1 Introduction

Inter- and multicultural approaches in education activate concepts such as race, racism, ethnicity or discrimination. These concepts are often associated with historical events, which have given them added significance and make their appropriation more complicated. Added to which, they can have different meanings according to the social or cultural group employing them, and according to their geographical or even their historical setting. For all these reasons, it is necessary to learn how to interpret these concepts, to understand the issues connected with their use and to discuss the ways they can be employed in education.

2 The Historic Roots of Racism

Racism, present in the majority of modern societies, originated from various historical events, particularly slavery and colonialism.

In the history of humanity, slavery is one of the cruellest experiences of denying liberty to others. Even if it has existed in most civilizations, including those that we tend to admire (particularly Ancient Greece and Egypt), the slave trade of Black Africans was an extraordinary event of oppression for three principal reasons, namely: the number of people involved (several millions); the appalling and inhumane conditions of their voyage to the Americas (many died while crossing the Atlantic); and the institutionalization and sophistication of this merciless trade.

Over several generations, this commerce depleted the African continent of a large part of its population. It also resulted in the creation of African diasporas in many regions of the world, but particularly in the Americas. If, in most cases, former slaves were unable to conserve their language and their religion, they were able to transmit and create extremely rich cultural expressions drawn from their ancestors’ African roots and to participate, for example, in the construction of an African-American and/or African-Brazilian culture.

Slavery was not only an economic affair but also an attempt to gain psychological mastery over its victims. Thus, as Jones (1999) has suggested, confronting the oppression of slavery had both an important psychological impact on the African-American identity, but also led to the creation of a significant psychological resilience required to survive the experiences borne by their ancestors. To be a member of the African population reduced to slavery meant that one had survived the brutality and cruelty of the slave trade, endured residential segregation and discrimination, as well as all kinds of obstacles and unjust treatments (Jones, 1999).

While emphasizing the importance of legal and legislative measures aimed at abolishing slavery, it is imperative to recall that this practice reflects the relationships of otherness. By basing the social classification of individuals on biological criteria, this ranking of humans justified the racist practices of slavery (Peretti-Ndiaye, 2016). “Race” was manipulated in order to rank individuals. It was the “mapping” of the skin colour (Peretti-Ndiaye, 2016) that permitted this social ranking and its perpetuation.

Racial ideologists based themselves on a hierarchical social structuring, which did not bestow the same degree of equality on all individuals. Moreover, the popular infatuation in Europe in the nineteenth and part of the twentieth century to observe exotic races and peoples on public display in universal exhibitions is a witness to this reasoning of hierarchical human classification. These exhibitions were racist and the fascination of Europeans for them reflected the epoch’s state of mind: not all human beings were created equal. “Exotic people” alongside wild beasts were displayed in sideshows behind iron grills or in special cubicles for a public thirsty for the uncommon. It demonstrated the most obvious proof of the breach which existed at that epoch of colonial empire-building between speeches on equality and the ingrained practice of discrimination. For these reasons, ethnological zoos or “Negro villages” remain extremely sensitive subjects. These exhibitions were the practical reality of a racist ideology in which the Black person recalled “bestiality” (Bancel and Blanchard, 1998, quoted by Peretti-Ndiaye, 2016, p. 109). Furthermore, the theme of sexuality (nudity) was particularly exploited. These exhibitions seem to bear witness to an ambivalent fascination for human beings believed to be at the limit of bestiality.

Obviously, these human zoos would never have taken place without the colonial connection. Indeed, at this time, the European countries took whatever they wanted from their colonies—raw materials, archaeological artefacts, but also human beings to stare at.

If one can place the historical origin of racism in these remarkable events in History, it is also necessary to consider this phenomenon as multidimensional and appearing in different contexts. The features of racism can arise between many types of social and cultural groups. The remainder of this chapter focuses on the ways the Other has been kept at a distance. It will give the reader an idea of the extent of racism and its capacity to exist in a number of different contexts, which means that racism should be understood as a phenomenon assuming different forms, each designed to exclude certain individuals or to place them in a hierarchical structure.

