Racialised geographies, white saviours and urban frontiers: examining the growth and establishment of English "no excuses" schools with critical race theory.

Whittaker, Daniel PF ORCID: 0000-0003-3583-7508 (2025). Racialised geographies, white saviours and urban frontiers: examining the growth and establishment of English "no excuses" schools with critical race theory. University of Birmingham. Ed.D.

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Abstract

“No excuses” schooling is a recent US policy import that has become established in England. Promoted by policymakers for its promise of greater academic achievement and closing racial achievement gaps, “no excuses” is characterised by conspicuously high academic standards and strict behaviour codes. However, critics challenge “no excuses”’ for its narrow view of educational purpose and harmful outcomes such as its association with disproportionate racial discipline and exclusion rates.

This study uses Critical Race Theory (CRT) to explore the growth and establishment of “no excuses” in England and its relationship to race. It adopts a mixed-methods design that deploys the complementary tools of QuantCrit, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Critical Policy Analysis (CPA). First, I examine school census data for 74 eligible sample “no excuses” schools using QuantCrit principles. Then, with CDA and CPA, I analyse qualitative texts from the DfE’s website that reference “no excuses”.

After comparing the 74 sample “no excuses” schools with their Local Authority and regional counterparts, I find a geographically racialised pattern reinforced through the DfE’s frequent references to ‘urban’ discourses in their website texts. Using Critical Policy Analysis principles, I argue that the DfE’s ostensibly colour-evasive ‘urban’ and ‘poverty’ discourses rhetoric might function as dog whistles to the White hegemonic alliance identified by Allen, and that this is reinforced by the DfE’s rendering of “no excuses” policymakers and policy actors as tough but benevolent White saviours.

Finally, using an interdisciplinary geographical lens, I argue that “no excuses” functions as part of a racial imagining of the urban as a missionary frontier; “no excuses”’ strong geographical orientation serves Whiteness by spatially constituting a racialised policy problem for its crusading, quasi-religious “no excuses” solution.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ed.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ed.D.

Supervisor(s):