Conference Agenda

School leaders have a responsibility to work against racism. However, research indicates that there is a lack of both knowledge about and interest in racism among school leaders (Flores & Gunzenhauser, 2019; Miller, 2021). Even where social justice is said to be a priority, work against racism seems to meet challenges of being truly included in this notion (Gorski, 2019).

In this paper, I present a study that explores educational leadership and racism through the perspectives of Norwegian principals. Norway is an interesting case to study in this context, as school leaders have a long history of social justice engagement through deeply rooted policies of inclusion that marks the Norwegian social democracy. However, "race" and racism have not been seen as a relevant focus in the schools' work for social justice – despite the fact that Norway has five national minorities and almost 20% of the population is "immigrant". In recent years, the focus on racism in society has grown and shifted towards more openness to the experiences of minorities (Døving, 2022). At the same time, anti-immigration and far-right politics that uphold different kinds of nationalism also play a role in the Norwegian society. All of this affects the work that goes on in schools. Hence, it is important to broaden our understanding about what principals do to counteract racism in their local school context.

The aim of the study is to provide a deeper understanding into how principals counteract racism. I draw on the practices of 15 principals in the Norwegian primary and secondary governmental school system, who, in different ways, work to counteract racism. The following research questions have been asked: (1)What manifestations of racism do they target, and (2) what anti-racism actions do they focus on?

In order to understand the variety of the principals’ perceptions of manifestations of racism and strategies used in work against racism, I build on a wide understanding of the concept: racism is understood as exclusionary or discriminatory practices based in a variable of shifting assumptions, logics and ideational constructs that manifest on individual, social and structural levels (Balibar 1991; Goldberg 2015). In the analysis I use theories of anti-oppressive education (Kumashiro, 2000) and theoretical frameworks of denial of racism (Goldberg, 2015; Van Djik, 1992). I also build on existing litterature on racism and school leadership to discuss the results.

Exiting research continues to emphasise the importance of diversity in the curriculum for students of colour (Chetty, 2014; Harris and Reynolds, 2014), but also for the benefit of all students in developing a critical understanding of history, political and social life (Diversi and Moreira, 2013). Diversity in the school curriculum is noted not just for the benefits of self-actualisation and agency of minoritized ethnic students, but to also challenge stereotypes, foster more critical perspectives and redistribute power (Bishop, 1990; Borowski, 2012). However, traditional multicultural approaches to diversity in the curriculum can fall back on an understanding that connects diversity as something principally connected to ‘visible’ minorities and the performative celebration of ‘others’, as opposed to a deeper pursuit of developing critical knowledge and anti-racist practice (Troyna, 1987, Maylor, 2010). Such approaches to ‘diversity’ in curriculum practice, may reinscribe stereotypes and perceptions of cultural ‘difference’ in which minorities are presented as ‘fixed’ or group entities (Amanti, 2005). While the celebrating may be well-intentioned and at least recognise the cultural diversity of students, often these forms of practice become the default, as they do not threaten whiteness (Warmington, 2020). The effect of this, leads to the reproduction of white supremacy, which compromises more transformative modes of learning and teaching (Lander, 2014). Instead, a sharper lens needs to be held-up to knowledge and pedagogical practices that are valued in the mainstream school curriculums.

In light of these issues, the aim of my research was to explore what spaces exist in the curriculum for interventions that can incorporate and draw on different sources of knowledge for curricular use (Bernal, 2002; Zipin, 2013). Through this, I hoped to move beyond multicultural recognition and identify how we can redistribute and challenge what we currently value as ‘academic’ knowledge in the curriculum. Furthermore, a key interest guiding this paper, is in understanding how critical social theory on the curriculum can be translated, and applied in schools whilst being responsive to the performative constraints schools and teachers experience.

The Council of the European Union has set a target for countries to limit school dropout to 9% by 2030. To this end, national contexts must promote strategies for educational success linked to a comprehensive whole-school approach with an inclusive vision of education, allowing institutions and staff to innovate. Each member state must transpose this resolution into its educational system. However, in France, the dominance of the principle of meritocracy over the education and training system’s organisation does not favour a move towards greater inclusion (Verdier, 2001). The guidance system in particular reinforces the primacy of this conception: it puts into practice the competition between secondary school pupils, distributing them between more or less elitist tracks according to their academic results. Thus, at the end of middle school, young people with learning difficulties, often from modest backgrounds, tend to be oriented by default into the least attractive training courses. This constitutes a motive for dropping out (Bernard & Michaut, 2016). However, a high school’s climate can retroactively diminish the sense of constraint in orientation, and promote the perseverance of these students, by fostering their sense of belonging and focusing on educational success (Bell, 2021).

This can be difficult to implement in training courses that are in low demand, in which pupils have entered essentially due to poor grades. Staff tends to be caught between injunctions stemming from European resolutions to make educational and pedagogical practices more inclusive; and a meritocratic principle that permeates the French education system, including courses whose students are usually unable to live up to demanding academic expectations. Nevertheless, said practices seem to favour the perseverance of pupils when staff find a compromise between two logics (Derouet & Dutercq, 1997): pursuing performance, based on an industrial logic, while promoting proximity and the personalisation of relationships within the institution, powered by a community logic (Bell, 2019).

Whereas the industrial logic can be materialised by actors’ focus on the closeness or distance of their students’ behaviours and performances in relation to academic expectations, a community logic allows them to take into account the various difficulties faced by certain pupils. This observation is similar to that of Lantheaume & Urbanski (2023): some students in disadvantaged middle schools may ask for religious exemptions while they are in school, in spite of the principle of secularism applied to the French education system, which does not easily grant such exemptions (Levinson, 2002; Joppke, 2017).

In these situations, when staff compromise on the principle of justice to be applied, between absolute respect for the secular rule and maintenance of the bond of trust and closeness with the pupil, their attitude tends to favour behaviour evolution of said pupils towards a stronger suitability for the principle of secularism, therefore fostering their perseverance. This is related to religious but also cultural and ethnical differences which tend to be ignored for the sake of civic equality, but are recognized in specific contexts. Hence it is possible to say that multiculturalism is not as “un-French” as it might seem (Guérard de Latour, 2013). Certainly, in the current context of the 2004 law prohibiting the wearing of ostentatious signs of religious affiliation in schools, and the repeated terrorist attacks of the 2010’s, French society is experiencing tensions with regard to the respect of the principle of secularism in public institutions. Political discourse tends towards a perfectionist republicanism, advocating, in the interest of inclusion, a strict interpretation of this principle and an intransigence towards breaches. The question is whether or not, applied to the school environment, this inflexibility promotes the inclusion of all students and, by extension, their school perseverance.