Racism and Reform: new ethnicities/old inequalities?

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Abstract
Racism lies at the heart of the Thatcherite project. This article explores how issues of ‘race’, racism and ethnicity are positioned within the education reforms that have reshaped the British schooling system. Education policy has adopted a largely deracialised discourse such that a concern with ethnic inequalities of achievement and opportunity has been effectively removed from the policy agenda. Simultaneously, most reforms have had a particular (usually negative) impact upon children of minority ethnic background. The article explores the development of this strand of education policy and exposes the new racist constructions of ‘the nation’ and its ‘common culture’ that find expression through the marketisation of schooling and a willed ignorance about the extent and nature of racism within the system.