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There are two related concepts that have played a role in influencing the diversifying the curriculum agenda: critical race theory and whiteness.

Critical Race Theory

Critical race theory (CRT) is a discipline that developed from US Black legal scholars and started to gain prominence in education through the work of Gloria Ladson-Billings. Whilst CRT has its origins in US-centric academia, educational researchers in the UK are developing ways of how to take it forward in a UK context.

Although there is no single, universal definition of CRT, most CRT advocates base their work on five tenets:

1. Racism is ordinary – it is not aberrational but an everyday reality implicitly embedded in the social order.

2. White supremacy - political, cultural and economic systems are white dominated and exist to maintain white privilege.

3. Interest convergence / Material determinism – advancements for minority people only happen when it allows the maintenance of white power and supremacy.

4. Intersectionality / Anti-essentialism – race is centrally placed in any analysis but other aspects of disadvantage also have to be considered.

5. Centrality of experiential knowledge – the experiences of racialised minorities are important to form counter-narratives to the majoritarian view.

CRT and taught programmes

The increasingly multidisciplinary approach associated with CRT means that it can be embedded into different taught programmes. Traditionally, CRT has been used as a means for students to employ critical thinking skills when considering notions of 'equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law' (Delgado & Stefancic, 2006). More commonly, it is now also used as a lens by which students can critically engage with subject areas such as Economics in terms of considering how dominant groups racialize minority groups at different times, in response to shifting needs such as the labour market. Importantly, CRT stands apart from many academic disciplines as it espouses an activist dimension; here, the tools and language within CRT can be used in course-appropriate ways to meaningfully engage students in raising awareness about social justice.

Resources on Critical Race Theory

Whiteness

Whiteness has become a growing area of scholarship in the past few decades. Whiteness studies and other related disciplines ask important questions about white identity, white privilege and how white racial identity was created. Like CRT, whiteness studies is not without it critics but it can be a useful lens with which to view the nature of our current curricula. If we accept that often our curricular implicitly places whiteness as the unspoken norm then we can start a process of diversifying the curriculum.

Resources on Whiteness