The Critical Race Theory

Introduction

We live in a society where race is seen as a vital part of our personalities, the lack of racial identity is very often an important factor which prevent people from not having their own identity (Omi & Winant, 1993). Racism is extemely ingrained in our society and it seems ordinary (Delgado & Stefanic, 2000), however, many people denounce the expression of any racist belief as immoral (Miles & Brown, 2003) highlighting the complicated nature of racism. Critical Race Theory tries to shed light on the issue of racism claiming that racism is ingrained in our society both in legal, cultural, and psychological aspects of social life (Tate, 1997). This essay provides us the opportunity to explore this theory and its influence in the field of education. The fisrt chapter is about the origins and the purpose of CRT, the second chapter is an analysis of the methodological tools of CRT, the third chapter highlights the key themes of CRT, the forth chapter provide us some useful information about the racial inequalities in education and the last chapter is about the influence of CRT in education and the way that it helps us to understand some racial inequalities that they take place in the field of education.

1. The Origins and Purpose of Critical Race Theory

Critical Race Theory (CRT) comes from the scholarship of Critical Legal Studies (CLS) which has observed the continuing domination and power of some groups such males and whites over some other groups and it has argued that political and social change was necessary (Taylor, 2009). Derrick A. Bell, an African American, was the first who had tried to establish an agenda in which colonialism, race, and racism would have an important role in intellectual legal...

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...e beneficiaries of this legislations was the Whites (Ladson-Billings, 2004).

Finally, another key theme of CRT is the call to context. Antiracism argues that a good way to confront racism is to shed light on minoritized groups viewpoints and experiences because it is a quite useful way to challenge the assumptions which are based on ‘common sense’, through which racism operates and legitimizes (Gillborn, 2008). Call to context offers a good understanding to any issue, and essential data about a lot of aspects of racism, moreover, help people to realize the reality, help them to rethink and to see critically some aspects of racism which sometimes are invisible (Gillborn, 2008). For example, although sometimes some aspects of social life seem quite simple and clear, call to context make us capable of rethinking them and find the reality (Gillborn, 2008).