As a Woman, I Would Be the Perfect Husband
Written by Ninna Makrinov
Organisational Psychologist with over 20 years' experience in Higher Education. Currently the Chair of Governors at Water Mill Primary School.
People sometimes laugh when I say I would be a great husband. I think those who understand the patriarchy in the West might get it though.
This weekend I had a lot of fun washing my car and doing DIY, while my house is a mess. The last three things I bought for myself that gave me joy were a nail gun, a battery-operated drill, and a pressure washer. I love work, I might even be a bit of a workaholic. In my spare time, I volunteer as chair of governors in my local school. I spend the rest of my time gardening, reading and watching TV. I also like sewing and cooking. I am a solo mum with two children, is it a surprise that I just mention them at the end of the paragraph?
It has taken me 40 years and quite a lot of pain to understand that all I described above is fine. That I can be my true self. That I can be loved even if I am a terrible housewife. That it is OK to love my children and say openly that they are not the centre of my life. Are there others who feel the same way? I also often wonder if some men feel trapped too, if they crave to be the main carers and not the main providers in a family. If I can be the perfect husband, they can be the perfect wife. I have noticed too that I have focused on the binary, I understand and respect that gender is a continuum. So I suppose my question is more how we all respond to gender stereotypes. I also realise that I am writing of the ‘traditional’ family, maybe because I crave companionship and community living is not something I know much about or is common enough in the UK. I am also writing as a white, Chilean, cis, heterosexual woman. Please open my eyes to other ways to live!
What does it mean to be a woman?
I am not sure we really know. I recently joined a feminist reading group (I know, late to the party) and it has been great to discover feminism in more depth. It has made me wonder why I define myself as a woman. My preferred pronouns are she and her. I suppose I was naturally a child who liked to please and tried to fit in. It was hard though!
At some point early in life, I might have been 8, I realised life would be easier for me if I was a boy. Most of my friends were boys, I thought girls were silly. I liked Lego, He-Man and Star Wars; I was given Barbies and dolls. I also liked the Care Bears, I must admit. I loved being part of the boys’ world. Why was it a boys’ world though?
A little later, I had to discard some of my ‘dream jobs’. I wanted to be a fighter pilot like my dad but in Chile (where I was born and raised) women were not allowed to join the airforce. Women police officers had to wear high heels, madness! I love that some women were less accommodating, so there are now women fighter pilots in Chile too. In my teenage rebellion I became a Catholic and I would have loved to be a priest; again, not a job for women. I am not going to get into a discussion about religion.
I also remember a time when one of my best friends told me that if I wanted to have a boyfriend I needed to act as if I was less intelligent than they were. I am glad that in that case I realised how stupid that idea was. Maybe that is why I did not have my first boyfriend until I was 17.
I don’t believe being a woman means focusing on being pretty, quiet and subservient. I am a woman. I am a loud leader and I love being the centre of attention. We have moved on in what it means to be a woman. Have we moved on what it means to be a wife though?
Being a wife and a mother
Attitudes are changing, at least in the UK. According to the British Social Attitudes Survey, in 2017 almost three quarters of people disagreed that a man’s job is to earn money and a woman’s job is to look after the home and family. However, In 2018 most people agreed that the mother should take either the entire or most of the paid maternity leave period (52%), while 34% thought it should be split equally and none thought the dad should take most; 13% could not choose. In 2017, most people (51%) also thought that it was best for the mother to stay at home or work part-time and the father to work full-time while children were under school age; none thought I was best for this to be reversed. Interestingly, when only asked about the mother, 33% thought they should stay at home, 38% that they should work part-time and 7% full-time. For mothers of school-age children, 2% thought they should stay at home, 49% prefer for women to work part-time and 27% to work full-time (percentages don’t add up to 100% as some people responded they could not choose). I could go on for ages. Read the excellent Section on Gender Inequality and Family Change section of the Understanding Society Insights 2018-19 for many other details. It clearly states that “there are gender inequalities throughout the life course”, these increase when becoming a parent.
I found the analysis on how our attitudes change when becoming parents very interesting. The report suggests that women change their gender role attitudes when becoming mothers, and it is likely that most progressive women change their attitudes more. The authors suggested this could be due to cognitive dissonance, as women adjust to new roles due to lack of alternatives. I can see this in my experience too. When I became a mother, my role changed from full-time worker to worker and mother; my responsibilities increased. I hated it; particularly when people criticized me for having a messy house while praising my ex-husband for being such a good dad when he changed a nappy. He was a good dad, but that was his role and no-one told me I was a good mum for changing nappies. No-one criticised him for our messy house either, they just wondered what I had been doing all day (I had been working from home).
