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Final published version, 388 KB, PDF document
Available under license: CC BY
Final published version
Licence: CC BY
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Constructing multiculturalism at school
T2 - negotiating tensions in talk about ethnic diversity
AU - Kirkham, Sam
N1 - The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Discourse and Society, ?, 2016, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2016 by SAGE Publications Ltd at the Discourse and Society page: http://das.sagepub.com/ on SAGE Journals Online: http://online.sagepub.com/ This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
PY - 2016/7
Y1 - 2016/7
N2 - Recent trends in British education policy have led to an increased focus on promoting ethnic diversity in schools, as well as greater parental involvement in school choice. This combination has led some schools to actively market diversity as a selling point in order to attract more minority ethnic students, as well as attract White middle-class students seeking a more ‘diverse’ educational experience. This article analyses how students attending such a school in English engage with discourses of multiculturalism. I identify three themes that characterise talk about multiculturalism at school: (1) multiculturalism-as-beneficial commodity; (2) claims of ‘reverse racism’ in provision for minority groups; (3) denial of racism and constructing the school as a tolerant environment where everybody gets along. Through an analysis of discourse strategies and positioning tactics, I demonstrate how students negotiate tensions between the existence of racism and the construction of an inclusive and anti-racist educational environment.
AB - Recent trends in British education policy have led to an increased focus on promoting ethnic diversity in schools, as well as greater parental involvement in school choice. This combination has led some schools to actively market diversity as a selling point in order to attract more minority ethnic students, as well as attract White middle-class students seeking a more ‘diverse’ educational experience. This article analyses how students attending such a school in English engage with discourses of multiculturalism. I identify three themes that characterise talk about multiculturalism at school: (1) multiculturalism-as-beneficial commodity; (2) claims of ‘reverse racism’ in provision for minority groups; (3) denial of racism and constructing the school as a tolerant environment where everybody gets along. Through an analysis of discourse strategies and positioning tactics, I demonstrate how students negotiate tensions between the existence of racism and the construction of an inclusive and anti-racist educational environment.
KW - British education
KW - denial of racism
KW - discourse
KW - diversity
KW - education
KW - ethnicity
KW - multiculturalism
KW - racism
KW - reverse racism
KW - schools
U2 - 10.1177/0957926516634548
DO - 10.1177/0957926516634548
M3 - Journal article
VL - 27
SP - 383
EP - 400
JO - Discourse and Society
JF - Discourse and Society
SN - 0957-9265
IS - 4
ER -