David Gillborn

Bio: David Gillborn is an academic researcher from University of Birmingham. The author has contributed to research in topics: Racism & Critical race theory. The author has an hindex of 39, co-authored 104 publications receiving 7264 citations. Previous affiliations of David Gillborn include University of London & University of Sheffield.

Education policy as an act of white supremacy: whiteness, critical race theory and education reform

Abstract: The paper presents an empirical analysis of education policy in England that is informed by recent developments in US critical theory. In particular, I draw on ‘whiteness studies’ and the application of Critical Race Theory (CRT). These perspectives offer a new and radical way of conceptualising the role of racism in education. Although the US literature has paid little or no regard to issues outside North America, I argue that a similar understanding of racism (as a multifaceted, deeply embedded, often taken-for-granted aspect of power relations) lies at the heart of recent attempts to understand institutional racism in the UK. Having set out the conceptual terrain in the first half of the paper, I then apply this approach to recent changes in the English education system to reveal the central role accorded the defence (and extension) of race inequity. Finally, the paper touches on the question of racism and intentionality: although race inequity may not be a planned and deliberate goal of education policy neither is it accidental. The patterning of racial advantage and inequity is structured in domination and its continuation represents a form of tacit intentionality on the part of white powerholders and policy makers. It is in this sense that education policy is an act of white supremacy. Following others in the CRT tradition, therefore, the paper’s analysis concludes that the most dangerous form of ‘white supremacy’ is not the obvious and extreme fascistic posturing of small neonazi groups, but rather the taken-for-granted routine privileging of white interests that goes unremarked in the political mainstream.

Rationing Education: Policy, Practice, Reform and Equity

Abstract: Recent educational reforms in the United Kingdom (UK) have raised standards of achievement, but have also resulted in growing inequalities based on gender, race and social class. School by school league tables play a central role in the reforms. These have created an A to C economy where schools and teachers are judged on the proportion of students attaining five or more grades at levels A to C. To satisfy these demands schools are embracing new and ever more selective attempts to identify ability. This book reports on detailed research in two secondary schools showing the real costs of reform in terms of the pressures on teachers and the rationing of educational opportunity. This publication contains the following chapters: Education and equity; Reforming education: policy and practice; Ability and economy: defining 'ability' in the A-to-C economy; Selection 11-14: fast groups, 'left-over' mixed ability and the subject options process; Selection 14-16: sets, tiers, hidden ceilings and floors; Educational triage and the D-to-C conversion: suitable cases for treatment?; Pupils' experiences and perspectives: living with the rationing of education; and Conclusions: rationing education.

Racism and Education: Coincidence or Conspiracy?

Abstract: Introduction -- Critical race theory: a new approach to an old problem -- Inequality, inequality, inequality: the material reality of racial injustice in education -- Policy: changing language, constant inequality -- Assessment: measuring injustice or creating it? -- The Stephen Lawrence Case: an exception that proves the rule? -- Model minorities: the creation & significance of "ethnic" success stories -- Whiteworld: whiteness and the performance of racial domination -- Conclusion: understanding race inequality in education.

