RUNNYMEDE SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361

EDUCA TION
SPECIAL

How will cuts affect

the education sector?
Racism in schools
Are black boys underachieving
because of absent fathers? Intelligence for
a multi-ethnic Britain
Runnymede

BULLETIN
RUNNYMEDE TEAM EDITOR’S
Dr Rob Berkeley
Director
Sarah Isal
Deputy Director
LETTER
Dr Debbie Weekes-Bernard
Senior Research & Policy
Analyst
Dr Omar Khan
Senior Research & Policy WELCOME to the first online Runnymede Bulletin,
Analyst the shiny new digital incarnation of our esteemed 40-year-old publication.
Jessica Mai Sims
Research & Policy Analyst Regular readers of the Runnymede Bulletin will have come to expect many
Kjartan Páll Sveinsson things from us, not least relevant news updates, in-depth analysis and thoughtful
Research & Policy Analyst
comment from the race equality sector and the wider academic arena. And this
Phil Mawhinney
Research & Policy Analyst education special, while different in its delivery, will not disappoint with its content.
Vastiana Belfon
Real Histories Directory Look out for the symbol on our contents page for everything education-related.
Robin Frampton
Publications Editor Turn to page 10 for Dr Tony Sewell’s opinion on the effect high numbers of absent
Nina Kelly fathers are having on young black boys’ attainment in school. But before you make
Editor, Runnymede Online
up your mind, see the opposite page for Tracey Reynolds’ counter argument.
Colin Kelly
Business Development In keeping with our education theme, one of our new and permanent features
Manager
Vicki Butler
- the Q&A (pp 28 & 29) - is with Zenna Atkins, chair of Ofsted. This issue we learn
Public Affairs Officer how the schools inspection body incorporates race equality into its work, and
Klara Schmitz how Zenna’s unconventional route to success has cemented her belief in the
Project Assistant
Kam Gill importance of education.
Project Assistant
Riffat Ahmed
Read snappy expert comments on how inevitable cuts in the education sector’s
Art Project Manager budget will affect each slice of the field in another of our new additions - the
Rebecca Waller Vox Pop on page 30.
Administrator
7 Plough Yard Away from education, contributions from experts barrister Corinna Ferguson and
London EC2A 3LP
T: 020 7377 9222 Lord Carlile QC explore the use and dangers of ethnic profiling on pages 19 & 20.
F: 020 7377 6622
info@runnymedetrust.org Meanwhile our financial inclusion team explore the importance of money advice
In 2010, four editions of the (p 16), assets (p 18) and behavioural economics (p 21).
Runnymede Bulletin will be
published to correspond And, before you think we’ve forgotten all about the recent poll that decided the
with the seasons.
ISSN: 1476-363X future of our country, read Runnymede director, Rob Berkeley’s thoughts on what the
© The Runnymede Trust,
May 2010. Open access,
coalition government might mean for education and race equality policy (p 43).
some rights reserved,
subject to the terms of
Creative Commons Licence There are also reviews, key facts and much much more, which I’ll leave you to
Deed: Attribution-Non-
Commercial-No Derivative
Works 2.0 UK: England &
explore at your own pace.
Wales. You are free to copy,
distribute, display and
perform the work (including Which leaves me just to thank all the wonderful people who lent us their
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the original author credit;
thoughts, expertise, words and images to make this new-look Spring 2010
you may not use this work
for commercial purposes; Runnymede Bulletin happen; we know your time is precious and we appreciate
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licence, please contact
Runnymede. touch with me at the email address below.
Runnymede is the UK’s
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nina@runnymedetrust.org

2 | BULLETIN | SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361 www.runnymedetrust.org

 CONTENTS
ON THE COVER
07 RACISM IS MORE THAN BULLYING
A proposed duty should help
schools tackle racist bullying, but
does it go far enough?
10 ABSENT FATHERS HOLD BOYS BACK
Why black boys without male role
models struggle at school
Photo: Vijay Jethwa
30 VOX POP
Experts from within the education
23 sector on how cuts will affect them
NEWS IN BRIEF
04 BNP’S LOSSES AND GAINS
Big losses and small gains for the
UK’s best-known racist party
06 RACE EQUALITY SECTOR CAMPAIGN
The race equality sector’s part in the
2010 general election campaign
FEATURES
12 ZERO EXCLUSIONS ARE POSSIBLE
How local authorities can find
alternatives to school exclusions
14 END RACISM IN A GENERATION
A new Runnymede project, Genera-
tion 3.0, aims to do just that
16 TAKE MY ADVICE
Ethnic minorities may be losing out
on money advice services
Photo: Brian Slater
18 WHY DO ASSETS MATTER?
33 Why a lack of assets can be more
indicative than income poverty
21 BEHAVIOURAL ECONOMICS
What this alternative to ‘standard’
economics could mean for policy
23 BLACK FATHERS COUNT
Former higher education minister
David Lammy MP on why fathers in
the black community must step up
COMMENT
Photo: Nina Kelly
09 PATHWAYS TO SUCCESS
21 School exclusion is not the end of
the story for young people
www.runnymedetrust.org
11 LONE MOTHERS NOT TO BLAME
An alternative view to those who
cite single-parent families for black
boys’ underachievement
19 ETHNIC PROFILING
A civil rights barrister for Liberty
explains why it is not a necessary evil
20 ACCOUNTABILITY IN LAW
Lord Carlile QC on how stop and
search laws could evolve
REGULARS
28 Q&A
We quiz Zenna Atkins, chair of
schools inspection body Ofsted
31 KEY FACTS
Ten facts you ought to know about
race and education
32 REVIEWS
Books, films, dance and art -
diversity’s part in culture
42 RUNNYMEDE DIARY
Browse through an abridged
version of Runnymede’s schedule in
the past and coming few months
43 DIRECTOR’S COLUMN
Rob Berkeley on what the election
result could mean for race equality
A VIEW FROM...
25 ...FRANCE
How non-white French people
can be treated as foreigners in the
country they were born and raised in
26 ...PARLIAMENT
Race equality and those with the
power to achieve it - how our public
affairs programme will provide a
much-needed link between them
RETROSPECTIVE
40 THE SWANN REPORT
Achievements of the race equality
sector in the 15 years since the
report was published
SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361 | BULLETIN | 3
 NEWS IN BRIEF

Record number of
BME MPs voted in
THERE WERE MORE BLACK AND
minority ethnic (BME) members of parliament
elected in the May 2010 UK general election
than there have ever been in the past.
A total of 27 BME MPs now sit in parliament,
up from 14 under the previous government.
Among their number are a few new names,
such as Chuka Umunna, Labour MP for
Streatham, in south London. Mr Umunna won
more than 20,000 votes, an increase of more
than one thousand on the Labour result for
2005. Meanwhile the Conservative’s Priti Patel
MP won her seat in the Essex constituency of
Witham, as did Helen Grant MP, the first black
woman to represent the party in Westminster.
Ms Grant won Ann Widdecombe’s old seat of
Maidstone and The Weald in Kent, where the
Tories took 48 per cent of the vote.
Veteran Labour MPs from the black
community Diane Abbott and David Lammy
were returned to Westminster with increased
majorities. However Labour’s Dawn Butler
lost her seat to Lib Dem Sarah Teather.
Similarly, high profile Conservative hopefuls
Shaun Bailey and Wilfred Emmanuel Jones
narrowly missed the chance to represent their
constituencies in the House of Parliament.
One of the first Muslim woman MPs,
Shabana Mahmood, was also a product of this
general election, winning Clare Short’s old seat
in the Birmingham constituency of Ladywood.

Photo: Vijay Jethwa

Finally, among the last results on election Diane Abbott MP, who has
announced her candidacy for
night was a victory for Labour’s Rushanara Ali leadership of the Labour Party
in Bethnal Green and Bow, east London.

John Denham MP urges for focus on class

A heated debate followed John Denham MP’s
speech to launch the former government’s
report Tackling Race Inequalities: A Statement
on Race, in January 2010.
The then communities secretary urged a
new approach to race relations, saying that
tackling discrimination and inequality should
mean taking account of the importance of
social class in holding people back, rather than
simply concentrating on race. He went on to
say that there have been “substantial strides in
the past decade towards racial equality”, and
that “sustained action over the last ten years
has promoted racial equality and better race
relations, dismantled unfair barriers faced by
many and helped to nurture a society more
comfortable with diversity than ever before.”
However the Labour MP did acknowledge
that there is still much to do, especially in
the areas of school exclusions, the national
DNA database, and stop and search. He
also said that without tackling all forms of
discrimination, prejudice and inequality, we
will not succeed in tackling racism.
Comments flooded into online forums in
the immediate aftermath of Denham’s speech,
many somewhat inaccurately interpreting his
comments as a declaration that racial equality
has been achieved.
Mainstream news outlets were also moved
to comment, with a mixed response. The
Guardian’s Alan Travis warned that Labour
may alienate its core supporters. Meanwhile
Andrew Gilligan agreed with Denham, and
highlighting the plight of the white working
class in an article for the Telegraph.
Read John Denham’s paper on race
equality exclusively for Runnymede at:
http://bit.ly/runnymededenham

4 | BULLETIN | SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361 www.runnymedetrust.org

