The Edge of Race ─ Critical Examinations of Education and Race/Racism

The phrase ‘the edge of race’ can be used both as a description and as a response to two key concerns. The first of these is that while race is increasingly on the periphery of education policy – with a growing disregard shown for racist inequities, as education systems become dominated by market-driven concerns – it is important that we map the shifting relations of race in neoliberal politics and policies. The second concern is that at this time, within and outside the spaces of the academy, even to mention race equity is to risk condemnation, marginalization, and ridicule.

The authors in this collection use ‘the edge of race’ as a provocation in order to examine the concepts, methodologies, policies, politics, processes, and practices associated with race and racism in education. The chapters offer empirical examples of the perpetuation and perniciousness of racism that point to the continued salience of research about race. Additionally, the chapters make contributions to conceptual and methodological understandings of race and racism. The contributors illustrate the contingency, productivity, and fragility of race as a concept, and point to how educational research continues to be a contested site in, and from which to study, race and education. This book was originally published as a special issue ofDiscourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education.

Kalervo N. Gulson is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. His research contributes to, and draws upon, education policy studies, sociology of education, race/ ethnicity, and social and cultural geography. His current research focuses on the relationship between education policy and calculative spaces, and what kind of life is possible within and through these calculative spaces. His recent publications includeEducation policy, space and the city: markets and the (in)visibility of race (2011), and Policy, geophilosophy, education (with T. Webb, 2015).

Zeus Leonardo is Professor of Education, and Affiliated Faculty of the Critical Theory Designated Emphasis at the University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. He has published several dozen articles and book chapters on critical educational theory. His articles have appeared in Educational Researcher, Race Ethnicity & Education, andTeachers College Record. His recent books include Race Frameworks (2013),Education and Racism (with W. Norton Grubb, 2013), and Handbook of Cultural Politics and Education(ed. 2010).

David Gillborn is Professor of Critical Race Studies, and Director of the Centre for Research in Race & Education at the University of Birmingham, UK. He is founding editor of the journalRace Ethnicity and Education. He is twice winner of the ‘Book of the Year’ award by the Society for Educational Studies, most recently forRacism and Education: coincidence or conspiracy (2008). He received the Derrick Bell Legacy Award from the Critical Race Studies in Education Association, for demonstrating ‘personal courage and professional commitment to supporting and advocating race equality in education’, and was recently named to the Laureate Chapter of the Kappa Delta Pi international honour society.