Professor Allan Luke, Graduate School of Education, the University of Queensland

Old Racisms in New Times: the responsibilities of educators and researchers

The practices and discourses of the New Racism in Australia in 1996 and
1997 have already influenced the lives of many teachers and students in
schools, universities and other educational institutions. But a critical
understanding of the current debate requires that it be set against the
broader themes of New Times: the emergence of new ethnic identities and
cultural practices, the impact of the globalisation of the economy on
educationally 'at risk' communities, the significance of discourse and
representation across these moves. This paper aims to introduce to a broad
audience of educational researchers, teacher educators and teachers a
critical vocabulary for talking and thinking about racism and racist
practices in schools - a vocabulary drawn broadly from work in postcolonial
studies and materialist sociology. My point here is that a closer focus on
'racialising practices', forms of cultural 'hydridity', and on a
materialist analysis of economic marginality in Australian communities, has
a great deal to taech us about the stratgeies and practices of the New
Racism, of its socioeconomic and historical bases,and of constructive and
practical counter-strategies.