In exploring approaches to addressing racism in education, I’ve engaged with positionality, and intersectionality, the latter as theorised by Kimberlé Crenshaw. Crenshaw’s framework encourages us to understand how multiple aspects of identity interact to shape individual experiences of oppression, rather than treating issues like race or gender as separate and isolated factors. This is crucial in educational institutions, where structures often treat students and staff as if they each fit into a single box.
Bradbury’s (2020) critique of Baseline Assessment policy in England reveals how education systems that appear race-neutral in fact reinforce white, monolingual norms. EAL (English as an Additional Language) children are assessed in English at age 4–5, disadvantaging many racialised and bilingual students. Drawing on Critical Race Theory, Bradbury shows how concepts like interest convergence and colourblindness expose the systemic biases embedded in so-called “neutral” policies. These issues can’t be understood through race alone, intersectionality helps us see how language, ethnicity, and class converge to label children as “low ability” early on, shaping their future trajectories.
This need to interrogate structural inequality is echoed in the Channel 4 video The School That Tried to End Racism, which highlights white privilege as the experience of living without experiencing racism. The experiment illustrates how discussions of equality often overlook the different starting points people have, aligning closely with intersectional thinking and the need to recognise varied experiences.
In Garrett’s (2024) work on racialised PhD students, these themes appear again. Drawing on Bhopal and Pitkin’s (2020) concept of the ‘triple burden’ Garrett highlights how race, gender, and class intersect to compound exclusion. Lander and Santoro (2017) describe the hypervisibility and invisibility that racialised academics often face, a contradiction I’ve witnessed in my own institution. Sadiq’s (2023) TEDx talk reinforces this, critiquing mainstream DEI training for oversimplifying identity and advocating for more localised, psychologically safe approaches. Together, these texts demonstrate that intersectionality is not optional, it is essential for truly understanding and addressing systemic racism in education. While critics of Advance HE (e.g., Orr, 2022) question the evidence base for institutional diversity reforms, Crenshaw reminds us that the absence of statistical proof does not equal the absence of racism. Structural issues often manifest through everyday microaggressions, exclusions, and barriers that are difficult to quantify, but profoundly real to those experiencing them.
In my own academic context, I reflect on NSS data showing improved satisfaction among BAME students, though small awarding and support gaps persist. These numbers do not tell the full story. Understanding them through an intersectional lens helps identify which groups are still excluded, whose voices are missing, and what institutional changes might ensure equitable belonging.
Addressing racism in education must go beyond superficial inclusion efforts. It requires a structural, intersectional approach that examines who policies benefit, who they harm, and how identity factors compound over time. Crenshaw’s theory provides a vital lens for educators, researchers, and institutions to interrogate policies and practices that appear neutral but reproduce systemic inequity. True anti-racism is not checklist-driven, it is transformative, localised, and deeply reflective of lived realities.
In my own UK-based academic context, I’ve seen awarding gaps between white and racialised students persist, particularly for Black and EAL students. While metrics like NSS (The National Student Survey) show modest progress, they don’t capture how students navigate cultural alienation, implicit bias, or a lack of belonging nor do they reflect the emotional labour. Awarding gaps persist, particularly for Black and EAL students. While metrics like the NSS suggest modest progress, they fail to capture the deeper realities of cultural alienation, implicit bias, and emotional labour. The heatmap below visualises a related pattern: racialised students and staff are often highly visible in institutional narratives, yet remain excluded from the spaces where real decisions are made. Drawing on intersectionality and Critical Race Theory, it highlights the disconnect between symbolic inclusion and structural power a gap that continues to shape educational inequality.
1. Visibility (e.g., being seen or showcased):
Literature and my own experience suggest racialised individuals are highly visible in:
- Marketing/prospectuses (e.g., diversity brochures)
- DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) panels or training
- Student-facing spaces like open days or recruitment
2. Influence (e.g., decision-making, shaping policy):
However, these same groups are often underrepresented in roles that carry structural power, like:
- Curriculum design committees
- Senior leadership
- Research funding decisions or strategy
This disconnect is backed by Critical Race Theory concepts like:
- Tokenism: being included symbolically but excluded from decision-making.
- Interest convergence: institutions acting only when it suits dominant group interests
This conceptual heatmap illustrates the disconnect between visibility and influence for racialised individuals in UK educational institutions. Informed by Garrett’s (2024) work on hypervisibility and invisibility, and Lander and Santoro’s (2017) observations on the performative nature of diversity, the map highlights how racialised academics and students are often highly visible in symbolic spaces, such as marketing materials, DEI panels, and student-facing events, yet remain underrepresented in the structural arenas where real decisions are made, such as curriculum design, leadership roles, and policy-making. In my own academic context, I’ve witnessed this pattern play out: where lived experience is mined for optics but sidelined in strategy. This tool invites readers to question not just who is present, but who holds influence, and what a truly inclusive educational structure would look like.
Together, these texts call for anti-racism that is structural, not symbolic. They highlight three recurring themes:
- Intersectional exclusion – where race, gender, class, and language interact to deepen marginalisation.
- Institutional self-preservation – how policies and initiatives often protect the status quo.
- The need for epistemic justice – recognising and valuing the knowledge and lived experience of minoritised groups.
If we are to be serious about anti-racism, we must listen differently, teach differently, and lead differently. This means resisting one-size-fits-all solutions, diversifying who gets to shape the curriculum and policy, and making discomfort part of the work. As Crenshaw (2016) argues “If we aren’t intersectional, some of us, the most vulnerable, are going to fall through the cracks.”
Bibliography
Bhopal, K. and Pitkin, C. (2020) ‘Racialized minority women’s experiences of the “triple burden” of oppression resulting from their classed, gendered, and ethnic identities’, Gender and Education, 32(6), pp. 709–726.
Bradbury, A. (2020) ‘A critical race theory framework for education policy analysis: The case of bilingual learners and assessment policy in England’, Race Ethnicity and Education, 23(2), pp. 241–260. Available at: [Reading_Blog Task 3 Folder] (Accessed: 5 June 2025).
Crenshaw, K. (1989) ‘Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics’, University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989(1), pp. 139–167.
Crenshaw, K. (2016) The Urgency of Intersectionality [Video]. TED Conferences. Available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/kimberle_crenshaw_the_urgency_of_intersectionality (Accessed: 11 June 2025).
Garrett, R. (2024) ‘Racism shapes careers: career trajectories and imagined futures of racialised minority PhDs in UK higher education’, Globalisation, Societies and Education, pp. 1–15. Available at: [Reading_Blog Task 3 Folder] (Accessed: 7 June 2025).
Lander, V. and Santoro, N. (2017) ‘The hypervisibility and invisibility of racialized academics in higher education’, Race Ethnicity and Education, 20(3), pp. 300–314.
Office for Students (no date) National Student Survey data [Online]. Available at: https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/data-and-analysis/national-student-survey-data/ (Accessed: 11 June 2025).
Orr, J. (2022) ‘Revealed: The charity turning UK universities woke’, The Telegraph [Online]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRM6vOPTjuU (Accessed: 3 June 2025).
Sadiq, A. (2023) ‘Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. Learning how to get it right’, TEDx [Online]. YouTube. 2 March. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR4wz1b54hw (Accessed: 6 June 2025).
The School That Tried to End Racism (2020) Channel 4 documentary [Online]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1I3wJ7pJUjg (Accessed: 4 June 2025).