The culture wars are far from over 

It’s only been a month since the new Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandy, declared that the ‘era of culture wars is over’. Yet this morning the Daily Telegraph reports that teachers in training courses will be taught to challenge ‘whiteness’ in lessons, to ensure future educators are ‘anti-racist’.

The guidance in question has emerged from universities, rather than from the government itself – specifically from the National Education Union in England (and funded by Newcastle University) and from ten universities north of the border who have endorsed an ‘anti-racism framework’ drawn up by the Scottish Council of Deans of Education.

Some of the guidance includes instructions on how to ‘disrupt the centrality of whiteness’ in schools, according to a best-practice document. The term ‘white’ appears almost 400 times in the guidance, with ‘whiteness’ on 121 occasions. The literature sets to challenge other associated pet hates of ultra-liberals, such as ‘notions of objectivity’ and ‘tools of whiteness’ which include ‘individualism’ and ‘belief in a meritocracy’.