[Intro Music]

00:00:08:11 – 00:01:02:25
Hannah
Welcome to the Diverse Ed podcast. Diverse Educators is an intersectional community of educators who are passionate about diversity, equity and inclusion. Our vision: everyone is celebrated, in every classroom, in every school. Our mission: a collaborative community that celebrates the successes and amplifies the stories of diverse people. Our values: promoting acceptance, increasing visibility, encouraging celebration, creating belonging and enabling learning. In series one of the Diverse Ed podcast we have ten episodes. In each episode our co-hosts Nick Kitchener-Bentley and Yamina Bibi will interview one contributor from each of the ten chapters of Diverse Educators: A Manifesto. Each conversation will reflect on how they have found and used their voice, discuss how identity shapes them as an educator, share the challenges they’ve had to navigate on their journey, and identify the changes they would like to see in the school system.

00:01:05:17 – 00:01:17:29
Nick
Hello everyone and welcome to the Diverse Ed Podcast. My name is Nick Kitchener-Bentley and I’m a lead practitioner and drama / inclusion teacher at Sarah Bonnell School. I’m also on the steering group for LGBT ed.

00:01:18:23 – 00:01:29:14
Yamina
And I’m Yamina Bibi and I’m an assistant head teacher also at Sarah Bonnell School. I’m also a network leader for Women Ed in London. In this episode, we talk to Audrey from the intersectionality chapter.

00:01:30:15 – 00:01:43:12
Nick
Okay, Audrey, something that we like to do at the start is just to ask the people appearing on our show a little bit more about themselves. So would it be okay if you could just introduce yourself to the audience in one sentence, please?

00:01:44:25 – 00:02:04:08
Audrey
No problem at all. Okay. So it’s a long sentence. I am Audrey Pantelis and I am a black female and former head of school. And I’m also a wife, a sister, an auntie, a great auntie, godmother and I’m director of Relation Coaching and Consulting. I said it was long.

00:02:05:01 – 00:02:06:20
Nick
That was a great sentence. I love that.

00:02:07:19 – 00:02:16:19
Yamina
I love that so much. So I want to start by asking you what inspired you to write your contribution to Diverse Educators: A Manifesto?

00:02:16:19 – 00:03:21:13
Audrey
Okay. Well, this is a great question, and it’s one that’s been asked of, I’ve asked myself actually in reading when I read the book again, I guess I was inspired by my own and as it was then, a relatively recent experience as a black female leader. And I guess I wanted to share my thoughts, share my experiences. Number two, I wanted to gauge whether my own experiences were common and whether the intersectionality factor was indeed a factor in whether I felt I was being discriminated against. As I kind of perceived it to be. And number three, because intersectionality as a word, as a concept was out there. But I don’t know how well it was understood and catered for in the workplace. So I thought, I’ll put my stuff out there we’ll see where it goes, see how it lands. And yeah, that’s kind of what inspired me to write it. Yes.

00:03:22:16 – 00:03:55:00
Nick
Thanks, Audrey. It’s really interesting to hear what you say there about thinking about your own experiences, but also then connecting that to see how far other people also have those experiences. And then also like that, the extent to which there is an understanding of that term intersectionality as well. It’s a really, really interesting to hear your reflections there, and that kind of brings to mind my next question, which is about the overall chapter and the different people who contributed to the chapter. Could you maybe tell us a little bit about some of those different themes in the whole chapter on intersectionality and that you think the whole team wanted to explore?

00:03:56:12 – 00:05:30:09
Audrey
Yeah, so I think it’s amazing, isn’t it? And maybe this is something we’ll unpack a little bit further on, but the whole idea that this amazing book is all about the protected characteristics, but of course intersectionality is not a protected characteristic, and yet it impacts every single one of us because we are all intersectional, full stop. And I guess it was thinking about the whole idea about what intersectionality is, which is a framework for understanding oppression. So it’s the idea that we, we’ve explored through the nine different protected characteristics throughout the book. And then we talk about the exploration of how they combine and how they impact on a daily basis. So I think it’s really about everyone’s viewpoint, obviously from their own perspective, but then thinking about the fact that these all exist. We know that it started off, you know, from the American lawyer and scholar and activist Kimberly Crenshaw. We know that. And she was looking at it from a feminist point of view and obviously feminism and race. But really what we see as we expand is just just that whole idea that, you know, all of these different interlocking protected characteristics create, if you like, a new perspective, a new lens, a new viewpoint. So I think that’s probably what for me, what I pulled from our chapter really so I love the fact that we are a 10th chapter and we’re not a protected characteristic, but we are, if you like.

