Notes on:
Carrington, B. and Short, G (1989)
'Race' and the Primary School.
NFER. Windsor: Nelson.
Dave Harris
[Obviously a very early survey of the issues here.
Still seems necessary though]
The difficulties faced by teachers and relating to
this issue leads to a policy review, ending with
the Swann Report. This review shows the need
for considering the development of children's
political consciousness and the need to tackle
issues, even if they prove to be
controversial. It set its face against
indoctrination (xi). Carrington and Short offer
criticisms of the methodology of existing studies,
and pursued their own ethnographic study of 161
children in all - white schools. Age appears
as an important variable, together with class and
locality. The wider implications included
the need to democratization in teaching and
learning and to engage in collaborative group
work. Future research needs to include
bilingualism, racism and schools, and any possible
conflicts with other forms of equal opportunity,
as in sexism. The team were aware of the
current policies focus on achievement rather than
egalitarianism, and noticed the spread of this
emphasis to primary schools.
Chapter one
Policies were reviewed, ranging from attempts to
promote assimilation, to multiculturalism, and
then to anti racism, and the emergence of the New
Right and a number of moral panics and the
media. In 1989, there was a convergence
between multiculturalism and anti racism.
Stages of policy development include:
- Laissez faire,
Ranging from world war 2 to 1963; [and back to
laissez faire with EU migrants in the 2000s]
- Assimilation, where
cultural barriers were to be suppressed,
compensatory education developed, and even
bussing policies—bussing was supposed to be
ended in 1971, but it actually continued until
1976 [cf modern 'dispersal' policies for
asylum seekers] ;
- Integration, involving a
notion of unity through diversity.
Little practical help was offered, and
emphasis was placed on self concept, black
studies, the cultural backgrounds of the kids
(including interventions to combat 'cultural
deprivation'). Unfortunately, this also
helped the development of stereotypes.
(6). There were pressures towards
developing policies of racial equality of
opportunity, contrasted with the generic
notions of disadvantage, at least until the
Rampton Report 1979;
- Cultural pluralism,
developed by the Inner London Education
Authority (ILEA) specifically, and then, after
the riots of the 1980s, spreading to a general
multiculturalism, important for Rampton, and
aimed at combating curricula ethnocentrism
(8). This is hard to implement, however,
and lacking clear essential guidance, tended
to lead to 'bolt- ons'. The Schools
Council led on this, and there was some
pressure for the more central CATE to develop
guidance (there was a national program
developed in 1982). The pressure led to
Swann, which developed a major emphasis in
favour of pluralism, against stereotyping and
racism;
- Anti racism developed
after criticisms of the multicultural
approach, including some voiced by Stone, as
too inexplicit and apologetic.
There are still differences between the advocates
of multiculturalism and anti racism, despite the
attempts to combine them together to some extent
in Swann. For example, multi cultural
emphases still stress individuals rather than
institutions or societies, and is really about
consciousness rather than life- chances or the
impact of the hidden curriculum. The
recognition of 'structured racism' began to appear
in the 'new multiculturalism', but there were
still criticisms of multiculturalism, including an
overemphasis on the effects of culture awareness
and reason rather than prejudice (13).
[Troyna is cited especially as a source of these
criticisms]. For immigrants, there was
clearly a difference between cultural traditions
and their actual lives in Britain. There is
a need for tolerance rather than being
patronizing, or focusing on the newcomers as
exotic, for example as particularly religious [
still around for Muslims] . Instead, an
adequate knowledge of cultures was required.
There was also a recognition of the structural
effects of class and other backgrounds, and these
affected racists too [a survey by Husband on
support for the National Front is cited
here—apparently included in Cohen and Young].
It's possible to argue that racism is
misunderstood, even in Swann. Political
stances are not the same as prejudice or
attitudes, although the latter are still the focus
in Swann. The problem is still seen in terms
of adjusting to outsiders, and the Report is
ambiguous in terms of the sources of racism.
The preferred definition here is that 'racism
equals power plus prejudice' (16), a perspective
found in race awareness training (RAT) approaches,
but this is also too simple, because it assumes
that all white people are powerful, that
colonialism is ultimately to blame, and there is
no resistance to this form of racism. The
approach is over structured, and apart from
anything else, this makes it easy to criticize
from the right, who can argue that the issue is
composite, general and diffuse. An approach
developed by Carter and Williams [inTroyna, B
(1987) Racial Inequality in Education.
London: Tavistock] is more promising—certain
characteristics are attached to, reduced to 'race'
through a process of articulation, and once this
is accomplished, the result seen
unalterable. [other people, like Cashmore
and van Djik are good at showing how this
articulation is done in common sense and in the
media. See also St Louis
on how this works in sport]. The approach is
particularly critical of simple categories, such
as 'West Indian'and argues for breaking down these
categories in terms of age, gender, and
class. Again, though, we end with general
exhortations rather than any practical or
political recommendations.