Living the dream: ‘being a husband’
I had the experience of turning this around when I first became a single mum. Not really in the full sense of being married to someone who did the work. But for a while I was the provider for my family and, because I was living in Mexico, I could afford to pay my sister-in-law to be my ‘wife’ (nanny, cleaner, cook) – to be clear the analogy ends there. The arrangement worked for both of us, her daughters and my sons. It was so lovely to come home from work to a clean house and dinner on the table. I understand why the status quo is kept. Women have ‘earned’ the right to work, we have not earned the right to stop ‘being the wife’. If married, most women take on more caring responsibilities, particularly when becoming mothers. If going solo, we tend to keep children for a bigger percentage of time. I know this is not the case for all, I also know some men would prefer this not to be the case. My point is just, can we just do what we do best, forgetting ‘traditional roles’?
#DiverseEd’s Top 10 Blogs of 2020-21
Written by DiverseEd
Diverse Educators started as a grassroots network in 2018 to create a space for a coherent and cohesive conversation about DEI. We have evolved into a training provider and event organiser for all things DEI.
We love to amplify the voices, share the journeys, and celebrate the stories of our community. Our blogs vary from sharing lived experience, to reflecting on classroom practice and curriculum design, to evaluating the impact of policy changes. We published 150 blogs from our network last academic year. You can meet our bloggers here and you can review our collection here.
Deepening our thinking around DEI starts with who and what we are reading, helping us to develop our confidence and our competence, both individually and collectively. Reading the blogs by our community provokes reflection and stimulates conversations to help us all understand the breadth and the depth of issues we need to develop an awareness of.
Themes explored in the 2020-21 blog collection include: allyship, belonging, careers, coaching, commitment, community, curriculum, culture, governance, HR, identity, ITTE, language, leadership, policy, recruitment, reflection, representation, research, safeguarding, strategy, teaching, wellbeing.
Here are our Top 10 Most-Read #DiverseEd Blogs in the 2020-21 academic year:
- How do we deal with racism in the classroom – Hannah Wilson
- How to promote an anti-racist culture in social work – Wayne Reid
- Interactive diversity calendar 2021 – Carly Hind/ Dual Frequency
- How does material deprivation intersect with ethnicity to understand the variations in the achievement among BAME students – Nicole Edwards
- Don’t tuck in your labels – Bennie Kara
- Dear Secretary of State – Hannah Wilson
- Gender is wibbly wobbly and timey wimey and gloriously so – Matthew Savage
- Engaging with diversity – giving pupils a voice – Gaurav Dubay
- Black lives matter, then now always – Wayne Reid
- Breaking the cycle anti-racist plan term 1 – Dwain Brandy
Thank you to everyone who has contributed to our #DiverseEd date and please do get in touch if you would like us to publish you. You can find out more about how to submit here.
Broaden Horizons with Technology
Written by Serdar Ferit
Filmmaker, digital experience designer, and teacher who has won numerous awards and worked in over 20 countries on film, new media and education projects. Co-CEO of Lyfta.
This article first featured in the July edition of Headteacher Update Magazine.
While great strides have been made with LGBTQ+ equality in recent years, there is still so much more to be done to improve how these topics are discussed in school. Teaching children about sex education, human relationships and gender identity is vital to creating more accepting and well rounded global citizens. Education plays a fundamental role here and this is an area about which many teachers are passionate.
As of September 2020, it is mandatory for all English schools to teach an LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum. Educating children from an early age about diversity and equipping them with the skills to better understand and celebrate this is one of the most important things we can teach in schools. It is the key to eradicating discrimination in society and fostering a future generation who are more empathetic and inclusive towards one another.
Teaching pupils, particularly younger children, about Pride and what it means to be LGBTQ+ is sometimes perceived as a thorny subject. Sex education should be treated with sensitivity in schools, to ensure that children feel safe if they wish to open up and express themselves. It’s vital to equip teachers with the resources and skills that will help them confidently teach diversity in the curriculum and usualise it as a subject for children. Sharing real-life stories from people who come from different backgrounds can be a powerful way for schools to approach this. Hearing people share stories of their own lived experience, helps to nurture empathy and understanding and can make sensitive themes such as inclusivity and sexuality easier to understand.
When these real-life, story-based lessons are presented in an immersive way, the impact is even greater, offering an incredibly powerful and engaging way to introduce children to different themes and allowing them to explore new cultures and perspectives which they otherwise might not experience. This is especially powerful when teaching an inclusive curriculum. Some pupils might have never met someone who is openly LGBTQ+, or they might have even witnessed, or been subjected to, negative stereotyping and homophobia. Sharing human stories with pupils through an interactive, 360° learning environment gives them the freedom to explore and hear first-hand from people whose lived experiences can help broaden understanding and foster inclusivity.
