Tomlinson - Education and Race from Empire to Brexit

EDUCATION AND RACE FROM EMPIRE TO BREXIT

Sally Tomlinson

First published in Great Britain in 2019 by

Policy Press University of Bristol 1-9 Old Park Hill Bristol BS2 8BB UK Tel +44 (0)117 954 5940 e-mail

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Policy Press 2019

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ISBN 978-1-4473-4584-8 paperback

ISBN 978-1-4473-4582-4 hardcover

ISBN 978-1-4473-4585-5 ePub

ISBN 978-1-4473-4586-2 Mobi

ISBN 978-1-4473-4583-1 ePdf

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This book uses work from social and imperial history, politics, educational policy, and the politics of race, ethnicity and education. So many thanks to all colleagues with whom over the years I have been able to discuss and argue over the issues and learn from them. Special thanks to Tahir Abbas, Kalwant Bhopal, Linda Akomaning, Sue Caudron, Danny Dorling, Dave Gillborn, Carol Vincent, Geoffrey Walford, and Brian Tomlinson for the tech stuff. Thanks again to Jo-Anne Baird, Head of Department, for the hospitality of the Department of Education, University of Oxford, while this book was being written. The book is dedicated to the late Professor John Rex, who made it his intellectual lifes work to destroy racism in all its forms, and to Baroness Doreen Lawrence, who fought a murderous racism.

Thanks to Colin Schindler for kind permission to quote from his book National Service (2012). Thanks also to Linda Akomaning for permission to quote from her PhD thesis, The educational experiences of Ghanaian children in England (2018).

Every country depends on its sense of identity, on a story about itself. I have witnessed, and indeed been part of, many attempts to construct a post-imperial story. (Brown, 2017: 22)

You could tell from the way they did call them Froggies, Eyeties, Dagoes the only way wed describe them was that they were all beneath you. (Elderly man, quoted in Humphries, 1981: 43)

This book covers the period from the height of the British Empire, from 1870, to 2018, when it became clear that Brexit the vote to leave the European Union had increased hostilities towards racial and minority ethnic groups and migrant workers, raising sharp questions about national identity. Will a populist view prevail that there should be a British identity underpinned by unproblematic British values and culture, largely excluding minorities? Or will arguments based on equality, human rights and economic needs prove more powerful in challenging the idea of a white, monocultural British identity unencumbered by immigrants and refugees? Will a Scottish, Welsh or Irish identity be more inclusive than an English one, assuming that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland continues to be formed out of four nations? What part will education play in future scenarios when, for over a century-and-a-half, there has been a dismal failure at all educational levels to alleviate ignorance and xenophobia?