Common Identity and Interest, But Different Race: Racism in Education
Education is the process of facilitating learning, or the acquisition of knowledge, skills, values, morals, beliefs, and habits. Proper and good education is very important for all of us. It facilitates quality learning all through the life among people of any age group, cast, creed, religion, and region. Though most students have an identity and an interest in common, in this essay we will analyse examples of the issue of “race” and how race in particular operates within educational spaces. Racism can be defined as the belief that different races possess distinct characteristics, abilities, or qualities, especially to distinguish them as inferior or superior to one another. In this essay we are talking about racism in education system which is harmful and destructing out education level. The key points of essays are racism in our education system, act of racism, what is racism, where did it start and inequalities of education system. Before going to our main body of essay we will briefly discuss what is race, its history, how it become social disrupt and it is affects worldwide especially in British education system.
Race is usually defined as categories defined by humans based on physical appearances usually skin color. “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background or his religion. People learn to hate from young age, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite”. The act of racism and inequality within the school system can be dated back to 1896 with the Plessy V. Ferguson case, which resulted in “separate facilities for education” and an “equal education”. As discussions of race issues often recur, in both scientific and lay literature, stir considerable polemics, and have political, societal and human implications, we found it of both scientific and general interest to identify and dissect the following partly overlapping key contentions of the NG race issue magazine:
- Samuel Morton’s studies of brain size is reprehensible racism,
- Race does not relate to geographic location,
- Races do not exist as we are all equals and Africans,
- Admixture and displacement erase race differences as soon as they appear,
- Race is only skin color deep.
We conclude that important research on existing population differences is hurt when widely respected institutions such as NG mobilize their full authority in a massively circulated attempt to betray its scientific and public readership by systematically misrepresenting historical sources and scientific positions, shaming past scientists, and by selectively suppressing unwanted or unacceptable results–acts included as examples of academic fraud by the National Academy of Sciences. When analyzed within syllogistic formalism, each of the claims is found theoretically and empirically unsustainable, as Morton’s continuously evolving race position is misrepresented, race relates significantly to geography, we are far from equals, races have not been erased, and race, whether self-reported or defined by ancestry, lineage, ecotype, species, or genes, is much more than skin color deep. During the 17th century, European Enlightenment philosophers based their ideas on the importance of secular reasoning, rationality, and scientific study, as opposed to faith-based religious understandings of the world.
These new beliefs, which evolved starting in the late 17th century and flourished through the late 18th century, argued that there were natural laws that governed the world and human beings. The modern-day use of the term “race” (identifying groups of people by physical traits, appearance, or characteristics) is a human invention. Over centuries, the false notion that “white” people were inherently smarter, more capable, and more human than nonwhite people became accepted worldwide. We can point to the use of the term slave in the Hebrew Bible, ancient societies such as Greece, Rome, and Egypt, as well as during other eras of time. Activist Paul Kivel says, “Whiteness is a constantly shifting boundary separating those who are entitled to have certain privileges from those whose exploitation and vulnerability to violence is justified by their not being white.” European colonists’ use of the word “white” to refer to people who looked like themselves, grew to become entangled with the word “race” and “slave” in the American colonies in the mid-1660s.
The interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage. As a structural and relational theory and a method or analytic tool, intersectionality is poised to reveal both the intersections of institutions, systems, and categorizations that produce oppression and the intersections of identity categorizations within individuals and groups. Intersectionality is the study of how various forms of oppression, discrimination, domination and other social processes intersect and influence each other.
Such paradoxes make it very difficult to synthesize a common actionable cause based on subjective testimony alone. Other narratives, especially those based on multiple intersections of oppression, are more complex. Davis asserts that intersectionality is ambiguous and open-ended, and that its 'lack of clear-cut definition or even specific parameters has enabled it to be drawn upon in nearly any context of inquiry'.
Conventional academics are likely to favor writings by authors or publications with prior established credibility instead of looking at the quality of each piece individually, contributing to negative stereotypes associated with both feminism and intersectionality by having weaker arguments in defense of feminism and intersectionality become prominent based on renown. She asserts that the common practice of using intersectionality to attack other ways of feminist thinking and the tendency of academics to critique intersectionality instead of using intersectionality as a tool to critique other conventional ways of thinking has been a misuse of the ideas it stands for.