3 Key Concepts for Understanding Racism

The approach that we use here, borrowed from Peretti-Ndiaye (2016), allows us to present the social mechanisms at the origin of racism. By identifying the human attitudes that classify difference, this author shows us how an individual or a social group may identify Others, keep them at a distance and develop a racist attitude towards them.

First, she mentions otherness, which covers “all the processes for the construction of the Other and encompasses phenomena associated with the […] naming and more generally the classification of groups” (Peretti-Ndiaye, 2016, p. 107). In other words, otherness is how to identify the features that make the Other different from oneself.

Second, she tackles ethnicization, which is a “process by which ethnic references occupy a dominant or central place, by preference […] or by rejection (De Rudder, 1991) used in such a way as to conceal the relational games that constitute ‘ethnicity’ as a differential indicator” (Peretti-Ndiaye, 2016, p. 108). Here, belonging is therefore the characteristic that may justify an individual’s acceptance or rejection. The author states that this concept resembles a biological image of the individual making the difference permanent (Guillaumin, 2002/1972, quoted by Peretti-Ndiaye, 2016).

Third, the author describes the process of racialization. She explains first that the association of biological determinism with ethnic membership is one of its components (in other words, it is used as a justification for the differences viewed as permanent and generally reprehensible). This process has been employed to justify interindividual or social hierarchies (Peretti-Ndiaye, 2016). On this subject, a wave of racialist thought (first appearing in Europe in the middle of the nineteenth century) attempted to explain social phenomena through hereditary and racial factors (Taguieff, 2002). This doctrine or ideology of racism can easily lead to hostile and scornful behaviour (Taguieff, 2002).

Fourth, she mentions racisation, which she defines as “the extreme degree” of “racial assignment” (Peretti-Ndiaye, 2016, p. 109), meaning that when individuals have been assigned to a race, they are limited to what this group (culturally, socially, etc.) represents (Peretti-Ndiaye, 2016). It could then be said that individuals no longer exist for what they really are, but only to the image that corresponds to their assigned group.

Finally, the author defines racism as “the social relationship based on the socially constructed belief in ‘races’” (Peretti-Ndiaye, 2016). What is interesting about this definition is that it raises the idea of a social construct justifying hierarchical relationships between individuals. This is at the origin of classical racism, which “relies upon a conception of races as distinct and profoundly unequal biological entities, both physically and intellectually” (Peretti-Ndiaye, 2016, p. 113). One important aspect about racism to be kept in mind is that it “binds the natural to the social” (Peretti-Ndiaye, 2016, p. 112) by justifying social discrimination on the basis of biology.

Beyond the terms presented here, it should be recalled that the construction of an image of the Other based simply on differences labelled as unchanging and understood as negative makes it possible to develop hostile attitudes when groups or individuals who are different from one another come into contact.

Further to understanding the social mechanisms governing racist ideologies, it is necessary to turn our attention to the concept of “race”. For this purpose, we must go back to the nineteenth century, at the time when Arthur de Gobineau’s works were published, and particularly his Essai sur l’inégalité des races humaines [Essay on the inequality of human races]. Guillaumin (1967) proposes the following summary of Gobineau’s sociology: “an attempt to establish a theory of human evolution based on the hypothesis of the existence of a hierarchy between human races, and which is based on a historical comparison between human societies” (p. 147). The process of racialization defined above is at the heart of Gobineau’s work, since he constantly links the social with the natural/biological (Guillaumin, 1967).

Moreover, the concept of race refers to a biological and genetic dimension differentiating human groups. The scientific study of race underwent an enormous advance in the wake of physical anthropology at the end of the nineteenth century. The existence of races within humanity lost its scientific justification following the publication of a large number of books. Indeed, the most recent scientific research on racial origins and on genetic diversity invalidates the hypothesis of a hierarchization based on racial origin and has shown that genetic codes do not correspond to any of the gradations that some people had attempted to establish (Jacquard, 1978; Langanay, 1999).

