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Promoting racial equality and cultural diversity. A departmental approach. Legal requirements. The Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 places the following duties on schools: Promote equality of opportunity Eliminate unlawful discrimination
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Promoting racial equality and cultural diversity A 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 2
Session plan • The curriculum • Classroom practice • Monitoring and evaluation • Case studies 3
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? 4
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? 5
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? 6
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 7
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 8
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? 9
Evidence of effectiveness • Exam statistics • Student surveys • Staff surveys • Parental surveys • Focus groups • Records of racist incidents 10
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? 11
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? 12
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? 13
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? 14