We often find multiculturalism and anti racism
combined in practice, for example in Lynch,
J. (1987) Prejudice Reduction and The
Schools. The idea is that teachers
morally empower children to tackle racism, through
a democratic school ethos, suitable strategies to
manage pupils, and the use of director teaching to
correct misinformation. Schools need to
develop organizational strategies to promote equal
opportunity, and to combat any hidden values as
well as explicit prejudice. Anti racist
elements include developing political and moral
autonomy and a general open mindedness. An
entire democratic environment is required in
schools, simply as a matter of good
education. [I would say some of this informs
current policies about the teaching of
citizenship] This should begin in primary schools.
Chapter two
There is a need for a wider programme of political
education, including in primary schools. An
alliance between Piaget and the notion of
childhood innocence has led to avoidance and
seeing the topic as taboo. There are obvious
anxieties about bias, and the media in particular
is likely to highlight any examples of it
(26). ILEA produced a report on bias in
1986, taking on the common perception of teachers
as subversive, and found little evidence for
this. The National Curriculum was clearly
intended to minimize the danger. The real
intention was to produce pupils as informed
sceptics rather than to expose them to leftwing
indoctrination. There was a movement against
Piagetian psychology as well, especially the bits
about the 'natural' stages of growth of moral
understanding: there was some evidence that racial
and gender classifications were established in
very young pupils.
In France, early programmes were being developed,
including reading schemes, some designed to
counter television programmes (34), and there is a
recent study of reading schemes in Carrington and
Troyna (1988) Children and Controversial Issues.
Basingstoke: Falmer. The media generally are
condemned as offering 'parochial, arbitrary, and
paternalistic agencies of socialization' (34)
[families are included here as well], and Vygotsky
is preferred as arguing that there was a positive
role for schools and advancing cognitive
development (35) [decades of clichés about
scaffolding and zones of proximity were to
ensue].
Teaching strategies include turning teachers into
neutral chair persons as in the [schools council]
Humanities Curriculum Project— but this was
criticized as ineffective and doctrinaire [the
teacher was often the only neutral one, for
example, and the whole thing was suffused with
liberal notions of the equal right to speak, which
posed particular problems if some, or perhaps all,
of the kids were racists!]. Racism should be
unequivocally condemned together with other forms
of 'anti democratic sentiments' (37).
There should be a holistic approach rather than
isolating particular problems like racism,
connecting racism with unemployment, class and
gender, rather than developing specific 'packs' on
'race'. Methods should be holistic too and
embrace all the approaches, including anti racism
[RAT was seen as particularly aggressive and
ineffective, however]. Racism might be mixed
in with, or perhaps even start with anti-semitism,
as a useful technique to guard against the simple
formulations in the field, including some in anti
racism [a chance is missed here to pursue what is
actually meant by 'race'].
Chapter three
A number of pieces of research on children and
race are explored. Experimental designs are
preferred, but not laboratory type studies
involving ranking tests: these run the risk of
testing for knowledge of cultural norms rather
than personal beliefs. Racism is a fixed
trait, but it also has elements specific to
situations, and is often weakly connected to
behaviour (44). One strategy involves
testing knowledge of stereotypes, but this one
runs the familiar problems and dangers of
reinforcing stereotypes. A particular
problem is that preferring one's own group does
not necessarily imply the rejection of or
hostility towards out-groups (15), and this
methodological issue also affect studies based on
friendship group choices. The better
procedure involves a rating of preferences towards
groups. The choice is usually context bound
as well, however.
Some other studies, especially the early ones,
showed black kids were denying themselves, and
there are [highly limited] studies in America as
showing that black kids identify themselves with
white dolls. Criticisms here focus on the
subtleties of 'blackness' and some of the
neglected ambiguities revealed in the tests—for
example some white kids identified with the
'mulatto' doll. These tests often measure
knowledge of norms rather than personal identity
again [which reminds me very much of Rancière's
criticisms of Bourdieu's empirical methods on
class and tastes]. Above all, we need to
know more about the reasons for findings such as
preferences for one's own race or
misidentification. At least the tests to
show that there is an early onset of awareness of
race, and possible racism, especially when
children are unsupervised (57).
Chapter four
Carrington and Short have carried out their own
research, involving 161 interviews in two
all-white schools. The technique was to get
the kids to talk about pictures telling stories
about race, gender and class. One example
was to ask for an explanation for the rejection of
black boys in the pictures. Age seemed to be
important in response. There were varied
responses according to some implicit principles of
justice. The kids were asked for
preferences, and were allowed a number of
preferences, which was popular with the majority
of them. The responses were also very
context bound. Schools seem to vary, however
in terms of the awareness of racism and so on of
the pupils—for example the sequences show how
apparent racism can lead to sympathy for black
people after all, and there was an awareness of
discrimination in housing and unemployment.
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