 Big losses and small gains for the BNP Anti-Islamic moves
TEACHERS IN ENGLAND WILL NOT be
banned from membership of the racist British
National Party (BNP), a review concluded.
The decision came after a list was leaked
in September 2009 identifying thousands
of BNP members by name; 15 of them
were schoolteachers. The government then
commissioned a review to decide whether or
not members of openly racist organisations
such as the BNP should be allowed to continue
as normal in the teaching profession.
Former chief inspector of schools Maurice
Smith concluded that banning teachers from
BNP membership would be like “taking a
very large sledgehammer to crack a minuscule
nut”. The review concluded that there were
enough measures already in place to prevent
the promotion of racism by teachers while
in school, though these should be reviewed
annually. Police and prison officers remain
forbidden from joining the BNP, however.
On the same day that the review affecting
teachers’ permission to join the BNP was
published, the Central London County Court
ruled that the far right party’s admissions
policy was still discriminatory, even after a
white-only membership rule was scrapped
just one month earlier.
Whomever their members may be,
however, it has become clear that the BNP’s
political clout is decidedly weaker than
its leader Nick Griffin had claimed. In the
A small Roma victory and a lot left to do
CLAIMS OF ANTI-ROMA RACIST
discrimination were upheld by the
European Court of Human Rights
(ECHR) in March 2010. The case,
originally heard in a local court in Croatia,
was made on behalf of 15 schoolchildren
who were segregated from all non-Roma
pupils. The school’s argument that the
Roma-only classes came about as a result
of language barriers were given little
weight and, eight years after the original
complaint, the European court sealed a
victory for the Roma families.
Despite being the largest ethnic
minority community in Europe, including
an estimated 7-9 million people, Roma,
www.runnymedetrust.org
London constituency of Barking, where
Griffin hoped to oust re-elected Labour MP
Margaret Hodge, he was instead delivered
a decisive third-place defeat in the recent
general election.
In the local elections of the same area of
north-east London the BNP lost all 12 of its
Barking and Dagenham council seats after an
effortful campaign by other local candidates
and anti-fascist organisations.
Nick Lowles, head of the anti-BNP
campaign Hope Not Hate, which galvanised
support from thousands of volunteers across
the country, has expressed his pride at the result
in Barking in particular. He said: “This really
was a disastrous result for the BNP,” adding
that he expected the fallout to have an effect on
Griffin’s leadership of the far-right party.
Despite the BNP’s failure to win a
platform in the House of Parliament and the
loss of 26 of the 28 council seats it won in
2006, it would be premature to herald the
party’s end. As reported by the Londonist
website, in the 2010 general election the BNP
has in fact increased its share or number of
votes (or both) across several constituencies,
including Barking, Dagenham, Oldham East,
Oldham West, Stoke on Trent Central and
Morley and Outwood. While the BNP has
failed to amplify its voice in local and central
government, its base of support is still holding
strong, meaning there is work still to be done.
Gypsies and Travellers still experience
high levels of discrimination and
inequality, as reported by Amnesty
International in April 2010.
Just months before the 2010 British
election, the then Labour government
called on local councils to make the
full use of ASBOs to tackle antisocial
behaviours explicitly “associated with
Gypsies and Travellers”. This guidance,
published in March 2010 set out the
powers and tools available to councils,
including ASBOs and civil injunctions.
At the time, Runnymede’s Westminster
Monitor blog reported on the danger of
singling communities out in this way.
are supported in
Western Europe
BELGIUM IS SET TO BE THE FIRST
country in Europe to ban the burqa. Belgian
MPs in the lower house of parliament voted
almost unanimously on 29 April 2010 to
prohibit the wearing of the face-covering
Islamic veil in public. The full body burqa or
face-covering niqab will become prohibited
dress in streets, public gardens, sports
grounds and public buildings according to a
draft bill. Women who flout the ban could face
a jail sentence of up to seven days or a fine of
approximately £22.
Anxiety over a perceived growth in the
prominence of Islam in Europe has also
been seen in neighbouring France, which has
Western Europe’s largest Muslim population.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the
burqa and niqab were not welcome in France,
describing the full veil as “contrary to our
values and to the ideals we have of women’s
dignity”, in a comment made in April 2010.
A further sign of France’s bid to clamp
down on the face-covering Islamic veil was
shown in a recent incident in Nantes, in which
a woman was fined for driving while wearing
a niqab. The Muslim woman was pulled over
by police and told that her clothing posed a
‘safety risk’ to her driving. French MPs are
due to vote shortly on banning the burqa from
public places. The total ban could be made
law by summer 2010.
Meanwhile in Switzerland, a solid
majority backed a referendum banning
the construction of minarets, distinctive
architectural features that are usually found
on top of Islamic mosques. The ban was
supported by 57.5 per cent of those who
participated in the vote, even though there
were just four mosques with minarets in the
country at the time of the referendum.
A seminar held by the UK Race and
Europe Network (UKREN) in April 2010
explored the worrying anti-Islamic legislation
that has been drafted in recent months. Key
note speaker Tariq Ramadan, who is Professor
of Islamic Studies at Oxford University, urged
Muslims to abide by the law of the land in
which they live, whatever it might be. He
emphasised instead the importance of using
legitimate means to challenge infringements
on civil liberties, such as European law.
SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361 | BULLETIN | 5
 NEWS IN BRIEF
Campaigns are not just for politicians
THE CAMPAIGNS LEADING UP TO
the 2010 general election were intense and
inescapable, exactly as we would expect from
one of the most closely fought political battles
in modern history. And the effort afforded to
campaigning came, not only from the three
front-running political parties and, indeed,
all those hoping for a seat in the House of
Commons, but also from pressure groups and
equalities organisations, making sure their
agendas were not lost in the collective noise.
Organisations including Operation Black
Vote (OBV), Equanomics and the 1990 Trust
led the floor for the race equality sector with
a campaign to get party leaders to outline
how their manifestos would affect black
and minority ethnic (BME) people. 2,500
BME voters mobilised for the Black Britain
Decides event, one of the biggest rallies of the
election. Senior figures from all three leading
parties took part in the event, including Harriet
Harman, then deputy leader of the Labour
Party, Vince Cable and George Osborne,
now members of the prime minister David
Cameron’s cabinet. Issues covered at the rally
included the under-representation of BME
people in parliament and the dangers their
over-representation on the DNA database.
The attention of senior politicians was
perhaps caught by OBV’s reiteration that the
New act will enshrine race equality in law
THE EQUALITY ACT IS NOW UK LAW,
having completed the final stage of its passage
through parliament in April 2010.
The provisions in the act, which was first
introduced as the Equality Bill to the House
of Commons almost a year ago, will begin to
take effect in the autumn.
The new legislation brings together many
of the existing equality laws under one
umbrella, which will help to make individuals’
rights clearer to them and their employers.
Changes made to the law during its passage
through the House of Lords included adding
a power to outlaw caste discrimination and
a requirement for political parties to publish
information on the diversity of their candidates.
Laws preventing racial discrimination will
6 | BULLETIN | SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361
black vote could have a significant effect on
the overall outcome of the general election.
The campaigning organisation made the case
that several marginal seats could be decided
by a sizable BME proportion of the electorate
in those constituencies. OBV pointed, in
particular, the London areas of Finchley,
Battersea and Golders Green, as well as seats
further north, such as Bradford West and
Birmingham Yardley.
Simon Woolley, coordinator of OBV,
described the event, which filled the Methodist
Central Hall near the Houses of Parliament, as
‘a show of force to the political elite’. As the
Guardian newspaper commented at the time,
the under-representation of BME people in
positions of political power was never more
evident than at Black Britain Decides, in
which the six representatives from the major
parties were all white.
Harriet Harman, who surprised a few by
opening her address with ‘Good evening
brothers and sisters’, highlighted the fact that
Labour had done more than any other leading
party for race equality during their time in
office. George Osborne arrived on stage to
boos from the audience, but received a loud
cheer in response to his party’s plans to curb
the reach of the DNA database, while Vince
Cable addressed the Lib Dems’ lack of ethnic
be supported and enshrined by the Equality
Act, as will unfair treatment on the grounds of
gender, age and disability.
The Equality and Diversity Forum (EDF),
of which Runnymede is a member, strongly
urged parliamentarians to support the
legislation through its journey to Royal Assent.
The new law should also enable positive
action initiatives to be widened and simplified,
making it plain how business owners could
redress the balance of under-represented
groups, such as black and minority ethnic
people, in their employment.
Protection from injustice due to ‘dual
discrimination’ is an aspect of the Equality
Bill particularly welcomed by EDF members.
Before the Equality Act, for example, a
diversity within its own ranks, purporting to
take a personal responsibility for addressing
the problem.
It is worth mentioning, however, that the
Liberal Democrats, despite having no BME
MPs before or after the election, were the
only major party to release a race equality
manifesto. In it, the Lib Dems pulled out some
key policies from their overall manifesto,
highlighting how they could potentially
benefit people from BME communities
Other organisations worked together to
raise the profile of the race equality sector,
putting together The Black Manifesto. The
manifesto, designed to keep the issue of
equality for all races and ethnicities on the
agenda, included a look at the inequalities of
financial inclusion for BME people. This is
the idea that a lack of access to formal banking
products and services leads to positions
of discrimination among certain groups.
Runnymede conducts a series of projects
around financial inclusion, to find out more
go to: runnymedetrust.org/financial-inclusion
Not forgetting our own push to keep race
equality on the wider political agenda, with
our Runnymede Platform publications. Read
MPs Lynne Featherstone, Dominic Grieve and
John Denham outline their respective parties’
perspectives at: runnymedetrust.org/platform
black woman who felt she had been unfairly
treated due to her gender and race combined
would have had little legal protection.She
would have had to choose between race and
gender for the grounds on which to make her
case in an employment tribunal. Employers
could then have pointed to colleagues
who were white women or black men in a
misleading defence.
The Equality Act is largely regarded as a
legacy of the outgoing Labour government
under Prime Minister Gordon Brown, with
the particular hallmark of former equalities
minister Harriet Harman.
It is now up to the new Conservative and
Liberal Democrat coalition government to
enforce the principles set out in the legislation.
www.runnymedetrust.org
Racism is more
than bullying
A proposed duty will ensure that all state-run
schools record incidents of bullying in schools.
This does not currently extend to reporting
these incidents however. Debbie Weekes-
Bernard explains why this is a concern
S
chools’ capacity to keep a record of
all forms of bullying would be made
easier by a proposed duty. The duty
would ensure there was a record kept
of incidents happening in school as well as
outside of it, such as cyberbullying, so that all
occurrences could be addressed.
The duty is supported by the Department
for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF),
which called a consulative group - including
representatives from Runnymede - to discuss
the issue in 2008. This consulation acted as a
precursor for the initiative, which is expected
be rolled out across England.
The proposed duty is to be imposed on the
governing bodies of all state-run schools.
Each institution will have to introduce new
systems to record not only bullying between
pupils, but also incidents of abuse against
staff. In Runnymede’s response to the initital
consultation we agreed that having the
ability to refer to data schools have collected
would enable them to monitor any bullying
and act accordingly to prevent anything
similar happening in the future by focusing
specifically on problem areas.
Also in our response, however, was our
expressed concern that the proposed duty to
record incidents does not currently extend to
a duty to also report them; we suggested that
it was necessary for any recorded incidents to
be reported both at a local level and to central
government. By reporting schools would
allow the body receiving the reports to make
note of any trends and target support to those
institutions that would clearly benefit from it.
Giving local authorities the ability to assess
how trends are developing in this respect is vital
if schools are to be assisted with identifying
areas where intervention may be necessary.
www.runnymedetrust.org
Further, providing central government with
locally collected information will help in
a wide array of policy development areas,
including being able to draw links between
the educational underachievement of specific
groups of children and their experiences of
various forms of bullying. For these reasons
Runnymede still strongly advocates reporting
as well as recording incidents of bullying by
type, as was proposed by the DCSF in the first the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000.
consultation document.
Racist incidents
We are even more deeply concerned, however,
about the omission within the proposals of a
duty to both record and report racist incidents
to local authorities, and indeed to central
government. We are aware of the existing
procedures within schools to record and report
racist incidents and that DCSF guidance to
schools on this issue notes that schools must
record and report all such incidents to local
authorities at least annually. There are many
schools that have duly recorded and reported
incidents and, though there has been some
degree of consternation at the numbers of
incidents reported, awareness about these
incidents is necessary and important. That
schools are recording and reporting these
incidents not only demonstrates to any child
or parent that their experiences of racism
are being taken seriously, but also provides
evidence that schools are working proactively
to support, not only victims, but those who
engaged in activity that has caused offence to
another.
Current laws
Schools are currently under a duty to promote include apparently victimless incidents, such
race equality and good race relations under as racist graffiti or the wearing of symbols (or
FACT BOX
The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry
report noted that schools should
record racist incidents and report
them to governors, parents and local
authorities
Until recently local authorities
were required to report racist
incidents to the government, but the
numbers of occurrences in school
were difficult to extract from this
information.
Teachers who are members of
racist organisations will not be
banned from their profession, decided
an independent review in March 2010
Adam Hart ridiculed the
defining of some minor
primary school playground chants
as ‘racist incidents’ in his 2009 book
The Myth of Racist Kids
There are also provisions to create more
generic equality duties for all equality streams
under the Equality Act, which was approved
in April 2010 and will begin to take effect in
the autumn. Requiring schools to continue to
note and report racist incidents would clearly
fall under existing race equality duties,
and indeed any future equality duties. The
monitoring of bullying by type - including
incidents related to race, religion or culture,
as was noted in the consultation document -
could indeed assist schools in relation to their
duty to promote community cohesion, but
only partially.
As it stands, the recording and reporting of
racist incidents goes beyond examples of
bullying. Yet the wording in the proposals for
the new duty restricts the definition of bullying
to physical or verbal abuse causing ‘harm or
distress to the individual concerned’, which
does not include many of the wider issues
that combine to create a racist incident. Not
all racist incidents are incidents of bullying.
The Macpherson Report on the Stephen
Lawrence Inquiry noted that a racist incident
is one ‘which is perceived to be racist by the
victim or any other person’. DCSF guidance
on the recording and reporting of racist
incidents notes that incidents can include
both verbal and physical abuse, but can also
SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361 | BULLETIN | 7
emblems of groups) that promote race hatred,
for example a badge bearing a swastika.
The decision to limit the definition of
bullying to physical and verbal abuse only
was also noted within the DCSF consultation
document as an attempt to remove some of
the bureaucratic pressures faced by schools.
Indeed Adam Hart’s recent critique of the
reporting of racist incidents pilloried the
time-consuming practice of recording often
very small incidents. Moreover, teachers and
schools have themselves noted the inherent
Reporting racist incidents shows
that they are being taken seriously
bureaucracy involved in this obligation. It
is, however, our contention that referring
solely to instances of verbal and physical
abuse within the proposed definition of
bullying will fail to address those apparently
victimless incidents. These occurrences,
despite not appearing to target any specific
individual pupil or teacher within the school,
can lead to distress, worry and an overall
negative impact upon the performance of
those from black and minority ethnic (BME)
backgrounds who are teaching or learning
within the relevant institution.
8 | BULLETIN | SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361
Though we appreciate that it is problematic to
focus exclusively on racist incidents without
acknowledging the wider context within
which those incidents occur, specifically in
majority white schools, we would not dismiss
the usefulness of recording and reporting
racist incidents as a means of helping schools
to address the problems experienced by their
BME pupils and teachers.
Runnymede welcomes the focus on
teachers who may be the victims of abuse.
Work that has explored the approach of
schools with majority white pupils to issues
of race and racism has noted the often
negative experiences of teachers from BME
backgrounds in these institutions. We would
specifically draw attention to the experiences
of BME teachers who report bullying from
pupils in white majority schools as well as
discussing the wider experience of racism
that extends beyond individual pupils, to
their parents and other members of the
wider community in which their school is
situated. We would further add that though
the consultation document focuses on pupil to
pupil bullying and pupil to staff bullying, it
does not also note teacher to pupil bullying.
It is clearly not the case that incidents of this
kind do not occur, and we would suggest that
any focus on bullying includes reference to
this issue.
The recent decision by the former chief of
inspectors Maurice Smith not to bar teachers
from membership of organisations that may
promote racism, such as the British National
Party (BNP), was made on the basis that
there already exist measures to prevent the
promotion of racism in schools included the
‘expectation’ that schools currently report
racist incidents among other strategies.
Maurice Smith highlighted the plans by the
DCSF to make this ‘expectation’ a legal
requirement. However this legal requirement
will clearly only partially cover the prevention
of any promotion of racism if it is restricted to
bullying. This approach will ignore the wider
remit covered by looking at racist incidents
more broadly. Further, it will not address the
potential for bullying by teachers towards
their pupils, given that it has been made clear
now that teachers’ membership of openly
racist organisations is acceptable.
The current approach to the issue of racism
in education as exemplified by these issues
is saddening to say the least. It pays scant
attention to the wide variety of ways in which
racism can be experienced by both BME
pupils and teachers in UK schools.
www.runnymedetrust.org
Pathways to success
Black Caribbean pupils are three times more likely
to be permanently excluded from school than
their white peers. Professor Cecile Wright gives us
the benefit of her research, arguing that exclusion
is not the end of the story for expelled pupils
H
istorically, within the UK the
presence of black and minority ethnic
(BME) young people within the
education system has been framed
by a struggle for educational opportunities.
This has been characterised by systematic
institutional discriminatory practices which
have manifested continued below average
performance evidenced in disproportionately
poor exam results and high exclusion rates.
The number of pupils excluded from school
is falling, according to the figures held by the
Department for Children, Schools and Families
(DCSF). However, a larger proportion of
black Caribbean and mixed white and black
Caribbean pupils has been excluded than
white pupils. Also, evidence suggests that
disproportionate exclusion of black Caribbean
and mixed heritage pupils occurs irrespective
of socio-economic context of the school, its
performance, or its educational effectiveness.
We need to go further to ascertain what
happens to those who are excluded, and the
support available to them. We need to ask:
How do school exclusions come to structure
opportunities beyond the school? How do
Research reveals that there is
positive social and cultural capital in
the black community
black students respond, resist and work to
transform their school experience? Why is
there a persistent expression of educational
desire and optimism among excluded young
people?
The research underpinning the conclusions
in my book Black Youth Matters: Transitions
from School to Successes looks at how young
people creatively respond to permanent
www.runnymedetrust.org
schooling. Most of the young people in the
study were back in mainstream education,
in employment or about to return at the
time we contacted them. Further, most of
the young people were optimistic about the
future, despite having experienced a disrupted
education. Black young people told us how the
influence of family, friends and community
enabled them to succeed against the odds.
For many years black youths have been
problematised and pathologised. This has been
accompanied by blaming their educational
‘failure’ and ‘cultural deficits’. However
research reveals that there is positive social
and cultural capital in the black community,
and that this capital is supportive of positive
educational outcomes and successful
transitions.
For the young people we spoke to, labelling
and stigmatisation meant that they came
to occupy a marginal status. However, in
marginal spaces resistance and empowerment
develops, as has been noted in the acclaimed
work of bell hooks. These young people
felt that school exclusion was indicative of
the discriminatory processes they would
face in wider society. The stigmatisation
they experienced damaged their esteem and
fractured opportunities. However, these
feelings were temporary as the young people
sought to replace the negative labels assigned
to them. With the support of family, friends
and community agencies the young people
sought to change and a culture of resistance
was available to them. This came from the
support of parents and others whose own
Professor Cecile Wright
school experiences mirrored those of the
children. Resistance would operate through
challenging the school and working with
the child to develop classroom strategies for
coping with their teachers and their peers.
This was vital in assisting young people to
overcome the effects of exclusion.
The lack of educational provision during the
period of exclusion is a major obstacle to
a successful transition. Community-based
organisations, parents associations and
families acted as surrogates for statutory
service provisions. Young people in the study
engaged with these services that facilitated a
work ethos, attitudes of self worth and black
identity. This was seen as vital in achieving
successful transitions for these marginalised
young people. The young people were able
to highlight how racial stereotypes could be
disproved by their own successful transitions.
Becoming aware of the intentional and
unintentional discriminatory practices of
society and its institutions is important in
providing support to young people who have
become marginalised as a result of them.
Given this context, current government
initiatives, such as the Widening
Participation agenda, Aiming High and the
Black Pupils Achievement Programme, fail
to address the root problem, a discriminatory
education system.
Cecile Wright is Professor of Sociology at
Nottingham Trent University and co-author of
Black Youth Matters: Transitions from School
to Success, published by Routledge, 2010.
SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361 | BULLETIN | 9
Absent dads hold boys back
Dr Tony Sewell
T
here is clear evidence to link family
life, peer pressure and anti-school
culture to disproportionate levels
of black Caribbean exclusion from
school. However in the education department’s
recent report Getting it, Getting it right, the
government failed to focus on what they
called ‘out of school causes’, and instead took
the easy route of blaming institutional racism.
Black Caribbean exclusions are three times
higher than white. What the report fails to
mention, however, is that black Caribbean
exclusions are also three times higher than
black African exclusions. The clear ‘out of
school’ difference is family and culture; black
African fathers are present in their families
much more than those from a black Caribbean
background. This leads to significant
behavioural outcomes, particularly with boys.
Psychologists have known for some time
that children’s attachment to their fathers and
mothers derives from different sets of early
social experiences. Specifically, mothers
provide security when a child is distressed;
while fathers provide reassuring play partners.
Generating Genius
We, at Generating Genius, have been running
summer camps for five years now, where boys
are taken from their familiar environment
and work on high-level science projects at
universities. All the boys have bucked the
trend for inner-city African-Caribbeans,
scoring an average of nine high-grade GCSEs
10 | BULLETIN | SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361
Black Caribbean boys are particularly vulnerable
to underachievement in school and higher rates
of exclusion. In a shortened version of an article
that appears in full in a forthcoming Runnymede
report, Dr Tony Sewell gives his opinion as to why
each. We have found that our biggest barrier
is not repairing the damage of racism in
the education system, but getting boys to
overcome the psychological damage of not
knowing their fathers.
As part of our orientation we play a simple
game called ‘trust’. Once I stood behind a
mixed-race 15-year-old boy called Martin
who was to blindly fall into my arms. He
refused to do it. Typically, this kind of tough
play love would never come from his mother.
Instead of allowing him to fall, she would
probably grab him from behind and whisper
in his ear: “This game is too dangerous; I’ll
buy you a PlayStation instead.” Whereas a
typical father would say: “Come on, son, fall.
I’m behind and you’d better not look back.”
Where ethnicity comes in
National statistics reveal that among those
with a partner, 73 per cent of whites are in a
formal marriage compared with only half of
black Caribbeans. Among those who have
married, Caribbeans are twice as likely to
have divorced or separated as whites across
all age groups under the age of 60. We
need to understand these matters and find
solutions, otherwise we will continue to see
a disproportionate amount of violent crime
committed by young black males, higher
exclusion rates from school, and the lesser-
told story of the high levels of mental illness
among African-Caribbean males.
When we set up the Generating Genius
programme we had aspirations to train and
nurture the next generation of black Britain’s
intellectual best. However, these ideals soon
became secondary. Many of the boys, once
freed from the arms of their mothers, suddenly
had to cope with a world run by adult black
males - figures who, in their lives, were mostly
absent, unreliable, despised by their mothers,
and unsuccessful. These boys kicked up
against us as though we were the dads who had
walked out of their lives without explanation
and suddenly demanded their respect.
More than racism, I now firmly believe
that the main problem holding black boys
back academically is their over-feminised
upbringing. Firstly, because there is no male
role model to lock down the destructive
instincts that exist within all males with the
onset of adolescence, and no father to provide
guidance on what a man should be. Second, in
his own mind, no child is without a father. In
the absence of such a figure he will seek out
an alternative. This will usually be among
dominant male figures, which are all too often
found in gangs. This is the space where there
is a kind of hierarchy, there is a ritual, there is
education and, of course, a sense of belonging.
The black gang is really a cadre of black male
caricatures that replaces the father figure that
never played the trust game with his son. It
is the nearest they will get to the love usually
given by a father. I believe we have wasted
years, and lives, looking in the wrong direction
as to the causes of failure in education and
participation in crime. We have had endless
studies attempting to prove institutional racism,
obsessed with the prejudice of white teachers
and police, while all along the psychological
needs of our boys were never met.
The current government policy of rolling
out suited and booted role models to black
youngsters is another attempt to externalise the
problem that lies within. It has left us with little
research and knowledge about the group that
gets kicked out of school the most. Meanwhile,
the black family continues to disintegrate and it
seems that no one dare say a word.
Dr Tony Sewell is the director of Generating
Genius, a visiting scholar at the University
of the West Indies and a trustee of the
Science Museum.
See page 23 for a report of the Runnymede
event on black fatherhood.
www.runnymedetrust.org
 Lone mothers not to blame
In response to Dr Tony Sewell’s comment on
the opposite page, Dr Tracey Reynolds writes in
defence of the female-headed household. She
also points out the inaccuracy of an assumption
that absent dads equal no male role models
T
ony Sewell’s claim that black boys
living in lone-mother households are
‘over-feminised’ due to the absence of
a father figure in their lives is merely
a continuation of the moral panic surrounding
black fathers and family life.
Absentee fathers
The most recent figures indicate that in Britain
almost two thirds of black Caribbean families
with dependent children are lone-mother
households. The fathers are typically portrayed
as being ‘absentee fathers’ who are unwilling
to take responsibility for their children.
Researchers and policymakers have been
particularly concerned with understanding
the extent to which black fathers’ absence
from family life negatively impacts on their
children’s emotional and psychological well-
being and social development. Indeed, in the
education field, a whole body of scholarship
has developed out of this concern. Many
interventionist approaches designed to raise
the educational achievement of black boys,
for example surrogate father figures or male
mentors who work with black boys in schools,
take black fathers’ assumed absence from
family life as the starting point in tackling this
issue. Oftentimes, the underlying subtext for
black Caribbean children is that their family
structures, or more specifically absentee black
fathers, are to blame.
However, it is all too easy to blame non-
resident fathers for the problems their children
encounter in schools and the wider community,
because in reality little is known about these
fathers’ relationships with their children.
There exists a scarcity of factual data and
empirical research examining their parenting
experiences. As such our knowledge about
the behaviours and attitudes of ‘absent’ black
fathers is typically based on myths, folklore
and a series of sensationalised media images.
Despite a small but growing number of studies
attempting to challenge such negative images,
the views of fathers themselves and the
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practices they associate with fatherhood and
family life are rarely, if ever, publicly debated.
Contrary to popular (mis)conceptions, my
own research identifies that many non-resident
black fathers are involved in parenting and
family life, albeit to varying degrees. Of
course, as Sewell alludes too, there will
always be those fathers that have little or
no contact with their children whether by
choice or circumstance. But are we truly to
believe that in such situations there exists a
complete absence of male family members in
these children’s lives? What about the step-
fathers, uncles, grandfathers, brother and male
cousins? In Caribbean cultures such menfolk
traditionally provide a valuable resource and
support system to lone-mothers in socialising
young boys into culturally prescribed notions
of manhood and masculine identities. Sewell’s
assumption about such ‘over-feminised’
households completely overlooks and
disregards the significant role these men play
in caring for and raising black Caribbean boys.
Other male role models
Dr Sewell himself, as a black man of
Caribbean heritage, would recognise the well-
established Caribbean cultural practice of
female-headed households. In this context,
the mother figure is historically celebrated as
occupying the dual role of nurturer/carer and
worker/financial provider, in essence raising
her children with little means of economic
support from the father. Generations of black
Caribbean men in the Caribbean and across the
diaspora have been raised in such households.
Is Dr Sewell suggesting that culturally and
historically, generations of black men are
‘over-feminised? Is there evidence that
swathes of black men across the Caribbean
diaspora have underachieved and continue to
do so as a result of being raised in a normative
Caribbean family structure? The relative
educational success of black Caribbean
boys in the USA and Canada raised in lone-
mother households would provide a direct
challenge and interesting counter argument
Dr Tracey Reynolds
to Sewell’s attempt to link the issue of absent
fathers and ‘over-feminised households’ to the
educational underachievement among black
Caribbean boys in Britain.
I would argue that it is vitally important that
a contextualised and measured approach to
family life and black Caribbean children’s
educational success - or failure - foregrounds
any discussion. Just as Dr Sewell is critical of
policymakers and practitioners adopting the
‘easy route in blaming institutional racism’ for
black boys’ underachievement in our schools,
it is important that he guards against adopting
this same easy route in apportioning blame to
cultural traditions of lone-mother households
in Caribbean communities.
The reality of official records
Furthermore, official records and data
that record black fathers as ‘absent’ from
households and living apart from their children
does not accurately record the reality of family
households and fathers’ living arrangements.
A study I undertook myself identified that
many low-income black mothers have partners
who live with them. However, they declare
themselves to be lone mothers as a strategic
response to meet the requirements of the
social welfare system. Other lone mothers in
the study, both low-income and higher-income
mothers, also lived with their partner in either
‘visiting’ or ‘common law’ relationships, but
they deliberately choose to define themselves
as lone mothers in order to preserve their
independent and autonomous status.
Dr Tracey Reynolds is a senior research fellow
at the London South Bank University.
SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361 | BULLETIN | 11
How school exclusions can
In his book, Strategic Alternatives to Exclusion from
School, Carl Parsons suggests that it is both possible and
beneficial to bring pupil exclusions down to zero. Here
he outlines his principal findings and arguments
Z
ero exclusion schools are possible.
More realistically, clusters of
schools, with support, coordination
and brokering by the local authority
(LA), can organise and sustain an inclusive
educational community. Exclusion from school
is a quiet mockery of the governent programme
Every Child Matters, designed to ensure that
every pupil has the chance to work towards a
better future. The research and action reported
on in this article are about how committed local
authorities along with their educational and
child support communities can successfully
reduce or eliminate permanent exclusions.
The Strategic Alternatives to Exclusion from
School project set out to explore not whether
permanent or fixed period exclusions should
be banned but whether they could become
unnecessary. Focusing initially on three low
excluding LAs and then on five high excluding
LAs, our research showed that local authorities
have a powerful influence on school exclusions.
12 | BULLETIN | SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361
At the local strategic level, provision can be
organised for all pupils through collective
education and children’s services action.
Three factors motivated the project: a conviction
that power and control in education is exercised
to an important degree at the corporate level
in LAs through elected members and senior
officers; the top 15 LA excluders had an average
permanent exclusion rate seven times higher
than the average for the 15 lowest excluders;
low excluders appeared to be able to maintain
their low excluder position over time.
There were nine zero excluding local
authorities in 2007/08. Many of these
sustained very low or zero exclusions for
two or more years. It can be done. The
advantages of managing provision in a non-
exclusionary way has massive benefits and
we seek to spread the word through the
dissemination of evidence even more than
through moral exhortation.
There is a momentum, aligned with Every
Child Matters, that encourages us to see how
low exclusion commitment, policies and
strategies can be implemented more widely.
There are concerns about current legislation
and guidance and the operation of procedures
at LA and school level. The main concerns
are in relation to: the treatment of vulnerable
children; social justice in terms of the
disproportionate exclusions of some groups;
the unfairness and unequal capabilities of the
partners in an exclusion appeal; the apparent
tension between Every Child Matters and
the use of permanent exclusion against a
small proportion of children (0.11 per cent in
2007/08) with fixed period exclusions applied
to about 3 per cent of children, a proportion
receiving multiple fixed-period exclusions.
Exclusion is a disciplinary response from
a school and includes no forward plan for
the child and no coherent vision of the
educational community’s responsibility for
making provision to meet need. It is a punitive
response, however regretfully administered. It
removes an alleged problem from the school,
but it causes great anguish and hardship for
the child and family concerned and increases
problems for other services to deal with the
child following exclusion. There are more
effective, efficient and caring ways of managing
the challenges at the level of the LA and school
clusters with support from other agencies. For
example youth worker and social entrepreneur
Camila Batmanghelidjh and her work with
Kids Company demonstrates another, more
responsible and caring ethical position.
Social justice
Some groups are disproportionately excluded.
Those from poorer backgrounds as indicated
by free school meals, those with special
educational needs and some ethnic groups are
excluded at up to three times the average rate.
www.runnymedetrust.org
be brought down to zero
The substantially higher than average rates
for some ethnic minority groups stubbornly
persist year on year and Gypsy-Roma and
Traveller children are excluded at even higher
rates than other groups. There are arguments
to be made that the education system is not
being adjusted to meet the needs, expectations
and attributes of some parts of the citizenry.
The latest period for which DCSF statistics are
given at the time of writing shows that 1,830
exclusions were of pupils from ethnic minority
backgrounds. Of these, 460 were of mixed
ethnicity and 700 were black. It is how an LA,
its schools and children and families services
work to confront these pressures that is crucial.
National picture
In 2007/08 in England 8,130 pupils were
permanently excluded and there were 383,830
instances of fixed term exclusions. In the three
low excluding LAs, trust, speedy response and
constructive, non punitive layers of provision
were robustly coordinated, worked effectively
and were impressive in their impact on
exclusion rates.
In Wales permanent exclusion rates have
been fairly low and often at half the rate
for England. Scotland and Northern Ireland
have done even better, with rates that are
a quarter of those in England. It is clear
from the facts and the commentaries on
those countries’ websites that a different
commitment to the care and wellbeing of
all children prevails.
The permanent and fixed-term exclusion of
young people from school, through a specific
education law, is peculiarly British, if not
English. The removal of education, even for a
short period (unless for the health and safety of
the individual or the school community) would
seem to be individually and socially damaging.
Exclusions are applied disproportionately
to lower socio-economic groups and some
ethnic groups, which raises social justice
issues. Poorer children, as signified by free
school meals entitlement, and those of black
Caribbean heritage are three times more
likely to be excluded than white children. The
outcomes for permanently excluded young
people are generally poor.
www.runnymedetrust.org
Discipline and behaviour policies exist in
schools, but not relationship policies. The first
two locate the blame and responsibility with
the child while the third is a term that would
share responsibility between the child, the
adults and the institution.
In publications giving advice and guidance
the focus is mainly on the management of
behaviour in the school and classroom. DCSF
material similarly individualises the problem
through its National Strategies scheme.
Our research showed that across the five high
excluding LAs in which work was carried out,
the mean unit cost per pupil varied. Additional
funds are received by schools for special
needs, deprivation factors, ethnicity and
second language learners etc. The project’s
experience in a variety of schools is that
this additional formula-driven funding is not
always targeted at these deprivation factors.
Additionally, some schools have built up
surpluses greater than proposed by the DCSF.
The money is allocated to be spent on the
pupils currently in the school and should be
used for additional support or alternative
provision where necessary.
Strategic action
Across the five high excluding local authorities,
permanent exclusions fell between 2003/04 and
2007/08. Where the biggest falls occurred it was
clear that officers and schools had worked well
together to develop new forms of provision and
made new agreements about the management
and transfer of challenging young people.
Three of the project LAs reduced fixed-period
exclusions, including one which had been the
highest permanent excluder in 2003/04. Some
secondary schools used newly opened Inclusion
Centres or Learning Support Units as substitutes
for fixed-term exclusion, recognising that the
time off school usually meant that pupils would
fall even further behind.
It must be acknowledged that those LAs that
managed to reduce the number of permanent
exclusions did so though their own efforts,
as well as that of their schools, children’s
services and coordinated contribution from
the voluntary sector.
Recommendations
1. Identify someone at LA level who will be
an ‘inclusion champion’
2. Quickly negotiate authority level changes
in structures, provision and staffing that
headteachers will accept
3. Ensure the lead is taken by a high-ranking
and well-paid officer who has the authority and
respect of heads and can do business with them
4. Support school leaders in offering
different provisions and making best use
of the diversified workforce in supporting
challenging young people and their families
5. Establish agreement amongst schools about
how pupils might be moved from their current
school, either permanently or temporarily,
building on personal relations between
schools but creating fair access protocols or
points systems
6. Develop a range of alternative curriculum
providers, assessing and monitoring that
providers can meet targets and contribute
valuably to children’s development
including qualifications
7. Ensure that the teams of other professionals
are of appropriate skill levels and can offer a
fast response
8. Create and recreate the sense of belief in the
LA’s duty to provide calmly and restoratively
for every child.
Zero exclusion schools and local authorities
work. Moreover, where ‘zero exclusion’ areas
are achieved, the personal and collective
damage to individuals and families is greatly
reduced, and, in some cases, shocking,
persistent inequalities are limited and a woeful
lack of care for special needs pupils is avoided.
All this can be done in a way that does not
cost any more money than is currently being
spent, and does not damage attainment
standards. No other country in Europe has
exclusion rates like ours here in the UK, and
this startling fact should also be a prompt
to new thinking, new practice and a real
demonstration that every child matters.
SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361 | BULLETIN | 13
It ends here: Generation 3.0
Runnymede director Rob Berkeley reflects on the ever-evolving and resil-
ient nature of racism, and how our next project seeks to end it
Video testimonials
will be a central
component of
Generation 3.0
C
ommunities change. Racisms
change. For those who seek to live
in a society where race, ethnicity,
or background does not constrain
life chances, it is of critical importance to be
aware of the directions of these changes so
that we are fighting today’s battles rather than
those of yesterday.
As we watch far right organisations focus
their ire on Muslim communities, or the
ongoing impact of institutional racism on
Gypsy and Traveller groups, or see Eastern
European migrants attacked in their homes
or workplace, we can only marvel at the
persistence of this false ideology of racism
that has driven human atrocities of the largest
scale and shaped our histories. As noted in the
Commission on the Future of Multi-ethnic
Britain ten years ago:
“Racism is a subtle and complex phenomenon.
It may be based on colour and physical
features or on culture, nationality and way
of life; it may affirm equality of human worth
but implicitly deny this by insisting on the
absolute superiority of a particular culture; it
may admit equality up to a point but impose
a glass ceiling higher up. Whatever its subtle
disguises and forms, it is deeply divisive,
intolerant of differences, a source of much
14 | BULLETIN | SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361
human suffering and inimical to the common
sense of belonging lying at the basis of every
stable political community. It can have no
place in a decent society.”
Persistent, complex, changing and subtle
in its forms, racism is a stain on our society
that is difficult to shift. This does not mean
that the battle is not worth fighting or that we
cannot make progress in ridding our society
of racism’s most egregious forms. Yet the
complexity of tackling contemporary forms
We can only marvel at the
persistence of this false ideology that
has shaped our history
of racism can mean it is tempting to file them
in the ‘too difficult’ box, leading to inaction,
persistence of inequality, and the ongoing
exclusion of minority ethnic groups. Like a
deer caught in the headlights, the citizen can
abhor racism yet be confused about what to
do about it. I’ve asked various audiences,
from sixth formers, to trade unionists, to
activists and academics, over recent months
Photo: Benedict Hilliard
whether they think we might be able to end
racism in the UK within the next generation.
Mostly, this suggestion has been met with
bemusement – what would a society without
racism look like, what actions would we
need to take to achieve it, can racism really
come to an end? My response has been that
if we as a society wanted it badly enough we
could do it through making our legislation
work, understanding the dynamics of racism,
understanding what works to change racist
attitudes and behaviour, and developing the
leadership required at all levels to finally put
racism to an end. If we as a society created,
and continue to re-create, racism, then we can
also destroy it.
The progress made within the last 15 years
on equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender (LGBT) people in many parts of our
society was unimaginable a generation ago. The
www.runnymedetrust.org
considerable progress made on race equality
would have been difficult for many to foresee
It’s an ambitious programme looking
at what it would mean to eradicate
racism within a generation
thirty years ago. Is it a failure of our imagination
if we cannot envisage a society on which racism
has no hold - or at least one in which the racist
is as marginalised and disregarded as those who
believe the Earth is flat?
It is with this challenge in mind that
Runnymede is embarking on an ambitious
series of projects to reflect on what it would
mean to eradicate racism within a generation.
Entitled Generation 3.0, the projects will
seek to find out what has worked so far in
changing racist attitudes and behaviour, map
the different conceptions of race and racism
across generations, and support race equality
organisations in building the activists of the
future to lead the push to eradicate racism
from our society.
The programme is called Generation 3.0
because its key focus is young people three
generations on from the major wave of post-war
migration typified by those who disembarked
from the SS Empire Windrush in 1948.
Generation 3.0 also refers to the new styles
of campaigning and political engagement that
are now required to create societal change and
the leadership of young people in creating new
responses to persistent challenges.
Fittingly, the geographical hub for the
project will be Handsworth in Birmingham.
Professor Gus John wrote Runnymede’s first
commissioned research project, Race in the
Inner City, in 1971 based on his experiences
there, a text to which we shall be returning.
Working with local partners, Generation 3.0
will organise workshops and collect ‘video
testimonies’ from 70 participants who are
either over 60 or under 25, and from a broad
range of ethnic backgrounds. The video
testimonies will be pulled together for the
production of two short films that will draw
out a narrative reflecting on the range of
responses and the changing nature of attitudes
to racism and race equality. The films will be
www.runnymedetrust.org
launched at a special community event and
then, acting as an introduction to the debate,
they will be used to encourage others to
engage with the project.
The video testimonies will also be used as
content for a dedicated website, which will
enable others to engage in the debate; upload
their own testimonies; explore others’ views
about race relations; signpost routes to action
to promote good race relations; and encourage
schools, youth groups and community
organisations to replicate the project. The
website will be developed with a view to
encouraging interaction with the project and
The programme will mean
working closely with the
grandchildren of migrants
to be attractive and exciting as a prelude to
the second phase of the project, in which we
aim to create a series of intergenerational
conversations about race and racisms in towns
and cities across the UK.
Alongside this interactive video arts work we
will be publishing a paper that looks at the
experiences of lone mothers raising mixed
heritage children in the 1960s, and others
doing the same now, in order to ascertain
what has changed and what has remained
the same. We hope to be able to develop
some further research on how racisms may
impact on citizens’ relationships with their
neighbourhoods and the spaces that they use
in towns and cities.
We will also be conducting a research
project over coming months working with
community and voluntary organisations in
and around Handsworth to understand how
different conceptions of race and racisms
across generations act as a potential barrier
to or trigger for activism. By engaging with
young people and older people who are
committed to tackling racism we hope to be
able to illuminate the different approaches
across generations and encourage dialogue
that can build a shared agenda for change.
Runnymede is interested in building this
programme further so that the call for the
elimination of racism within a generation is
Photo: Benedict Hilliard
met with enthusiasm for change, rather than
confusion. All those working to tackle a social
evil such as racism should look forward to
the day when the organisation they work for
no longer needs to exist; Runnymede is no
exception.
We hope that Generation 3.0 will make a
significant contribution to our demise.
SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361 | BULLETIN | 15
Take my advice:
Money guidance and
poverty in the UK
Among several grim money-related truths the recession has shone
a spotlight on is the reality that many people in this country are
not managing their finances well. Phil Mawhinney examines a new
government scheme that could provide us with free money advice

