What is racism?
Racism is when someone is discriminated against (singled out) because of their race, the colour of their skin, their nationality, their accent or first language, or their ethnic or national origin.
Other examples of racism include:
- Making fun of someone’s name
- Making jokes of someone’s culture (eg food, clothing, scents, where they live)
- Commenting about someone’s hair and/or asking to touch it
A racist incident is any incident, which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person.
It is also important to be clear that racism isn’t just about skin colour. Travellers and Eastern European communities also experience racism.
Different forms of racism
There are many different forms or subcategories of racism and incidents can manifest in different ways. It is important to note that these forms of discrimination and prejudice don’t solely relate to racism, but also apply for areas such as gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, sexism and age prejudice.
Unconscious bias
Unconscious or implicit bias is when we act with a range of assumptions and biases that we are not aware of.
Examples include:
- Affinity bias – for example being more inclined to hire someone as they share the same culture as you.
- Perception bias- for example that an East Asian child will need less support in Maths.
- Halo effect – this is when you observe a trait in a person and this then feeds the rest of your decision making. For example, assigning a black child to run the 100m, based on their ethnicity.
- Confirmation bias – for example you have a new ethnically diverse child in your class (such as Hindu or a Traveller) and so you research their culture online, but unconsciously dismiss all the information that isn’t what you originally thought.
Micro-aggression
An act or remark that discriminates against one or more of an ethnically diverse group deliberately or by mistake.
Examples include:
- Where are you really from?
- Go back to where you came from.
- You’re dirty, you live in a caravan.
- Is that your real hair? Can I touch it?
- I can’t pronounce your name, can I shorten it?
- You speak English so well.
- You’re really pretty for an Indian girl.
- You’re not like other black people.
- Are you forced to wear that?
Racism is often displayed as either overt or covert racism. Overt racism in schools can look like:
- Name calling, hate speech and derogatory comments. Comments such as ‘you are dirty, go back home on the dingy you arrived on’ towards Eastern European children and adults.
- Physical and cyber bullying
- A child/group purposely excluding an ethnically diverse child or a child moving to a different seat when a black child sits next to them.
Covert racism in schools can look like:
- Only representing African Americans in the curriculum as slaves or civil rights activists, and not celebrating their contribution to Science and literature etc.
- Studies show that school dress codes are being disproportionately enforced on ethnically diverse children.
- Misunderstanding cultural norms – in some cultures it is disrespectful to look at you in the eye when communicating, or you are questioning a child from a South Asian background and you are telling them off for shaking their head, even though this is a common cultural form of agreement.
- Not representing a range of identities in school presentations and worksheets.
Racism in Devon school
Racism occurs in our Devon schools and has a negative impact on children and staff’s well-being.
Last year (22/23) over 530 incidents of racism were reported to the local authority, which was half of all Bullying, prejudice and racism incidents reported. Through our Equality, diversity and inclusion pupil forums, children tell us that racism occurs across Devon schools.
Devon school’s demographics has considerably changed over the last few years, with now around 6% of our children being from non-White British backgrounds.
What racism in schools looks like
- Physical assault and harassment
- Verbal abuse – threats, name calling
- Visual- racist propaganda such as posters, notices or graffiti
- Incitement of others to behave in a racist manner
- Segregation- exclusion, isolation, refusal to cooperate because of their colour, ethnicity, religion or
- Language barrier
- Cyber- using social media/DM to promote or incite racism
- Institutional racism which may (unintentionally) disadvantage less dominant ethnic and cultural groups – for example biased rules or curriculum
- Staff having lower aspirations for ethnically diverse children – for example, assuming that a Traveller child won’t be going to secondary school.
A school’s duty
The DfE’s Keeping children safe in education guidance outlines the need to prevent and address racism in schools.
The Equality act 2010 outlines that all schools must give due regard to
- Eliminating discrimination, harassment, victimisation, and any other prohibited conduct.
