglass, Frederick, 178 drop-out rates 59, 62, 134

E ease of citizenship, 171 ECE (Early Childhood Education),143–147 Ecuador banana crops in, 32 census data in, 27, 33 Colonial era in, 28–31

Index education in, 37–41 GNP of, 33 history of slavery in, 28–30 Jaime Hurtado Academy, 41–44 Mestizo/a as identifying term in, 27 mural, 28, racial/ethnic self-identification in, 27 race and space in, 33 Republic of, 31–33 and Spanish Crown, 31 stratification and segregation in, 34–36 EEC (European Economic Community), 140 England. See United Kingdom Essed, Philomena, 103, 108, 110, 111 Essentialism, 3 ethnocentric assumptions, 67 ethnoracial, 79–81, 86, 96 Ernesto Estupin~an Quintero, 28, 36, 37 exclusion, 9–11, 15, 67, 69–71, 76, 80, 82, 86–87, 91, 96 Exhibition of People, 128

F “face of multiculturalism” 175 fi liere professionelle, 91 fi scomisionales, 39 France, Caribbean activists in, 80 “civilizing mission,” 92 classroom exclusion in, 86–88 “ethnoracial” vs. “ethnic,” 81 history of slavery in, 92–96 metropolitan, 81–89, 92, 96 national curriculum, 92–93 “overseas,” 80–83, 89–96 racial statistics, lack of, 82–83 Franklin, 48–50, 61 French African Corps (Black Disgrace), 129 free slave society, 29

G Garimara, Nugi (Doris Pilkington), 7 Gauls, 94–95 Georgia House Bill, 17 German Empire, 125, 127, 129 German Republic. See Weimar Republic Germany Africans in, 127–129 Audre Lorde and, 133 citizenship in, 126

195

educational system, 124–126, 133–134 Nazi Regime, 129–131 presence in Africa of, 126–127 professional occupations in, 123 Weimar Republic, 129 globalization, 10, 16–17, 23–24, 76, 150, 155, 157, 185, 187 “goodwill White,” 104–105 Grundschule, 125 Guayaquil, 32–33 Gutek, 48 Gymnasium, 125, 130

H Hage, Ghassan hidden talents, 20–21, 23 hijab, wearing of, 17 Hitler Youth League, 131 “home,” 20 homogenization, 38, 169, 171 Human Nations Development Programme, 167 human rights organizations, 173 Hurtado, Jaime, 37 “Hyperborean abode,” 100–101

I Imperial Age, 157 indentured servants, 49–50 indigenous groups, 27, 29–31; and counter-hegemonic discourse, 45 indigenous knowledge, 62, 150, 154 Initiative of Schwarze Deutsche, 133 integration, 7, 14–15, 24, 69, 82, 109, 118–121, 163, 167, 174, 176, 178 interest convergence, 166 “involuntary immigrants,” 54 Ireland all-Black school, 175–176 as welcoming country, 176 asylum seekers in, 170- 172 Celtic Tiger Era, 170–171, 173–174, 176, 178 national identity of, 168 Irish Diaspora, 168–170, 174, 177–178 Irish Human Rights Commission, 173 Irish stereotyping, 168–169 isolation, 30–32, 69, 80, 87, 185–186 ius sanguinis, 126 ius soli, 126

J Jaime Hurtado Academy, 27–28, 37–34

196

Index

Javier, 42–43 Jocelyn, 89 jus soli, 170–172

K knowledge systems, 150 Kohl, Helmut, 126

L labor migration, 139–141 Ladino slave, 29 learning style, 19 liberal colorblindness, see colorblindness Liberator, the, 174 “Libre por rebelde y por rebeld grande,” 28, 37 Lionel, 85–86, 91 literacy, 59, 152 Literature Review, 60, 145–146, 149, 153 Lourde, Audre, 3, 133, 156 Lufthansa, 123