A
re we useless with money in the programme focuses on financial education, unemployed, for example, find it difficult to
UK? Unable to tell our APR from information and money advice. The plan, open a bank account, which means that they
our VAT; are we too lazy to change called the National Strategy for Financial are unable to gain financial knowledge through
from one bank to another in order to Capability, is led by the Financial Servicesinteractions with banks. To fill this ‘advice
get a better deal? Or perhaps you subscribe Authority (FSA) and is particularly aimed atgap’, the government has been piloting a new
to the alternative view: that we are actually groups of people in need. service called Money Guidance. This offers
very good at managing our money, in some free and impartial guidance and information
cases despite being poor or denied accounts on a range on money issues, including
When we need advice on money matters
and loans by banks. budgeting, borrowing, retirement planning
many of us simply pick up the phone and
and welfare benefits.
make an appointment with a bank adviser or
These are the competing visions of UK
an independent financial adviser. But such
citizens’ ability to understand and deal with
sources of help are beyond the reach and Knowledge deficit
their finances. They are the choppy extremes
budget of a great number of marginalised
between which the government’s ‘financial
people on low incomes in our society, which One of the major challenges for this or any
capability’ agenda is attempting to sail.
includes a significant number of black and future government money advice initiative
minority ethnic (BME) people (8 per cent is that there are such large gaps in people’s
A new Runnymede research report, Seeking
of the population in the 2001 census and knowledge of money matters. Seeking Sound
Sound Advice: Financial Inclusion and
likely to be higher by 2011). Those who are Advice uncovered plenty of evidence of such
Ethnicity, includes conversations with
Bangladeshi, black Caribbean and Chinese
people, with the aim of finding out what kind
of help they need when managing their money
and to whom they turn to get this help. We
have looked at how people want to be better
informed financially, as well as the ways in
which they are unable or unwilling to access
the advice services that could help them to
build their knowledge.

Financial capability policy

So how does a government widely considered
to be bloated and unwieldy help the average
person become a model of financial knowledge
and confidence or, to use government policy
speak, ‘financially capable’? The answer is
through a five-year plan that aims to equip
people with the confidence and know-how to
manage their own finances. At its core, this

