Schooling, education, and the reproduction of inequality: understanding Black and Minority Ethnic attitudes to learning in two London schools

ABSTRACT

The argument here places the personal reflections of BAME students and educators at the forefront in this discussion of racial inequity in the British educational system. The contributors are stakeholders who have an investment in schooling, either as student or educator, that cannot be reduced to the four walls of the classroom. It features interviews and personal communications that shed light on what needs to be done to correct disparities in educational outcomes for BAME students. Emphasis is placed on the quality of their contributions and the importance of having a positive black presence in their teaching and learning environments. It features candid reflections on the rights or wrongs of having a Black History Month (BHM) celebration, especially in the wake of the introduction in 2008 of Black History as the ‘Slave Trade’ in the National Curriculum, which many considered, and still believe was ill thought through at the time.

KEYWORDS:

• Racialisation
• cultural diversity
• education
• inequality
• intersubjectivity
• school curriculum

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. June 22nd, 1948, the passengers aboard the ship HMT Empire Windrush disembarked at Tilbury Docks in Essex. The name ‘Windrush Scandal’ is derived from an aspect of the Conservative Government’s ‘Hostile Environment’.

2. The DfE (2018) data shows Black Caribbean pupils are three times more likely to be permanently excluded from school than their white peers, yet only 3.5% of the UK population are classified as black.

3. I have worked with several organisations on ‘Role Models’ initiatives including the ‘Reach Programme’, ‘100 Black Men of London’, Manhood Academy, ‘New Initiatives Rites of Passage’, The Black Police Association’s BAME VOYAGE Programme and on the ex-Mayor Boris Johnson’s ‘1000 Mentors’ project 2011–2012.

4. Labour activist Linda Bellos, Head of the London Strategic Policy Unit, with her team sponsored the first BHM in Britain in October 1987ʹ (Walker et al 2017, 50).

5. For more information and further insight see: https://www.nusconnect.org.uk/articles/why-is-my-curriculum-white-decolonising-the-academy. Similarly students occupied the old Deptford Town Hall, which is now a teaching space at Goldsmiths, University of London from March – July 2019 (137 days in total), in protest at the ongoing racist treatment of the 40–45% BAME student population. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/mar/20/students-occupy-goldsmiths-in-protest-at-institutional-racism

6. See https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/30/councils-condemned-for-shameful-rebranding-of-black-history-month for a discussion on this renaming.

7. Sankofa is an image of a bird with an egg in its mouth, walking forwards, whilst looking behind. In the Ghanaian language Twi, Sankofa is a proverb that basically means ‘go back and fetch it’, or ‘it’s not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten’, which is very apt in this instance.