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Silencing and Institutional Racism in Settler-Colonial Education

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Silencing and Institutional Racism in Settler-Colonial Education SILENCING AND INSTITUTIONAL RACISM IN SETTLER-COLONIAL EDUCATION BY LIANA MACDONALD A thesis submitted to the Victoria University of Wellington in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Victoria University of Wellington 2018 i ii My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you. Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider, 1984 Our bodies can remember these histories, even when we don’t. Sara Ahmed, On Being Included, 2012 They falsely own our land so they really don't We've been ripped off man so shut up I won't You gotta learn the history to know where ya truly are Learn it somehow this ignorance has gone too far. Upper Hutt Posse, E Tū, 1988 iii iv Abstract Twenty years ago, Charles Mills argued that a Racial Contract underwrites and guides the social contract and assigns political, economic, and social privileges based on race. This thesis argues that a settler manifestation of the Racial Contract operates through processes and structures of silencing in the New Zealand education system. Silencing is a racial discourse aligned with state ideologies about biculturalism that supports ignorance and denial of the structuring force of colonisation. Within schools, a state narrative of biculturalism advances the notion of harmonious settler-colonial race relations by marginalising or denying violent colonial histories and their consequences in the present. Silencing in the education system is examined through the lived experiences of Māori teachers of English language as they teach New Zealand literature in secondary school classrooms. Interviews with nineteen teachers and observations of four teachers' classroom practices (with follow up interviews from the teachers and some of their students) reveal that everyday classroom interactions perpetuate silencing through a hidden curriculum. This hidden curriculum appeals to settler sensibilities by: drawing on teaching pedagogies that soften or mute historical harm, validating “lovely” knowledge about Māori society and assessment approaches that privilege settler-colonial imperatives. This thesis identifies that harmonious notions of biculturalism circulate through the spatial and temporal dimensions of secondary schools because epistemological structures (policy, curriculum, and pedagogy) silence the meanings and effects of colonisation. In this way, a Settler Contract operates to sustain institutional racism in the New Zealand education system and white supremacy in settler-colonial societies. v Acknowledgements Early in the study one of my supervisors rightly predicted I would be a “different Māori” by the end of this thesis. There are many people to thank for this consciousness-raising experience. The participants in this study let me into their teaching worlds with professional candour and I cannot thank them enough. They may be surprised at the direction this study has taken and the significance of their everyday schooling lives. To the four who participated in phase two; I only wish I had been half as good at teaching as you. My supervisors, Joanna Kidman and Gillian Hubbard, were vital to the direction and completion of this thesis. Thank you for your unwaivering support, excellent critique, feedback and literature guidance throughout the thesis process. I am very grateful for your supervision – especially through my clumsy handling of existential crises. I was extremely lucky to receive the Whāia Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga Doctoral Excellence Scholarship as this award allowed me to study full time during the second half of the thesis. Thanks also to Te Runanga o Ngāti Kuia Trust for financial assistance. I am also indebted to the Ministry of Education for the teaching release time given through several study grants and awards while I was working during the first few years of the thesis. At that time, I was employed at Onslow College and the staff were very supportive of my study as well. Thanks also to fellow Victoria University PhD students, lecturers and friends. Also, extended whānau and friends outside the doctorate world. Finally, my mother Mary, my sister Gemma and my daughter Anaïs, are the three who have really seen the good, the bad and the ugly of this PhD journey over the last five years. Thanks for keeping it real. vi Table of contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................................... v Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................ vi Table of contents ............................................................................................................................... vii Māori glossary of words or terms ...................................................................................................... xi Chapter One Introduction to the study ......................................................................................................... 1 Tracing the disappearance of race: use of terminology in the thesis .................................................. 3 Silencing race in education ................................................................................................................. 6 Outline of the thesis .......................................................................................................................... 10 Chapter Two Conceptualising settler silencing as institutional racism .................................................... 14 Ideologies that sustain white supremacy ........................................................................................... 14 Whiteness ...................................................................................................................................... 15 Colourblindness ............................................................................................................................ 17 Colourmuteness ............................................................................................................................. 18 Challenging racism and silencing through research.......................................................................... 20 Movement one: Personal experiences of racism ........................................................................... 21 Individual and cultural racism ................................................................................................................. 21 Evidence of structural racism .................................................................................................................. 23 Responses to racism ................................................................................................................................ 24 Movement two: Silencing through institutional structures ........................................................... 25 Policy ....................................................................................................................................................... 26 Curriculum ............................................................................................................................................... 28 Pedagogy ................................................................................................................................................. 30 Movement three: Everyday silencing in the classroom ................................................................ 31 Teacher silence and safety ....................................................................................................................... 32 Silencing and affect ................................................................................................................................. 33 Movement four: The hidden curriculum of settler silencing......................................................... 35 Chapter Three Ignorance and amnesia .......................................................................................................... 40 Charles Mills’ “The Racial Contract” ............................................................................................... 41 An epistemology of ignorance ...................................................................................................... 42 The Settler Contract .......................................................................................................................... 43 Historical amnesia and settler belonging ...................................................................................... 44 State ideologies of biculturalism ................................................................................................... 47 A state narrative of biculturalism .................................................................................................. 48 vii Chapter Four Rewriting the Settler Contract in state secondary schools ................................................. 51 The epistemological subcontract ....................................................................................................... 51 The spatial subcontract ..................................................................................................................... 52 Biculturalism legitimises a limited commitment .......................................................................... 53 Biculturalism should feel good ....................................................................................................
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