These studies have shown that the hypothetical biological races, still perceived and named as an objective reality, do not correspond to any true biological findings. Races are as much subjective structures as other social, political or religious groupings. The physical characteristics used as a basis for racial categorization (skin colour, hair texture, eye shape, etc.) are perfectly irrefutable if considered separately, but they do not amount to the necessary and coherent proof. Contrary to the species of animals created artificially, the false genetic entity that we call race does not correspond to any biological evidence concerning humanity. Furthermore, humanity has undergone such cross-breeding and migration since the dawn of time that the concept of a pure race is very unlikely to exist.

Nevertheless, the scientific fiction of race does not halt the social reality of racism. Indeed, it should be pointed out that the main outcome of scientific conclusions concerning the concept of race arises from the fact that they directly contradict social representations and the evidence of common sense. Moreover, the evidence that supports scientific conclusions is too abstract to be easily taught and popularized.

It should therefore be borne in mind that the use made of race is based more on a social construct than on any scientific or biological evidence, and that it is an analytical instrument for the production and the legitimation of injustice and discrimination. Understanding this concept and its meanings within society is necessary so as to be alert to it and the struggle against latent racism.

The institutional use of the concept of race has tended to disappear from official and scientific language in continental Europe, following the negative meanings associated with it in the aftermath of the Second World War, as well as to advances in genetics. In North America and the United Kingdom, however, the use of the word “race” is still common and authorized in public administration. In fact, in the English-speaking world, the concept of race is based on scientific usage and is quite separate from the racism attached to doctrine or ideology (Peretti-Ndiaye, 2016). In the United States, racial subdivisions (listed in Table 1) are used as official categories during population censuses. Several administrative issues revolve around these measures, such as the assignation of social categories or the introduction of positive discrimination (Simon, 1997). Indeed, the racial data are used to promote equality of opportunity in employment and education, as well as being used for research purposes (U.S. Census Bureau, 2018).

Table 1 Racial categories in the United States
Full size table

It should be explained that the Government of the United States of America accepts the use of the concept of race in census data only as a reflection of its “social definition” and is not at all intended to define this concept from a “biological, anthropological or genetic” point of view (U.S. Census Bureau, 2018).

It can be noted that Spanish-speaking or Latin-American people can align themselves with a number of the racial groups mentioned (U.S. Census Bureau, 2018). In fact, they have a special status in the United States’ census and do not represent a “race” as understood by the Census Bureau (Simon, 1997). It should also be noted that the completion of a census on a racial basis in the United States is based on the principle of self-declaration, according to which since 2000 one is allowed to declare several origins (U.S. Census Bureau, 2018). Table 1 is an illustration of complicated interethnic relationships and historical confrontations, which have enabled social construction and racial otherness.

4 Racism Today

Before examining the issues of racism in modern societies, it would seem necessary to return once again to this concept’s definition. For Arendt (1982), racism is “the feeling of a fundamental superiority, not simply momentary, of man over man, of ‘superior’ races over ‘inferior’ races” (p. 22). As for Memmi (1982a), he designates racism as “a general and definitive devaluation of real or imagined differences, to the accuser’s benefit and to the victim’s detriment in order to justify an aggression or a privilege” (p. 98). Aggression and hostility are authorized by the threat to the integrity of so-called “pure” races. In fact, we are speaking here more about the fear of losing the power and advantages which, even if they have been acquired under false pretences, are justified by the racialist theories. It is for this reason that colonialization was often justified by racialist ideologies.

If conventional racism is based on a naturalist or biological method of classifying human beings (Peretti-Ndiaye, 2016), we observe that modern definitions pay less attention to this aspect and more to the discrimination and injustice that have resulted from racist ideologies. To sum up, racism refers to the belief according to which the physical features (real or imagined) of the members of a racial group influence their social behaviour and their psychological and intellectual capacities. For the racist, some racial groups therefore appear to be automatically superior (privileged) and others necessarily inferior. This is the way that racism allows the justification and legalization of the dominant/dominated relationship (Memmi, 1982a).