She goes on to argue that this allows critics of intersectionality to attack these weaker arguments, '[reducing] intersectionality's radical critique of power to desires for identity and inclusion and offer a deradicalized intersectionality as an asset for dominant disciplinary discourses'. They also say that intersectional philosophy encourages a focus on the issues inside the group instead of on society at large, and that intersectionality is 'a call to complexity and to abandon oversimplification... this has the parallel effect of emphasizing 'internal differences' over hegemonic structures'.
Some people seem to think racism in schools died out a long time ago. This statement couldn’t be more wrong. Racism in the learning environment is more evident than ever, and it needs to be stopped because it affects the way student lean and their success. There are many stories and incidents where discrimination has occurred and the effects they have had on students. Take the art teacher from Chicago for example.
During class one day, some students spilled paint on the teacher’s jacket. She became very angry and said’ ’all Mexicans are criminals, and you were born to scrub floors’’. The teacher was rightfully fired from their job. It was decided by Board of education in Chicago that all the teachers will need to undergo’ ’sensitivity training’’. They do not need to learn to how to be sensitive, what teachers need to know is to accept everyone as equal. There can be no discrimination in schools because is disrupts the learning environment.
There are many stories and accounts of racism in schools against African Americans. They range from little things such as telling the black boy to throw out his gum, but le the white boy chews it, to moving all the black kids to the back of the class. There is one story about a white male teacher who called a black student “nigger”. The boy was walking into the English class one day, and the teacher told him to “sit down nigga!” The teacher claims that because he hears the students calling each other that casually in the hallways all the time, it gives a right to use the word.
He says he used the term “nigga” instead of “nigger” because they are two completely different words and he would never use “nigger” against someone. Consequently, the teacher put onto their students causes low expectation from black kids. Because they had so many negative experiences in school, they lack the motivation and confidence to do well. It was found in a review of research about teacher expectations that teacher holds more negative attitudes about black student’s ability, language, behavior and potential, than they do of white students.
There are reports of black students scoring lower in reading assessments than white students. This could be the cause of black students not trying because they are not confident in themselves. It was also found that black kids receive more severe punishments than white kids for the same offense, and they are more likely to be suspended from schools. There are also accounts of minority parents feeling that they have had less positive experience while visiting their kids’ schools than white parents. There are reports from the minority parents about the discipline problems. Black students do not expect to succeed in the educational world because how can one enjoy it when their whole lives they have been identified as unworthy and incapable. Kids need to be taught about racism and how to avoid discrimination, so they do not develop any bias thought about people as they grow up. Some schools are even trying to make racism and cultural diversity part of their curriculum. There is a lot of ignorance surrounding African Americans, Asians, and students of other nationalities and kids need to learn and accept all people.
Introducing students to the different cultures that are out there can help them learn better and perform better in school. They would not worry about students getting hurt and would all have the same opportunities. Students would not be concerned with disappointing teachers or receiving punishments that are not appropriate. There are countless accounts of racism occurring in schools all around the country and the world against students and against teachers. Alison Moore, a black teacher in London, was attacked and knocked unconscious by three white students while leaving her school last year. There is always going to prejudice people present in schools, but there are ways to work around it to help benefit the education of the students. Racism deeply affects the way students learn and how they will see themselves for the rest of their lives. A student’s teacher is one of the most important adult figures in one’s life, and if there are problems in that relationship then there will be problems forever, and no child needs that in their life.
From the racisms that have surfaced in popular and political discourses on Brexit, to the racisms manifest in the government’s ‘hostile environment’ policy and the racially uneven impact of the coronavirus pandemic, it should be increasingly difficult to deny that racism is an enduring and fundamental problem for our times. One need not look far to find stories that show how these wider racisms permeate our schools. Shukri had been severely bullied at school, and there are concerns that the school failed to respond adequately despite being made aware of the issues.
