{"id":1809,"date":"2024-08-14T12:45:18","date_gmt":"2024-08-14T12:45:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.forwardpartnership.org.uk\/?p=1809"},"modified":"2024-08-14T12:50:55","modified_gmt":"2024-08-14T12:50:55","slug":"what-next-for-education-in-our-multicultural-society-extracts-from-the-2007-ajegbo-report-on-diversity-and-citizenship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.forwardpartnership.org.uk\/?p=1809","title":{"rendered":"What next for education in order to respond to the race riots – extracts from the 2007 Ajegbo Report on Diversity and Citizenship"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Despite much good practice in trailblazing schools, the\nquality and quantity of education for diversity are uneven across\nEngland. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not all school leaders have bought in fully to the\nimperative of education for diversity for all schools, and its priority is too\nlow to be effective. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some teachers lack confidence in engaging with diversity\nissues and lack the training opportunities to improve in this area.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pupils’ voice is not given enough consideration in this\narea.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Links with the community \u2013 a rich resource for education\nfor diversity \u2013 are often tenuous or non-existent.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some indigenous white pupils’ experience of identity\nissues in the curriculum is that they have negative perceptions of UK\/English\nidentities.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many teachers do not see the link between their subject\nand education for diversity and are unaware of how to treat it. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teachers felt hampered by:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 lack of resources<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 not knowing how to source those that do exist<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 insufficient training in how to use them properly<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is insufficient knowledge capture and transfer of\navailable resources, pedagogy and general good practice relating to education\nfor diversity. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The resource of minority ethnic teachers for supporting\neducation for diversity needs to be nurtured. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schools do not always recognise the clear link between\nthe promotion of education for diversity and the raising of standards.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is insufficient effective teacher training \u2013 in\nInitial Teacher Training (ITT), Continuing Professional Development (CPD) or in\nthe National Professional Qualification for Headship (NPQH). <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There must be consistency in the messages coming from the\nnational network of Ofsted, School Improvement Partners, QCA and the awarding\nbodies, local authorities and the National Strategies, for change and\nimprovement to happen.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All children and young people need to understand their\nidentities and feel a sense of belonging \u2013 as important for an indigenous white\npupil as a newly arrived immigrant. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All pupils, regardless of their background, need to be\nhelped to develop a sense of belonging and a cultural understanding and\ncritical literacy skills within their neighbourhoods, however disparate. It\nmakes no sense in our report to focus on minority ethnic pupils without trying\nto address and understand the issues for white pupils. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many indigenous white pupils have negative perceptions of\ntheir own identity. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

White pupils in areas where the ethnic composition of\ntheir neighbourhood is very mixed, or made up predominantly of different ethnic\ngroups, often suffer labelling and discrimination, giving them a different\ntake on how we live together. They can feel beleaguered and marginalised,\nfinding their own identities under threat as much as minority ethnic children\nmight not have theirs recognised.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we want community cohesion and for the UK to be at\nease with its diversity, as much thought and resource for education for\ndiversity need to be located with the needs of indigenous white pupils as with\npupils from minority ethnic groups.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teachers need to be able, in different contexts, to\npromote the identities and self-worth of indigenous white pupils, white working\nclass pupils, mixed heritage pupils and minority (and sometimes majority)\nethnic pupils, and at the same time to be aware of religion and the multiple\nidentities we all live with. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Critical literacy is crucial: if you are white, for example, living in a white area, how do you relate what you see on the television to your idea of being British and the nature of British society? If you are black, how do you interpret programmes on AIDs and famine in Africa, or inner city issues in America? If you are Muslim, how do you cope with the barrage of media images about terrorism or the veil? Schools must play their part in recapturing the middle ground for groups who are misrepresented.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ajegbo Repor<\/a>t can be accessed here. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite much good practice in trailblazing schools, the quality and quantity of education for diversity are uneven across England.  Not all school leaders have bought in fully to the imperative of education for diversity for all schools, and its priority is too low to be effective.  Some teachers lack confidence in engaging with diversity issues … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “What next for education in order to respond to the race riots – extracts from the 2007 Ajegbo Report on Diversity and Citizenship”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forwardpartnership.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forwardpartnership.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forwardpartnership.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forwardpartnership.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forwardpartnership.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1809"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.forwardpartnership.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1814,"href":"https:\/\/www.forwardpartnership.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1809\/revisions\/1814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forwardpartnership.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forwardpartnership.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forwardpartnership.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}