'I don't think racism is that bad any more': Exploring the 'end of racism' discourse among students in English schools

Andreouli, Eleni, Greenland, Katy ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0096-2851 and Howarth, Caroline 2016. 'I don't think racism is that bad any more': Exploring the 'end of racism' discourse among students in English schools. European Journal of Social Psychology 46 (2) , pp. 171-184. 10.1002/ejsp.2143

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Abstract

In this paper, we present findings on lay constructions of racism from a focus group study (11 groups, n = 72) with a mixed sample of secondary-school students in England. We show that racism was, on the whole, ‘othered’: It was located in other times, places, and people or was denied altogether. We show that this way of talking about racism had different uses depending on the identity stakes involved in different interactional contexts. Even in the cases where racism was constructed as common, participants worked hard to make an ‘irrefutable’ argument, which suggests that they were anticipating reputational damage by making a claim for the persistence of racism. We discuss these findings with regard to the different levels of analysis involved in constructions of racism (micro-interactional, local and broader normative context) and with regard to an ‘end of racism’ discourse that appeared to provide the normative framework for participants' accounts.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Social Sciences (Includes Criminology and Education)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB1603 Secondary Education. High schools P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics
Uncontrolled Keywords:	racism; prejudice; constructions of race; end of racism; children; education; England
Publisher:	Wiley-Blackwell
ISSN:	0046-2772
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Date of Acceptance:	13 July 2015
Last Modified:	20 Nov 2024 22:45
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/78226

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