Race, Curriculum, and the Politics of Educational Justice

This one-of-a-kind collection will help today’s educators feel and understand the power that communities can harness through organizing and solidarity.

This volume highlights some of Wayne Au’s most impactful essays and articles across his 25 years as an educator, activist, and scholar. In this carefully curated collection, Au traces the development of his politics and analyses of schooling, education policy, curriculum, and racialization. Featuring concrete examples, chapters address antiracist education and the politics of knowledge; the racial politics of high-stakes testing and neoliberal education reforms; and the racialization of Asian Americans as a model minority and its connection to anti-Blackness. Importantly, this book illustrates the power of writing for different audiences by placing scholarly essays alongside those written for teachers, parents, and community members, while also linking educational activism with educational research. In addition to providing a broad examination of the politics of curriculum and educational policy in America,

Book Features:

• Written by an internationally known scholar in the areas of curriculum, multicultural and antiracist education, high-stakes testing and neoliberal reforms, racial justice, and critical education.
• Provides a model for how to translate educational research and analysis between academic and public discourses, embodying the intersections of theory, practice, and justice.
• Combines searing political analysis of education with the hope offered through activism, solidarity, and educational justice.

Wayne Au is a professor in the school of educational studies at the University of Washington Bothell. A long-time educational activist and scholar, his work critically examines issues of power and justice in educational policy and practice. He is coauthor of Reclaiming the Multicultural Roots of U.S. Curriculum.

“Wayne Au unapologetically provides us permission to stare fascism and white supremacy in the face, reminding them both that we have been prepared for this fight on the battlefield of education. Without question, his book is the hammer we need in these turbulent times.”
—David Stovall, professor, University of Illinois at Chicago

“One part biography, one part deep theory, woven together with searing critical analysis, and you have Race, Curriculum, and the Politics of Educational Justice. Wayne Au minces no words identifying the core structures of society that create student failure, while also providing a hopeful book that seeks more just educational futures. A must-read!”
—Nolan L. Cabrera, professor of educational policy studies and practice, University of Arizona, and author of Whiteness in the Ivory Tower

“This thought-provoking collection of essays offers critical insights into race, power, and education. In the first two sections, Au powerfully illustrates the political nature of knowledge, curriculum, and pedagogy, and how market-based and test-driven education reforms have appropriated civil rights language and advanced harmful neoliberal multiculturalism. In the third and final section of the book, Au contributes toward the growing scholarship on the racialization of Asian Americans, advancing our analyses of race and education for collective liberation.”
—OiYan Poon, co-director of the College Admissions Futures Co-Laborative, and author of Asian American is Not a Color: Conversations on Race, Affirmative Action, and Family