M Madina, 79–80 Majority-to-Minority program (M-to-M), 15 17, 20 “making meaning,” 52 Mankiller, 7 Maori, 137, 140–141, 146–147, 151–152, 191 markers of blackness, 43, 173 marginalization, 23, 86, 96 Maroons, 28–31 Mary Magdalen fi scomisional, 39 Massaquoi, Hans, 125, 130–131 master narrative, 166, 176, 191 maternal deprivation, 64 Maurice, 127 McAleese, Mary, 172 meritocracy, 166 mestizaje, 42 Mestizo/a, 23, 27–28, 33–36, 38, 39, 41–42, 43, 44–45 métis, 82 Michael, Julia, 128–130 Michael, Theodor, 129–130 microagressions, 114, 122 Model. See Nationalist Black Model Ministry of Education, minorities, numerical, Model. Morrison, Toni, 102, 103 MPD (Popular Democratic Movement Party), 37

Mulato/a, 27, 41

N NCEA (National Certificate of Educational Achievement), 142–144, 152 NCES (National Center for Education Statistics), 59 NQF (National Qualifications Framework), 142, ,144, 152 National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism, 173 Nazi, 99, 126, 129–131 neo-liberal cultural racism, 101 networks, 17, 23, 68–69, 137, 149 New Brunswick, 49–50, 119 new IQism, 67 New World, 3, 11, 29, 155–156, 162 New World Blacks, 3 New Zealand. See Pasifi ka Communities Nkrumah, 6 No Child Left Behind Act, 17 noir, 82 non-completion rate,142 Nordic Colonial Mind, the, 100 Nordic exceptionalism see Swedish Exceptionalism normative colorblindness, 104–105 Nova Scotia, 49–51, 58, 64

O occupations, 123–125, 129, 131–134, 136–137, 152 Ogbu, 49, 51, 53–57, 60, 62–63 optimism, 21–22 Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), 32 overqualification, 123

P Pascal, 88 Pasifi ka Communities concept of, 136–137 education in, 139–140, 141–144, 146–147, 148–151 and labor, 140–141 research regarding, 144–146 teacher training in, 147–148 Pasifi ka Education Plan, 143–144 Pathways to the Future, 146 Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory (PVEST), 52

Index phenotype, 43, 81–83 Phillippe, 86–87 Pilkington, Doris, 7–8, 11 PISA, 124, 135, 144, 152, 168 PNCNG (Person of No Color and No Gender), 113 Popular Democratic Movement Party, 37 Portugal basic education in, 75 student situation in, 76 employment in, 74 family situation in, 74 government, 75, 77 higher education in, 76 and the slave trade, 73 voyages of discovery from, 73 postcolonial, 86, 96, 99–101, 104, 108, 111, 113, 115, 117–120 poverty, 21, 28, 33–34, 36–7, 39, 44, 50, 54, 58, 62–63, 68, 73–74, 76–77, 79, 124, 128, 130, 148 168 Powell, Colin, 55 Pred, Allan, 103 property, Whiteness as, 165, 174–175, 179 Prussian Kingdom, 125 pseudo-science, 132 PUSH, 107

Q Quintero, Ernesto Estupiñan28 Quito, 29–33, 37, 46

R race, avoidance or evasion of, 102, 104, 111, 116 racial disparity in education, 15 racial hierarchy, 28, 35, 37, 41, 44 racial meaning, transformation of, 28 racial self-identification, 41 racism and intention, 105–106 “racism without races,” 101 racist representations, 35 Realschule, 125, 127 refugees: students, 13, 16–21, 23, pregnant women, 171, research agenda, 10, 144, 186, 188 Roman Catholic Church, 168–169 rural areas, life in, 33–34 Russia culture of fear for Blacks in, 161 resistance to slave trade, 157, 161

197

literary legends in, 158–159 Marxist ideology in, 158 Soviet, 157–159 Imperial Age of, 157 Rutter, 54

