The Subtle, Ambiguous and Socially Constructed Nature of Teacher Racism and Discrimination: The Case of Racist Joking in a Multicultural Classroom

This paper employs ethnographic data gathered from two Flemish (Belgian) and one English secondary school to explore variations between pupils in making claims of teacher racism and discrimination (TRD). Differences between pupils in their perception of TRD appear to be informed by: 1. The subtle and ambiguous nature of TRD. 2. The socially constructed nature of TRD and 3. The contextual activation of capital indicative of TRD by teachers. A case study that focuses on the use of racist jokes in the classroom is employed to illustrate the social mechanisms underlying pupils’ claims of TRD. This paper builds on a strong research tradition in the UK on TRD by focusing the analysis on pupils’ claims of TRD, by applying Bourdieu’s theory of practice to the study of TRD in classrooms and by investigating how TRD is experienced by a generally neglected group of Turkish minority pupils