Into that whiteness – how explicit racism is excused by teachers’ colour-blind antiracism

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study aimed to analyse how teachers, in areas that show a historically high presence of neo-Nazi sentiments and racist opinions, understand and approach racist attitudes and practices among their students. Interviews and focus group interviews with Swedish teachers were conducted in three schools. Data were analysed using concepts such as institutionalised racism and whiteness. The findings showed that the territorial stigmatisation of the community and the schools had a significant impact on how the teachers dealt with and handled racist attitudes and practices. Although the teachers reported and filed racist incidences, they gradually became used to and contributed to a normalisation of explicit racist practices among students. The article concludes that racist practices, when constructed and dealt with as individualised behaviours, allow not only institutional racism, but also serve to re-produce whiteness as an institutional blind spot.