16 | BULLETIN | SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361 www.runnymedetrust.org

knowledge deficits. For example, Maggie,
who works in a Chinese community centre,
told us that it is quite common for Chinese
people to be unaware of the need to pay
pension entitlements. She said: “We’ve got a
lot of people who have no entitlement.”
All those who are not intimately familiar
with UK systems, such as the financial, tax,
welfare benefits and utilities systems, are
particularly vulnerable to knowledge gaps.
This includes, as you would expect, a large
number of migrants and other BME people.
One advice practitioner we spoke to explained
that recent migrants often lack familiarity
with how utilities such as water are paid for.
An example one interviewee gave was that
some people didn’t have running water in
their own homes when they lived in Somalia,
and so did not understand that you have to pay
for this service in the UK.
Particular BME groups may be more likely
than the wider population to have a lower level
of financial awareness. As a result, many BME
people stand to gain a lot if they are able to use
Money Guidance to build their knowledge.
The other side of the coin
There is an alternative to thinking that people
lack knowledge and so need to be advised and
informed: believing instead that most people are
actually quite good at managing their money,
but by not using banks or other formal ways of
saving and borrowing they use their money less
effectively than they could otherwise.
There are two important and distinct reasons
why this may be so. Firstly, there are those
who are unable to access banks and similar
institutions; secondly there are those who
purposefully avoid such formal methods of
money management.
Regarding those whose access to banks is
limited or completely restricted, there are
reasons for this that are particularly relevant
to migrant communities: that they may lack
the identification, employment or other
documents needed to open a bank account.
Also, people on low incomes, including
disproportionate numbers of BME people (as
shown in the graph opposite) are often unable
to obtain loans or to save with a bank, never
mind pay for an independent adviser.
Those with limited English language skills
also find it very difficult to make use of
information where bank-provided literature
is not available in any other language.
Salman, a Bangladeshi man, explained to our
researchers that this presents a real barrier
www.runnymedetrust.org
for first generation migrants. He said: “High
street banks do offer all this advice…but if
you don’t have the language skills then it’s
very difficult to access that information.”
Language prevents people from getting advice
from not only banks but also advice charities,
such as the Citizens’ Advice Bureau. This has
led Runnymede to recommend that Money
Guidance employ multi-lingual advisers
reflecting the population in the surrounding
area. No amount of information and guidance
will help people if it is not in a language that
they can understand.
The other, very different, reason people do not
use banks is that they choose to avoid them.
While no bank has policies that discriminate
on the grounds of ethnicity, some BME people
continue to have bad experiences of banks, from
frosty receptions to suspicion and open hostility
from individual members of staff. Nasir, a black
Caribbean man, told us that he and others in that
community have faced such experiences.
He said: “[People in the black Caribbean
community] speak English and make an
effort, but just because of the strong accent,
people [in the bank] are not very patient and
they will be quite dismissive.”
Runnymede research suggests that such
incidents result in some people steering clear
of banks wherever possible.
It is clear that trust in banks is in somewhat of a
trough these days. The people we spoke to were
distrustful of banks in a number of ways: some
thought them incompetent, others thought them
greedy and self-serving. The second of these is
clear in the thoughts of Sami, a young black
Caribbean man, who said: “I can imagine you
ask [banks] for advice and then they try and
sell you some new kind of account.” A recent
BBC article drew wider attention to the issue
of the impartiality of banks’ advice.
Dangers of word-of-mouth
One result of this mistrust and avoidance of
banks is that people ask friends and family
for advice instead. This informal advice is
often particularly prevalent in ethnic minority
communities that share language and culture.
While informal advice can be a source of
help, there is a real danger that such advice is
misinformed, incomplete or just plain wrong,
especially where people have little experience
of finance or are unfamiliar with UK systems.
The Money Guidance service may appeal to
people disenchanted with or unable to access
banks but who want reliable, well-informed
guidance for their personal finances. Having
FACT BOX
There are at least 890,000
adults in the UK who do not
have access to a bank account
Black people experience
the highest rates of
unemployment (20%), followed by
Mixed-race (17%), Asian (13%) and
white people (8%), by 2009 figures
Bangladeshi and Pakistani
people experience the worst
rates of income poverty at 65% and
55% respectively, compared to 20%
for white British people
Moneymadeclear, the
government’s free online and
telephone money guidance service,
was launched in March 2010; the full
roll out of the face-to-face element of
the scheme will be later in the year
spoken to people on low incomes who want
and need this help, the fact that Money
Guidance is free is to be commended.
Remembering poverty
Runnymede research shows, then, that
government measures to improve people’s
financial capability are definitely meeting
a need. But it is important, however
unimaginative it may at first appear, to re-
state the importance of poverty. Put bluntly,
many people have so little money that most
of the topics covered by Money Guidance –
such as mortgages, pensions and savings –
will be of little relevance to them. One older
Bangladeshi man told us repeatedly: “All
my money is spent on essentials – how can
I save?” Financial capability policies may
build people’s ability to save, plan or buy
a house but this means very little for those
living hand-to-mouth.
People of all ethnic backgrounds experience
real poverty in the UK in the 21st century,
but BME people are particularly likely to
experience income poverty. The UK could
theoretically find itself in the odd position
of having citizens who are financially
knowledgeable and confident, yet stuck in
poverty. Particularly in the context of a harsh
recession, discourses of capability must not
replace those of poverty.
Download Phil’s report Seeking Sound Advice
at: http://bit.ly/moneyadvice
SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361 | BULLETIN | 17
Great assets
Many ethnic minority people hold very
few assets and are disadvantaged as
a result. Omar Khan explains why this
form of wealth is important

W
hile pay gaps between different ethnic groups attract
more attention, asset inequality outstrips the issue in
significance. Up to 60 per cent of black and Asian people
have no savings at all.

A National Equality Panel report published in February 2010 found

that whereas the average white family has £221,000 in assets, black
African and Bangladeshi families have only £21,000 and £15,000
respectively. Without significant assets, young people are less likely
to take up further education or training and instead take the first job on
offer; while older people will struggle to pay their bills after they retire.

Photo: Sinae Hong

For most people in the UK their home is their primary if not exclusive
asset. Rates of home-ownership are significantly lower for most BME
groups - especially Bangladeshis and black Africans, but also Chinese
and black Caribbean people. Furthermore, where home ownership
matches that of white people - for example among Pakistanis - those
homes are more likely to be in deprived areas and therefore hold a
lower value.
Homes are not the only type of asset
Having recently bought a home with my wife, I am well-placed to
observe the social obsession around homeownership and, of course,
house prices. This affliction is particularly advanced in Britain.
Two reasons for owning a property are not often separated either by
homeowners or by policymakers: the notion of a property as a financial
investment or an asset; and the emotional, personal and familial joys of
living in our home. Houses are not the only kind of asset - nor are they
only an asset – and we should rely less on home-ownership as a way of
increasing people’s assets.
More recent migrants are of course less likely to have the advantage
of generational build-up of assets, whether housing or otherwise. But
for BME groups which have a longer history of living in the UK, a
significant cause of the lower levels of assets is their experience of
work. With lower earnings, worse employment outcomes and higher
poverty rates - not to mention evidence that employers are still less
likely to call people with obviously ‘ethnic’ surnames to an interview
- many black and minority ethnic people are less able to put aside
savings, and to see those savings grow over their lifetime.
In the past decade, the government has occasionally focused on building
up non-housing assets for everyone, for example in the Child Trust
Fund and the Saving Gateway. But such policies fall short of providing
everyone with assets. In order to do this, government must consider
alternative and more radical measures, especially if those assets are to
enable social mobility for disadvantaged people.
Home-ownership is
a common way of
buliding assets
While all political parties now appear to agree on the value of social
mobility, asset-building has long been supported across the political
spectrum for a range of social and financial reasons. Margaret Thatcher
famously championed ‘property-owning democracy’, while Friedman
and Hayek argued that a more equal distribution of wealth contributes
to market efficiency by placing productive resources in the most
entrepreneurial hands.
Before the 1997 election, Tony Blair referred to a ‘stakeholding’ society.
In the centre-left tradition this idea links asset-holding to citizenship
and has regularly if inconsistently informed Labour and Liberal party
policies from the 1930s to the 1990s. For example, in 1987 the Social
Democratic Party (SDP) endorsed the notion of a ‘Citizen Unit Trust’
- in which 1.5 shares per every 100 commissioned in the private
sector would be provided to every citizen. Providing an equal share to
everyone would perhaps also lead to greater social solidarity between
people of different ethnic groups.
Since the financial crisis we have become more concerned about
citizens’ low amounts of savings and high levels of debts, and the wider
effects on our economy. Now would be a good time for politicians to
seriously examine the range of asset-building options we set out in
our report, from equity shares in social housing to using receipts from
inheritance tax to create a stock of assets for everyone. These would
support a more solid future in which everyone has a better chance of
realising their aspirations, including black and minority ethnic people.
Dr Omar Khan is the author of the report Why Do Assets Matter?,
which explains the low level of wealth for many black and minority
ethnic people, why this is a problem, and how policy could respond.

18 | BULLETIN | SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361 www.runnymedetrust.org

Not a necessary evil
In the wake of a successful ruling for civil rights
group Liberty in its challenge of broad UK stop
and search powers, barrister Corinna Ferguson
outlines the importance of the campaign
L
iberty successfully challenged the
blanket stop and search powers that UK
police were able to wield under section
44 of the Terrorism Act 2000. One of
the main arguments of the case, which went
all the way to the European Court of Human
Rights (ECHR), was that this law permitted
officers to select individuals, at least partly, on
the basis of their ethnic origin.
Even in the post-Stephen Lawrence Inquiry
era, the risks of racial stereotyping and the
targeting of minorities are inherent in any
scheme that permits stop and search without
any requirement for objective justification.
But the concern here was not only about
inadvertent racial prejudice; the relevant Code
of Practice effectively condones conscious
racial profiling and it seems unquestionable
when one looks at the statistics that at least
some officers have been treating black and
Asian people with more suspicion than white
people. Based on the 2007/8 figures from the
Ministry of Justice, Asian people were five
and a half times more likely to be searched
than white people and black people were
almost seven times more likely to be searched.
And since only 0.06 per cent of searches under
section 44 resulted in arrests for terrorism-
related offences, it would be impossible for
the police to argue that this approach was
contributing to public safety.
Although some of the judges who heard the
case in the House of Lords were apparently
unconcerned about the idea of using ethnic
origin as one factor which (when taken with
others) might justify a search, their attempt
to circumvent the plain meaning of direct
discrimination under the Race Relations
Act 1976 is unconvincing. The ECHR,
by contrast, gave no support whatsoever
to the practice of racial profiling in this
context. In its ruling in January 2010 the
court took particular note of the statistics
www.runnymedetrust.org
showing disproportionate use of section 44
against ethnic minorities, and referred to the
risks of discriminatory use as ‘a very real
consideration’ in reaching its conclusion
that the legislation did not provide adequate
safeguards against abuse. It ruled that the lack
of such safeguards, together with the fact that
the power was insufficiently circumscribed,
meant that there had been a violation of
article 8 of the European Convention on
Human Rights, which guarantees the right to
respect for private and family life.
It is the government’s expressed intention to
request that the case be reconsidered by the
Grand Chamber in Strasbourg, an exceptional
procedure that depends on the court accepting
that the case raises a serious issue of general
importance.
Liberty has suggested amendments which
would tighten up section 44 by limiting its
use to particularly sensitive locations and
events, as well as introducing a requirement
of ‘reasonable necessity’ for designating areas,
and far greater geographical and temporal
restrictions. A truly exceptional power of
this kind could be used in a similar way to
the type of searches we are all accustomed
to when entering particular public buildings,
such as courts or the Houses of Parliament,
i.e. everyone would be subjected to a search
as a condition of entry and there could be no
question of arbitrary or discriminatory use. The
benefits of this approach are clear. It maintains
the police and the security services’ ability to
deal with particular threats by creating a power
to stop and search without suspicion, while in
practice providing a far more effective way of
deterring and apprehending terrorists.
The idea that it is pointless to search respectable
looking white women ignores history. On 9
November 2005 Muriel Degauque, a white
Belgian woman from Charleroi who converted
Corinna Ferguson
to Islam, committed a suicide car bomb attack
against a U.S. military convoy near Baghdad.
There are numerous other examples of suicide
bombers who do not fit the Islamic terrorist
profile, and no doubt there would be more if
it was known that black and Asian men were
much more likely to be searched.
Even if there were evidence that directing
anti-terrorism laws disproportionately against
one ethnic group led to more convictions
for terrorism offences - which there is not -
the negative effect on community relations
undermines intelligence gathering, creates
massive resentment and ultimately stands to
jeopardise public safety.
The most serious riots in the UK in recent
history occurred, in part, because of the
discriminatory application of the ‘sus law’
which effectively permitted the police to
stop and search and even arrest anyone they
chose, on the basis of an unacceptably vague
suspicion. Racial profiling is not a necessary
evil to keep us safe; it is an unlawful, unfair and
counterproductive reaction to a threat that can
be addressed far more effectively in other ways.
This article was originally written for an online
debate on ethnic profiling held by Runnymede
in February 2010. Read more submissions at
runnymedetrust.org/ethnic-profiling
SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361 | BULLETIN | 19
Accountability is key
C
oncerning the recent ruling against
the stop and search powers held under
terrorism laws, there is now the question
of the appeal the UK government has
said it will take to the Grand Chamber of the
European Court of Human Rights. There are two
hurdles here: first, permission to appeal must be
obtained; and, secondly, if this permission is
granted, the government has to argue the appeal
itself. Many informed observers believe that
the appeal process will obtain extra time before
implementation, rather than a positive result.
However, it is worth recording that much
has changed over the past couple of years.
As an independent reviewer of terrorism
legislation, I routinely see all the section 44
authorisation requests and associated papers.
Today fewer police forces are applying for or
using the section. As has been made public, the
Metropolitan Police are deploying the power in
selected areas rather than the whole force. The
number of searches is much reduced compared
to the figure six months ago, though still a very
high number. Discussion continues as to the
future of the power.
Is the power or something like it needed at
all? In my view there are three circumstances
only in which it is justifiable, and possibly
a sensible necessity. The first, and most
obvious, is where a critical incident occurs,
for example, a terrorist event or intense police
activity founded on suspicion of an immediate
or impending event. The second is to protect
20 | BULLETIN | SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361
Lord Carlile QC has been an independent
reviewer of terrorism legislation for the
government since 2001. Below he outlines his
expectations on how UK stop and search laws
and practice could go forward
critical national infrastructure, for example,
a power station. The third is to protect
iconic buildings and events, for example 10
Downing Street or the FA Cup Final. I believe
that the first of these is the least controversial,
and that the others are politically deliverable,
especially in the benign segment of the
legislative cycle that usually follows shortly
after a general election.
The ruling
The ECHR ruling made in January 2010
found section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 to
be in breach of the right to respect for private
The new law should have consistency
of principle in its application, with a
proper degree of accountability
and family life, article 8 of the European
Convention on Human Rights. The court
found the act to be disproportionate, and
containing a clear risk of arbitrariness in the
decisions of individual police officers to stop
and search without suspicion.
The law, said the ECHR, was not adequately
accessible and foreseeable; that is, it was not
formulated with sufficient precision to enable
the individual to regulate his or her conduct.
The court noted the extensive use of the
stop and search powers, more than 117,000
incidents in 2007-8, and compared it with
the absence of any consequent arrests for
terrorism-related offences. Where does all this
leave section 44?
If the ECHR ruling is not appealed successfully,
then in due course the government will have
to amend the law, probably by repeal of
section 44 and replacement with something
ECHR-compatible. Whatever that new law
might be, I would suggestion that it should
have a new process, in order to ensure
consistency of principle in its application,
and a proper degree of accountability. The
latter could involve an amendment to the role
of the Independent Reviewer, or some other
transparent form of accountability.
The important thing, whether section 44
remains or not, is that its use should be
predictable of principle, free of arbitrariness,
accountable as to its use, and proportionate in
all respects. There should be no more stopping
of some people merely because of appearance,
no more stopping of others merely to balance
the racial statistics, and a clear understanding
of the exceptional nature of the power to stop
any person without reasonable suspicion that
he or she has committed a crime.
A mature debate
If we are to approach this serious issue in
an informed and mature debate, everyone
concerned has to put aside prejudice, whether
authoritarian or libertarian. The issue of
national security is sometimes obscure
shorthand for the safety of every individual as
we go about our daily lives. It is a necessity
that we approach it on the merits, and without
allowing political advantage to fog our
conclusions. I welcome the opportunity to
inform the debate.
Visit runnymedetrust.org/ethnic-profiling to
read comments and responses by leading
politicians. Runnymede is publishing a full
ethnic profiling report at the end of May 2010.
www.runnymedetrust.org
 Behaving badly
As the financial downturn puts the standard theory of economics under
scrutiny, Omar Khan looks at the pros and cons of an alternative
Photo: Nina Kelly
T
he financial crisis has not only
undermined people’s trust in banks
and bankers, it has also led to deeper
questioning of economic thinking. If
more complicated financial products, such as
credit default swaps, are now more widely
discussed and questioned, so too are claims
that markets are always efficient, or that
human beings are unerringly rational.
Behavioural economics
In fact, what most people think of as standard
economics has been challenged for some time
by ‘behavioural economics’. This school of
thought has been given recent prominence by
www.runnymedetrust.org
the popularity of the book Nudge, with one
of the authors - Cass Sunstein - appointed as
an adviser to the Obama administration, and
the other - Richard Thaler - working with the
Conservatives in the UK (see article with
George Osborne in the Guardian, 28 Jan 2010).
To understand the ‘behavioural’ critique, it
is first necessary to explain a few features
of standard - or neoclassical - economics.
Perhaps the key premise of standard economic
theory is that individuals are rational ‘self-
maximisers’. This means that people choose
a particular course of action that most benefits
them. Different people may have different
ways of determining what matters to them,
but all of us are able to put everything we
think will ‘maximise our utility’ into rank
order, and to make choices on that basis.
According to behaviouralists, this description
- sometimes called homo economicus – is
widely contradicted by how people actually
behave in the world. Rather than always
acting to maximise our wellbeing, we tend
to use ‘rules of thumb’ in deciding how
to act; we also seem more concerned with
avoiding losses than maximising gains. But
if the behavioural vision of humankind seems
more realistic, it also depicts us as somewhat
lazy creatures unable to change our attitudes
or behaviour even when our actions have
previously led to bad outcomes - and even
when we are provided with further information
or education. A less benign summary of
behavioural economics is that it replaces
the unrealistic homo economicus with the
unattractive homo Homer Simpsonus.
Implications for policy
Why does this all matter for policymakers? As
the interest in Nudge and other books suggests,
policymakers increasingly assume a less
heroic vision of human behaviour – especially
regarding the limits of rationality – and design
policies to take this into account. So, for
example, citizens may be required to ‘opt out’
of organ donation rather than ‘opt in’. This is
because while few people have moral or other
objections to donating their organs, many fail
to opt in and declare themselves donors. The
idea that people should be ‘autoenrolled’ into
a pension is another policy design derived
from findings from behavioural economics.
From the perspective of race equality, a few
questions arise. First is whether all people
- and all groups - exhibit the same kinds
of behaviour. Among most mainstream
economists, all human beings were assumed
to be rational choosers, and in fact ordered
their likes and dislikes in a systematic and
consistent order. While behaviouralists instead
suggest a less calculating and unswerving
human actor, they don’t often explain whether
any particular kind of behaviour is more likely
to guide action, nor indeed whether all of us
behave in the same ways.
SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361 | BULLETIN | 21
There are good reasons to expect people to
behave in different ways. In the first instance,
people face a difference set of choices in
the world, and so will of course respond
differently to those choices. For example,
the interest rates that many low income
people pay for credit, or the fact that so few
people living in council accommodation have
contents insurance, may seem irrational to
better-off people. However poorer people are
typically obliged to pay more for a variety of
goods and services
The effect of discrimination
Discrimination can also lead people to behave
differently. Whether people choose to opt out
of mainstream institutions, or feel less self-
worth because of discriminatory experiences
in the past, they may ‘behave’ differently as
a result. Evidence also suggests that certain
groups have different attitudes towards risk,
including men and women, a finding that has
led some to wonder whether more women in
the City would lead to less risk-taking and
greater financial stability. Among some ethnic
groups, there may be cultural or religious
practices that either forbid or recommend
certain activities, which will then of course
affect their decision-making and behaviour.
If this story of differential behaviour is
true, the policymaker faces even more
difficult questions. He or she cannot simply
universally design policies to ‘nudge’ people
in a particular direction, as people will react to
those nudges in different ways. In our research
at Runnymede, we have found different
attitudes to financial products and institutions,
including in areas such as pensions and
savings, but also in terms of school choice.
Discrimination can lead people to
behave differently, perhaps opting
out of mainstream institutions
These behaviours may in fact be quite rational,
leaving it an open question as to how far we
need behavioural economics to understand
different choices in the world. That is,
different people have different options in life
(or ‘choice architecture’ in economic jargon),
and so maximizing the utility of choices for
one person may lead to a different course of
action than it would for someone else.
One possible upshot of different behavioural
patterns is that policymakers will have to
22 | BULLETIN | SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361
develop different targeted policies. There
is sometimes a debate about whether either
universal or targeted policies are better on
efficiency or equity grounds. For example,
child benefit is a universal benefit, which
We are often more concerned with
avoiding losses than we are with
maximising gains
makes it less costly to administer and it is
viewed more as a citizen entitlement; the same
may be said of the Child Trust Fund. On the
other hand, sometimes policies need to be
targeted at those who are most in need, such as
winter fuel payments for older people. Whether
or not policymakers would need to amend their
‘nudges’ for different behavioural patterns is
therefore a difficult issue that in part depends
on the intended benefits of the policy, and in
part on the political challenges in delivering it.
The role of politics
There are in fact further problems for seeing
policy as a method for nudging people to
a particular decision. Most notably, this
approach assumes that someone, typically
government, knows the best course of
action; that such decisions are politically
uncontroversial; and that policymakers know
the best way of achieving those options. In
fact, policy aims are often controversial, and
uncertainty and unexpected consequences can
bedevil the cleverest civil servant.
On the other hand, sometimes it is obvious
that there is a right course of action, but that
it goes against (most) people’s intuitions
or standard behaviour. Anti-discrimination
legislation was far from popular, and has
resulted in many people fundamentally
changing their attitudes towards people of
different ethnic backgrounds. Should we
really never aim to change people’s behaviour
and attitudes? Furthermore, sometimes we do
know the right course of action, but people
are unwilling to make sacrifices in order to
follow it - for example by paying more taxes
to finance needed services.
Behavioural economics may seem to assume
away any moral or political disagreement. As
a result, from what is understood in policy-
oriented books such as Nudge, behavioural
economics can appear to devolve all decisions
to civil servants and policymakers. This is
a dissatisfying ideal in principle, but also
in practice, where people are increasingly
disengaged from the political process and have
low faith in politicians and other officials.
In this sense behavioural economics is not so
dissimilar from some neoclassical accounts.
For example, Friedrich von Hayek thought
that the market is an appropriate way of
determining price and allocating goods because
the market mechanism doesn’t endorse any
particular moral view. In fact, Hayek took the
problem of moral disagreement very seriously,
and endorsed the market precisely because he
thought it impossible to provide a solution to
moral disagreement. Whether or not we agree
with Hayek’s proposed solution, we need to
explain how citizens can resolve some of these
conflicts in a non-violent way, and behavioural
economics provides no more guide than
neoclassical economics in how to do so.
Behavioural economics continues to make
important strides in understanding the
sometimes flawed and inconsistent ways
that human beings make decisions. It also
helps us to understand how we might better
‘incentivise’ people to make decisions that
are in their interest, and that lead to better
outcomes for all of us. Yet we still have some
way to go to understand fully how people’s
experience and background affect their
decision-making, and if groups including
black and minority ethnic (BME) people have
different decision-making processes.
In any case, we should all continue to engage
as best we can in important social and political
institutions, and hold out the hope that people
can learn from their errors and make the world a
more just place. Engaged political participation
not only involves learning to deal with real
disagreement, but being open to changing
one’s mind, and ultimately one’s behaviour.
www.runnymedetrust.org
 Black dads in
the spotlight
David Lammy gave a speech on
black fatherhood at a Runnymede
event, as Vicki Butler reports

