Anti-racist Education in 'White' Areas: The limits and possibilities of change

This article considers the outcomes of anti-racist developments in education in largely white areas of the UK between the early 1980s and 1997. Analysing racism as operating at the personal, cultural, institutional and structural levels, it examines what 'change' might mean at each of these levels (and in different kinds of 'white' areas) and then explores the key obstacles and catalysts. It is suggested that motive, both individual and institutional, is a critical problem. The article concludes with a model which argues that only a mutually reinforcing series of actions and changes at all four levels at which racism operates will produce any lasting change.