Employing these ideologies, racists aim at two objectives: to preserve the “purity” of the race and to identify the trespassers. In this way, Arendt (1973) explains the Holocaust and the wish to exterminate the Jews as an aggravated sense of antisemitism that had been present since the Jews had been assimilated into the dominant European culture. The loss of the differentiated character of the “assimilated Jew” justifies antisemitic rejection, even extermination, because they have become too similar to the members of the “nation”, who can no longer identify their foreignness that would allow them to keep their distance (Arendt, 1973). This example illustrates the difficulty of coming to grips with racism. Indeed, we note that this concept is capable of renewing and transforming itself depending upon social changes: in this case, it is the Jewish person’s status which changes and aggravates the racist person’s need for differentiation. In other cases, it is perhaps the waves of migration which have drawn attention to new scapegoats. Therefore, racism seems to be a dynamic process in search of a reason to exclude in order to justify a hierarchization between individuals.

Among the definitions of racism, Wieviorka (1994) distinguishes two that enable him to analyse the phenomenon’s progress and its links with particular contexts. They are universalist and differentialist or cultural racism:

  1. 1.

    Universalist racism: based primarily on a biological difference which rationalizes the exploitation of Others and their inequality. For example, theories describing skin colour thereby justify a hierarchy of individuals based on universalist racism.

  2. 2.

    Differentialist or cultural racism: “stresses the assumed and irreducible character of certain cultural differences” to justify the exclusion (i.e. marginalization) of certain cultural groups. For example: When one hears: “No. They are too different. They are incapable of adapting”, this description of failure to adapt is cultural racism.

Wieviorka (1994) explains that racism evolves and, even if in certain contexts it is still influential, one is generally placed in a differentialist situation. The reaction to racism called “antiracism” can also fall into either a universalist or differentialist logic. In the case of a universalist type of reply, the reaction to racist logic would aim at promoting an unswerving equality among all individuals (Wieviorka, 1994). Therefore, in this perspective, the idea of race is redundant, because it would allow the establishment of particularisms, radically opposed to the universalist logic. On the other hand, in the case of a differentialist type of response, it is precisely the recognition of particularisms which lies at the heart of antiracist action (Wieviorka, 1994). This conception of antiracism aims to consider the individual in all his/her complexity (including the cultural and “racial” identity) and not only as an individual in every way equal to another.

Despite the apparent opposition between these two forms of antiracist combat, Wieviorka (1994) develops the idea that racism, if it is not universalist (as it possibly was in the past) or differentialist (as it would be today), remains a blend of these two interpretations and therefore merits a joint combat against these two dynamic definitions (universalist and differentialist). In reality, the two examples put forward by the author (nazism and apartheid) show that despite the pliability of racist ideologies and their adaptation to new forms of difference (each wave of migration, for example), there is only one form of racism that combines in its own fashion differentialist (based on culture and intending to exclude) and universalist (justifying exploitation and discrimination through biological differences between people) ideologies.

Wieviorka (1998) also started to think about the social, political and even identity causes behind racial practices. His thoughts are presented in four ways:

  1. 1.

    A form of racism associated with the matter of modernity, which is defined by reference to the idea of universal progress or saving souls. Any resistance is interpreted as a sign of inferiority (biological or racial). For example: colonization and the expedition of missionaries to the colonies.

  2. 2.

    A form of racism developed by groups faced with social decline. They take for a target other groups who they reproach for their social ascension or their access to privileges—often imaginary. For example: a reproach often aimed at migrants is that they benefit from too much social aid.

  3. 3.

    A form of racism corresponding to the mobilization of a collective identity to oppose modernity and against a social group blamed as the privileged vehicle or instigator of this modernity. For example: when an ethnic group accumulates important wealth, the “native” inhabitants may express rejection of this group.

  4. 4.

    A form of racism defined as defending its own cultural identity without any particular reference to modernity or its control. In this case, racism can exist without any contact with its supposed victims. For example: in several parts of Europe where there are few Muslims, the inhabitants may support Islamophobia as a way of defending Europe’s Christian culture.