Immersive storytelling platforms like Lyfta allow schools to take pupils on virtual trips, for example to Curacao in the Caribbean, where they can hear from Qwensley, a young gay man living in a conservative Christian community. Children explore what it means to Qwensley to be part of the LGBTQ+ community and the challenges he faced, whilst discovering the power of resilience, empathy and acceptance. Introducing children to multiple perspectives, and demonstrating diversity will not only help to broaden pupils’ horizons and sense of cultural capital, but will also equip them with the knowledge and confidence to express their own identities and be proud of who they are. Human storytelling enables teachers to bring depth, breadth and meaning to sensitive and complex concepts for children and can create a safe space for the class to discuss and engage with the themes.
With the coronavirus pandemic limiting travel and close human interactions, speaking to children about diversity around the world is more important than ever. Technology is a wonderful tool for broadening students’ horizons, bringing human stories to life and helping to develop more confident, empathetic and globally-conscious thinkers who will go on to make a positive impact in the world.
You can find out more about Lyfta and sign up for free training and trial access here.
You Are Not Alone: Leaders for Race Equality
Written by NAHT
NAHT is the UK’s largest professional association for school leaders, representing more than 33,000 head teachers, executive heads, CEOs, deputy and assistant heads, vice principals and school business leaders.
At the end of June 2021, NAHT launched our ‘You Are Not Alone: Leaders for Race Equality’ book.
Originating from NAHT’s Leaders for Race Equality network, the book shares the personal experiences of 14 NAHT members from Asian, African, Caribbean and multiple backgrounds. It includes personal and challenging stories of the discrimination faced as both leaders and individuals through school, university, interviews and promotion, often having to prove themselves at every step on the way to leadership and facing both overt and covert racism from others. Common to many stories is the impact of the school environment and how vital the support and influence of role models can be.
The stories and experiences shared are powerful, challenging and at times deeply saddening. However, they are equally heartening, sharing examples of courage, determination and hope.
Mayleen Atima, a Head Teacher in Suffolk and book author
“All I ever wanted to be was a teacher” is the first line to my chapter. I wanted to start from a point of ambition. Even now that line is tinged with many memories for me as the path to teaching was not as romantic as I imagined it would be.
The below extract was the hardest part to write as I had to delve back into the emotions of that period of time.
“I realised at that point that, within that school, I had come to the end of my career progression, and I attended a deputy head teacher training course. I applied for several jobs and finally got an interview. The head teacher was shocked when he heard that I had an interview. He asked me for my personal statement so that he could write the reference. After reading the personal statement, he stated that it was full of grammatical errors and I should have let him read it before applying for the job. I was annoyed and my confidence was knocked. Deep down I knew that he did not want me to go, but still his words and actions hurt”.
I want all readers to find confidence in knowing their value and worth. Not waiting for someone to echo your value but knowing your own worth. The extract above pin-points a pivotal point for me when I realised my worth and knew it was time to move on.
I am now an established head teacher in Suffolk, running a school that has improved from ‘requires improvement’ to ‘good’. All I ever wanted to be was a teacher and I have achieved that goal.”
Ruhaina Alford-Rahim, Executive Head Teacher in Devon and book author
I had never considered racism as an issue that affected me, yet in writing my chapter, I recognised that racism my parents had suffered decades ago had shaped me to be a person afraid to expose my difference. Suppressed memories of micro-aggressions I had witnessed through 20 plus years in education surfaced: colleagues mocking children’s names; comments regarding needing to be careful when interviewing a non-white candidate; a senior leader revealing that he would like to leave London to get his children away from its diversity; a colleague saying that the Indian sweets a teaching assistant had brought in would taste like sweet wall paper paste and the aggression I received from parents when I first started teaching – at that time my surname was ‘Rahim’ and I wore a hijab.
Writing the chapter has helped me realise that by hiding my difference I am assuming everyone will react negatively and so I am doing them a disservice – not allowing the opportunity for others to learn, ask questions and develop their own understanding of cultures.
Diana Ohene-Darko, Assistant Head Teacher in Harrow and book author
It is my hope that those who read the book take the time needed to immerse themselves in our stories, to spend time with us, walking in our shoes if only for a moment. And to take-away the need to create safe spaces, open up discussion and make everyone feel that they are a person, that they belong where they are. No matter what school you are in, you belong there.
Equality is everybody’s responsibility. It requires commitment. It requires hard work. It requires personal reflection from the offset. In order for the whole of the education profession to be an ally, to become allies, you have to delve into that personal reflection, you have to delve into your own biases (and we all have them in different respects). In terms of equality being everybody’s responsibility, actually we are protecting each other’s ‘protected characteristics’, those characteristics that are protected by law- that is all of our joint responsibility.
Next Steps
NAHT hope that this book can play a part in igniting further conversation and awareness around the breadth and depth of discrimination within the sector. We know that the profession is not yet representative of the communities we serve, and that this is a particular issue at senior leadership level. NAHT are therefore proud to lend its support to amplify our Black, Asian and minority ethnic members’ authentic voices.
