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There Is No “Race” in the Schoolyard

Color-Blind Ideology in an (Almost) All-White School

Bibliographic Data

ID8223003
AuthorsAmanda E Lewis (University of Illinois Chicago), Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (0009-0003-1819-6080, University of Illinois Chicago, corresponding author)
Year2001
Volume38
Issue4
Pages781-811
Publication date2001-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Educational Research Journal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-8312 • E-ISSN: 1935-1011
PublisherAmerican Educational Research Association (AERA) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.3102/00028312038004781
OpenAlexW2141045757
LanguageEN
Citations received148
References cited56

This article examines the racial messages and lessons students get from parents and teachers in one suburban school community. I examine the explicit and “hidden” curriculum of race offered in the school as well as exploring community members’ racial discourse, understandings, and behaviors. During a yearlong ethnographic study, all community members consistently denied the local salience of race. Yet, this explicit color-blind “race talk” masked an underlying reality of racialized practices and color-conscious understandings—practices and understandings that not only had direct impact on students of color at the school, but also have implications for race relations more broadly. I argue that this apparent paradox is related to the operation of new racial ideologies becoming dominant in the United States today, and conclude with suggestions for how this racial logic might be challenged

Critical race theory · Curriculum · Ethnography · Ideology · Pedagogy · Political science · Politics · Race (biology · Racial formation theory · Salience (neuroscience · Sociology · White (mutation · Anthropology · Critical Race Theory in Education · Education Discipline and Inequality · Educator Training and Historical Pedagogy · Gender Studies · Psychology · Social Psychology

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Unique citing works148
Citations per year6,17
Citation span2002 - 2026 (25)
Citation velocitycurrent
Highly citedYes
Citation typesNeutral: 148
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