Bradbury, A; (2013) From model minorities to disposable models: the de-legitimisation of educational success through discourses of authenticity. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education , 34 (4) pp. 548-561. 10.1080/01596306.2013.822618.

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Abstract

This article explores teachers' use of discourses of authenticity in relation to minoritised students, with a focus on the relationship between these discourses and ‘model minority’ status. The paper aims to advance the critical thinking about ‘model minorities’ in the education system in England by examining the diversity of identity positions and minoritised groups that can be constituted as belonging to this category in different contexts. It is argued that in England there is ‘intelligible space’ for some students from the Afghan and Kosovan communities to be constituted as ‘model minorities’, alongside the Chinese and Indian communities usually identified with this term, with similar links made between the home lives of students and their educational attainment. However, this status carries with it racist assumptions about students' motivation, and the perception of high attainment as inauthentic and therefore illegitimate. Building on Archer and Francis' discussions of Chinese students' success as being achieved in the ‘wrong way’, it is argued that the idea of authenticity/inauthenticity can be used to delegitimise educational success in multiple ways. A theoretical framework influenced by Critical Race Theory is used to discuss the role of this partial and precarious recognition of some minoritised groups' high attainment in the continuation of White dominance in education.

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