Who’s afraid of critical race theory in education? a reply to Mike Cole’s ‘The color-line and the class struggle’



David Gillborn is Professor of Critical Race Studies in Education at the Institute of Education, University of

London. 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL, UK. Email: [email protected]


The social construction of ‘race’ differences is always associated with raced inequities in some form;

consequently the notion of ‘race’ inevitably carries racist consequences (Leonardo 2002) and race/racism become
categories that are mutually dependent and reinforcing.

‘Marx simply was not an economic reductionist. He did not believe that all forms of politics, or culture, or
social conflict were simply expressions of underlying economic or class interests...’ (Kitching 1994: 168, original
emphasis).

I am indebted to Professor Mills for sharing his article with me before its publication.

Cole’s third footnote offers further evidence of this when he describes the concept of ‘transposition’ as one of
the ‘basic tenets’ of CRT. In fact the concept was first coined by Gregg Beratan (2008). I apply the idea in my book
(Gillborn 2008). Although the concept is important, it hardly qualifies as a CRT ‘tenet’.



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