Racism – Diversity, Equity and inclusion
British institutions have wrestled to balance the metrics and the lived experiences of those marginalised by lack of racial understanding and inclusion. This is most evident in the education system and is playfully demonstrated in the supplied reading material “The School that tried to end racism”. The short video uses the context of a school race to illustrate the ongoing societal inequalities.
Children, often unaware of societal inequalities cut straight to the point, the race starting position being set by a series of questions that when answered demonstrate their inequality with the dominant group in society.
This experiment illustrates societal inequality, the children are shocked by the unfairness of the race and realise that those disadvantaged are mostly of ethnic minority background.
Their reactions underscore the impact of systemic biases from an early age. Bradbury (2020) further emphasises this in “The Case for Bilingual Learners and Assessment Policy in England”, highlighting how early primary education inadvertently discriminates against minority children.
Assessments carried out on entry to education to establish a baseline are set in English and disregarding the fact that many have English as a second language at home if at all.
This style disadvantages those children, labelling them as being of low ability just on linguistic ability. Successive governments implement testing policies that inherently favour their systems and political interests. As discussed in the paper there is a real need for Critical Race Theory (CRT) in developing these policies from the very start to see what implications they have through the CRT lens. Are these policies sustaining embedded bias to the dominant group? Or genuinely benefiting all students.
Although not explicitly stated, Bradbury’s paper implies racial discrimination against people of colour, despite focusing on bilingual students compared to “White” students. Recent Eastern European immigrants, though white, also face similar disadvantages, showing that institutional biases affect various groups.
Current discussions often generalise “whiteness” as being a negative concept Kehinde Andrew (2023). Controversial books such as “White Fragility” By Robin Diangelo (2018) reinforce this by presenting a ”Catch 22 “ scenario, agreeing validates the concept or disagree and further reinforces it.
Isabel Wilkersons (2020)’ book “Caste” describes the problems as stemming from the “Dominant Caste”, she discusses the USA and race relations where the dominant caste is white but much of what is discussed regarding race and equality is something of a global issue and using her term “Dominant” to describe majority ethnicity makes it more applicable where many of the same issues exist in other areas such India, China and areas of the African continent where societies have varying degrees of minority groups yet where the dominant cast is not white or that the dominant group lies along religious lines.
Our habit of generalising societal groups and not standing back to view them through concepts such as CRT that continue to compound issues such as attainment gaps and in the past two decades my perception is that education has become an ever shifting political playing field rather than sustained, inclusive and having a broad interdisciplinary view for those using it.
References
Wilkerson 2020, Isabel. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. New York: Random House, 2020.
DiAngelo, (2018) Robin. White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. Boston: Beacon Press.
Bradbury, A., 2020. A critical race theory framework for education policy analysis: The case of bilingual learners and assessment policy in England. Race Ethnicity and Education, 23(2),
Channel 4. (2020) The School That Tried to End Racism. [Online}. Youtube. 30 June.
You raise some really interesting points and questions, particularly the book ‘Caste’ as It broadens the discussion beyond race to include various forms of dominance and inequality, which as you quite rightly mention is indeed a global issue. I particularly liked your observation that the children within the short film “…cut straight to the point” – as obvious as it sounds I hadn’t quite taken into account their unique positionality within the experiment and had focused solely on the factor of education.
Thanks Elliot,
‘Caste’ really brought some light to how we define social groups and discrimination and found Wilkersons writing quite thought provoking compared DiAngelos ‘White Fragility’ which is a complete Catch-22 and a bit Click-bait in it’s nature. The kids in the school film was great, one of the best illustrations of just how discrimination is taught to kids inadvertintly by adults own hang-ups. I showed the film to both of my kids and their reaction was similar in their realisation that the was disadvantage forming as the race setup progressed. It’s kind of sad in a way to se the kids come to these realisations and that of my own kids, it just shouldn’t be that way.
Highlighting how our education system throughout primary school onwards being conducted in only English and therefore disadvantaging students with English as a second language is a fascinating point. Contextualising this at UAL we have extra lessons provided (and I believe mandatory) for those with a lower level of English language skills – however I wonder how successful these classes are and how they are viewed to those students forced to attend them. Is this level of provision supporting individuals? Or “othering” those asked (or forced) to attend these classes?
It could be argued that by giving these students extra these extra lessons you are therefore disadvantaging them by taking away time from that that they might otherwise spend on their main studies, it also provides a clear distinction between different groups of students and therefore could exacerbate the generalising of societal groups that you mention towards the end of your writing.
Thanks Kira,
The Primary students issue was not so much only speaking in English bit more that when they first start school there was concesions made because many predominately spoke another language and initial testing could be carried out in their primary language, now they’re only tested in English skewing the level that they’re viewed as achieving but benefiting the schools perceived success levels.
I agree that the mandatory lessons at University are viewed as a hinderance, on several occasions have I heard student complain that they had to attend and missed valuable workshop time and so disadvantaging them all for a bit of a box ticking exercise.
You provide a macro then progressively more granular perspective of race against the backdrop of education, the U.K and globally, which was insightful to read!
I think it is so important that you highlighted that in Bradbury’s paper racial discrimination and bilingual were conflated and therefore overlooked experiences of students that were bilingual but also white.
Your conclusion about the generalisation of groups, being a contributing factor to attainment gaps is one that is very interesting. In your opinion what has been a shift that you would like to see reversed or reviewed that has contributed to education becoming a political playing field?
Thanks Jazmin, Education, I feel, has become a political pawn since the mid 80’s and have seen it most strongly in England. Each successive government shifts the goal post and we’re now in an era where the focus is on STEM subjects. I’ve seen though my own children, there’s now a system of those who can afford to get private tuition in these subject for their kids doing so because and this may create a social divide and increase the attainment gap . Governments need to almost treat education separately where there’s checks and balance to prevent short term policies being implemented that engineer statistics to show favourably in a particular political direction.