Education and racial capitalism

Abstract

This paper works with theories of racial capitalism to show how formal education has been produced through interlocking systems of domination: capitalism, racism and colonialism. With a focus on the enduring histories of British settler colonialism, we put forward a framework for analysing the constitutive relationship between contemporary systems of education and racial capitalism. The paper discusses three connected relations: (I) the ongoing enclosures and dispossession of land and people, with which the material infrastructures of education are built; (II) the racialised divisions of labour which education systems not only create but are also premised on, and; (III) the extraction of value in and through education, normalising hierarchised life and steeped in racial capitalism's defining project of dehumanisation. The paper suggests that sociologies of education need to attend more fully to these relations of racial capitalism if they are to imagine beyond, and mobilise against, education's role in sustaining white supremacy.

Ethical research landscapes in fragile and conflict-affected contexts: understanding the challenges

“…Increasingly theorising around racial capitalism, which shows how racialised exploitation has historically been integral to capitalist expansion and continues to be so (e.g. Bhambra and Holmwood, 2021; Gerrard et al, 2021; Moreton-Robinson, 2015), is deepening these critiques (e.g. Pailey, 2020; Sriprakash et al, 2020).…”

“She Just Saw Me - She Didn’t Teach Me”: the perspectives of Australian Sudanese and South Sudanese youth on the student/teacher relationship in Australian schools

“…It has previously been argued that the racialisation of African communities in Australia needs to be presently, as well as historically, contextualised relative to colonisation (Baak, 2019;Due, 2008). Racialised policies underpinning a legacy of racism within the Australian education system are inherently linked to colonisation (Bodkin-Andrews & Carlson, 2016;Gerrard et al, 2021). For example, it is worth noting that the findings of this study are not dissimilar to findings regarding teachers' attitudes towards, and relationships with, Indigenous students within Australian schools (see for example Dandy et al, 2015;Moodie et al, 2019;Riley & Pidgeon, 2019).…”

Teachers of Color and Precarious Work: The Inequality of Job Security

“…In Sweden, such neoliberal reforms are conceptualized as “fast policy” resulting in a rapid transformation of a highly centralized educational system (Hardy, Rönnerman, and Beach 2019). With contemporary expressions of neoliberalism anchored in racial capitalism (Gerrard, Sriprakash, and Rudolph 2022; Melamed 2011), what then are the consequences of neoliberalism on the precarization of teaching? How does neoliberalism mediate precarious work for ToC?…”

“…The absence of an explicit racial analysis reinforces an “inequality of insecurity” (Kalleberg 2011), resulting in different forms and degrees of precarity, vulnerability, or risk for different groups of workers. Indeed, scholars argue that any analyses of labor enmeshed in capitalism and neoliberalism must account for race and racism (Gerrard, Sriprakash, and Rudolph 2022; Mahmud 2014). Class stratification and precarity for people of color are central to racial capitalism (Robinson 2000), which articulates a constitutive theory of racism, colonialism, and capitalism dependent on racial projects of slavery, dispossession, violence, imperialism, and genocide (Gerrard, Sriprakash, and Rudolph 2022).…”

“…Indeed, scholars argue that any analyses of labor enmeshed in capitalism and neoliberalism must account for race and racism (Gerrard, Sriprakash, and Rudolph 2022; Mahmud 2014). Class stratification and precarity for people of color are central to racial capitalism (Robinson 2000), which articulates a constitutive theory of racism, colonialism, and capitalism dependent on racial projects of slavery, dispossession, violence, imperialism, and genocide (Gerrard, Sriprakash, and Rudolph 2022). Racial capitalism thus foregrounds contemporary understandings of global neoliberalism driving precarious conditions and racialized labor inequalities.…”