The antagonism between "class" and "race" have plagued educational theory for decades. As a communist organizer seeking to move Marxist educational theory out of the stagnant waters of theoretical debates, I turn to recent CRT scholarship, which I find much more in line with the communist project. Yet, this literature omits…

In this paper, Matthew Cowley advances a theoretical approach toward higher education drawn from critical race theory (CRT) and Black Marxism. After an overview of CRT and Black Marxism, Cowley builds a working understanding of two recent (re)conceptualizations of race and class analysis that draw from both: (1) "economies of racism" and…

Since entering the field of education studies, critical race theory has had an uneasy relationship with Marxism. One particular point of disagreement between Marxists and critical race theory scholars centres on the critical race theory concept of 'White supremacy'. Some Marxist scholars suggest that, because of its reliance on 'White supremacy',…

The critical race theory concept of 'White supremacy' continues to be a major locus of disagreement between Critical Race Theorists and Marxists regarding both how it operates as a general descriptor of racial power dynamics in the Western world and for its explanatory power in accounting for the multiple forms in which racism manifests.…

Best known for arguing that individual development is part of social and historical development Vygotsky's entry into education may be captured by his concept of the "zone of proximal development" (ZPD). ZPD has not yet been synthesized with a critical study of whiteness. When ZPD is used to explain racial disparities in the service of…

As critical perspectives in language studies have gained legitimacy and even mainstream status in applied linguistics, it is necessary to re-examine the meaning of criticality in language studies and to re-envision criticality for further development. The authors explore criticality from several theoretical perspectives as well as from the notion…

Critical Race Theory (CRT) has a relatively long history in the United States, from where it originated, dating back to the 1980s. Its presence in UK academic literature, however, is more recent, having surfaced in the first decade of the twenty-first century. I focus in this paper on developments in CRT in the UK from January 2012 to January…