00:05:31:26 – 00:05:51:24
Yamina
I love that idea that actually we’re looking at it from a new lens and even though it’s not a protected characteristic it is still a really important part of people’s identity. And so moving into that, then what would you say are some of the key challenges for people who come under the intersectionality protected characteristic and that your team really wanted to address?

00:05:53:12 – 00:07:50:04
Audrey
So yeah, I think I might have touched on it literally in my last answer. So the fact that it’s not a protected characteristic, but because it’s becoming more prevalent, we are noticing, as I said, you know, to highlight the word you’ve highlighted – lens, perspectives because we’re now thinking about that. That’s really key. And so it’s, I think it’s really thinking about the idea that everyone experiences oppression differently or experiences those barriers those challenges differently based on where they are. So you can only start from where you are. And so for me, as a black female, you know, that was where I was thinking about it. And I think the word itself, thinking about intersectionality, where things combine, not so much collide, it’s just about the combination. So I think that’s what we really wanted to address. You know, this is how we see it as a gay Christian man or as a, you know, a menopausal Asian woman or whatever the particular protected characteristics happen to combine and be, intersect at the time. So I think really it’s, I suppose I’m trying to say really when, when our protected characteristics intersect. When they do intersect, it’s multilayered. Things become multilayered and so we have to think about it with those different layers in mind, whether they constrain or constrict or whether they enable, I suppose is partly down to us as individuals, but it’s also partly how society views that. And I guess it’s that recognition piece really, probably, how I see these are some of the key challenges that we have.

00:07:50:19 – 00:09:14:28
Nick
Thank you so much for that, Audrey. It’s fascinating to hear that kind of dichotomy that you drawing out there, whether the intersections either constrain or enable people. And I love that. Yeah, you also kind of reflected on whether or not that’s something that goes on within a person themselves or if it’s more about society as a whole and is a yeah, it’s a really interesting kind of conversation to have, so thank you for that. Something that Yamina and I wanted to do when we were interviewing people was to ask a little bit more about the takeaways that they wrote about towards the end of their contributions. And so, so I’m going to read out your takeaways here and maybe ask you to reflect or expand upon them and why they’re important to you, and yours are great, so you said we can recognise the leadership potential in black female leaders and capture the talent through positive action strategies to encourage leadership candidates to be identified and nurtured. We can make the system less adversarial by genuinely encouraging the diversity that we seek in children and young people in our black female leaders. We can make the system more diverse by looking at the Equality Act and ensuring that we are actively promoting strategies to positive action and living it through scrutiny of data and monitoring. I mean, Audrey, you are so positive. Everything is we can, we can, which I absolutely love in your takeaways. But could you just maybe reflect on some of these for us and explain why they’re so important to you.

00:09:15:25 – 00:11:10:02
Audrey
No problem, so the three takeaways are kind of what I stand for. So the work that I do now and what I was doing then, the work I’m going to be doing in the future all kind of really are based upon positive action because that’s ultimately what we have within the Equality Act to be able to kind of, you know, strengthen black female leaders. So, you know, I’m going to quote for you that, you know, the statistic that I started my contribution to the book with, which is the fact that there are just 55 female, black or black British headteachers from a workforce of just 3784 female, black or black British teachers. That was for 2019, 2020. And of course, sadly, these numbers will be different. And of course, I was part of the statistics at the time, but I’m no longer part of those statistics because I’m no longer in teaching as such. And it’s not great, for me, and from my perspective, there’s a real barrier with regards to black British female teachers and promotion, and we tend to kind of go so far before, we effectively, it feels like we get knocked down. And so in sharing my contribution, what I’ve quickly learned is that I’m not unique. This is not, I’m not the first person this has happened to. And I’m sadly probably not going to be the last. So I’m really thinking about the idea of how we get these positive action strategies out there and how we make them. We nurture and we grow our black female teachers to become leaders and then ultimately school leaders. You know, I just want to, I want to amplify that kind of message. And I want to strengthen it, I want to strengthen it across the board with regards to positive action anyway. But obviously, my particular area of interest is for black female leaders. So that’s really, that’s why they’re important to me.