F
ormer higher education minister David Lammy MP delivered
a speech on black fatherhood to a packed House of Commons
committee room, as part of the Runnymede Platform series.

The event, held on the Monday after Mothers’ Day, also served as the
launch for a 5-minute video about fatherhood made by Lammy and
Femi Oyeniran, star of the films Kidulthood and Adulthood. Chaired
by journalist Lawrence Lartey, the discussion panel included Oyeniran,
rapper Tinie Tempah, actor and playwright Kwame Kwei-Armah and
Dr Tracey Reynolds of London South Bank University.

In his speech, Lammy called for a more active form of fatherhood in

Photo: Vijay Jethwa

the black community. He argued that a renewed focus on fathers would David Lammy MP speaks to
help tackle some of the challenges facing young black men especially, a committee room filled with
people, many of whom were
such as educational under-achievement, disproportionate exclusion black fathers themselves
levels and high crime rates.
sectors, as well as civil servants, academics and policymakers.
Lammy also called for fathers from all backgrounds to remain in
Organisations represented at the event included Barnado’s, the REACH
touch with their children whatever the relationship with the childrens’
project, the Race Equality Foundation, 100 Black Men of London and
mothers. He said: “Between a quarter and a third of children with
the Young Fathers Initiative.
separated parents have little to no contact with their fathers. It is not
just the structure of families that matters. It is whether fathers continue
Points raised in the discussion following the speech focused on
to contribute to their children’s lives.”
how community organisations can build on the suggestions made
by Lammy. Panellist Femi Oyeniran called for more education for
Arguing that modern fatherhood needs updating from the traditional
young black fathers and urged successful black men to become more
model, he added: “The ‘provider-protector’ version [of fatherhood]
involved in their local communities. He said: “We need to stop being
is in our comfort zone, but what young people also need today is an
commentators and become activists.”
emotional bond with their father.”
Delia Modeste of the Black Training and Enterprise Group (BTEG)
The speech received good feedback from an audience made up of
highlighted the difficulty of gaining media coverage for good role
representatives from the race equality, fatherhood and community
models such as those in the REACH project, adding that the media is
often reluctant to cover positive news stories. Nia Imara of the National
Association of Black Supplementary Schools (NABSS) highlighted
the benefits of black supplementary schooling for young people, while
Patrick Clarke of Mighty Men of Valour emphasised the need for
community organisations to work together on the issue of fatherhood
and role models. Echoing Clarke’s remarks, Dean Atta of Silence is
Golden called for the event to be repeated on a larger scale, which we
at Runnymede have duly noted and are working on organising for the
summer.

The five-minute video that was screened at the event features

discussions with men from the black community about their
experiences of fatherhood and their relationships with their own
Photo: Vijay Jethwa

dads. Among those sharing their wisdom is veteran news presenter

Actor and playright Kwame Sir Trevor McDonald, who believes he owes much to his father, who
Kwei-Armah greets film pressed the importance of “not letting yourself down by not doing
director Darwood Grace
as well as you could.”
Are you passionate about race equality?

Do you want to increase your connections and challenge racism?

Runnymede 360° is a new national network connecting aspiring and established leaders in
race equality. By joining the network you would increase your knowledge base, improve your
professional skills, and make contacts that may help you in your work, while also contributing to
challenging racism.

Being part of Runnymede 360° will enable members to:

•• have the opportunity to raise their profile
•• share their experience and learn from others
•• create partnerships across regions and sectors for future work
•• have early access to Runnymede’s work and events
•• have access to the latest policy developments related to race equality

Runnymede draws on over forty years’ experience providing research intelligence, policy
influence, and partnership building in order to promote a successful multi-ethnic Britain. The aim
of Runnymede 360° is to bring together the most passionate and innovative thinkers and actors in
race equality from all sectors, backgrounds and regions of the UK. The network meets monthly at
seminars, e-conferences and receptions. It also has an online discussion space to keep up with
the latest current events and policy developments on race equality.

The ideal candidate will:

•• have been working in private, public or voluntary sectors for a minimum period of five years
•• have an understanding of the policy and practice landscape on national and/or local levels
•• have the ability to apply their knowledge, creativity and experience to their commitment to
race equality, equal opportunities and social justice
•• be committed to the network for at least two years during which they will be expected to con-
tribute to the Runnymede Bulletin, attend Runnymede 360° on/offline events, and participate
in the Runnymede 360° social networking space

Most importantly, the Runnymede 360° member will have something to say and will want to say it.

Why not apply to join? The deadline for applications is 21 June 2010 for interviews taking place in
July in the cities of London, Leeds and Cambridge.

For more information on current members and details on how to apply go to:
www.runnymedetrust.org/360net

24 | BULLETIN | SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361 www.runnymedetrust.org

 A VIEW FROM... FRANCE
Race equality campaigner Rokhaya Diallo gives
an insider’s view on race relations in France.
She is president of Les Indivisibles, a group of
activists who use humour to deconstruct racial
prejudice against non-white French people
R
ecently in France, we have seen a
worrying trend emerge in political
discussion, prompted by a debate
on national identity initiated by the
French government.
Although the proportion of foreign people
living in France has not increased since 1981,
the perception of migration as a threat is
still overwhelming in French society. Many
Perceived as foreigners, we must
constantly answer the question,
‘where are you from?’
children of immigrants have now grown
up as French citizens and their more visible
presence has led to some entertaining the
illusion of a growing number of foreigners on
French soil. This is not the case, of course, as
a large proportion of those judged to be from
elsewhere on the basis of their skin colour are,
in fact, French.
Who are the ‘real’ French?
The current debate on national identity places
an obsessional demand on these citizens:
they should work hard to be accepted, and
need to ‘integrate’. This discourse assumes
that our society is divided between on the
one hand the ‘true’ French, whose integration
is never questioned, and on the other, those
French people, suspected of being foreign,
and whose French identity is not de facto
recognised because it is challenged by their
‘hard to pronounce’ names, their brown
faces or their cultural practices, which
are considered too visible. The concept of
‘laïcité’, a notion initially created to allow
for the expression of all religious beliefs
has now become a pretext to forbid that
www.runnymedetrust.org
very expression, and is used to exclude the
visibility of certain religious practices.
This particular group of French citizens,
constantly referred to as people ‘of migrant
background’, even when their families
have been in the country for generations,
are therefore confronted with a cruel
paradox. They have to go the extra mile
to show that they somehow deserve to be
French, while at the same time having to
hide any sign, particularly religious ones,
that might challenge their belonging to the
nation. Perceived as foreigners, they have to
constantly answer suspicious questions, the
most common one being ‘where do you come
from ?’, as if they had just arrived from some
exotic location in a faraway land.
The suspicion is such that a Ministry for
Immigration, Integration and National
Debates on national identity must
see integration as a two-way process
Identity was set up, with the apparent mission
of detecting ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ French
citizens. Its head is in charge of ensuring
that immigrants and their children (or
grandchildren) do not threaten our precious
national identity. The onus is therefore placed
on them - they have to integrate.
No room for non-white people?
The implicit message is that some non-
white people currently have no place in our
Photo: Alexis Peskine
Rokhaya Diallo
national community, and must therefore seek
to find one. Unfortunately, not enough people
consider that it is also the responsibility of
the French Republic itself to finally accept
and recognise all its citizens and to ‘integrate’
the truly multicultural element of its national
character into its self-identification.
Integration is a two-way process
This understanding that sees integration as
a two-way process is essential in any debate
about national identity if we want to end this
long-standing division, which still leads to
different citizenship rights for French people
depending on their ethnic or national origin.
This is why we have set up a Call for a
Multicultural and Post-racial France bringing
together 100 key personalities from different
areas of French social and political life, who
each made a concrete recommendation to lead
to an inclusive society, free from racism.
Translated from French by Sarah Isal.
If you would like to learn more about Rokhaya
Diallo and Les Indivisibles - including what
the ‘key personalities’ had to say - visit the
organisation’s website: lesindivisibles.fr
SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361 | BULLETIN | 25
 A VIEW FROM... PARLIAMENT

Providing the link between the race equality sector and Westminster,
Runnymede’s new phase of parliamentary work took off at the beginning
of the year. Vicki Butler, our public affairs officer, has all the details.

A
n exciting new element of
Runnymede’s parliamentary work
is our Platform programme. It
was launched with the aim of
creating a space for senior political figures
of all parties to discuss issues around race
equality with critical comment from the
academic community. The programme’s goal
is to encourage grown-up debate on tackling
racism, as all too often political discussion
of such issues descends into point-scoring,
without getting to the heart of the issues.

Conservative frontbencher Dominic Grieve

MP kickstarted Platform with his paper
Conservatism and Community Cohesion.
The full publication included responses from
Lord Bhikhu Parekh, chair of the Runnymede

Photo: Vijay Jethwa

Commission on the Future of Multi-ethnic
Britain; Professor Montserrat Guibernau
of the Queen Mary University of London;
Professor Ludi Simpson of the Cathie Marsh
Centre of Census and Survey Research at
the University of Manchester; and Professor
Shamit Saggar of the University of Sussex.
Grieve argues that a British Bill of Rights
should be introduced to help achieve
national unity and suggests that the teaching
of national history can help cement core
common values. Placing community cohesion
in a human rights framework, Grieve’s paper
in particular criticises the DNA database and
the introduction of 28 days’ detention without
charge. He also dismisses multiculturalism
as being divisive and over-reliant on the
intervention of the state, adding that this leads
to political correctness.
The second paper in our series was written by
Liberal Democrat MP Lynne Featherstone,
and included responses from academics,
such as Professor Harry Goulbourne of
London South Bank University and Dr
Claire Alexander of the London School of
Economics and Political Science.
Following recent government research
into job application discrimination, in
Featherstone’s paper Race Equality and
the Liberal Democrats she calls for the
introduction of a ‘name blank’ application
policy to remove bias in the process of
deciding job applications. Featherstone also
argues that those discriminated against should
be represented as a group by trade unions or
the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
Finally, Labour MP John Denham wrote
Labour and Cohesive Communities, the
third in our Platform series, which included
responses from Professors Derek McGhee,
University of Southampton; Mary J Hickman,
London Metropolitan University; and Chris
Gaine, University of Chichester.
Echoing comments made in his controversial
speech at the start of the year, Denham’s
paper calls for a renewed focus on class in
Britain and argues that while the growing
self confidence of minority communities is
a positive thing, it can be seen as a threat to
communities under pressure. He also states
that although it is still important to fight
racism and discrimination, a more nuanced
approach is needed to understand how race
interacts with other social factors.
Alongside the publications we also held a
number of events as part of the Platform
series, including parliamentary seminars
on Grieve’s and Featherstone’s papers. In
addition, higher education minister David
Lammy MP gave a speech on black fatherhood
as part of Runnymede Platform (see page 23).
Runnymede Platform will continue in the
next parliament, with a collection of essays
by Scottish MSPs planned for publication in
the summer. Further speeches and papers from
Westminster are planned throughout the year.
Visit the runnymedetrust.org/platform to
keep updated on future projects, as well as to
download all three reports for free.
Westminster Blog
Our new blog - the Runnymede Westminster
Monitor - provides a daily update of all coverage
of race equality issues within the Westminster
village, pulling together all government and
opposition announcements, parliamentary
debates and developments in Whitehall.
Since the blog’s launch at the beginning of
March 2010 we have already covered many
parliamentary developments, including
MPs’ criticisms of the Equality and Human

26 | BULLETIN | SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361 www.runnymedetrust.org