5 Racism and Education

Despite the conclusion of scientific research that race does not exist, racism remains omnipresent and calls for commitment on the part of educational institutions. Furthermore, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1965) foresaw the introduction by the ratifying countries of measures to combat racism, two of which were education and awareness-raising. Indeed, these two measures could make a significant contribution to the prevention of racism. However, education and awareness-raising are only effective if they form part of an overall policy involving organizations and institutions, and directed at all those involved (Davolio and Eckmann, 2017).

As far as the educational actors are concerned, it is important that racism is acknowledged as a true social problem. There have been several situations where teachers are not always ready to recognize it as such. In Australia, a study revealed the cultural openness of teachers, but this was offset by their failure to accept racism as a serious problem in society and in the school (Brooks, Knaus and Chang, 2015). In the United States, it has been shown that, confronted with the upsurge of xenophobic movements, multicultural education is simply not enough. Therefore, the organization of a day “without immigrants” in the country highlighted the hateful violence that many pupils and communities were subject to. Xenophobic attitudes within the teaching body itself were also observed during this event (Au, 2017). The struggle against racism can also be communicated via the curriculum. In France, Dhume (2016) drew attention to antiracism as one of the values of the republican school. Through his analysis, he tested the argument that antiracism is an intrinsic value of the French curriculum. He shows the novelty and the ambiguity of this theme, which had been presented recently as “evident”.

Still concerning curricula and as an echo of the earlier presentation of links between racism and slavery, intercultural approaches in education have the responsibility of encouraging this theme’s inclusion in educational programmes so as to explain the necessity of a collective memory about this historic event in mankind’s story. On this subject, an interesting teaching project is to ask the pupils to examine how their understanding of human races is out of step with what science tells them about it nowadays.

The exhibition “All Related, All Different” presented at the Musée de l’Homme [Museum of Mankind] in Paris at the beginning of the 1990s and visited by thousands of people, represented an extremely useful initiative for antiracist education. In fact, this exhibition dealt with the diversity and the origins of mankind as well as the scientific discoveries of recent decades which have completely transformed our understanding of them. From an essentialist conception, which reduced humanity to a few racial groups, scientists proposed an analysis confirming the existence of common ancestors for all human beings and the widespread cross-breeding that has taken place since the origins of the human species. The interest of this exhibition for education and teaching is due to the fact that most people, including the young, remain attached to an essentialist vision of genetic diversity.

Another more recent project of genetic analysis associated with the National Geographic Society, “The Genographic Project”, undertook over recent years to reconstruct the rapid progress of Homo sapiens since leaving Africa, our common cradle, some 60,000 years ago. The American geneticist Spencer Wells, one of the leaders of “The Genographic Project”, speaks not only of recreating “humanity’s genealogical tree”, but furthermore to make it into an educational and humanist project; based on his research, he wrote: “each person can understand his links with the people of the whole world, know that we are all connected to each other by a genetic thread and that our threads became intertwined during the migrations of our ancestors” (Spencer Wells interviewed by Joignot, 2010). We are in fact, us human beings, all cousins, all related, provided with the same genetic make-up. Our variations of skin colour, hair, shape of the skull and eyelids, all arise from genes common to all of us, which have been triggered in particular by climatic conditions, when Homo sapiens conquered the world and commenced his planetary exploration (TallBear, 2007; Nash, 2012; Wells, 2006). To converse and discuss with adults, children and young people about racism is the best way to prepare them to live together, ignoring their differences and sharing their common origins. Children are better placed to understand that we are not born but become racist. We should therefore reply to their questions when they want to understand discrimination and racism and before they acquire prejudices (Ben Jelloun, 2018).

6 Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality

Two approaches appear to us as innovatory in the struggle against racism in the school and in society: critical race theory and intersectionality.

In the English-speaking world, the use of the concept of race remains current, which could sometimes shock or annoy in the French-speaking context. Its use serves researchers particularly who examine a social construct rather than a bogus biological truth (Wieviorka, interviewed by Barats-Malbel, 1994). It is from this viewpoint that critical race theory develops, using this concept to analyse the inequalities that individuals experience due to the group to which they belong (Ladson-Billings, 1998; Delgado and Stefancic, 2017). Four statements seem to guide the development of a critical race theory:

  1. 1.