00:11:10:02 – 00:11:35:18
Yamina
And I think that leads really well into your commitment to the manifesto where you ask your readers to think about this. So you say in order to develop and nurture future generations of resilient leaders recognise the impact of black female leaders in education who continue to overcome race and gender barriers, which is so powerful as a commitment. But we’d love it if you could expand more about your commitment to the manifesto, and how you want to galvanise actions from the reader and from our listeners.

00:11:35:18 – 00:14:39:01
Audrey
Absolutely. So it’s, this is multifaceted. I’m thinking about it from a black female leader perspective. I’m thinking about it from CEOs and directors of trusts and any anyone that has anything to do with welcoming and encouraging black female leaders in school or in education. I mean, we’ve got, they’re amazing. We’ve got strong and highly capable black women in education, and we’ve got to harness that strength and not cap it. So three things for me, support, check and encourage. So support, supporting through the recruitment process, you know, encourage, you know, the use of processes for recruitment, blind recruitment and processes so that you are getting genuinely the talent that you want. And by that, you know, encouraging through your recruitment processes in the advertising and actually stating what you’re looking for as well, which of course you can do through positive action. So the checking bit is the checking middle leaders and senior leadership teams, encourage that diversity. You know, think about progression. And progression doesn’t always mean necessarily money and status. It simply could just be experience as well and making it meaningful. You know, my title was of my particular contribution to the book is called Ceilings and Tears, so really thinking about the ceilings bit, you know, don’t cap the abilities of black female leaders. And then the last one, really my encourage bit is about the encouragement because black female leaders often are seen to be, you know, with one hat on I have to say, on one hand, I do look and think to my self so I can see why this happens, they’re almost seen to be almost like not superhuman, but almost like stronger than the average woman. And that’s not, I’m not trying to boast or anything like that, but it’s just simply that black female leaders are fairly capable and because of that, and again, I could do another podcast just on the reasons for that, there’s an expectation that they can pick up more, carry more, take more, do more. So in one respect, that to be applauded, that’s great. But actually, you know, everyone bleeds the same way everyone has to, you know, we all live the same way. We all feel the same things. So the perception is actually they’re superhuman, they can do it all, means that often they are kind of just left to get on, doing more, carrying more, enduring more. So it’s important that, you know, school leaders, trust leaders, CEOs, etc. don’t leave your black female leaders thinking that, you know, they’re alright, they can do it, they can carry it, they can keep going, they can keep going and heaping lots on them, really thinking about mentoring, thinking about coaching. They are essential for every leader anyway. But don’t forget your black female leaders and don’t just assume that they can just do loads and loads and loads, look after them, nurture them.

00:14:40:11 – 00:15:16:28
Nick
I loved hearing that. And the word ‘nurture’, I think is really powerful there. And hearing about all of those strategies and ideas that can support black female leaders and other leaders within education, just absolutely amazing. Audrey, from your response, I was thinking there’s so much that you’re describing there and there’s so much that can be done. What happens when these things are actually put in place? I mean, clearly, they’re not being put in place enough. We can see that from the statistics that you quoted earlier and the statistics that we know that are going on. But as you are saying, there are things that can be done, when these things are put in place what’s the impact that this actually has on black female leaders?

00:15:18:09 – 00:18:08:18
Audrey
Well, you will see not only the growth and the joy and thriving black female leaders in the education establishments. But you’re also seeing that knock on within the school community itself. And what you will see is a well, well-led. You will see a vibrant, you will see a creative, you will see gosh, I’m just trying to think, what are the words? I mean those words are good for starters anyway aren’t they. But I think what you’re seeing is an environment where young people, especially if you have children and young people from diverse backgrounds, seeing people that look like them, doing amazing things, enabling that environment for them to feel, Yeah, I can do this too. And even if you’re not from a diverse background, and even if the cohort of the students, the children, the young people are predominantly one particular race, it doesn’t even matter either, because what black female leaders are doing are bringing their A-game, able to see things being done in a different way. So everyone wins, everyone wins. And also because you are not stifling black female leaders, you’re enabling them to, you know, to be their best selves. So, you know, it’s not that black female leaders are vibrant all of the time, although mostly are, what you’ll find is that actually there’s the contrast and the ability to contrast and not just being one thing is enabled and so that dimensional aspect and a dimensional approach to school leadership enables others to also feel that they can be the same as well. So, you know, it’s yeah. When it is done well, the school community benefits in so many ways. Parents will also see that role model aspect especially from diverse cohorts of thinking. Yeah, this is great. Personally, just a quick aside, something that definitely happened to me when I was in leadership, parents coming up to me and quietly just saying to me I’m really glad that you’re here and just those small comments, in fact I had an email not that long ago, even though I’ve not been obviously leading a school. And it was just amazing just that this parent had said it was great to have you in the school. It was lovely to know that we could see you. People felt safe and that’s important. So, I mean, there are many, many advantages but school communities just benefit 100%.

