Stick to your own kind: Pupils’ Experiences of Identity and Diversity in Secondary Schools

ABSTRACT

A national emphasis in Britain on community cohesion and citizenship has highlighted the need to explore understandings of difference within and between communities, particularly in school contexts. This paper reports on the first phase of a larger project exploring pupils' understandings and experiences of identity and diversity within secondary schools. Questionnaires were collected from 51 Year 8 pupils in two urban and ethnically diverse secondary schools in England. The findings suggest that pupils have a complex range of views about identity, diversity and Britishness.

Keywords:

• identity
• diversity
• Britishness
• ethnic minorities
• citizenship

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank the pupils and the senior management teams of both schools involved in this research.