    Racism is current and therefore difficult to tackle (it is often invisible since it is obscured by official equality between individuals).

  2. 2.

    Racism serves the interests of a dominant group.

  3. 3.

    Race is a social construct which reflects the evolution and needs of societies (it is therefore necessary to see this concept in action in order to analyse its harmful effects).

  4. 4.

    Minority status allows a discussion to be held on race and racism (the latter observation emphasizes the importance of allowing minority people to express themselves so as to understand their way of life) (Delgado and Stefancic, 2017).Footnote 1

The question of privileges is crucial in critical race theory, more particularly the matter of “White privilege”. Thus, the concept of whiteness and the dominance that it assumes or encourages has become an important paradigm among the current critical terms in the English-speaking human sciences. McLaren (2018) calls into question the dominant hypothesis according to which all we have to do to overcome racism is to introduce initiatives designed to include minority populations, in other words the non-Whites. He argues that we must also stress the analysis of White ethnicity and how to devaluate it, more particularly the ideology and practices of White supremacy.

In education, critical race theory focuses principally on the upsurge of racism based on biological ideologies, on the resegregation of schools in the United States, on ethnocentric curricula and on the still current usage of the deficit theory (Ladson-Billings, 1998).

Intersectionality is another concept widely used in contemporary social sciences, principally English-speaking. The term tackles the way in which the multiple forms of inequality and identity interact in different contexts and over time. For example, race, social class, gender, handicap and other characteristics combine in an interdependent and dynamic way to produce inequality. This concept originates in the work of Crenshaw (1991), a critical theoretician of race in the United States, but was once widespread throughout the social sciences to the extent that it is sometimes considered as a “buzzword”.

Intersectionality allows us to recognize that belonging to a given group could make people vulnerable to various forms of prejudice. Since we are at the same time members of several groups, our complex identity shapes the way in which we each experience life. For example, men and women may often experience racism differently, just as women belonging to a minority cultural group may experience sexism differently. Intersectionality therefore includes two key elements: first, an empirical base for an intersectional approach to better understand the nature of social inequities, as well as the processes that create and support them. Secondly, intersectionality has a basic activist component in the sense that an intersectional approach aims to generate coalitions between different groups and actors with the objective of resisting discrimination and changing the status quo (Gillborn, 2015).

Critical race theory and intersectionality allow us to confront some challenges that face any researchers or educators expecting to take culture seriously in their activities. In fact, these theories enable us to scrutinize the complex mechanisms of inequality and the dynamic of discrimination. These mechanisms involve, at the same time, factors linked to race, ethnicity, gender or social belonging.

7 Conclusion

Fanon (1956) states that the question of racism is intimately linked to colonialism and to economic, cultural and political domination. He rebelled against the tendency leading to racism being considered as the history of people, while mobilizing the following argument: “There are a few incorrigible racists but you should admit that on the whole the population loves … Given time, all of this will disappear … This country is the less racist…” (p. 128).

After George Floyd was killed on 25 May 2020, in Minneapolis, protests erupted in different countries and the movement “Black Lives Matter” (BLM) spread around the world. Demonstrators gathered in several cities in the United States but also in Berlin, Paris, Dublin, Amsterdam and many other cities. While racism is an historical and contemporary phenomenon, corporate media in U.S are reinforcing the framing of race and presenting Black Americans as inadequate, lawless, criminal, threatening and at times biologically different (Lane, Williams, Hunt et al., 2020).

Despite numerous international and national declarations, subtle and very often implied racism continues to pollute the life of millions of people on the street, in schools and in work places. It seems to us important to tackle the question from several points of view. The first is an analysis of the historical and political roots which make certain individuals and groups vulnerable to and victims of racial discrimination. The second perspective is that of education and training. The school has a true responsibility in disassembling the racist ideology both in society and within itself. The third perspective is that of the law, which has adopted measures against all forms of discrimination: racism cannot be considered as an opinion; it is a crime that deserves to be denounced and punished for what it is.