00:18:09:06 – 00:18:43:12
Nick
Thank you so much for that. I really, I really feel very impressed by what you said there. And it certainly rings true that that would be like a really positive impact that it would have on members of staff. And equally, like you say, the huge impact that it will have on school communities, the students and the parents and the impact that’s going to have, I think is absolutely wonderful. So I just want to thank you for that response. I think it’s a really good one. And my next question is going to be about the impact of intersectional leaders on your students. I think you did a fabulous job of answering that really nicely so I’m going to hand over to Yamina and you’ve got another question, haven’t you, Yamina.

00:18:44:01 – 00:19:14:05
Yamina
Yeah, I noticed, I think one particular anecdote really stood out to me where you talked about when you had gained the post of head of school and how you essentially were told by your line manager that you were a maverick and then you’d go on to describe how you struggled to see that in a positive light. And I was wondering if you could tell our listeners more about why you struggled with this, because they might not understand why and what impact it had on you particularly and things like that might have on black leaders.

00:19:14:12 – 00:22:02:03
Audrey
Fantastic question, Yamina, I’m yeah, happy to share that one. Yeah. The context that I guess was actually, the full context was that I was trying to internally kind of get promoted and what I was told and the phrase was used maverick was simply that there were certain things that I kind of did my own way, hence the term maverick. So that to me alluded to that I wasn’t following the rules. I wasn’t able to follow the rules almost like I was making a decision not to. I don’t think that was the case. I think it was the intersectionality aspect maybe of thinking about it from a particular lens and applying that lens, which wasn’t the conventional lens. So at the time I didn’t have the language for that. All I saw was it was just a bit of a cuss, really, oh, you’re not doing what you should be doing. And schools are quite punitive in that respect, aren’t they. We try not to do that with our children, and we endeavour to try to encourage and promote, you know, better and more improved behaviours. But ultimately we get told off and I felt like I was being told off. So that’s kind of where it came from. So I couldn’t see it in the way that probably I see it now, which is actually that was my lens, that was what I was bringing. Having said that, let me not forget that, you know, ultimately we have processes and protocols that we need to have in school to make it run smoothly. Otherwise, you know, we’ve got problems if everyone’s kind of just doing their own thing. So I also recognize as well that that’s probably how I took it, that I wasn’t fulfilling what it was that I needed to do in order to make sure that, you know, the school runs smoothly. So I saw it, now I can see it was an intersectional approach and that felt as if it was punitive. But actually I can see where my line manager was coming from, but I didn’t take it particularly favourably at the time. But also I did recognise and I can recognize now that there wasn’t necessarily the appetite or the ability to see that actually this was how I was seeing it. So this is how I was doing it. Ultimately, if I needed to be corrected, I needed to be corrected. You know, the ending of the story was obviously I didn’t stay in the school, but it wasn’t because of that particular line manager actually at the time. But what was interesting was that I don’t think school leaders have that ability to be able to be intersectional in their approach because we are, the nature of the work that we do means that we kind of have to conform. So I think that’s really where that came from. I forgot the second part of the question. Yamina, so you might have to repeat it for me.

00:22:02:03 – 00:22:36:01
Yamina
I think you answered it perfectly. Thank you. I just think it was just such an interesting anecdote. And I know lots of leaders who say they are intersectional in their identity who have perhaps being described in similar ways and not in a positive way, almost like you said, as a cuss and not knowing how to deal with that and actually the implications it then has, an impact it then has on them and how they feel about about themselves, particularly as leaders. And I think you just answered that. So I won’t probe anymore, but thank you, Audrey.