- Advancing quality of opportunity.
- Fostering good relations between people.
With more ethnically diverse families arriving in Devon and the increase of misinformation on social media – it has never been more important for schools to reflect about their practice around an anti-racism approach.
Preventative measures
- Have a curriculum that explicitly outlines key areas for celebrating equality and diversity. Improving children’s understanding of identity is crucial to reducing incidents and ensuring Cultural exchange is part of you school’s ethos will bring communities together.
- Allocate time for subject departments and year heads to review their PowerPoints and resources to ensure that your whole school community is reflected within learning resources. Basic image changes alone can have a significant positive impact on a child feeling that they belong.
- Only 4% of our Devon school websites have visibly ethnically diverse children or members of staff on their homepage. We believe that all children and staff should be represented within publications and websites, so ensure that your whole community is reflected in these.
- Plan your assemblies so that they provide children with the full truth of racism, including lived experiences. Our Devon children tell us that they want to know the impacts of racism and be provided with clear examples from those that have lived experiences. You can use the Ethnically divisors communities directory to contact charities and external partners to support this.
- Ensure that your policies are clear for children to understand, including a flowchart, on how to report incidents for children and what will happen when an incident has been reported, as well as information that incidents will be reported to the Local authority. If you have an anonymous reporting system show children exactly the sort of things that you can see so that they are confident that it is truly anonymous.
- Conduct your Equality duty cycle at least every four years, as this is not only a legal duty, but will provide a structure to reflect, set targets and plan actions. This includes the setting of Equality duty objectives to meet the needs of children and staff, as well as annual reviews and a deep dive at the end of the four years. This all should all be easily accessible on your website.
- Identify areas within your school curriculum where children of different ethnicities may be disadvantaged for example an English additional learner (EAL) may need bilingual support in the classroom in order to be successful or black child might not feel they can audition for a Shakespeare play.
- Similarly identify areas where parents and guardians may need support. This can mean ensuring that you have a translation embedded on your school website which is something an IT technician will be competently able to do. It also means ensuring that you have booked an interpreter for all parental meetings and key discussions with bilingual families. You should never use a child to interpret or translate on your behalf this can cause a safeguarding concern. You should also have a clear code of conduct around racism for parents to adhere to – to minimise the risk of parents and guardians experiencing racism.
- Dedicate CPD to your staff calendar to ensure that they are confident in understanding equality, diversity and inclusion as well as staff being able to identify their own biases. Studies show that the school staff focus more of their attention on observing black children’s behaviour than white children’s. This can cause an imbalance in support and sanctions, which can lead to discrimination.
- The majority of decisions around racism in the curriculum and anti-racism polices don’t involve children in the discussion. Develop an Equality committee to include staff, children, parents/guardians and charity organisations so that their voices can be heard.
- Just like a school ‘Pride/LGBTQ+’ group, create a Cultural champion groups. A group for ethnically diverse children to come together, share their experiences and plan awareness and cultural celebrations.
- Have a Healthy relationships week which looks at positive healthy relationships and an understanding that we are all unique and have different identities. This can help children to make the connection between racism, kindness and identity.
Things to be mindful of
- In English and History lessons, be mindful of racist language and triggering content. Agree a school wide strategy for carefully handling racism in subject content. Through our own pupil forums, children have told us that they would like there to be an awareness made by the teacher prior to the lesson to the class and then to not read racist words out loud. Such as when using ‘The mice of men’, which contains the ‘N’ word. Children feel this is the best way to manage key texts, without them feeling embarrassed or targeted.
- To review your reading list and the books that are available to your children. Do they reflect the world, do they include ethnically diverse children and families?
- Be mindful of the potential of systematic racism in children’s reading books. Does the book you are about to use describe black or brown negatively?
- Have toys and games that represent all types of people, including those with different skin colour and disabilities.
For further information visit the Equality and diversity home page.