Rights Commission (EHRC), immigration
announcements and select committee reports
into the DNA database and, of course, the
general election.
The blog will also include some opinion
pieces. We recently criticised a call from the
government to make use of ASBOs to tackle
antisocial behaviour “explicitly associated
with Gypsies and Travellers” and analysed
Alistair Darling’s budget in relation to its
potential impact on BME people.
We want the Runnymede Westminster
Monitor to help raise awareness of how race
is discussed in Westminster and we hope
that others in the race equality sector will
use it as a resource to keep up-to-date on
developments, as well as the starting point for
campaigns in parliament. Read the latest post
at runnymedetrust.org/parliamentary-blog.
Norfolk United
We held the first in our series of regional
race equality Question Time-style events in
February, focusing on Norfolk. Held in the
heart of Norwich city centre, our panel was
chaired by BBC journalist Clive Lewis and
included former home secretary Charles Clarke.
Liberal Democrat MP Norman Lamb,
Conservative councillor Antony Little, Green
Party councillor Samir Jeraj and community
activist Gita Prasad completed the panel
for the debate, which was co-organised by
Runnymede in conjunction with the Norwich
and Norfolk Race Equality Council (NNREC).
The panellists - all local politicians and
activists - tackled questions on issues such as
educational achievement, the recent Swiss ban
of the building of minarets, stop and search
policies, and parliamentary representation of
ethnic minorities.
Charles Clarke in particular received a
grilling on policies introduced during his
tenure as home secretary, while Antony Little
highlighted the Conservative Party’s progress
in selecting BME parliamentary candidates.
In addition, Clarke and NNREC council
member Gita Prasad went head to head on
the issue of the veil, with Prasad defending
it as a symbol of religious expression and
Clarke expressing concern surrounding its
use in classrooms and courtrooms.
www.runnymedetrust.org
Photo: Vijay Jethwa
Local politicians at the Norfolk
United debate in Norwich
several members of the Conservative Party. A
Norman Lamb MP argued that the presence number of Liberal Democrat parliamentarians
of more BME players in local football club also expressed interest in becoming involved
Norwich City has helped to increase tolerance in the group’s future activities.
in the area and councillor Samir Jeraj
highlighted improved social housing as one Discussion at the event centred on issues such
way to help decrease race inequalities. as the government’s race equality strategy; the
impact of counter-terrorism measures on BME
Encouragingly, there was a great deal of communities; and the threat of the far right.
consensus on the panel that it is still important
to improve race equality and tackle racism. For more information on our parliamentary
To watch the discussion, visit our website to work and upcoming events please visit
watch a 5-minute video of highlights of the runnymedetrust.org/parliament.
debate made by local community organisation
Baroness Howells speaks at
CMedia. the meeting to establish a Race
and Community APPG
Runnymede plans to hold further regional
events throughout the year, with the next
planned in the South West. Keep an eye on
our website for further details.
APPG on race and community
Runnymede is currently working to re-
establish the All Party Parliamentary Group
(APPG) on Race and Community. We
believe that a functioning and active APPG
in parliament is essential in providing
parliamentarians with access to top-level
discussion on race equality.
We took the first steps to re-establish the group
Photo: Vijay Jethwa
in January this year by holding a meeting in the
House of Commons. The event was chaired by
Diane Abbott MP and attended by Baroness
Howells and Baroness Whitaker, as well as
SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361 | BULLETIN | 27
 Q&A
ZENNA ATKINS
CHAIR OF OFSTED
Zenna Atkins is chair of Ofsted, the body responsible for
inspecting the standards of schools in England. Zenna is also a
successful social entrepreneur; in 2000 she won Ernst & Young
Entrepreneur of the Year South Region and in 2003 she was
awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from Portsmouth
University. Zenna’s own unconventional route to success has
strengthened her belief in the role of education in improving
life chances. She tells Runnymede about her position at Ofsted
and why race equality is integral to the organisation’s ethos.
How did your own experience of schooling push
you to get involved with Ofsted?
I’m a self-confessed school failure; I left school at 16 with almost
no qualifications. I really struggled - reading and writing did
not come easily to me and that affected me across all subjects.
This was because I have dyslexia. In those days, and I’m referring
to the 1970s, there wasn’t the support there is today and I was
seen by many teachers as a ‘slow learner’. You can imagine what
happened to my confidence.
However, I soon came to realise the difference a good teacher can
make to a child’s learning and self-confidence, and the importance
of teachers recognising those things that might hinder a child’s
learning and finding ways of overcoming them. Basically, it is the
knowledge that a good school can shape a child’s life chances. I
sometimes hear adults say to young people, ‘You are so lucky to
go to a good school’. Luck should not come into it. It should be
every child’s right to go to a good school. Working as the chair of
its non-executive board gives me an opportunity to help Ofsted
in its role as an inspection and regulation body.
What does your role as chair entail?
Together with the other eight directors, I am responsible for setting
the strategic priorities, targets and objectives for Ofsted, and for
ensuring the chief inspector’s functions are performed efficiently
and effectively. We are required to encourage improvement, the
development of a user focus and the efficient and effective use of
resources within the services that Ofsted inspects and regulates.
We must also have regard to: the need to safeguard and promote
the rights and welfare of children; the views and satisfaction of
children, parents and employers; the need to ensure that Ofsted
inspection and regulatory action is proportionate; and any
developments in approaches to inspection or regulatory action.
That’s a big job, and one I am extremely proud to play a part in.
28 | BULLETIN | SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361
Zenna Atkins,
chair of Ofsted
What role do you believe education has in achieving
equality for all children in the UK?
Quite simply, a highly important one. This has two sides to it. The
first relates to how well children achieve at school. We know from
test and exam results over several years that there are groups of
children that persistently underachieve in relation to their peers.
For instance, the proportion of black Caribbean pupils that
achieve five or more GCSE grade C passes or higher is around
half that of the national average. The gap is closing but it remains
unacceptably wide. Why does that matter? It matters because
the levels of skills and knowledge that youngsters have when
they leave school have a direct impact on their life chances.
How can you compete in the workplace if others have far higher
qualifications? The second side relates to how effectively schools
and other education providers help young people develop
positive attitudes to equality and learn to value and appreciate
the diversity of the society in which they live. Schools have a
really important role, as do families, in being communities that
model high quality practice in relation to equalities; children
develop their attitudes and their behaviour in relation to all sorts
of things from the communities in which they live and learn.
How does Ofsted work to promote race equality as
an employer?
We have had a race equality policy, alongside other equality
policies that we are drawing together to form a single equalities
scheme. This guides all our practices as an employer and as an
inspector and regulator. For instance, in our role as an employer,
www.runnymedetrust.org
our recruitment and selection policy states that, where possible,
selection panels will be representative in terms of race and
gender, and we monitor the ethnicity of job applicants right
through to appointment. For your readers who like numbers, 11
per cent of Ofsted staff are from minority ethnic backgrounds,
compared with the civil service average of 9 per cent. We have
a career development programme for anyone who considers
they are disabled at work or who is from a minority ethnic
group. The programme aims to develop a joint understanding
of the skills and advice participants need to progress their
careers. Another positive action that is very successful is the
Black Leadership Initiative. This scheme enables more minority
ethnic staff from schools and colleges to develop the skills
and confidence to apply for promotion within their sectors or
consider becoming an Ofsted inspector. As a result, Ofsted was
nominated for an Innovation Award at last year’s Civil Service
Diversity and Equality Awards.
How has Ofsted changed its inspection model to
place greater emphasis on race equality?
Ofsted has been very responsive to feedback on how to make the
school inspection framework more effective and more helpful to
schools in identifying how they can make better provision for
pupils and students. The launch of the new school inspection
framework last September was preceded by a year’s worth of
trials and a wide-ranging consultation. One of the improvements
we made was to raise the profile of equalities in school inspection.
Inspectors now give greater emphasis to the achievement
of different groups of pupils. For instance, good GCSE results
overall might mask underachievement by a group of pupils.
Significantly, if a school is judged to be inadequate on the way it
tackles inequalities and promotes equality of opportunity, or in
how well pupils achieve, it is very likely to be judged inadequate
overall. That raises the bar for schools in this area and is a clear
message that every child really does matter.
What led to this increased focus on race equality?
Race equality has a greater national profile, which the Stephen
Lawrence inquiry did much to raise. Since schools have statutory
responsibilities in the area of race equality, it is important that
Ofsted keeps its expectations high about how effectively schools
promote race equality and prevent discrimination.
What tend to be the areas of weakness in schools
that are struggling to tackle race equality?
Where this happens, it is often to do with a school’s lack of
monitoring of the achievements and personal development
of different ethnic groups. If a school does not know how well
these groups of pupils are doing, it is not in a good position to
identify positive action that will help close gaps and to improve
outcomes for them. If a school is not monitoring its exclusion
www.runnymedetrust.org
data, it might miss the fact that there are a disproportionate
numbers of minority ethnic pupils being excluded, for example.
If a school is not listening to its pupils, it might not pick up if there
are racial incidents that go unreported. Schools that address race
equality issues well are almost certain to have their ‘fingers on
the pulse’ and know very clearly what issues they face.
Let me put this into perspective. Last year the chief inspector’s
annual report to parliament included the statistic that 1 per
cent of primary and special schools and 2 per cent of secondary
schools (inspected in 2008/09) were judged inadequate in the
way that they promoted equality of opportunity and tackled
discrimination. That means that almost all of them were at least
satisfactory in this respect – but that doesn’t mean that schools
shouldn’t ‘up their game’; there is always room for improvement.
Can you tell us about Ofsted’s RAISEonline project?
This stands for Reporting and Analysis for Improvement through
Self-Evaluation. RAISEonline is a data analysis tool for use by
schools, local authorities, school improvement partners (SIPs)
and Ofsted inspectors.
It takes a school’s performance in test and examination results
over several years and sets them in context, for example, by
comparing them to national averages and how these have
changed over time. It takes account of the context of the school
in terms of, for instance, gender, free school meals, special
educational needs and/or disabilities and ethnicity in measuring
the ‘contextual value added’ progress (CVA). This indicates how
much progress pupils have made, given their starting points and
progress made in similar schools.
Importantly, RAISEonline breaks the results down by different
pupil groups so that the progress made by, say, Asian pupils can
be examined. This enables inspectors to identify, in discussion
with the headteacher, what might be ‘inspection trails’ to follow
while visiting the school. RAISEonline does not take the place of
first-hand inspection evidence gained from seeing pupils’ books,
observing lessons, looking at schools’ assessment records and,
vitally, talking to pupils about what they are learning.
Has Ofsted conducted surveys on race equality?
All our surveys have an equalities thread running through
them, but we conducted a survey specifically on race equality in
education in 2005.
It covered four main areas: standards and achievement among
groups of pupils; the incorporation of race equality concepts into
the curriculum; the handling and management of racial incidents;
and the work of schools and local authorities in improving links
with local minority ethnic communities. The full results of the
survey can be found at ofsted.gov.uk
SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361 | BULLETIN | 29
 VOX
POP
Pam Tatlow
Chief executive, higher
education thinktank Million Plus
Some universities have argued
that the sector will be set back
hundreds of years; this claim has
been roundly rebuffed. It is also
true that some did not do so well
in a recent research assessment
and so lost money to other
universities that performed better.
Much more worrying are figures
suggesting that there are likely to
be more university applications
than funded places this year.
The government has recognised
the problem and made funding
available for 20,000 additional
places in 2010. This may not fill the
gap, but it has ensured that more
students than ever before can get
to university. There is still a risk
that some qualified young people
or those hoping to refocus their
careers by studying will be turned
away. Worryingly some parties are
suggesting that even more cuts
are needed in education.
Yes, there is a need to reduce
public borrowing, but it should not
be done at the expense of those
who want to improve their life-
chances by studying at university.
30 | BULLETIN | SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361
How will the expected cuts in the government’s
education budget affect your sector?
Gary Phillips
Headteacher, Lilian Bayliss
Technology School
A fall in funding will have a
huge impact on what secondary
schools can offer their students.
High achievers will go into larger
classes with cheaper teachers,
such as those trained overseas.
The impact will be higher drop-
out rates in a group that rarely
has drop-outs.
Those in the middle ground will
continue to benefit from changes
brought in over the last ten years,
including one-to-one tuition,
smaller classes and the best
teachers. In this way schools will
ensure that pass rates stay high.
While the ‘not possibles’ at the
bottom of the class - unless
statemented, which brings in
funding - will be forgotten.
They will become disaffected
earlier and drop out faster,
increasing dependence on the
Youth Service, the police, Social
Services and the NHS. These
agencies will see a huge uptake
in demand, and yet nobody will
track it back to where something
could have been done about it.
Leora Cruddas
Children and Young People
Services, Waltham Forest
The proposed reductions in public
sector spending are both a threat
and an opportunity.
We have seen a decline of the
community in recent years; the
opportunity to re-open a debate
about how we spend public
money in order to build solidarity
and reconnect people with each
other and with politics should
perhaps be welcomed.
Within the education sector,
we are seeing what might be
described as a paradigm shift in
school improvement. During the
next three years there will be a
move towards a self-sustaining
system as schools take on more
responsibility for their own
improvement - and the resource
to make it happen.
Although the total resource may
decline, there is an opportunity
to move from a competitive
system to a collaborative one,
reconnecting teaching with
pedagogy and the concept of
improvement with a wider range
of outcomes for children and
young people.
Patrice Lawrence
Principal Officer, National
Children’s Bureau
Sure Start childrens centres, which
the Conservatives have pledged
to cut, offer high-quality services
to young families in economically
deprived areas.
Although an evaluation of delivery
revealed patchy, inconsistent
services to black and minority
ethnic families, it was hoped that
the next generation of children’s
centres would be dynamic and
accessible, enhancing every child’s
early development and learning
potential. Funding cuts could leave
these aspirations floundering.
An effective service needs qualified,
motivated staff; skilled outreach
services; possibly interpretation
services; and a strong partnership
with the local community. These
things cost money, while their
economic benefits may not be
seen for some time.
An excellent children’s centre
has been set up that works
with explicit guidance and
expectations for equality.
Should we cut corners on
providing the firm foundations
for children’s life-long potential?
www.runnymedetrust.org
 KEY
FACTS
ABOUT... RACE AND EDUCATION
1%
of UK headte
ach
from a black ers are
a
minority eth nd

1
The intake of black and minority n ic
background
ethnic (BME) students to Oxford
and Cambridge is 11.1% and
10.5% respectively, compared to the
average of 16% for England as a whole
HESA student record 2007/2008

2
56.3% of graduates from black
and minority ethnic backgrounds
found employment within the
first year after finishing their degree
courses, compared to 60% of white
graduates

Business in the Community, 2007/2008

3
Four in five teachers of African

Photo: Courtesy of Lewis Iwu

descent and more that half of
those from the Caribbean diaspora
report that they have been discriminated Lewis Iwu, Oxford University Student
against in their teaching careers Union’s first black president
NASUWT teachers’ union

Lewis Iwu was elected as the first

4
Lewis Iwu was elected as
president of Oxford University’s
Student Union in 2008, the first
black incumbent
black president of Oxford University’s
Guardian newspaper Student Union in 2008

5
A survey found that Asian caste

discrimination is a problem in
some British schools, with 10% of
those traditionally members of ‘lower’
Asian caste backgrounds reporting
caste discrimination by teachers.
Anti Caste Discrimination Alliance (Acda)
7 9
Black prisoners make up 15% of It was decided in March 2010
the prisoner population in the that teachers will not be banned
UK; but only 5% of the university from their profession for being
student population members of the BNP or other openly
HESA student record 2007/2008 racist organisations
BBC News

8
Although Britain’s ethnic

6 10
The number of first year degree minority population is 10.1%, The highest achieving
students from BME backgrounds only 1% of headteachers in group ethnic group in the
rose one percentage point to British primary and secondary schools UK is Chinese Girls, who
19% between 2006 and 2008. is of BME descent have a 91.4% pass rate at GCSE level

HESA student record NASUWT report 2009 Guardian datablog

www.runnymedetrust.org SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361 | BULLETIN | 31

 REVIEWS
All Change! Romani Studies
through Romani Eyes
Edited by Damian Le Bas and Thomas Acton
University of Hertfordshire Press, 2010
Book review by Annie Padwick
32 | BULLETIN | SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361
BOOKS // FILMS //SHOWS // EXHIBITIONS
Roma speak for themselves
This book is a fresh and thought-provoking
collection of academic essays. All essays
challenge the non-Roma dominated arena
of Roma studies and create a much-needed
platform for Roma, Gypsy and Traveller
academics to debate Roma issues. Both
renowned and lesser-known scholars create a
dialogue that questions many established ideas
about Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities.
They re-examinine Roma origins, the concept
of Gypsy identity, and look at cases of
contemporary prejudice and discrimination.
Indian origins
On the subject of origins, Professor Ian
Hancock uses linguistics to test the widely
accepted belief that the Roma community
originates from India. Hancock suggests
that the Roma people come from different
Indian populations brought together in a
military environment. He proposes that the
Romani language and Roma identity was
not developed in India, but formed gradually
when the communities settled in Europe
around AD100. Valdemar Kalinin continues
the debate on origin with his discussion of the
history of Roma in Russia. He also disputes
the Indian origins of the Roma, and suggests
The book raises
the voice of Roma
communities in the
academic arena
that research in Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey,
and Armenia could prove fruitful in revealing
further information about the origins of Roma
and Gypsy communities.
Damian Le Bas and Dr. Brian Belton’s
contributions are concerned with the concept
of the Gypsy identity. Le Bas rejects origin
as a marker of Gypsy identity and questions
whether common identity can be formed
around a diasporic ideology. He argues that
exclusion and disenfranchisement from civil
society have been persistent features in Gypsy
existence together with fear of forced migration
form key elements in Gypsy philosophy.
Belton challenges the stereotypical views
imposed by non-Roma of what a Gypsy is and
does. He also criticises academics’ dependence
on the written word to express the truth, rather
than trusting oral evidence, which is something
central to Gypsy heritage.
Good practice
Good practice is highlighted in Dr. Adrian
Marsh’s evaluation of the project Promoting
Roma (Gypsy) Rights in Turkey. This scheme
has made significant progress in documenting
the economic, social and cultural situation
of different Roma, Gypsy and Traveller
communities in Turkey, and highlighting
specific examples of discrimination and
prejudice. Janet Keet-Black and Michael
Wayne Jones mark the importance of the
Romany and Traveller Family History
Society’s role in documenting family
histories. This community-based society
researches and documents personal histories
creating legitimate documented evidence,
which can often validate or discredit
previously published research. The society
is both national and international in order to
reflect the migratory patterns of the Gypsy,
Roma and Traveller communities.
A voice from within
All Change! does not quite manage to find
enough in common between the individual
articles to form a fully unified and harmonious
book. It does, however, contain a number of
interesting pieces and offers access to a variety
of noteworthy academic opinions from the
Roma, Gypsy and Traveller communities. All
Change! opposes the accepted culture which
debates and makes decisions about Gypsy,
Roma and Traveller communities without their
consultation. It does this by raising the voice
of these communities in the academic arena
and adding new insight to existing research.
www.runnymedetrust.org
 REVIEWS BOOKS // FILMS //SHOWS // EXHIBITIONS

Migrants making cities work

Global Cities at Work
by Jane Wills, Kavita Datta, Yara Evans & Joanna
Herbert. Pluto Press, 2010
Book review by Camille Aznar
As nationalism reawakens in the face of the
recession, this is a timely book. The research
is a rare and critical window casting light on
the life stories of foreign-born workers who
find themselves part of London’s migrant
division of labour. Without these low-paid
workers, the city would grind to a halt, yet
the academic literature on the subject is
surprisingly scarce. Little is known about
those who do such jobs, or the conditions in
which they work. Global Cities at Work aims
to fill this knowledge gap.
The authors focus on five sectors of the
low paid economy known to employ lots of
migrants: cleaning; hospitality; domiciliary
care; food processing and construction.
Although primarily aimed at the academic
and policy arena, the clear organisation and
writing style used in Global Cities make it
accessible to a wider audience, possibly serving
as a rich insight into low-paid migrant labour
for those interested in migration in general.
The authors’ focus on London will provide the
readers with a clear picture of the individual
voices and experiences of the social and
economic lives of foreign workers in the city.
The book gives a comprehensive yet detailed
account of the day-to-day life of these migrants,
while arguing that the adoption of reforms such
as a living wage principle would benefit both
low-paid UK born and migrant workers.
The book broadens its argument into a
general debate on the role of migrant labour in
contemporary capitalism. What is recurrently
brought to light from migrant workers’ insight into the larger migrant workforce
narratives is the need for greater respect for the that keeps the city functioning. It is also a
work they do. As one domestic worker from valuable tool for policymakers and politicians
Ghana put it: “People are human beings and currently involved in planning a way out of
they have to be respected. We take dog and cat this lasting recession. It calls us to take a
and put them in the house and treat them like politically-informed geographical view of our
human beings. Yet not other people.” urban labour markets and to tackle the issue
By raising the level of debate on migrant of working poverty and its effects on both
labour Global Cities at Work offers a unique unemployment and community cohesion.

