Schools - addressing racism and racist incidents: guidance

Identifying racism

The first step in responding appropriately to racism is to recognise and acknowledge an incident that involves race as a factor.

This requires that all school staff and the wider school community have a sound understanding of racism and anti-racism, with the language to name it accurately. This is referred to as ‘racial literacy’. It is recognised that ongoing work and support is needed to develop the racial literacy of the whole school community and to support them to engage confidently in racial dialogue. There is support available for school staff, such as the Building Racial Literacy professional learning programme. The forthcoming Whole School Approach will provide further resources and guidance on professional learning and development.

What do we mean by racism?

The Equality and Human Rights Commission Guidance for Schools on the Equality Act confirms that “race means a person’s:

• colour, and/or
• nationality (including citizenship), and/or
• ethnic or national origin,

and a racial group is composed of people who have or share a colour, nationality or ethnic or national origins. A person has the protected characteristic of race if they belong to a particular racial group, such as ‘British people’. Racial groups can comprise two or more distinct racial groups, such as ‘British Asians’.”

The Equality Act 2010 places specific requirements upon education authorities, managers of grant-aided schools and proprietors of independent schools to prevent unlawful discrimination in their schools based on protected characteristics. Please see Annex A for more information.

Some Traveller groups, such as Scottish Gypsy/Travellers, are afforded legal protection from discrimination on grounds of race under the Equality Act 2010.

What is a racist incident?

A racist incident is any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person.

The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry 1999, Recommendation 12

Racism occurs when someone experiences discrimination, victimisation, harassment or prejudice because of their actual or perceived race or ethnicity.

Racism can manifest in a number of different ways, including interpersonal racism, institutional racism, structural racism or racial microaggressions, and may be overt (deliberate and intentional) or covert (subtle acts that undermine or discriminate). Please see Annex C for more detailed explanation of these terms.

Examples of racist behaviour can include the following:

• Isolating, excluding or marginalising someone because of the colour of their skin, nationality or ethnicity (ethnicity includes culture, religion and language)
• Verbal or non-verbal abuse, e.g. threats, name-calling, gestures, racist jokes
• Using racist language or behaviour (including non-verbal communication such as gestures, looks, or written communication)
• Racial microaggressions such as consistently mispronouncing someone’s name or using an anglicised version of it because it is ‘easier’ to pronounce, making assumptions about someone’s heritage based on their perceived ethnicity, or making statements about someone of a particular ethnicity based on cultural stereotypes
• Spreading rumours and gossip which may either draw on stereotypes about ethnicity or on their lack of conformity to these stereotypes
• Taking things from someone or damaging property, motivated by prejudice against their ethnicity or perceived ethnicity
• Mimicking someone’s accent, dialect or speech pattern
• Physical assault, e.g. hitting, tripping, pushing, kicking
• Sexual harassment and abuse on racial grounds^[1]
• Racist text or images such as posters, notices or graffiti
• Incitement of others to behave in a racist manner
• Offensive behaviour such as wearing racist symbols
• Refusal to co-operate with other pupils because of their ethnicity

Many of these behaviours can also be carried out online using social media and messaging platforms.

It should be recognised that people’s experiences and identities are shaped by several factors at once, including race, sexuality, gender identity, age, class, disability and faith. This is called intersectionality. Some racist experiences or behaviours may be intersectional, eg both misogynistic and racist.

The impact of racism on children and young people

Children and young people will respond to situations in different ways. It is important that school staff are alert to changes in behaviour, which may indicate a pupil is experiencing racism at school. Racism can have both long and short-term effects on the wellbeing of those affected. The distress felt by those who experience racism is sometimes known as racial trauma.

Children and young people may fear receiving a negative response from staff or other pupils in school if they raise a concern about racism. This is known as victimisation, and can act as a significant deterrent against reporting incidents.

It is important that pupils who are affected by racism are appropriately supported and the distress that they feel is acknowledged (see Responding to a child or young person experiencing racism).

External events can contribute to racial trauma experienced by children and young people, and may contribute to the likelihood of racist events occurring in school. This could include past and current cases of racism locally, nationally and internationally. This may occur through a variety of ways such as news and current affairs, social media, or curriculum resources and activities. Schools should be mindful of these influences and the need to be more vigilant about racist incidents at certain times.

Any child or young person can be affected in some way by racism in school, whether they are adversely racialised or not. Recurring or unaddressed racist incidents create the perception that prejudice, disrespect, and racism will not be dealt with. This may increase the risk of bullying for all students and lead to a reluctance to report incidents.

How to distinguish racism from bullying

The approaches to supporting children and young people experiencing or displaying racism and those experiencing or displaying bullying behaviour can be similar. While there may be overlaps in approaches, staff should be mindful to not conflate these behaviours in their response. Misidentification of prejudice-based behaviours, or a failure to acknowledge their unique harms, can cause further distress and lead to a lack of trust that future incidents will be dealt with effectively.

Racism differs from bullying in that it reflects wider societal and structural patterns of inequality (please see Annex C for further explanation of these terms). There are some key questions below which staff can reflect on to consider if an incident is racist. Staff should always raise concerns even if they are unsure if an incident is racist, and even if the incident did not affect an individual or target a specific person.

Where children or young people were directly affected by an incident, staff should use supportive dialogue to understand the perspectives of adversely racialised children and young people who experienced the racist incident as they may be able to identify wider context, subtle behaviours and language used with which staff are unfamiliar (e.g. slurs and gestures in different languages; racial microaggressions that are culturally-specific).

Some behaviours may result in a child experiencing racism and being bullied. Respect for all, the national guidance on anti-bullying, sets out advice on consideration incidents of bullying and their recording.

Questions to help determine if an incident is racist

Does anyone experiencing or witnessing the incident feel it was racist, regardless of whether it was the intention?

Is there a power imbalance between the parties involved due to, or perpetuated by one party’s colour, nationality or ethnic or national origin?

Does the person experiencing the incident feel they have been treated differently based on colour, nationality or ethnic or national origin?

Could the behaviour be considered a racial microaggression?

Does the behaviour reflect stereotypes based on colour, nationality or ethnic or national origin?

Does the behaviour include use of racial slurs or racist language?