1st Edition

The Legacy of Charles W. Mills and The Racial Contract in Educational Justice His Work Lives On

Edited By Cheryl E. Matias Copyright 2025
170 Pages
by Routledge

170 Pages
by Routledge

170 Pages
by Routledge

 Race is everywhere and pretending not to see it only does more damage than good. This book delves into the work of Charles Mills and how his underlying philosophies of race still play out in today’s economic, educational, political and sociological arena. Charles Mills left a legacy of philosophical racial analyses needed to better understand race, racism, whiteness, and white supremacy... Read more

Introduction – Dancing with Charles: A man, scholar, legacy

Cheryl E. Matias


I. The Racial Contract: Then and Now


1. We will greet our enemy with rifles and roses: Charles Mills and the perpetual impact of the

Racial Contract

David Stovall


II. The Racial Contract Applied to Educational Justice


2. The Racial Contract and white saviorism: centering racism’s role in undermining housing and

education equity

Ann M. Aviles


3. White racial ignorance and refusing culpability: how the emotionalities of whiteness ignore

race in teacher education

Michalinos Zembylas and Cheryl E. Matias


4. Expectations as property of white supremacy: the coloniality of ascriptive expectations within

the racial contract

Daniel D. Liou


5. Naming the unnamed: a Millsian analysis of the American educational contract

Wyatt Driskell


III. The Racial Contract Applied to Educationally Just Methods


6. Too much talking, not enough listening: the racial contract made manifest in a mixed-race

focus group interview

Bryant O. Best and H. Richard Milner IV


IV. The Racial Contract Beyond


7. Rejecting the racial contract: Charles Mills and critical race theory

George Lipsitz


8. Charles Mills Ain’t Dead! Keeping the spirit of Mills’ work alive by understanding and

challenging the unrepentant whiteness of the academy

Amanda E. Lewis, Tyrone A. Forman and Margaret A. Hagerman

Biography

Dr. Cheryl E. Matias is a full professor in the School of Leadership and Education Sciences at the University of San Diego who earned several awards, including the 2020 Mid-Career Award for her work on racial justice in teacher education at American Educational Research Association. She researches the emotionality of whiteness in teacher education and motherscholarship that supports women of color and motherscholars in the academy. She has several books: Feeling White, Surviving Becky(s), The Handbook on Critical Theoretical Reseach Methods in Education, and The Other Elephants in the (Class)room. She is a motherscholar of three, including boy-girl twins.