Not your average river dance

Ganga Nitya Vaahini
Performed by Malavika Sarukkai
Dance review by Shireen Isal
Highly celebrated dancer and choreographer
Malavika Sarukkai’s performance of the
Ganga Nitya Vaahini - Eternal River - further
proved her enormous talent of infusing the
ancient classical dance form of Bharata
reflection of the Ganga’s journey through
the Indian landscape, interpreted through
Sarukkai’s own deeply spiritual and
artistic experience.
In order to take the beholder on this
journey, Sarukkai used what has now become
a hallmark of her talent: a unique exploration
of space through the fundamental geometrical
movements - the straight line, circle and
diagonal - of Bharata Natyam.
The performance was a supreme execution
Photo: Brian Slater

Natyam with contemporary inspiration of a stunningly crafted and intensely spiritual

and sensibility. This skill represents a
culmination of years of personal research
and dedication.
Taking the powerful theme of India’s
sacred river Ganga, ‘a silent witness to
the relentless cycle of birth and death, to
the sacred and the profane, to purity and
pollution’, and inspired by her love for the
it, Sarukkai combined technical brilliance
with a restrained yet intense depiction of
emotions. From pathos, devotion, passion
and tragedy to triumph, her dance was a
chorographical ensemble, which extended the
boundaries of the Bharata Natyam repertoire
and placed her among the most enduring
performers on the Indian dance scene.
Sarukkai was effectively supported by
Neela Sukhanya Srinivasan (nattuvangam),
Murali Parthasarathy (vocal), Srilakshmi
Venkataramani (violin) and Sukhi
Melepurath Sukumaran (percussion). The
performance was presented with the support
of Association Sargam.
The performance was summed up
by Nasreen Rehman, former trustee of
Runnymede, who thanked Association
Sargam for making it possible for those in
the audience to experience such an “amazing
performance”. She added: “Malavika
surpassed herself. I savoured every moment
of her extraordinary journey, dancing through
life and eternity as she transformed into a
river and the cosmos.”

www.runnymedetrust.org SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361 | BULLETIN | 33

