George Dei
Born in Asokore-Koforidua, in the Eastern Region of Ghana, George Sefa Dei did undergraduate education at the University of Ghana, and postgraduate studies at McMaster University and the University of Toronto, Canada. Currently, George is Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology and Equity Studies, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. Between 1996 and 2000 he served as the first Director of the Centre for Integrative Anti-Racism Studies at OISE/UT.
Professor Dei’s teaching and research interests are in the areas of anti-racism, minority schooling, international development and anti-colonial thought. His professional and academic work has led to many conference and workshop invitations in Canada, U.S., Europe and Africa. He has also appeared on many radio and television shows speaking about my academic and research work.
Professor Dei has received several awards for his work, including the African-Canadian Outstanding Achievement in Education; the Community Builder Award. Continuing Education Department of the Toronto Catholic District School Board; and, the Race, Gender, and Class Project Academic Award (at the Annual Race, Gender, and Class Conference, New Orleans). He is the author, co-author, and editor of several books on anti-racism and education, including Anti-Racism Education: Theory and Practice; Hardships and Survival in Rural West Africa; Reconstructing ‘Drop-Out’: A Critical Ethnography of the Dynamics of Black Students’ Disengagement from School and Indigenous Knowledge in Global Contexts.
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The Poetics of Anti-Racism
The sense of white entitlement is seen through discourses of “what about us” when issues of race and equity are raised in the classrooms of the dominant. Even when race issues are grudgingly acknowledged there is the politics of moral distancing apparent in the dominant body “playing the race card” through evocations of “merit,” “excellence” and “meritocracy.”
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Power, Knowledge and Anti-Racism Education
A Critical Reader
This book addresses questions of anti-racism and its connections with difference in a variety of educational settings and schooling practices. The focus is on systems, structures and relations of domination, and particularly the racist, classist and sexist construction of reality that serve as dominant paradigms for viewing and interpreting lives and historical realities. The contributors contend that anti-racist concerns with difference matter only if they contribute to an understanding of difference within contexts of social domination.
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Anti-Racist Feminism
Critical Race and Gender Studies
This collection adds to our understanding and critical engagement of how gendered and racially minoritized bodies can and do negotiate their identities and politics across several historical domains and contemporary spheres. The contributors explore the relational aspects of difference and the implications for re-conceptualizing anti-racism discourse and practice. The strength of this book lies in its centring the experience of racial minority women (and other racialized bodies) in a variety of social sites, thereby seeking to incite the reader to broaden the examination of social spaces through the lens of an anti-racist feminist scholarship and practice.
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Anti-Racism Education
Theory and Practice
Dei argues that analyzing the intersections of race, class, gender and sexual oppression is essential if we are to fully address educational equity, social justice and change. He examines how we can value our differences while equitably sharing power, and discusses ways to counter the reproduction of societal inequalities in our schools.