Promoting racial equality

and cultural diversityA departmental approach

Legal requirements

The Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 places the following duties on schools:– Promote equality of opportunity– Eliminate unlawful discrimination– Promote good race relations between

people of different racial groups

This is regardless of the ethnic composition of the school

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Session plan

• The curriculum

• Classroom practice

• Monitoring and evaluation

• Case studies

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The curriculum

• How are values communicated through your subject?

• Are there particular topics that lend themselves to the promotion of racial equality?

• Is it enough to teach that racism is wrong, or are there ways you can positively promote racial equality?

• Would students say that racial equality is promoted positively in your subject?

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Classroom practice

• Do you make cultural assumptions about the backgrounds of your students, eg food, attitudes to gender or celebrations?

• Do you make judgements about students based on British cultural values, eg subservient girls are assumed to be quiet, or outspoken boys are assumed to be cheeky?

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Classroom practice

• Have you ever come across parents from ethnic minorities who have different expectations of their children from your own?

• Do cultural values influence the subjects students choose to study at your school?

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Improve classroom practice

• Build in opportunities for students to talk about attitudes and customs

at home in a non-judgemental environment

• Construct learning opportunities for the so-called subservient girls to develop more confidence, for instance by creating single-gender groups

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Improve classroom practice

• Support high expectations, but suggest that ambitions may take longer to realise in some students than in others

• Emphasise to parents/carers the career advantages of skills and subjects they may not value highly

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Monitoring attainment

• How well do ethnic minority students do in your subject?

• Is this better or worse than in other subjects?

• How do you know?

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Evidence of effectiveness

• Exam statistics

• Student surveys

• Staff surveys

• Parental surveys

• Focus groups

• Records of racist incidents

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Case study 1

You hear a group of Asian boys calling each other ‘Paki’ as a term of

friendship at lunchtime. Other students hear it too.

How would you react?

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Case study 2

A Bangladeshi boy joins your class. One of the others immediately asks

if he is an illegal immigrant.

How would you react?

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Case study 3

You set a question in class about a fictitious girl called Radhika

and several students shout out that she probably smells of curry.

How would you react?

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Case study 4

A school trip includes a visit to a mosque. A parent writes to you to say he does not want his child to

go there in case of ‘terrorists’.

How would you react?

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