Masking racism: Discourses of denial in Canadian counselling education.

摘要

This study is a critical discourse analysis from a Critical White Studies (McIntosh, 2004) perspective. The study explored the question, "How does Canadian, academic discourse in the field of counselling and clinical psychology contribute to the denial, concealment, and legitimization of racism in Canada?" The method drew primarily from the work of Coates and Wade (2004), Henry and Tator (2009c), and van Dijk (1993a) and was informed largely by anti-oppression, anti-colonial, and critical race scholarship. The researcher positioned himself as an imperfect, accountable ally. Through the analysis of the Canadian Psychological Association's (CPA's) Code of Ethics (2000) and Guidelines for Non-Discriminatory Practice (2001), a required ethics text, and syllabi, mission statements, course outlines, and curricula from four Canadian university psychology programs, analysis revealed 11 discursive strategies that contribute to the denial of racism. These strategies were omission, euphemism, individualism, universality, attribution, inclusion and exclusion, claims of innocence, language of threat, anti-anti-racism, and speaking-on-behalf-of. These strategies in combination served to conceal, deny, and justify racism; to hide and absolve perpetrators, causes, and beneficiaries of racism; to pathologize people of colour and blame them for racism; and to pathologize and denounce anti-racism efforts. As a whole, the discourse under study served to move away from collective accountability and toward an individualized, blaming model of racism.