Author Description

This project deconstructs the concept of privilege by reviewing two approaches---recognition and re-evaluation ---to deploying the concept in critical educational theory and practice. While the former approach intends to reveal the hidden and denied structural mechanisms working to secure and maintain privilege, the latter one aims at re-evaluating the notion of privilege itself, understanding it not only through what is gained by its perpetuation, but also by what is lost. I argue that the concept of privilege as used in ordinary language and much discursive inquiry is misleading, such that even those actively working to subvert domination end up reproducing those very structures through their use of the term. I urge that dismantling privilege requires its re-evaluation in addition to its recognition. Reconceiving privilege provides social justice educators with fruitful ways to engage resistant students in the project of personal and social transformation.