Professor David Gillborn
Whatever happened to institutional racism? How the 'White working class' were made into the new race victims
Professor David Gillborn, Professor of Education, Institute of Education, University of London
Despite its inclusive rhetoric, Widening Participation is a policy agenda dominated by a concern with class. Race inequality is glossed over and the interests of White people are placed centre-stage. It is ten years since the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry put 'institutional racism' at the top of the news agenda and led to far reaching changes in race relations law. A decade later and, compared with their White classmates, Black Caribbean children remain less likely to attain five higher grade GCSEs but more likely to be excluded from school; nevertheless many people believe that institutional racism is a thing of the past and that the White working class are the new race victims. This lecture explores how we got to this situation: it reviews the reality and the fiction of white racial victimhood, the media's portrayal of class and race disadvantage in education, and the betrayal of the Lawrence legacy.
