Vive la Diffe´rance : Jewish women teachers' constructions of ethnicity and identity and their experiences of anti-Semitism in secondary schools

Abstract

Through unstructured conversations with 22 Jewish women teachers who work in non-denominational inner-city state schools, the author explored their experiences of racism and anti-Semitism and how they construct their ethnicity. The themes of diffe´rence, diffe´rance, differing and deferring came to the foreground, interweaving themselves in the women's understandings of their lives. Despite their experiences and feelings of isolation, the women had opted to work in non-denominational schools and to construct their identity across difference/s. As hard as it was not being 'one of the lads', it was preferred to being 'the same as everyone else'. In this article the author discusses the nature of these differences and attempts an exploration of the reality of Derrida's concept of diffe´rance for members of ethnic minorities when they feel a sense of un-belonging in the prevailing habitus and culture and experience what has been termed 'everyday racism'.