NAHT also recognises the need to challenge ourselves – we know that as an organisation we have really only just begun on our own journey and we remain committed to using our power to work to actively help dismantle racism and the structures that perpetuate it, in all of its forms.
The book is freely available to download at https://www.naht.org.uk/NAHT-Edge/ArtMID/694/ArticleID/1018/You-are-Not-Alone-Leaders-for-Race-Equality
If you are interested in hearing more about the book then please contact policy@naht.org.uk
The National Curriculum - What Needs to Change?
Written by Molly Burbridge
Molly is a teacher based in Greater Manchester, she founded AC in September 2020. She has a BA from Manchester University in American Studies.
Why is the national curriculum so limiting?
The national curriculum determines what is taught in our schools and colleges. It not only establishes who deserves to be celebrated in our country’s classrooms but also which students are represented. The content of our curriculum, the privileging of some forms of knowledge and aspects of lived experience over others and even pedagogical practices themselves serve to prioritise some voices and marginalise or silence others.
Even though educational establishments are required to abide by the Equality Act of 2010 our national curriculum does not reflect the nine protected characteristics equally. There is no requirement to learn about how institutionalised racism impacts our society; most authors of GCSE English texts are White heterosexual cisgender men; there is little scope for the celebration of the diverse array of cultures and identities that exist in our society. Even in PSHE, a subject that can be considered to have the most freedom to explore topics relating to the nine protected characteristics, is curtailed by DfE guidance limiting the external visitors that can support the delivery of a PSHE curriculum to disallow those, ‘promoting divisive or victim narratives that are harmful to British society’ (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/plan-your-relationships-sex-and-health-curriculum#using-external-agencies). This has been seen as an attempt to limit educators from teaching about activist groups such as Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion (https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/dec/15/education-department-to-review-schools-guidance-on-anti-capitalist-groups?__twitter_impression=true). It would be an impossible task to effectively teach about the nine protected characteristics of the Equality Act of 2010 without discussing the actions taken by marginalised groups to fight for equality however the DfE seem to be trying to prevent this.
Why does a representative curriculum matter?
Lack of representation or misrepresentation prevents society from progressing. When harmful, inaccurate or ignorant portrayals of groups of people exist in the media or cultural industries it leads to discrimination and harassment. If students don’t see themselves represented in topics they learn at school whether that be due to their race, gender identity, sexual orientation or disability then it becomes a barrier to achieving a sense of equality in schools. A lack of representation can also perpetuate existing inequalities that exist in society. Pupils who belong to groups that hold power in society are not given an opportunity to locate themselves within this position of power in society and are therefore not encouraged to consider how they benefit from it and what they can do to promote equality.
How we want to make a change!
Here at Alternative Curriculum, we want to widen the educational conversation and deepen an understanding of many subjects that are often airbrushed out of our national curriculum. We create free online resources that can be used by teachers in their classrooms, parents/carers as learning tools at home or young people as an opportunity to widen their cultural capital. Our aim is to amplify diverse voices and give young people the chance to learn about the varied histories, cultures and communities that have contributed to society. Our lessons focus on minority groups and those whose histories and cultures are not as thoroughly covered in the mainstream curriculum, with lessons on various topics within areas of history, science, media, literature, cultural studies and more. Example lessons so far include:
- ‘Pride’- KS1: https://www.alternativecurriculum.org/pride-3/
- ‘Racism, Inequality, Cultural Pride and Revolutionaries’- KS3: https://www.alternativecurriculum.org/racism-inequality-cultural-pride-revolutionaries/
- ‘The World’s Wife’- KS4: https://www.alternativecurriculum.org/the-worlds-wife/
- ‘Irish History’- KS5: https://www.alternativecurriculum.org/irish-history/
We have even started creating adult resources as it’s important that we continue to educate ourselves and continue the conversation around anti-discrimination and equality. Here are some examples of our adult resources:
- Disability Rights in the UK: https://www.alternativecurriculum.org/disability-rights-in-the-uk-2/
- Kill the Bill: https://www.alternativecurriculum.org/kill-the-bill/
As conversations around the creation of a diverse and representative curriculum continue we hope that it is prioritised in classrooms across the country. Until then we will keep creating resources that amplify and celebrate unheard voices and change the narrative or our national curriculum.
Diversification - More Than an Educational Token
Written by Bhamika Bhudia
English teacher and lead teacher in a mixed comprehensive secondary school in North-West London. She tweets as MissMika_Eng
Diversity is a bit of a buzzword lately and a loaded one. Everywhere you look, it is in company policies, featured in plots of television shows and floating around our classrooms and curricula. However, despite its crucial need for focus and acknowledgement, the form we see of it is connoted with guilt, shaming and ultra-wokeness: the next big thing everyone needs to be talking about and be seen giving a nod to.
