Page 127 - White Lives The Interplay of 'Race', Class, and Gender in Everyday Life

120 In search of a ‘good mix’
was here that ‘race’ and class entered the story. Openness to difference and
multiculturalism fitted into general liberal desires for freedom, creativity and
friendliness, as long as, as we shall see, there was not too much difference.
Getting the ‘mix’ right was key. The schools concerned had very different
class and racial make-ups. The racial breakdown of the pupils in the school
not only coincided with whether it was seen as a good school or not (white
being good, black being bad), but was frequently mentioned as an indicator
of a problem school. Thus, these middle-class white women, who espoused
multiculturalism and embraced difference, also admitted that they found a
school ‘too black’ or perhaps, rather, not white enough.
In the previous chapter, I mentioned briefly the general influence of
multiculturalist discourses on the interviewees’ ways of understanding and
talking about ‘race’. This group of middle-class women from Clapham were
among those who espoused multiculturalism most strongly. They wanted
their children to have an understanding of many different cultures and to
feel comfortable by being surrounded by people of different ‘races’. This
was often vaguely extended to class, in that it was good that their children
should know others from ‘diverse backgrounds’. School and education was
the site where these questions were really raised for parents. Schools are
the location for the majority of public discourses about multiculturalism.
They were also the places where many of the women found for the first time
that their personal lives intersected with people from different ‘races’ and
classes. Rosalind pointed this out herself: ‘I mean, the mix of culture really,
the most that I’ve been exposed to really is at [my children’s] school. Which
is a great mix really. And you don’t really realise how you are stuck in your
little world’ (Interview 36).
Yet, at the same time, this desire for multiculturalism was combined with,
and might be in conflict with, many other desires that the women had for
their children’s schooling. Issues that the mothers had raised in terms of
their own roles – of providing stability and security – were returned to here.
However, as we shall see, in this context, they mapped onto discourses of
‘race’ and class. The presence of too many raced and classed ‘others’ ap-
peared to threaten the desired stability. It also raised the possibility that
children might not acquire the right social and cultural capital and raced and
classed subjectivities.
It is interesting to note some of the issues that did not generally emerge
as a concern for the parents when discussing schools. For instance, all
viewed schooling as a potentially positive experience, suggesting that they
themselves had enjoyed their own schooling. None of these parents said or
implied that they were intimidated by either the staff at the various schools
they visited or the whole process of putting in applications for the school.
This was in contrast to some of the working-class interviewees who were
worried about how they should present themselves to the school teachers
and others representing the educational system. For example, Rosemary, a
working-class woman from Camberwell, explained her hesitancy in phoning
the local education authority: