2014/04/16 by Melissa F. Weiner · 2 citations
Social Sciences · #Anthropology #Critical Race Theory in Education #Cultural assimilation #Educational Environments and Student Outcomes #Ethnic group #Gender studies #Law #Norm (philosophy) #Political science #Race (biology) #Racialization #Racism #Scholarship #Sociology #Teacher Education and Leadership Studies #White (mutation) #White supremacy
paper · doi:10.1080/01419870.2014.894200
openalex publication_date 2014/04/16 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Diverse schools have become the norm throughout much of what is considered the West. Many urban classrooms feature few white European children but are located in nations dominated by Eurocentric epistemologies and discourses that oppress minority students by devaluing their cultures. Most European scholarship fails to analyse cultures of whiteness in educational settings. This paper addresses this gap by documenting cultural discourses of whiteness infusing a diverse primary school classroom in Amsterdam. Discourses reflecting white cultural norms of order, time, cleanliness, and Western and Christian superiority dominated a classroom containing only one white Dutch child. These discourses contribute to diverse students' explicit racialization while promoting the supremacy of white Dutch culture. They are both assimilationist and exclusionary, suggesting that many students, because of their backgrounds, will never be considered fully Dutch. Findings are of relevance to all nations dominated by white cultures with large populations of students of colour.