While terms like “diversity-hire” and “ticking boxes” are thrown around, what often goes amiss is the importance of representation and in more than just a tokenistic manner. Penguin recently published findings showing that, “Less than 1% of GCSE students in England study a book by a writer of colour, and only 7% study a book by a woman. This despite 34.4% of school age children identifying as Black, Asian and minority ethic.”
So many of our students do not see or hear themselves in the stories we tell them. So when “diversifying the curriculum” may be portrayed as the next big edu-fad, the damage of not doing this can last lifetimes. And with much of the media painting stereotypical and negative portrayals of anyone who is not white English, it is all the more damaging.
I am an Indian woman in my thirties; I spent my teens seeing most of the women from my genepool as submissive, perfectly poised opportunities for an arranged marriage plotline or a submissive daughter who just wanted some autonomy over her own life or career, should she have the audacity to want one. Who I am could not be further from this stereotype and having these very limited and hazy reflections of myself as a British-Indian woman, led me to experience conflict with a culture that I am in actual fact, incredibly proud of. But as much as this affected my youth and shaping of my identity, I can at least say that it has evolved. Archie Panjabi has gone from playing the daughter oppressed by her ethnic brand of patriarchy in the noughties to a no-nonsense, lawyer or motorcycle-riding, pathologist; Priyanka Chopra from a Miss-World-winning, exotic Bollywood beauty to a conflicted, sexually-empowered, complicated FBI agent; and of course, we have Malala and everything that she is and has done.
While I’m not for a second saying all of the issues with the representation of the Asian females have been fixed, I am acknowledging that progress has been made as it has with many other minorities and women in general. However, this is not the case across the board.
A classic example is the South-Asian male. Everywhere we see him, the Asian man is an awkward, socially inept, sexually-repressed individual whose role is no more than to drive a taxi, serve behind a shop counter or be the butt of jokes at a “funny accent” or his inability to communicate with women! The criminalisation of the black man still stands prominent over any suave and sophisticated depictions we have of him – and please can we take a real look at the dangerous and discriminatory portrayal of muslims on our silver screens?!
These one-dimensional and offensive reflections of the very students we teach will take heed on how they see themselves. They are essentially telling whole demographics that they are sexually undesirable, expected to show no confidence and be laughed at; or mistrusted, feared and hated. And they will all lead to one of three things: abandonment or dilution of their own culture; appropriation of another culture or the complete marginalization of groups of people from the British values we are told to uphold professionally, as part of our teacher standards!
How we see ourselves in the world around us is important so while western society and the wider media may be failing, we as teachers have the opportunities to tell our kids that they are not invisible, they are real and they are important. So the next time you feel the term “diversification of the curriculum” is being treated as the next temporary fixture as so many things in education are, think about the stories that may be told about the kids in your classroom and the power they can have. We have the opportunity to change the narrative and give our kids a voice that truly resonates with them – an opportunity that should not be missed!
Reflections on Improving Diversity and Inclusion in Science Teaching
Written by Suzanne Wood
Chemistry teacher in an all girls school in London.
“Think of a scientist… imagine that scientist in your mind, imagine what they look like, what they do at work, the clothes they wear…. Now imagine them at home with their family, think about what their family looks like.”
I often start my year 7 and 8 classes with this exercise at the very beginning of the year. I ask them to draw a picture of the scientist and their family. Around 95% of them draw an old, white man with slightly fuzzy hair wearing a lab coat, his wife and their two children. It is always clear that the prevailing idea of scientists as straight, white men is still dominant in today’s society.
Looking at the numbers working in science careers, it is easy to see why. Despite there being over a million women working in science technology, engineering and maths (STEM) careers, this still represents only 24% of the work force1. More worryingly, black students represent only 6.2% of university entries on STEM courses2 and LGBT+ people are 20% less represented in STEM fields than expected3. The number of people with a known disability working in STEM subjects is far lower than those working in non STEM fields4. Yet, there remains a well documented skills shortage in this industry, costing around £1.5billion per year, coupled with a continued growth in jobs year on year5. It is clear therefore that the argument for the improved representation amongst minority groups in science is not just a moral one but also an economic one.