Foundations of Critical Race Theory in Education

Abstract: Foreword Introduction Part One: Critical Race Theory in Education 1. Just What Is Critical Race Theory and What's It Doing in a Nice Field Like Education? Gloria Ladson-Billings 2. Who's Afraid of Critical Race Theory? Derrick Bell 3. Education Policy as an Act of White Supremacy: Whiteness, Critical Race Theory, and Education Reform, David Gillborn Part Two: History and evolution 4. Brown v. Board of Education and the Interest Convergence Dilemma, Derrick Bell 5. Desegregation as a Cold War Imperative, Mary L. Dudziak Part Three: Affirmative Action 6. The "We've Done Enough" Theory of School Desegration, Mark v. Tushnet 7. Affirmative Action as a Majoritarian Device: Or, Do You Really Want to Be a Role Model? Richard Delgado 8. Critical Race Theory and Interest Convergence in the Backlash Against Affirmative Action: Washington State and Initiative 200, Edward Taylor Part Four: Critical Race Research Methology in Education 9. Critical Race Methodology: Counter Story-Telling as an Analytical Framework for Educational Research, Daniel G. Solorzano and Tara J. Yosso 10. What's Race Got to Do With It? Critical Race Theory's Conflicts With and Connections to Qualitative Research Methodology and Epistemology, Lawrence Parker and Marvin Lynn Part Five: Race in the Classroom 11. A Threat in the Air: How Stereotypes Shape Intellectual Identity and Performance, Claude M. Steele 12. Peer Networks of African American Students in Independent Schools: Affirming Academic Success and Racial Identity, Amanda Datnow and Robert Cooper Part Six: Intersections: Gender, Class, and Culture 13. Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color, Kimberle Williams Crenshaw 14. Ain't I a Woman? Revisiting Intersectionality, Avtar Brah and Ann Phoenix Part Seven: Intersections: White Supremacy and White Allies 15. The Color of Supremacy: Beyond the Discourse of 'White Privilege', Zeus Leonardo 16. Teaching White Students About Racism: The Search for Whites Allies and the Restoration of Hope, Beverly Daniel Tatum Part Eight: Critiques of Critical Race Theory 17. Some Critical Thoughts on Critical Race Theory, Douglas E. Litowitz 18. Telling Stories Out of school: An Essay on Legal Narratives, Daniel A. Farber and Suzanna Sherry 19. On Telling Stores in School: A Reply to Farber and Sherry, Richard Delgado

Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste

Abstract: By Pierre Bourdieu (London: Routledge, 2010), xxx + 607 pp. £15.99 paper. A combination of social theory, statistical data, illustrations, and interviews, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judg...

Suspending Damage: A Letter to Communities.

Abstract: In this open letter, Eve Tuck calls on communities, researchers, and educators to reconsider the long-term impact of "damage-centered" research—research that intends to document peoples' pain and brokenness to hold those in power accountable for their oppression. This kind of research operates with a flawed theory of change: it is often used to leverage reparations or resources for marginalized communities yet simultaneously reinforces and reinscribes a one-dimensional notion of these people as depleted, ruined, and hopeless. Tuck urges communities to institute a moratorium on damage-centered research to reformulate the ways research is framed and conducted and to reimagine how findings might be used by, for, and with communities.

Postmodern Subjects, Postmodern BodiesThinking Fragments: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and Postmodernism in the Contemporary WestYearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural PoliticsGender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity

Abstract: Preface (1999) Preface (1990) 1. Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire I. 'Women' as the Subject of Feminism II. The Compulsory Order of Sex/Gender/Desire III. Gender: The Circular Ruins of Contemporary Debate IV. Theorizing the Binary, the Unitary and Beyond V. Identity, Sex and the Metaphysics of Substance VI. Language, Power and the Strategies of Displacement 2. Prohibition, Psychoanalysis, and the Production of the Heterosexual Matrix I. Structuralism's Critical Exchange II. Lacan, Riviere, and the Strategies of Masquerade III. Freud and the Melancholia of Gender IV. Gender Complexity and the Limits of Identification V. Reformulating Prohibition as Power 3. Subversive Bodily Acts I. The Body Politics of Julia Kristeva II. Foucault, Herculine, and the Politics of Sexual Discontinuity III. Monique Wittig - Bodily Disintegration and Fictive Sex IV. Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions Conclusion - From Parody to Politics

Ain't I A Woman? Revisiting Intersectionality

Abstract: In the context of the second Gulf war and US and the British occupation of Iraq, many ‘old’ debates about the category ‘woman’ have assumed a new critical urgency. This paper revisits debates on intersectionality in order to show that they can shed new light on how we might approach some current issues. It first discusses the 19 th century contestations among feminists involved in anti-slavery struggles and campaigns for women’s suffrage. The second part of the paper uses autobiography and empirical studies to demonstrate that social class (and its intersections with gender and ‘race’ or sexuality) are simultaneously subjective, structural and about social positioning and everyday practices. It argues that studying these intersections allows a more complex and dynamic understanding than a focus on social class alone. The conclusion to the paper considers the potential contributions to intersectional analysis of theoretical and political approaches such as those associated with poststructuralism, postcolonial feminist analysis, and diaspora studies.

A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America. First Edition.

Abstract: "A Different Mirror" is a dramatic new retelling of our nation's history, a powerful larger narrative of the many different peoples who together compose the United States of America. In a lively account filled with the stories and voices of people previously left out of the historical canon, Ronald Takaki offers a fresh perspective - a "re-visioning" - of our nation's past.