The bans on teaching CRT and other ‘divisive concepts’ in America’s public schools

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Arizona state legislature has aimed to pass a series of bills banning those in schools from teaching topics associated with inclusion, social justice, and equity. Since 2020, the legislature has targeted teaching ‘critical race theory’ (CRT), often (mis)using the term to refer to any ideas related to systemic discrimination and racial inequality. The debates on the need to educate children about race and racism are ongoing, and school leaders in Arizona have been cast into the debate on the CRT bans. In this study, I put actor–network theory (ANT) to work to explore how school leaders navigate the uncertainties, contradictions, and controversies of the debate and potential bans. I demonstrate the ways in which ANT is particularly useful in exploring controversies in education leadership and policy that bring to the fore the uncertainties of who is acting, when, with what and whom – for what purposes.