Discourse on diversifying the school curriculum frequently suggests that this is significantly more challenging for science or maths compared with English, history or the arts6. But as we know, you can’t be what you can’t see, and with this in mind, I personally took on the challenge of leading the science department to decolonise and diversify our curriculum. My aim was to reflect back to our students a vision of science that included them and their many and varied individualities. My project was ambitious, I created diversity resources for all three sciences across key stages 3 and 4 for each unit of learning. These were integrated into the existing curriculum for teachers to use. Examples include challenging our year 7’s perspective of families by exposing them to diverse ways of having children when studying reproduction, or introducing year 8 to Stephanie Kwolek, the woman who invented Kevlar when studying materials. We explore why female only pairings are beneficial to some species in GCSE Biology and the inequalities that exist as a result of climate change in GCSE Chemistry along the work of Stephen Hawking in GCSE Physics. We celebrate black history month in science with year 7 & 8 by looking at the life and contribution of Henrietta Lack’s HeLa Cells and in year 12 Chemistry and Biology we discover how the first HIV drugs were designed during LGBT+ history month. I found, when you scratch the scientific surface and get creative, you can quite easily find rich and varied examples of diversity and inclusion.
An added layer to this project was my realisation that we needed a significant and sustained culture shift within the department to put diversity and inclusion into the forefront of our teaching and learning strategy. I worked with teachers to help them understand the importance of their role in this by inviting them to attend a whole school CPD session that I ran on supporting LGBT+ students and why this was essential in terms of student wellbeing. I worked with the department to evolve the learning environment and make it more inclusive. Our science class names were changed to reflect a diverse group of scientists and time was built into our teaching schedules for diversity to be celebrated. These changes have had a significant impact on teachers and our students. A recent staff survey demonstrated that 100% of the respondents felt that diversity and inclusion is an important aspect of their teaching role and most teachers (90%) feel confident delivering this within the department. Student surveys have also revealed that pupils enjoyed learning about diverse science and that they saw this as an important aspect of their science education. Since these changes, staff have told me that students seem more at ease with starting conversations with them that have diversity and inclusion at their core and I see this as a positive outcome. Personally, the biggest change for me is that diversity and inclusion is now a collective effort for the entire department. It is no longer just me talking about this, but all of us.
- https://www.stemwomen.co.uk/blog/2021/01/women-in-stem-percentages-of-women-in-stem-statistics
- https://www.stemwomen.co.uk/blog/2021/03/bame-women-in-stem
- https://blogs.imperial.ac.uk/imperial-medicine/2019/02/27/stem-needs-to-face-up-to-its-problem-with-lgbt-diversity/
- https://royalsociety.org/-/media/policy/topics/diversity-in-science/210118-disability-STEM-data-for-students-and-staff-in-higher-education.pdf
- https://luminate.prospects.ac.uk/the-uks-stem-skills-shortage
- https://www.runnymedetrust.org/uploads/publications/pdfs/Runnymede%20Secondary%20Schools%20report%20FINAL.pdf
Reflections on the Edurio EDI Summit
Written by Iona Jackson
Iona leads on turning Edurio’s national datasets into useful and impactful insights for trust and school leaders. Iona has worked on national reports focused on topics such as equality, diversity and inclusion, staff retention and pupil experience and wellbeing. She works closely with education leaders and industry experts to understand what the current position means for the sector, and where to go from here.
On June 21st, my colleagues and I hosted the Edurio EDI Summit, a day dedicated to promoting equality, diversity and inclusion within schools. Throughout the day we had guest speakers sharing their experiences in school as people with a range of protected characteristics, ran masterclass sessions with experts in equality, diversity and inclusion, and launched the first report from Edurio’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Review.
Among our guest speakers was Amy Ferguson, a female, lesbian, Black school leader, who explained her experiences at the intersection of multiple protected characteristics. We also heard from Abed Ahmed, a Muslim teacher with a stutter. We learned from Abed about the challenges of interviews when fluent speech is a challenge, and how the “usual” model of interviewing could be limiting the talent pool by assessing people on attributes that don’t dictate how well a person is able to teach young people.
The masterclass sessions covered topics from diversity to religion. Mandy Coalter encouraged attendees to understand the context using both individual stories and data when building action plans. We heard from David Hermitt about the changing role religion plays in the lives of White British/Irish children, and how that compares to their BAME peers. In another session, Jerrel Jackson talked about problems with labels, both the ones assigned to us by others and the ones we assign ourselves. We wrapped up the day with a close look at intersectionality, with Hannah Wilson (Diverse Educators) and Angie Browne. The session shone a light on the challenges that come from thinking about people based on one characteristic they may have, as humans are made up of a number of characteristics and experiences.
The event also featured the launch of our report, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Among School Staff. It’s the first of many reports from our EDI Review, the largest dataset on EDI issues within English schools. 16,500 school staff took part from 380 schools in England, discussing their experiences relating to recruitment, on-the-job issues of equality, diversity and inclusion, and opportunities to advance within their school or trust. We found that, overall, staff felt that their workplace was committed to promoting equality, diversity and inclusion. Four in Five staff said they felt their workplace was ‘quite’ or ‘very committed’. However, there were material differences among how staff with certain protected characteristics experienced their time in schools.
