ANTIRACISM AS A RADICAL EDUCATIONAL IDEOLOGY IN LONDON AND TYNESIDE

This paper examines the ideology and geography of radical anti-racism. Interviews carried out by the author with anti-racist teachers are used to explore differences between the development of the ideology in London and Tyneside. The paper begins by defining the nature of ideology. It is shown how liberal-educationalism became the dominant ideology of the post-war public education service. The paper shows how a series of crises over race equality in London in the mid-1970s and 1980s acted to delegitimate liberal forms of progressive ‘common-sense’ and legitimated anti-racist radicalism. The paper then examines the development of anti-racist ideology in Tyneside and suggests how its ideological form relates to local conditions. The paper concludes by arguing that all educational ideology is geographically, as well as historically specific and contains within itself the potential for its own radical or reactionary transformation. © 1990, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.