Evidence heard at an inquest into Shukri’s death suggests that the family were right to doubt the narratives of the school and the police. Two decades on from the Macpherson report, and almost half a century on from Bernard Coard’s report, evidence suggests that racism still plagues our society and our schools. Bringing us into the contemporary moment, this report explores the nature of race and racism in contemporary secondary schools. It draws upon data from interviews with 24 secondary school teachers, from across Greater Manchester, in order to show that issues of race and racism continue to be a defining feature of our schooling system. Situating interviewee accounts alongside wider research, the report highlights a number of key areas of concern. While there are no easy solutions for ssues that are institutional and endemic, the report highlights a number of ways in which schools might be improved, if not transformed. Much of the academic, policy and lay discussion around racism in schools is limited to a focus on racial disparities in educational attainment and, secondarily, to exclusions.
Teacher workforce is still overwhelmingly white, and there is a need to increase the proportion of teachers from black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds. But while this is an important step, it is incomplete without a commitment to increasing the racial literacy of all teachers. Racial literacy therefore needs to be placed at the centre of teachers’ role and teacher training. It is important that all teachers take responsibility for teaching in ways that promote anti-racism. Curricula, School curricula too often fail to reflect the diversity of contemporary society, and the National Curriculum does not mandate for engagement with the colonial legacies – or racist underpinnings – of contemporary Britain. Accordingly, curricula need overhauling to increase acial diversity, and to centre anti-racism. Any transformation of the curriculum will require wider changes in examinations and school resources, and an increase in the racial literacy of teachers. Police in schools ,despite the political impetus to place more police in schools, as this report shows, teachers have legitimate and urgent concerns that should be heeded.
David Gilborn found that while vast majority of teachers tried to treat all students fairly, they tended to see African-Caribbean children as a threat when no threat was intended and reacted accordingly with measures of control. Despite the fact that teachers rejected racism their ethnocentric perceptions meant that their actions were racist in consequence. African-Caribbean children experienced more conflict in relationships with pupils, were more subjected to the schools detention system and were denied any legitimate voice of complaint.
“Institutional racism” can be defined as the racial attitudes found in a ethnic group’s traditions, beliefs, opinions, and myths that are firmly ingrained in the very fiber of the ethnic group’s cultural paradigm, where such traditions, beliefs, opinions, and myths have been practiced and sustained for so long, that they are accepted as common facts, understood to be normal behavioural practices whereas, such practices in effect marginalize, and demonize the human worth of another ethnic group. Institutional racism is distinguished from the explicit attitudes or racial bias of individuals by the existence of systematic policies or laws and practices that provide differential access to goods, services and opportunities of society by race. Institutional racism results in data showing racial gaps across every system. For children and families it affects where they live, the quality of the education they receive, their income, types of food they have access to, their exposure to pollutants, whether they have access to clean air, clean water or adequate medical treatment, and the types of interactions they have with the criminal justice system. . Institutional racism has been practiced in American culture for so long by American Europeans and even American Africans that the foundations that keep racism socially perpetuated are now today expressed in common social traditions following socially accepted occurrences, and practiced as normal social behavior in the educational, governmental, political, and even religious arenas.
Overall, while the majority of students share a common identity and interests, rhere is still the issue of 'race' that operates within educational spaces. To improve education system of schools, there is a lot that needs to be done. While the recommendations that follow are not exhaustive, they would represent a significant step in the right direction. For these changes to be successful, however, they will need to occur alongside some fundamental changes pertaining to the workload of teachers, and to the metrics culture of UK education. Teachers in this study explained how educational cuts and heavy workloads were causing great harm to education in schools. This harm, it was argued, too often saw the sidelining of issues related to social justice generally, and race and racism specifically. Therefore, should be situated alongside a call to increase teacher numbers, reduce teacher workloads and revers cuts in education. Such changes would provide the conditions in which we can seriously call for significant anti-racist change in education. In order to be effective, any anti-racist commitment to hange in school must be multifaceted and must recognise the interconnections between teachers, their curriculum, the presence of police and school policies.