The first report offers an overview of some key learnings across the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Review. But it is just the start – in the coming weeks and months we’ll be sharing deep dives into particular protected characteristic groups, and looking into particular areas of the school experience in more detail. As our data set grows, our representation of smaller or more marginalised groups will continue to grow, and we will be able to provide a voice to people who have struggled to have their views heard. I’m excited about what is to come as we continue on this long journey towards creating equal, diverse, and inclusive workplaces in education.
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Edurio is a survey platform for schools to quickly and easy gather feedback from staff, parents and pupils. Our EDI Review is one of a number of surveys created by Edurio in partnership with education researchers and practitioners. To find out more, or book a consultation, head to home.edurio.com
Five Steps For Starting A School Pride
Written by Edel Cronin
Secondary school senior leader and co founder of Bristol Queer Educators, very Queer and very Irish.
Yesterday my school held its first in-person Pride. The saying of – you can’t be it unless you can see it – very much worked in the reverse for me as I walked into our student Pride lunch club. The room was awash with students celebrating Pride in a rainbow of flags, cakes and community. I never consciously knew what I wasn’t ‘seeing’ during my teenage years but something about walking into a classroom full of Pride colour made me reflect on how my life may have been different had this experience happened in my school. No one was ‘risk assessing’ if it was safe to wear a flag or in some cases a crown! Everyone was fully embracing having a space to loudly celebrate themselves.
Creating a whole school event has not been high on the agenda of most school leaders in the last year and half. I think we have all had 1 or 2 other things taking up our time. However, I would argue that it is in a pandemic where the school year has been full of uncertainty, and at times isolation, we need events like Pride more than ever. Pride gives us an opportunity to remind ourselves and others that our sexuality or gender is something to celebrate.
- Ask for help – Our school’s first Pride took place in June 2020. I sent an email out to staff asking if anyone was interested in organising a virtual school Pride. Five or six staff volunteered, we set up a Teams’ call and got started. We chose to focus on 1 week, took a day each and made tutor resources for that day. You don’t have to do everything from scratch – lots of organisations have free resources and doing even one thing in your school for the first time will make a positive impact on the lives of LGBTQ+ students and staff.
- Make it intersectional – Each member of staff made a resource based on their own area of interest. The only expectation we agreed on was that all resources had to be intersectional. If all your resources are white, able-bodied people from the LG bit of LGBTQIA+ spend some time educating yourself and diversify your resources using organisations like Just Like Us. Your students and staff may fall into one ‘category’ but LGBTQ+ people do not.
- Ask for student input/feedback – If your in a position to ask for student in put in advance fantastic, if not don’t worry. For my initial attempt at school Pride I wasn’t, so instead we did what we would have wanted as students and asked for students feedback to help us plan for future events. Those who fed back also created the base of our student group for the following academic year and led to a whole school LGBT+ History Month the following February.
- Choose an ‘action’ for the month – Pride is celebration, it is also a chance for us to ensure the futures of LGBTQ+ people are less discriminatory. What would your school benefit from in Pride month but also every other month of the year? It could be putting a Pride flag up and keeping it up 24/7 or changing your behaviour policy. Depending on your setting one of these might be more achievable than the other. It is also important to consider student and staff feedback when deciding on your action.
- Share – Share what you’ve done. Many LGBTQ+ educators are the only LGBTQ+ educators in their school. A sense of community is not just important for our students but also ourselves.
Keep Chipping Away at Homophobia
Written by David Lowbridge-Ellis
Leader of school improvement for Matrix Academy Trust in the West Midlands. In addition to writing extensively on equality and diversity he has been published widely on topics ranging from curriculum and assessment to workload and well-being.
You can’t be what you can’t see. It’s a phrase bordering on cliché. But just because something is clichéd that doesn’t make it any less true. It rings so true that, at this point, we should probably consider it conventional wisdom. And sometimes, it just takes a glimpse to start making change happen.
Friday night after a long week: my husband and I are on the sofa, watching a football match – of all things!
Now I don’t want to indulge in gay stereotypes but I’m not very into football. My husband is more keen, especially when it comes to an international competition. When the World Cup’s on, he goes gaga for it. It’s the whole ‘world coming together in harmony’ part that gets him going. He’ll also watch any match that Gerard Piqué happens to be playing in. My husband claims he’s a fan of Piqué by proxy: the Spanish footballer is married to Shakira, whose music my husband enjoys. But I know the truth.
Anyway…
The match we were watching was the England vs. Scotland match of the Euro 2020 (sic) competition. A pretty unremarkable feat of football as it turned out, with a 0-0 final score. What was arguably more significant was an advert from Nike played in the break. Calling it an advert is an understatement, although that was its purpose. The short film, entitled The Land of New Football, was a vision of how football could be. Starring Free School Meals-champion Marcus Rashford it might have been considered by some to be utopian, but nothing was outside the realm of possibility. It finishes with the ‘UK’s first hijab wearing referee’, a real person. And 20 seconds in it featured a gay footballer (Josh Day, of London Titans FC) celebrating a victory by kissing his partner on the pitch.
