Asking research participants ‘How did you come to be leading antiracism work across your school – were you pushed or did you jump?’ elicited varied responses, with most citing one event as a motivator. In America in spring 2020, the brutal public execution by a White police officer of a Black citizen, George Floyd, brought the concept of structural racism into sharp focus for some school communities in the UK, pushing them to want to do something about racism. Among the many responses to the seemingly suddenly revealed realities of structural racism in our public institutions, schools sought out structured programmes, awards, courses and kitemarks that could support them on their journey to learn about racism, ‘tackle’ race inequality (Miller, 2019), and distance themselves from being complicit as racists.
Over the course of three years, I worked with a group of around 100 teachers and school leaders whose schools chose to embark on the two-year Anti-Racist School Award programme designed and delivered by the Centre for Race Education and Decoloniality. Through in-depth interviews with 10 Award leaders, I explore three key research questions: what are the motivations for embarking on and persevering with the Award across two years; how do leaders stay motivated; what transformations happen during the Award process?
Two linked theoretical and evolving disciplines of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS) underpin analysis of my findings. Despite many pushing for the chance to lead on antiracism in their school, ‘the complete racialisation of daily life’ (Leonardo, 2009) that is reproduced within institutions such as schools ‘jumps’ participants as they comprehend how embedded and usualised racism is. Some Award leads were occupied with unravelling where the social construct of ‘race’ (Delgado, 1995) comes from, and how notions that they previously held about staffing, curriculum, pedagogy and educational outcomes are a direct result of constructions of race that correlate with deficit narratives around the potential and capabilities of Black and Global Majority people.