 REVIEWS
Strategic Alternatives to
Exclusion from School
by Carl Parsons
Trentham Books Limited, 2009
Book review by Emma Breger
34 | BULLETIN | SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361
BOOKS // FILMS //SHOWS // EXHIBITIONS
The national culture of exclusion
Runnymede E-conference
In February 2010 Runnymede held its first
e-conference, which explored the relationship
between race equality and school exclusions.
Despite decreases in the overall number of
black and minority ethnic (BME) pupils
excluded from schools, their number
remains depressingly disproportionate. Black
Caribbean pupils are still three times more
likely to be permanently excluded than the
school population as a whole.
Parsons has been opposed to school
exclusions in both a personal and professional
capacity for the last 15 years. Drawing from
personal experiences as a school governor,
friend and supporter of individuals and
families who have experienced school
exclusion, he is committed to challenging
what he describes as the “national culture of
exclusion”. He argues that the removal of
pupils from school for a short or extended
period of time is both individually and socially
damaging. This is particularly the case when
exclusions are disproportionately applied to
certain ethnic and socio-economic groups.
Currently, literature focusing on school
exclusion mainly concerns the management
of behaviour in the school and classroom. In
challenging this insular approach, this book
emphasises the importance of community and
collective responsibility in tackling exclusion.
Parsons focuses on the organisational changes
that are required at community level to
combat the problem. Exclusions often lead
to tensions between school education and
children’s social services. Here it is shown
how exclusions can be drastically reduced
when local authorities and schools develop a
positive working relationship.
The components of the study
There are three components in this study. The
first part explores how three local authorities
with low exclusion rates have maintained
these levels. This was achieved using a
combination of methodologies including the
analysis of existing data sets and interviews
with local authority personnel. Although
the context of each local authority varied,
important similarities were unearthed from
the research. For example, all three local
authorities had additional types of provision
for education other than at school. They
also all had multi-agency teams which,
among many things, acted as mediators
with parents. It was clear that all three
local authorities demonstrated considerable
vigilance. This commitment was reflected
not only in values and principles, but on a
practical level in how resources and services
were effectively utilised.
The second, and main, component looks
at how areas with high exclusion rates can
transform their situation. The conclusion
are based on an in-depth study of five local
authorities with particularly high levels
of exclusion. An essential element of this
investigation involved talking to senior
staff in schools, professionals and local
politicians, as well as the young people
and their families who had experienced
exclusion first-hand. This chapter of the book
deals with each local authority in turn, first
addressing their exclusion profile and then
their policies to reduce exclusion. Towards
the end of the chapter is a section that deals
with the experiences of pupils who have been
excluded. Insights from discussions with
young people allow the reader to relate more
effectively to the issues raised.
The final chapters work well to draw
together the wealth of research presented.
The research highlights the strategic role
of local authorities in combating school
exclusion. The local authority is described
as a ‘key front-line driver’ and ‘change
agent’ exercising ‘political, financial and…
moral power’ among children’s services.
Parsons concludes by setting out guidelines
and recommendations for an inclusion
agenda for local authorities.
This book will be especially of interest
to those working at a strategic level in
schools and local authority children’s
services departments. The study sets out
potential obstacles and indicates a path for
progression in tackling school exclusions.
However, it is a shame that Parsons does
not allude to racism in any great depth
when in previous work he has claimed it to
be such a pressing issue.
www.runnymedetrust.org
 REVIEWS
Reconciliation and rugby
As a huge rugby fan from Northern Ireland,
a country familiar with social division, I
watched Invictus with multiple interests.
Based on a book by John Carlin, the film
charts the 1995 World Cup victory of the
South African rugby team – known as the
Springboks - and Nelson Mandela’s vision
of its importance for reconciliation in the
post-apartheid era. Indeed, the iconic image
of Mandela, dressed in the team’s green
and gold, presenting the glowing Webb
Ellis trophy to Francois Pienaar, the team’s
victorious captain, is one of my earliest
rugby memories.
Invictus unpacks the uncertainty and fear
of post-apartheid, pre-World Cup South
Africa. As a bus carrying the newly-elected
president passes a rugby team of white
Afrikaners, the coach remarks: ‘It’s that
terrorist Mandela – remember this day, boys,
as the day the country went to the dogs.’ This
reflects how Mandela (Morgan Freeman), as
a former prisoner, was viewed with suspicion
and fear by white people. Indeed, Pienaar’s
dad reflects the fear of how society will
change now that the formerly oppressed have
become leaders: ‘Look at Zimbabwe – are we
next? They will drive us into the sea.’ The
film focuses its energy on Mandela’s vision
of how the Springboks could foster national
healing and unity and his relationship with
team captain Pienaar (Matt Damon), who
represents the Afrikaner community so
associated with dominance and oppression in
the minds of black people.
A symbol of oppression
The film makes clear that the green and gold
of the rugby team and the name ‘Springboks’
were symbols of hatred, representations of
white rule. A poor black boy refuses to accept
a Springbok jersey at a community centre
for fear of being beaten up by other kids.
During an early scene, black rugby fans cheer
on England as they comprehensively thump
a weary and limp Springbok side. This also
serves as an important reminder that South
Africa at the time was not a feared rugby
team. The notion of winning the World Cup is
scoffed at by various characters.
Invictus shows why Mandela believed
that rugby mattered so much, often despite
www.runnymedetrust.org
BOOKS // FILMS //SHOWS // EXHIBITIONS
the incomprehension of his closest political
aides. He was also at odds with many in the
black community. A black rugby committee’s
desire to drop the team’s hated nickname
reflects the desire to reclaim the team from
the whites. Mandela’s inspiration – that the
Springboks should become a unifying force
rather than shunned or aggressively annexed
– is well dramatised.
The film seems to be trying to be a
number of things - an exploration of the
man Mandela, a sporting underdog story
and a tale of tension, as portrayed by the
various security operations that work to
keep the president safe from threats. To
Photography credit
an extent, these different aims dilute each
other and it is difficult to tell which is the
most important. The clear unifying theme,
though, is reconciliation. As the black head
of presidential security stomps into the Invictus
president’s office to ask why his unit should Directed by Clint Eastwood, starring Morgan
work with the previous unit of Afrikaners Freeman and Matt Damon
(who would have been the sharp end of
much state repression of black people) he is Film review by Phil Mawhinney
challenged by the president: ‘reconciliation
starts here; forgiveness starts here.’
Invictus falls into some very sentimental
traps. Some of the songs in the musical score
are, quite frankly, cheap schmaltz about
unity. Other parts of the soundtrack are very
‘Lion King’ – stereotypically ‘African’ and
overblown with emotion. This takes away
from the story when it should be left to speak
for itself. Also, the slow-motion ticking of the
final seconds of the World Cup final and the
image of the trophy being held aloft by white
and black hands are tired devices.
The word Invictus, meaning unconquerable,
refers to a poem by William Ernest Henley.
While very appropriate, the film is wrong to
show Mandela giving a copy of the poem to
inspire Pienaar on the eve of the final – what
he actually gave him was a copy of The Man
in the Arena by Theodore Roosevelt. It may
seem picky to highlight this but given that
Invictus is the film’s title and emotional motif,
it is worth noting.
Overall the film is enlightening and
inspiring, if a little sentimental. It certainly
does enough to give depth and meaning to
the famous and iconic images of Mandela
and Pienaar, black and white, new and old,
celebrating victory together.
SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361 | BULLETIN | 35
 REVIEWS
Since the British handover of Hong Kong
to China in 1997 the city has seen a period
of transition. From being one of the last
relics of the British Empire, Hong Kong
has emerged as a vibrant and modern
economic hub. Hong Kong has transformed
into a multicultural melting pot, welcoming
migrants from across the globe. Meanwhile,
over the past thirteen years large numbers of
Best practice in integration
Europe’s Established and Emerging
Immigrant Communities
by Carlton Howson and Momodou Sallah
Trentham Books, 2009
Book review by Jessica Mai Sims
This book contains a range of articles
relating to diversity, integration and policy
in the UK and across the rest of Europe.
The articles came about as a result of a
conference of the same name in 2007 and
so, while in some ways relating to the title
of the volume, they appear to be an eclectic
mix in comparison to each other.
The first half of the book focuses on
Europe. There are chapters dealing with
asylum both broadly and specifically in the
case of Somali refugees in UK and Denmark,
for example. There is also particular focus
given to the health and welfare of migrants
and minority ethnic groups and there is a
chapter dedicated to Muslims across Europe.
36 | BULLETIN | SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361
BOOKS // FILMS //SHOWS // EXHIBITIONS
A city in transition
Hong Kong: Migrant Lives,
Landscapes and Journeys
by Caroline Knowles and Douglas Harper
University of Chicago Press, 2009
Book review by Vicki Butler
British expatriates have returned to the UK.
Using the now reduced British expatriate
community as its starting point, Hong Kong
by Caroline Knowles and Douglas Harper
provides a range of fascinating individual
portraits of migrants across the British and
South Asian communities. It looks at the
variety of reasons for migration to the city
as well as the success of each individual
group in integrating into the wider Hong
Kong community.
Most notably, the book explores the
migrant communities of the city in the form
of a journey across the territories making up
the Special Administrative Region (SAR)
Perhaps the most interesting chapter
in the Euro-centric first half of the text
is Simon Dyson’s account of the history
of sickle cell anaemia in Europe and the
associated assumptions of racial biology.
Connecting the issue to stereotyping, Dyson
draws an interesting link to how healthcare
service providers, similarly to wider society,
practise ethnic profiling based on notions of
racial biology.
While the second half of the book
concerns itself primarily with the UK,
there are some case studies on young
people in Bosnia Herzegovina. Shifting
the focus to Oldham, immigrant groups’
experiences of community cohesion are
put under the spotlight. Similarly, the
housing challenges for people in rural
areas and for Gypsies and Travellers; the
Somali and Polish migrants experiences of
UK police forces; and a policy analysis of
race and class in higher education are all
granted particular attention.
Of the topics covered in the latter half of
of Hong Kong. Peppered with photographs
and maps, the narrative device of a journey
successfully highlights the varied locations
of migrant settlement and activity across the
SAR. The strength of this approach is that
it helps to highlight not only the different
versions of Hong Kong migrants’ experience,
but also demonstrates the differing activity of
subgroups - including professional, economic
and cultural - within each migrant group.
Knowles and Harper effectively highlight
the privileged economic position of British
migrants in comparison to other groups, while
also emphasising their willingness to remain
in an English speaking ‘expat bubble’.
Those migrants from the Indian sub-
continent and across Asia however are,
broadly speaking, fluent in Cantonese and
are thus able to participate more fully in
Hong Kong life. With the residue of colonial
life rapidly fading away this excellent book
raises an important question mark over
whether this cultural isolation will remain
sustainable in the long term.
the text, the study on youth in post-conflict
Northern Ireland and Bosnia Herzegovina
is perhaps the least expected choice for the
volume due to its tenuous link to the first half
of the book’s title.
The assorted chapters in the book add up
to interesting and varied reading. The only
regret is that the case study chapters leave
the reader wanting more.
Organisations dealing with policy
interventions would find the book useful for
its range of subjects in the field of integration.
www.runnymedetrust.org
 REVIEWS
Engaging with young Muslims
A website that comes highly recommended
by users is called Young, Muslim & Citizen.
It is a free online resource pack for parents,
teachers and youth workers who interact
professionally with young people of Muslim
background. The website is designed to
complement both mosque-based education
and citizenship education programmes in
mainstream schools.
Tying the Camel uses a story to introduce
the resource, which consists of 18 activities.
These activities are organised across
the four key areas, which are: identity
and belonging; stories, incidents and
experiences; rights and responsibilities; and
news, views and commentary.
The activities are designed to really get
young people learning using a range of
interactive formats, old and new. Take Activity
17 for example. Young people visit a number
A nice feature
of the site is
that teaching
experience is not
assumed
of British Muslim blogs and websites and say
what they like and dislike about them. They
then create scrapbooks with extracts and
perhaps posters and wallcharts as well. Further,
they write and submit comments. They may
also create a blog on which they post their own
reflections about current happenings.
The website is user-friendly and well
organised. An introduction to each activity
gives a summary of the activity, a list of
the benefits to be gained by young people
and information on how to prepare, plus
instructions. Some of the activities also have
suggestions for continuation and follow-
up exercises. Free handouts to accompany
the activities can be downloaded, copied
and distributed.
A nice feature of the site is that extensive
teaching experience is not assumed and
www.runnymedetrust.org
BOOKS // FILMS //SHOWS // EXHIBITIONS
the Planning Sessions navigation tab gives
a wide range of information on different
teaching and learning techniques, which can
be applied alongside or independently of the
activities on the website.
The site is principally intended for young
people from 13 to 18 years old, though some
of the activities can be adapted to be used with
younger and older people too. A strong feature
of the site is that the activities do not have to
be used in sequence, which means that they
are great to dip into to create a course, module
or even a one-off session.
The glossary and lists of further reading and
relevant websites in the appendices of Young,
Muslim and Citizen make the site a really useful
reference point for learning more about the
British Muslim identity and the relationships
between Muslims and non-Muslims. Young Muslim & Citizen
The Secretariat of the UK Race and www.youngmuslimcitizens.org.uk
Europe Network (UKREN) has been working
on this project since 2006. UKREN has Review by Angela Nartey and Jessica Mai Sims
increasingly been concerned with individuals
and communities affected by discrimination,
not only on grounds of ethnicity and race,
but also on grounds of religion or belief.
This project came out of a desire to engage
with individuals and communities in ways
that ensure their involvement in mainstream
active citizenship.
Preparations for the pack began with a
roundtable discussion with people working
with young Muslims from across Europe, and
roundtable meetings with practitioners such
as teachers and youth leaders from across
Britain. Discussing themes for the content of
the resource pack, their input was valuable
in developing a set of activities that would
address the themes of Muslim identity and
citizenship in interesting and innovative ways.
After the draft pack was produced, it was
introduced to a number of practitioners in
cities across England and Wales who were
then asked to pilot the pack. Anira Khokhar
from Bristol Muslim Cultural Society said:
“The pack has proved to be very useful with
young people. They have been able to actively
take parts in the workshops, and have been
able to freely express themselves and take part
in debates. The toolkit is a well researched and
well developed way of involving young people
in participating in open dialogue.” Anira is just
one of a number of teachers and youth workers
who have found the pack helpful.
SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361 | BULLETIN | 37
 REVIEWS
Photo: Tate Britain
Chris Ofili
At the Tate Britain, spring 2010
Art review by Elisa Lapenna
38 | BULLETIN | SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361
BOOKS // FILMS //SHOWS // EXHIBITIONS
Much more than elephant dung
This exhibition is a wonderful insight
into the creative mind of one of the most
acclaimed British painters working today.
Born in Manchester, Chris Ofili was raised a
Roman Catholic by parents who emigrated
from Nigeria. His provocative aesthetic style
consists of thematic combinations of art,
craft and African voodoo with references to
contemporary black urban culture, biblical
themes and ancestral worship. Praised by critics
and the public alike, Ofili was the first black
artist to win the coveted Turner Prize in 1998.
Many of Ofili’s early works from the 90s
are an exuberant manifestation of pure colour
and energy. Using a multitude of materials,
such as polyester resin, map pins, paper
collage and his signature clumps of elephant
dung, Ofili displays a unique technical ability
to create images that are as humorous as they
are inventive. In Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy (1997)
the artist takes as his inspiration the seedy
nature of London’s King’s Cross to produce
an image of a penile erection with a clown-
like face that seems to mock the scurrying
crab-like forms made up of black celebrity
male faces propped on top of pornographic
pictures of splayed female legs. It is a self-
mocking image that simultaneously satirises
and celebrates urban black (and in particular,
hip hop) culture. Other paintings such as
the psychedelic Affrodizzia represent an
affiliation with the black community through
reference to pan-African heroes.
In stark contrast to these playful works
stands the deeply emotive No Woman No Cry
(1998). Depicted in the painting is Doreen
Lawrence, mother of Stephen, the south
London teenager who was murdered in a
racist attack that triggered the 1997 inquiry.
An image of maternal grief that transcends
background and race, the piece evokes
empathy on the part of the artist who was
deeply moved by the dignity and strength
shown by its subject in the face of public
scrutiny.
The dynamic tempo of the exhibition,
created by the hyper-charged and ultra-
embellished canvases of the initial rooms,
is drawn almost to a halt by the meditative
space that is The Upper Room. The visitor
enters a darkened interior where 12 paintings
are propped on balls of elephant dung leaning
against two parallel walls. All show the same
image of a monkey holding a chalice, as if in
oblation to the shimmering vision that is the
13th image at the far end of the room. The
room creates a sensory experience akin to the
feeling of entering a sacred space. It is both
beautiful and perplexing due to its strange
amalgamation of Christian symbolism (the
last supper), Hinduism and the occult.
Nearing the end of the exhibition,
Ofili’s most recent work shows a shift in
the artist’s thematic choice and pictorial
style, undoubtedly influenced by a visit,
followed by a permanent move in 2005,
to Trinidad. Colour, glitter and texture are
replaced by towering canvases of raw paint
in graduating, midnight blues. The series,
entitled Blue Rider, is grouped to create a
Mark Rothko-esque chapel of dark, sombre
hues that engulf the viewer into a brooding
state. Images that are difficult to decipher
of a deer strung up in a forest, figures on
horseback and soldiers among foliage speak
of a mysterious melancholic world. Similarly
the last room, where biblical themes, folklore
and nature take centre stage, further illustrates
a brave gear change for an artist with Ofili’s
successful trademark style.
This exhibition highlights Ofili’s innate
culture both as black and British artist. Able to
draw from amazingly disparate sources - from
comic book heroes to Blaxploitation films, he
brings such intensity to the task at hand. This
universality, coupled with technical ability
and a sprinkling of humour, is perhaps key to
understanding his mass appeal. Capitalising
on this, the Tate Britain has come up with an
innovative concept; to invite young, popular
urban acts to perform in the gallery space and
to voice their opinions on Ofili’s artwork.
An impressive line-up includes spoken word
artists, comedians, DJs and grime MCs –UK
chart-topper Tinie Tempah.
There has long been a struggle to address
the common perception, particularly among
young people, of galleries and museums
as exclusive, academic, elite white middle
class environments. And how better to
tackle this deeply ingrained stereotype
than with the work of an artist who himself
breaks down barriers between so-called
‘high art’ and popular culture.
www.runnymedetrust.org
 REVIEWS
No documents; no future?
No Right to Dream
by Alice Bloch, Nando Sigona and Roger Zetter
Book review by Kjartan Páll Sveinsson
Conducting research on undocumented
migrants is notoriously difficult. Due to
the sensitive nature of the subject and
the vulnerability of research participants,
fieldwork and writing up is an ethical
minefield. As a result, the empirical picture
of the lives of undocumented migrants in
Britain is patchy and incomplete. Yet a
clear understanding of the challenges and
achievements of their lives in the UK is
desperately needed. This book is therefore
long overdue.
The authors and researchers show an
extraordinary sensitivity to the people who
gave their testimonies. The rich life histories
and fullness of the ethnography corresponds to
what Clifford Geertz calls ‘thick description’;
the reader gets a real sense of what it means to
be an undocumented migrant in Britain.
Finding an escape route
Precious
Directed by Lee Daniels, Gabourey Sidibe stars
Film review by Annie Padwick
The title character, played by unknown
actress Gabourey Sidibe, is an obese and
illiterate teenager growing up in Harlem in
the 1980s. Physically and verbally abused by
her mother and sexually abused by her father,
by sixteen Precious has been twice pregnant
with her father’s baby.
The situation is grim and the scenes are
harrowing but it is the silence with which
Precious reacts that is particularly shocking.
Instead of futile complaint, she survives the
constant torrent of abuse through escapism,
the camera cleverly cutting from brutal
scenes to Precious imagining herself as a
glamorous actress.
In a severely economically deprived
community, in which survival is dependent on
state benefit and getting a job means working
www.runnymedetrust.org
BOOKS // FILMS //SHOWS // EXHIBITIONS
The report covers many aspects of the
lived realities of young undocumented
migrants, ranging from social life and
community networks to employment issues
and coping strategies. Given the vulnerability
of these individuals – and the discrimination,
exploitation and violation of rights that they
face on a day-to-day basis – it would be easy
for the authors to fall into the trap of focusing
exclusively on predicaments, which No Right
to Dream skilfully avoids doing. The report’s
great strength is that it highlights the agency of
the young migrants while still emphasising the
insecure and perilous positions they often find
themselves in. The interviewees are portrayed Britain, we make the case that recent
as human beings rather than research subjects, developments in immigration policy are
which is something that qualitative research is corralling migrants from poorer countries
not always able to achieve. into low-skilled and low-paid employment.
The over-riding theme of the report is the No Right to Dream shows why this is so
uncertainty of life on the margins of society, dangerous. The poor and marginalised in the
captured well in the report title. The narratives world order become poor and marginalised
are characterised by transience and only a within the British socio-economic hierarchy.
vague notion of a future. In Runnymede’s No Right to Dream is an excellent report
recent report Making a Contribution: New that everyone with an interest in migration
Migrants and Belonging in Multi-ethnic should read.
for ‘some white people’, when a teacher tells
Precious she has a talent for maths her mother
accuses her of thinking she is “too good for the
welfare”. Amid the circles of low aspiration
and poor self-esteem, Precious, who is a
dark-skinned African American, would most
like to be “really skinny, with light skin and
long hair.” Precious is particularly intrigued
by the ethnicity of her kindly social worker,
Miss Weiss, who is convincingly played
by Mariah Carey. Yet Weiss is shown to be
too weak to cope with the complexities of
Precious’s case and when she finally breaks
down Precious tells her, “I like you Miss
Weiss, but you can’t handle me.” film’s watchability and gives it a surprisingly
An alternative school brings light relief and uplifting note. The all-star cast, including
a class of quirky classmates, each with their Mariah Carey, MoNique and Lenny Kravitz,
own individual problems become a support do not take centre stage or distract from the
network for Precious as she learns to read and film’s message. Overall the film communicates
write. In new teacher Ms Rain, Precious finds how, given the right support, even those in
a much-needed role-model: an educated and the most dire and seemingly irrevocable of
successful black woman. circumstances can take charge of their own
Director Lee Daniel’s interweaving of lives, restructuring their futures.
tragedy with comic elements increases the Recommended, but don’t forget the tissues.
SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361 | BULLETIN | 39
Not equal, but better
It is easy to forget, while we continue to battle race inequality in
education, that some great strides have been made. Sinae Hong looks at
progress made since the momentous 1985 Swann Report
T
he first major government report to look at issues affecting the
educational attainment of ethnic minority pupils was the Swann
Report of 1985, entitled Education for All. The report urged a
new approach in which a multicultural curriculum would be
offered to reflect the multiracial nature of British society. Though the
Swann Committee’s recommendations received little support from then
education minister Sir Keith Joseph, the report has since been pivotal in
sparking discussion on multi-ethnic issues. Twenty five years on, huge
progress has been made towards race equality in the education sector,
though some of the report’s recommendations could still be of benefit
to us in looking at ways to build on our good work..
The Swann Report was published during a time of considerable social
unrest among ethnic minority communities in the UK. A three-day long
riot in Brixton, south London, in the early 1980s became notorious as
one of the worst outbreaks of disorder in the UK, with more than 300
injuries reported. The violence in Brixton came as a result of racial
tensions between local residents, a large portion of them from the black
Caribbean community, and police officers. Lord Scarman, who was
appointed to lead an inquiry into the Brixton riots, pointed to racial
disadvantage and discrimination as its main catalyst. Similar clashes
erupted in other inner city areas with high numbers of non-white
residents, including Tottenham, Small Heath and Toxteth.
Swann Report authors adopted the term ‘education for all’, rather than
‘multicultural education’ to avoid focusing explicitly on race or culture.
The intention was rather to emphasise the importance of education
40 | BULLETIN | SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361
for every child, regardless of their ethnicity. Contrary to 1960s and
1970s education policies, where assimilation and integration were the
solution for the educational problem, the Swann Report urged a new
approach in the educational system to respond to ‘the changed and
changing nature of British Society’; i.e. an approach that recognised
that Britain was, by this stage, very much a multiracial and culturally
diverse society.
The need for multiracial understanding
The report argued that education had to combat racism and attack
inherited myths and stereotypes, while multiracial understanding
had to permeate all aspects of a school’s work. Only in this way, the
committee argued, could schools offer anything approaching equality
of opportunity for all pupils.
The report concluded that the underachievement of ethnic minority
students was substantially the result of racial prejudice and discrimination
on the part of society at large. This was particularly the case when looking
at the areas of employment and housing, which have an indirect influence
on children’s attainment at school. However the underachievement of
ethnic minority children was also found to be due, in large measure, to
the prejudice and discrimination bearing on them directly.
There is much for the race equality sector to be proud of; since the
Swann Report was published in 1985, many strides have been made in
www.runnymedetrust.org
providing all children, irrespective of race, colour or ethnic origin, with
a good education. The level of attainment by black and minority ethnic
(BME) students has generally been improving, though black students are
still struggling, with only 66.8 per cent of them achieving five or more
A*- C grades at GCSE level - 3 per cent lower than the UK average.
Legislation to promote race equality
In 2002, the Race Relations Amendment Act 2000 came into force,
making it a legal duty for all public institutions, including schools,
to have policies in place to promote race equality. Under the act, all
state-run schools must have a race equality policy and must act upon
it, taking steps to narrow the gap between the levels of attainment of
different ethnic groups.
With the aim of tackling racism and promoting multiracial
understanding, citizenship was introduced as a school subject by the
government in 2002, involving every student, rather than certain ethnic
groups. One focus was Britain’s diversity, giving students opportunities
to think about what it means to be British and to live in a multicultural
society. Also the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA),
which was established in 1997 to develop and regulate the national
curriculum, assessments in schools and qualifications, deals with many
race, religion and multicultural issues.
In 2006, Ofsted published the race and equality scheme to ensure
that school inspections assess the effectiveness of equality policies
for pupils from different racial and cultural backgrounds. Three years
later Ofsted launched the new school inspection framework, obliging
inspectors to place greater emphasis on the achievement of different
groups of pupils, as well as overall achievement. As Ofsted chair Zenna
Atkins mentions in her interview (pages 28 & 29), closing gaps for
underachieving groups and raising standards for all learners has become
a very important part of the way in which schools are inspected.
In the 25 years since the Swann Report, and for many before, Runnymede
has also been working towards ethnic diversity in the school curriculum.
In 2003, we updated our 1993 publication, Equality Assurance in
School, taking into account changes to education and race legislation.
The new publication, Complementing Teachers: A Practical Guide to
Promoting Race Equality in Schools offers teaching practitioners
workable guidance on the promotion of race equality and cultural
diversity within classrooms.
The Real Histories Directory (RHD), another Runnymede project, is
an online resource aimed specifically at teachers in order to help them
promote a successful multi-ethnic Britain. The website encourages
an educational focus on cultural diversity across the UK. Among a
plethora of information, the directory includes where to find culturally
diverse toys and games, dual language bookshops, and organisations
providing resources on citizenship and human rights.
Meanwhile, Achieving Race Equality in Schools is a professional
development course for teachers provided by Runnymede. Through a
range of exercises, it offers teachers an opportunity to develop their skills
in promoting race equality and cultural diversity in school settings.
Religion and the role of the school
Establishing separate religious schools was not welcomed by the
Swann committee as this approach would fail to tackle many of the
www.runnymedetrust.org
communities’ concerns and might exacerbate the very feelings of
exclusion and separateness. Here, the need for all pupils to share a
common educational experience is emphasised again by the report.
The 2008 Runnymede report, Right to divide? Faith Schools and
Community Cohesion, debated and discussed the role of faith schools
and their impact on community cohesion. It recommended that faith
schools in England must become schools for all children in order to
encourage interaction between pupils from different ethnic and/or faith
backgrounds.
This report sparked a renewed discussion on faith schools among
religious leaders and teaching practitioners as well as in national
newspapers, including the Telegraph, the Guardian, and the Times.
In November 2009, approximately one year after the report was
published, an educational conference on faith schools was organised by
St. George’s House under the title of Faith Schools: Freedom of Choice
or Recipe for Division, focusing on religious and social areas as well
as their impact on staff and pupils. This conference brought together
leading scholars, policy makers and journalists, both supporters and
critics, evaluating recent research and arguments both for and against
faith schools’ contribution to community cohesion.
Teacher education and the employment of ethnic minority teachers
Teachers should be trained to teach in a multicultural context, whether
teaching in a multiracial school or not, advised the committee. The under-
representation of ethnic minority teachers was also a great concern for
the committee, as there was no statistical data on the ethnic origins of
teachers and student teachers at the time the report was published.
According to the most recent statistics by the government’s education
department, the proportion of BME teachers in 2008/09 was 6 per cent,
compared to 2.7 per cent in 2004.
However, twenty five years on there remain areas where improvements
could be made. A gap still exists for pupils from different racial groups
and the numbers of minority ethnic teachers and senior managers in
education is disproportionately low. For all that, however, we in the
race equality sector must applaud our progress over the past couple of
decades; there is no doubt that UK schools are fairer places to be that
they were for previous generations.
Runnymede is in a unique position to observe the strides made towards
race equality in education. We have been here, working towards the same
goal, indeed producing the same quarterly bulletin, for more than 40 years.
The Runnymede Bulletin that
covered the Swann Report in 1985
SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361 | BULLETIN | 41
 RUNNYMEDE DIARY
Events//Notices//Publications
JANUARY 2010
WESTMINSTER BLOG
The Runnymede Westminster
Monitor, launched at the beginning
of the year, is updated more
than twice a week with all the
latest race equality-related news
from parliament and the wider
political arena. Read the latest post
and add your comments here:
http://bit.ly/westminsterblog
FEBRUARY 2010
A MATTER OF ASSETS
Runnymede’s Why Do Assets
Matter? report details the extent
to which black and minority ethnic
(BME) people hold fewer assets than
the wider population and why this
is important. Omar Khan presents
his reseach in this publication and
suggests ways to increase asset-
holding for all. Download the report
here: http://bit.ly/runnymedeassets
MARCH 2010
TAKE MY ADVICE
In his report Seeking Sound Advice
Phil Mawhinney highlights the
possiblity that many black and
minority (BME) ethnic people will
miss out on a new government
initiative. The report makes
recommendations to ensure that
BME people are able to make full
use of the government’s Money
Guidance service, a scheme
that provides free and impartial
advice on money issues and is
currently being extended across
the country. Read the report at:
http://bit.ly/runnymedeadvice
NEW MIGRANTS
Drawing on global examples
of best practice, this report -
What Works With Integrating
New Migrants? - explores what
42 | BULLETIN | SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361
meaningful integration might look
like. Report author Dr Zubaida
Haque reviews international labour
market, political, social and cultural
integration strategies; and discusses
ways of benchmarking successful
integration. Watch a video of
her presenting the report here:
http://bit.ly/newmigrants
APRIL 2010
MIXED-RACE FAMILIES
Lone Mothers of Mixed Racial and
Ethnic Children: Then and Now
pulls together data from interviews
with single mothers of mixed-race
children. Some of the anecdotal
evidence is from those who
brought up their children decades
ago, and this is compared with
the experiences of women doing
the same today. In this research
report Dr Chamion Caballero and
Prof Rosalind Edwards, of the
London South Bank University,
explore the specific racisms that
this group of women and children
face. Download the report here:
http://bit.ly/lonemothers
MAY 2010
ETHNIC PROFILING
Following the 10th anniversary of
the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, some
have declared institutional racism a
thing of the past. Yet black people
are still eight times more likely to be
stopped and searched by the police
than white people. Runnymede
invited a range of experts in
the field - including academics,
campaigners, the police and young
people - to examine ethnic profiling
in the UK. The report, entitled
Ethnic Profiling: The Use of ‘Race’ in
UK Law Enforcement, presents the
issue from different perspectives,
including that of young people
on the receiving end of stop and
search tactics. Read the report
here: http://bit.ly/ethnicprofiling
We also ran an online debate on
ethnic profiling, including comment
from Lord Carlile and new ministers
Chris Huhne and Damian Green.
Read what they had to say here:
http://bit.ly/eprofilingdebate
FILL IN OUR SURVEY
If you are a middle manager,
senior manager or executive, we
would be really grateful if you
could give us ten minutes of your
time. Runnymede is conducting
research on career progression
and workplace culture and we are
looking for survey respondents
from all ethnic backgrounds,
working across all sectors. Help
us to work towards a level playing
field for all, regardless of race, by
filling out the survey and sending
it to your friends and colleagues.
Fill in the survey online here:
http://bit.ly/runnymedesurvey
JUNE 2010
CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
Award-winning political theorist
and Huffington Post blogger
Benjamin Barber will be among
the speakers at this international
conference, along with broadcaster
and columnist Yasmin Alibhai-
Brown. The event, the full title for
which is Civic, Political and Cultural
Engagement Among Migrants,
Minorities and National Populations:
Multidisciplinary Perspectives, will
be jointly hosted by Runnymede
and CRONEM. Find out more
and register for the event here:
http://bit.ly/livingtogether
PENSIONS AND POVERTY
A report on the financial position of
self-employed black and minority
ethnic (BME) people is in the
pipeline. Author Phil Mawhinney
explores the link between self-
employment and pension poverty
and how this may affect certain BME
groups, with a particular focus on
the Bangladeshi community.
INTERNS WANTED
We are looking for several bright
sparks to volunteer with the
Runnymede team over the summer.
If you have a passion for race
equality and the experience and
skills to support our researchers
or communications team, please
get in touch. The internships can
be part-time or full-time and are
unpaid, though travel expenses will
be reimbursed. The closing date
for applications is Tuesday 1 June
2010. For more information on the
internships and how to apply go to:
http://bit.ly/runnymedeinterns
JULY 2010
PUPIL EXCLUSIONS
Following the success of our
e-conference on the link between
ethnic background and pupil
exclusions, Debbie Weekes-Bernard,
head of our education team, is
producing a report on the same
topic. Young black Caribbean boys,
in particular, are excluded from
school at a much higher rate than
their peers. Catch a preview of some
articles that will be in the report at:
http://bit.ly/pupilexclusions
RACIST VIOLENCE
Runnymede is publishing a report
on racist violence in the European
Union. This follows a roundtable
discussion that brought together
exemplary projects from Belgium,
France, Hungary, Italy, the
Netherlands, Poland and Slovakia.
The aim of the project is to work
with young people to tackle the
underlying causes of racism, with
the aim of preventing it. The report
draw together the commonalities
and lessons learnt from the
different practices.
www.runnymedetrust.org
DIRECTOR’S
COLUMN
Runnymede director Rob Berkeley
on the new government, race
equality and education policy
Let’s not waste a crisis
They say a week is a long time in politics
and the week after the 6 May 2010 election
was longer than most. It was always going
to be an election that was hard to call – the
mixture of a government seeking a fourth
term with an opposition that was yet to ‘seal
the deal’ with the British public, in the context
of war on two fronts, and a global economic
downturn presaging massive public spending
cuts. So hard to call in fact that no one saw
the remarkable result coming. We have a
Conservative Liberal Democrat coalition
government for the first time in modern
politics and over the coming weeks we will
see the hasty re-drafting of government policy
to accommodate this previously unimaginable
broad church union that has set out to govern
‘in the national interest’.
So what are the prospects for race equality
in this context? The initial signs are not great if
you consider that the cabinet now only has one
member from a minority ethnic background
(Baroness Warsi, minister without portfolio),
indeed she is the only minority ethnic minister
at any level in this government. While
the election saw the number of black and
minority ethnic MPs nearly double, it seems it
will be some time before they are in a position
to make an impact as government ministers.
Black and minority ethnic parliamentarians
are not the only ones who can drive progress
on race equality, but the question remains
whether a government seeking to govern in
the national interest in such difficult times
can be drawn from such a narrow section of
society?
Education policy
In this new-look edition of the Runnymede
Bulletin we have focused on education.
It seems that this policy area will be a
particularly fraught one for our new coalition
government. Looking at the Lib Dem and
www.runnymedetrust.org
This is a fertile period for progress
to be made in reducing racial
inequality in education, creating
solutions to the challenges
Conservative election manifestos reveals very
different visions of education policy. The
parties differ markedly on academies, the role
of local education authorities, faith schools,
school-leaving qualifications, curriculum,
assessment, universal early years provision,
and initial teacher education. Surprisingly,
Labour and Conservative policies on education
were closer than the Conservative and Lib
Dem policies are. The election outcome would
therefore suggest that the vision of the new
government will take some time to develop.
Depending on the personalities involved, this
could be achieved through creative tensions
that deliver a series of compromises, or a
series of public rows and confusion over the
direction of policy. Whether compromise or
row, Runnymede will seek to ensure that the
race equality impact of the decisions made is
taken into account.
What will be the impact of an expansion of
faith-based providers in the education system
for race relations? How will accountability
on race equality be maintained and improved
if inspection regimes go for an even lighter
touch? How will new policies on curriculum,
assessment and qualifications address the
attainment and employment gaps suffered by
certain minority ethnic groups? What early
years provision can give young people the
best start in life and reduce inequalities further
up in the school system? How can we ensure
leadership at all levels in the education system
works to tackle race inequality? We will be
seeking to work with partners over the coming
months to design a programme of research
and action that will enable race equality to be
central to the concerns of education policy in
an era of potential cuts, upheaval, and change.
Upheaval is not always a negative
condition, however. Efforts in education
policy have so far failed to solve the
problems of race inequality identified over
half a century ago. New studies have re-
ignited the debate about racial stereotyping
in the classroom. As you will see from
our Key Facts (page 31), exclusions from
school still impact disproportionately on
African-Caribbean boys; only 1 percent of
headteachers are from black and minority
ethnic backgrounds, compared to 22 per cent
of the school population; and despite greater
levels of participation in higher education,
black and minority ethnic graduates are three
times more likely to be underemployed.
Rahm Emanuel, chief of staff at the
White House, is quoted as saying: “A crisis
is a terrible thing to waste”. This is a fertile
period for progress to be made in reducing
racial inequality in education, moving from
describing the problem to creating solutions
to the challenges. There is a prospect of this
moment of reform leading to better outcomes.
It is likely to take all of our reserves of
creativity, effective scrutiny of what happens
in our educational institutions, and the creation
of new solidarities, to deliver progressive
change. A week may be a long time in
politics but regardless of the machinations in
Westminster, the struggle continues.
SPRING 2010 / ISSUE 361 | BULLETIN | 43
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