Let’s just pause (like I did, rewinding the brief footage seven times) and drink that in: millions of people just saw a gay footballer kissing his partner. There was no cutaway at the last minute. This wasn’t queer-baiting; we got the setup and the payoff. Yes, it only lasted a few seconds, but it was still around 400% longer than the lesbian kiss in the last Star Wars movie which was much heralded but was, ultimately, a crushing disappointment.
I know there are arguments that corporations are just jumping on the Pride bandwagon now it’s a commercially advantageous option. I get as frustrated at anyone about companies seeking out rainbow pounds/dollars/Euros without giving anything back to the LGBTQ+ community. But Nike has a better track record than most. Back in 2013, Nike actively sought gay athletes to be front and centre in their latest campaign. A little known fact is they also finance the queer-friendly animation studio Laika, famous for stop-motion movies Coraline, Paranorman and Kubo & The Two Strings (the studio head is the son of Nike’s co-founder).
One advert, no matter how well shot and well edited and well intended, is not going to change the world by itself. But things like this do chip away at the homophobia that sometimes seems like an immovable monolith, an ugly slab of uncut stone blocking out all the light, preventing mutual understanding from taking root.
When homophobia feels like this – and in my experience, it feels like this a lot of the time – we can get discouraged. We start to feel that it is an intractable problem: no matter what we do, we are just not going to shift it. But what I’ve learned over the years is this: anything you do, even if it’s chipping away, is enough to start something.
I’m reliably informed (thanks Wikipedia) that ‘chipping’ is also a term used in football for getting the ball where it needs to go by skilfully applying less than the usual force to the underside of the ball so it goes over opponents’ heads. Apparently, Lionel Messi (another of my husband’s reasons to watch certain matches) is very good at this.
A footballer chipping in a ball is, of course, very different to someone trying to shift a big rock by hacking away tiny bits of it. It’s closer to a skilful sculptor chipping away carefully at a mass of marble. Less force; more impact. It highlights to me that while more forceful approaches to tackling the problem of homophobia are sometimes required, they aren’t the only options. Sometimes, something more subtle can be effective.
It may ‘just’ be an assembly; it may ‘just’ be a PSHE lesson; it may ‘just’ be an interaction in a corridor with a pupil who is putting more effort into disguising their true selves than their school work.
But…
It may ‘just’ be enough to change that pupil’s life; it may ‘just’ be enough to change the outlook of several members of a class; it may ‘just’ sow the seed of something which will grow as children move through our schools, flowering into something approaching – or exceeding – mutual understanding.
It’s well known that there are several gay players in the Premier League. What did they feel when they saw that Nike film played during halftime? Did they look at it with shame, retreating further back into the closet? Did they look at it with envy, wishing that they could be that jubilant player on the screen, unafraid to celebrate in front of spectators with his significant other? Did they look at it with pride, knowing that they were represented?
Who knows how long it will take for a player in the Premier League to come out as gay. But when it does happen (and it will) I doubt they will be able to point to just one thing that led them to decide enough was enough and led them to take that very brave step. It will be the cumulative result of them chipping away at their own internal monoliths over several years, wearing away their fear about what others will think about them; whether they will still get sponsorship deals; if their dream career will turn its back on them.
When we ask our pupils about their dream careers, we may sometimes have to resist rolling our eyes. You want to earn a living as a footballer, riiiiiight. As it happens, I have taught several pupils who have made it as top-flight footballers, so I know it is possible. I would never have wanted any of those to see who they are as an impediment to pursuing those dreams.
Similarly, I would never want the critical mass of pupils who follow football to grow up thinking there is no place in the national sport for queer people. Or, for that matter, any occupational field. And that includes teaching.
I’ve been out as gay for over a decade and I never bother to hide this part of myself in front of my pupils. I find it startling to remember that I was the first out teacher at the school I currently spend most of my time in. I’m far from the only queer teacher at my school currently. I’d go so far to say we are well above national average as far as proportion of queer teachers goes. And the same goes across our multi-academy trust. I would never claim sole credit for this but we have trained queer people to be teachers who were former pupils of mine. And several of them have told me that knowing I was gay meant they didn’t close down the possibility of being a teacher themselves.
Football and education may not seem especially comparable (and I’m far more qualified to comment on the latter than the former), but they’re both fields where homosexuality has been less tolerated than in other social spheres. On most football pitches and school playing fields we’re still far away from having the differences in who we love being universally celebrated. And, yes, I do get VERY frustrated at the agonisingly slow pace of change! But I calm myself by recalling that even little things can have a big impact over time. Let’s keep chipping away.