Continuing Professional Development
In 2018, 85.9% of all teachers in state-funded schools in England were White British (out of those whose ethnicity was known).
There is a lack of consistency in UK schools in how to train educators to be anti-racist and an anti-racist ally.
During their training, teachers often receive a varied experience of exposure to diversity within the school population and the content delivered.
Oxfordshire teachers are mainly trained in local schools and the locally-based Oxfordshire School Teaching Alliance.
Anti-Racist City is committed to working with teacher training providers within the county to embed anti-racist practice in pedagogy.
On this page you will find various resources by and for teachers to help facilitate your anti-racist training.
How Do I Talk About Racism As A Teacher
“An incomplete guide to being an ally in education”
Sarah Sarwar, Lister Community School
Oxfordshire schools: 62 exclusions for racist bullying in 2018-19
Dozens of pupils were excluded from schools in Oxfordshire for racist bullying last year.
New figures from the Department for Education reveal that schools in the county excluded students 62 times for racist abuse in 2018-19.
SAGE: ‘Tackling’ race inequality in school leadership
Positive actions in BAME teacher progression
The objective of this study was to examine the work of school leaders/institutions in taking steps to improve black, Asian and minority ethnic teacher progression in England, by identifying and highlighting ‘what works’, and how. Furthermore, by treating each school/leader as a unique ‘case’, this paper shows their motivation (personal and professional), experiences of ‘race’, school contexts and the type/s of leadership required and used in these institutional contexts to change attitudes, cultures and behaviours.
SAGE: “WHITE SANCTION”
Institutional, group and individual interaction in the promotion and progression of black and minority ethnic academics and teachers in England
This integrated study provides thick data from qualitative interviews with academics and teachers, theorised through the lens of whiteness theory and social identity theory, of their experience of promotion and progression, how they feel organisations respond to them and how they, in turn, are responding to promotion and progression challenges. There was a shared view amongst the participants that, for black and minority ethnic academics and teachers to progress in England, they need ‘white sanction’ – a form of endorsement from white colleagues that in itself has an enabling power.
TES: 5 WAYS to celebrate diversity in the classroom
Academics from University of Bristol share the findings of a project into promoting tolerance and diversity in schools.
TES: Why decolonising the curriculum is a job for teachers
David O Russell talks about why it's naïve to assume educators haven't thought about ethnocentricity and diversity in the curriculum.
The Crucial Black History Lessons All Schools Should Be Teaching
There is still so little taught in schools across the world about the history of black people. Here, writer and broadcaster Afua Hirsch details just a few of the gaps in our educational system and points out that the slave trade is, in fact, ‘white’ history.
RESEARCH AND LITERATURE
A reading list of black geographers
What follows is a collection of work by Black geographers, and additional recommended readings on Black geographies and anti-Blackness in the United States and Canadian contexts. It is by no means a comprehensive or exhaustive review of Black scholarship in this area. This has been compiled by students and faculty at UBC Geography.
We recognize that we as a department have a great deal more work to do in order to directly support scholarship on race, and Black scholarship in particular.
This list marks a small effort to use the privilege we have – knowledge and a platform – to uplift Black scholarship within our own community and beyond.
The Perceptions of African-Caribbean boys and their Educational Achievement
This 2011 study aims to investigate The Perceptions of African-Caribbean boys about their Educational Achievement. The study wants to investigate the factors that might affect the perceptions, which this cohort has of their educational achievement. The study will look at factors such as family background and the cultural identity of African-Caribbean boys within secondary education and will also look at factors such as racism in British society, school curriculum and potential teacher racism as factors that could affect the perceptions of African-Caribbean boys about their educational achievement.
Anti-Racist Education: Selected Reading
Educator and coach, Angela Browne recommends that the starting place for any educator looking to actively practise anti-racism is to learn first of all: engaging with narratives from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic educators; listening not what’s true for you but true for others. Books can be a useful source of learning that leads to individual reflection. You may also wish to explore collective reflection through a reading group for you and colleagues.
The links below are typically to Hive, except where they did not have any editions / formats in stock at the time of writing.
You Wouldn't Understand
White Teachers in Multiethnic Classrooms
You Wouldn't Understand tells the story of one white teacher's developing understanding of how her own racial and ethnic background influenced the way she regarded and taught the mainly South Asian Muslim children in her classes.
The book charts her gradual realisation that many of the problems lay with her own lack of understanding of race, racism, and her own racial identity. The book explores the idea of whiteness as not a biological but a social construction, one which influences white people's ways of seeing the world in often unnoticed ways.
The author relates whiteness to aspects of her own behaviour, which she recorded in a diary over five years.
The book also considers the children's struggles to construct and understand their own emerging identities in this environment, and the views of several other white teachers, some of whom shared the author's confusion and doubts, and others who were more confident about teaching in culturally diverse classrooms.
VIDEOS
The School That Tried to End Racism
A British school helps its students uncover and eradicate hidden racial biases.
BBC Bitesize - Decolonising the curriculum
A group of sixth formers from London are campaigning to change the way British colonial history is taught on the National Curriculum. They all have family connections to the British Empire, and feel that their past is not being taught properly in school History lessons.
BBC BiteSize -
Not-racist versus anti-racist
John Amaechi is a psychologist, a New York Times best-selling author and a former NBA basketball player. In the wake of the George Floyd killing and the Black Lives Matter protests, and at a time when many people want to learn how they can be better allies for black people, BBC Bitesize asked John what it means to be anti-racist.
Black Lives Matter and Anti-Racism: A whole school responsibility