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Who’s afraid of critical race theory in education?
a reply to Mike Cole’s ‘The color-line and the class struggle’
David Gillborn[1]
CRT’s usefulness will be limited not by the weakness of its constructs but by
the degree that many whites will not accept its assumptions; I anticipate
critique from both left and right. (Taylor 1998: 124)
A decade ago I was involved in a prolonged dispute about the politics of antiracist
research. Along with several other qualitative researchers who sought to document
how racism operated in schools and classrooms, I found myself subject to sustained
and repeated criticism from a small group of methodologists who seemed to be
developing a new genre of work based solely around the denial of our research. For a
while I responded, determined not to let the ‘methodological purists’ (as Barry Troyna
dubbed them) win the debate through their sheer persistence (see Gillborn 1998;
Gillborn & Gipps 1998; Troyna 1993). Eventually, however, I began to wonder
whether anyone else was interested in the debate anymore. Each reply merely
provided material for yet another critique and seemed to reconfirm the
methodologists’ belief that the academy was hanging on their every word. On both
sides the arguments had been made and re-made: what was the point of continuing,
other than to swell the CVs of the protagonists. I must admit to experiencing a sense
of deja vu.
Mike Cole’s arguments in this journal (Cole 2009a) largely repeat points that have
already been made elsewhere (Cole 2007; Cole & Maisuria 2007) and seem likely to
re-appear in further treatments that are already in press (Cole 2009b & c). So, you
may be asking, why am I writing this response? The answer is that I wish to take the
opportunity to set the record straight on certain matters and offer readers some
signposts as to where they might look next if they are interested in understanding
Critical Race Theory (CRT) as it is developing in the work of critical race scholars
rather than through the confused and often misleading straw person version that tends
to appear in critiques from both ends of the political spectrum (for discussions of
previous critiques see Bell 1995; Crenshaw 1995; Delgado & Stefancic 2001; Mills
2009; Stovall 2006).
What is Critical Race Theory?
There is no space here to offer a comprehensive explanation of CRT, its background
in US legal studies, or the particular ways in which the approach is developing across
many different fields in contemporary social science. Suffice it to say that there are
plenty of books and articles that provide an accurate and informative overview of
CRT (see Delgado & Stefancic 2001; Gillborn 2006 & 2008; Ladson-Billings 1998;
Lynn & Parker 2006; Solorzano & Yosso 2002; Tate 1997). There are also edited
collections that conveniently pull together the foundational texts in CRT (Crenshaw
et al 1995; Delgado & Stefancic 2000 & 2005; Taylor et al in press; Wing &
Stefancic 2007). In these accounts readers will discover a diverse, stimulating and