S “sanctioned ignorance,” 99, 104–105 Saturday Schools, 68 scholastic difficulties, 88, 90, 96 schools, predominantly White, 14–15, 22–23, 99,107,175 Black students switching to, segregation, 23, 28, 34–36, 50, 59, 72, 136, 163–164 self-identification,27–28, 33, 35–39, 41–43, 64, 68, 82, 88, 100–101, 103, 117, 120–121, 123, 132, 134, 139 Seligmann, Raphfael, 126 sense of self, 9–11, 14–15, 19, 21–22, 52, 103 Sequoyah, 7 Showing Our Colors, 133 skin color, discussion of shades of (shades of non-Whiteness), 38, 42–43, 83, 85, 100–102, 173–175 Slave Code, 4 slavery abolition of, 81, 92, 95–96, 107, 169 Committee for the Memory of, 93 in America, 6, 50–51, 165 in Canada, 49–51 in Esmereldas, 31 in the French Caribbean, 80–82, 92–96 in history books, 38, 80–81,92–93 in Russia, 157–158 in Sweden, 107 Slave Trade, 5, 8, 50, 73, 80, 83, 93, 155, 157, 161, 162, 189 social capital, 8, 68 socialization, 92, 189 Somali refugees, 17, 18 Soviet Russia, 157–158 Spanish crown, 29–31 Spencer, 48, 51, 52, 54 spirit of survival, 13, 23 standardized testing, 13, 19 Stephane, 94–95 stereotyping, 35, 48, 50, 54, 61, 64, 69, 87–88, 103–106, 112, 115–116, 160, 168

198

Index

students Black students as face of multiculturalism, 175 three significant challenges to, 19–20 connection between refugees and busing participants, 20–22 as passive rather than active learners, 40–41, 112 suburbia, 33, 51, 79, 84, 86–87, 90, 121 Sudan, 14, 17 Sweden, classroom experiences, 109, 111 colorblindness in, 115–117 national self-image, 100–101 racism and intention, 106, 110 racist acts in, 99–100 relativism in, 112 skin color, issue of, 101–103 slavery in, 107 two knowledge types in, 104–105 Swedish Democrats, 103 Swedish Exceptionalism, 99, 101, 103, 105, 107, 109, 111, 112–121 Swedish Whiteness, 104, 115, 122 System of Social Indicators of AfroEcuadorian People, 27

T taboos, 72, 93 tangata whenua, 137, 152–153 Taubira Law, 92–93 TEOs (Tertiary education organizations), 144 textbooks, Black history omitted from, 38 third talent, 22 Third World, 17, 106, 113, 160 transatlantic slavery, 63, 80, 83, 92–93, 96, 97, 107, 189 TRYCK, 107 two-tiered failure, 14

U underachievement, 9–10, 58, 69–70, 145 undereducation, 6, 75, 185 underutilization, 6, 19, 124, 156, 162, 187

UNE (National Teachers Union of Ecuador), 39 United Airlines, 123 United Fruit Company, 32 United Kingdom educational change in, 68–69 school-based identities in, 67 student-teacher confl icts in, 67 studies of education in, 66–67 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 16, 24, 106, 180 urban areas, life in, 34, 51, 141

V validation, 9, 14, 21, 109 Veronica, 42–43 victimization, 45, 53, 88, 106, 113, 128, 130, 160, 168 “voluntary” immigrants, 17, 24, 49, 54–57, 60–63

W Wade, Peter, 33, 43, 45 Weimar Republic, 126, 129, 131 White entitlement, 100 “White laughter,” 112, 115 White liberal doubt, 104 White middle class culture, 34, 53, 57, 67, 69, 81, 125 White privilege, 112, 165, 175, 176, 179 White resistance, 112 white supremacy, 49 Whiteness as property, 165, 174–175, 179 World Wars (I and II), 129–130, 133, 135–136, 162

X xenophobia, 17–18, 105, 107, 126, 172

Y Youri, 94–95

Z Zahn, Michael Franz, 127 Zambo Republic, 29–30