00:22:36:01 – 00:23:31:20
Nick
And it’s a strength, isn’t it? I mean, it’s very easy for me to sit here as a white, cisgender man and say, oh, it’s great. We should have other people be, you know, you have people be mavericks and it’s a great thing. But I also think Yamina when you, when you’re describing that it is maybe bringing to mind kind of leaders that I know and I’ve worked with before that maybe have been described in some of those terms, who I think are among the most wonderful leaders and who would also identify as being intersectional leaders probably. But yeah, it’s just a really powerful thing. And I think the word ‘maverick’, yeah, the way you kind of unpacked it for us there Audrey is just absolutely fantastic. Thank you for that. And we wanted to go on to thinking about kind of broad, a little bit more broadly aswell Audrey, in terms of changes, we’re really interested in an ideal world. What kind of changes would you like to see happen in the school system regarding intersectionality?

00:23:31:26 – 00:25:19:20
Audrey
I guess in a way I think I’ve probably touched on it, so I’ll try not to repeat myself too much. But yeah, I think it’s the idea that, number one, we’re able to bring our whole selves, our whole authentic selves to the role. We bring our particular intersectional lens to what we do. It’s recognised, it’s encouraged, it’s nurtured as well. You know, I think that that would be ideal. We’re talking about diversity now across the board, aren’t we, in you know, schools are desperate to embrace it from a time when definitely in education I can remember where we were all told to be the same or, you know, colour blindness was a thing, you know, any any form of blindness was a thing, really. You know, any form of difference was not encouraged unless it was only about excellence. So it’s interesting that we’re now in a time where the more diverse you are, the more we are wanting to celebrate that and not tolerate. So I think really that’s what I would love to see happening, especially for all leaders, now, it’s a slow change. It’s not, it’s not going to be instant. It takes a while to unpack the well, the embedded ways of working, so some people will change quickly. Some organisations will change quickly. Quite a number of them won’t, not because they don’t want to, but it’s just about the understanding aspect of things. So I think that’s really where I think I would love to see that happening and hopefully I’m contributing to that by the work that I do.

00:25:19:20 – 00:25:24:06
Yamina
In an ideal world, Audrey, what changes would you like to see happen in wider society?

00:25:24:06 – 00:27:06:00
Audrey
In the wider society, I think it’s the recognition of those differences. I think that’s the thing that’s probably the biggest thing for me and it’s something that I actually talk about in my training quite extensively. So even though I’m talking about it from an education point of view, what I’m about to say probably is applicable full stop. So I know that the differences that black female leaders have and white female leaders have are completely different. And as I say, I utilise this with regards to the training I do. So I will often say that even though I was a headteacher of a school and I was a black female lead and the head, but usually it is, not always but usually, a female white leader I would say even though we both do the same jobs of leading schools, our experience is 100% different. And they’ll be things that are enabled for my white female colleague. That weren’t afforded to me, and I think that’s across the board. I think regardless of whichever area you work in, I think that’s probably still applicable. So that’s what I would really want to be thinking about now. The recognition of those differences and bridging the gap between those differences. And so they’re minimised. I don’t think we’ll ever eradicate them, unfortunately, but we can minimise them and we can make it so the playing field is far more level again. It’s always going to be about the whole thing of people recognising there’s differences, people understanding those differences, and people doing something about it.

00:27:07:14 – 00:27:24:00
Nick
Love that call to arms at the end, Audrey. Thank you. Doing something about it is so important, isn’t it. You have been absolutely fantastic to talk to this morning. All of your ideas, all of your energy, all of your insightful criticism, but also ideas about positive things that can be done. And it’s just been brilliant to hear.

00:27:24:00 – 00:27:36:03
Nick
And I’m so, so grateful to you for joining us to talk about intersectionality and also your own experience as a black female leader as well. So thank you very much. I just want to say it’s been really wonderful to speak to you this morning. Thank you.

00:27:36:15 – 00:27:45:19
Yamina
Thank you so much, Audrey. We’ve been Nick Kitchener-Bentley and Yamina Bibi, the co-hosts of the Diverse Ed podcast.

[Outro Music]

00:27:45:19 – 00:28:02:00
Hannah
Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Diverse Educators podcast. Check out the show notes for the recommendations of today’s guest. We’d love to hear what you think so do leave us a review. We will be back soon with another author from our book Diverse Educators: A Manifesto.