The Next Episode of the Culture Wars: The Report of The Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities

In this blog I share my initial thoughts on the way education is discussed in the Commission’s report. In essence it seems to set up an anti-racist straw man that leads it to ignore previous scholarship and thus misinterpret their data. Similarly it ignores a range of educational practice to assert solutions to problems that don’t exist, whilst ignoring problems that do. And by unnecessarily embracing the government’s promotion of a narrowed ‘knowledge-rich’ curricula reform, it fails to recognise the role of the DfE in exacerbating the problem. By dismissing BLM and questioning teacher impartiality it aligns itself with some of the more outlandish ministerial efforts to stoke a culture war.

Move along, nothing (racist) to see here

After setting out its findings and recommendations in great detail, the Commission gets started in earnest on outlining its approach and defining some key terms. The very first line states:

The idea that all ethnic minority people suffer a common fate and shared disadvantage is an anachronism (p. 27)

And so the tone is established by setting up an implausible a straw man, which is repeatedly attacked for imagined positions, simplified analyses and skewed perspectives. The irony is of course, that starting off in this vein inevitably means the report itself falls into all these traps. Too preoccupied with fighting imagined political foes, it rather leaves people’s actual experience of racism out of the picture.

David Gillborn, who has done most perhaps to introduce the UK to critical race theory in relation to education, submitted evidence to the Commission, with several colleagues, making it clear that:

Serious academic research has never argued that racism in the education system is the only relevant factor in understanding disparities in experience and attainment.

No straw man evident there then. Gillborn and his colleagues go on to warn about the tendency in some statistical analyses to ‘assume that “racism” can only account for discrepancies that remain after they have tested for every other conceivable issue’ which inevitably obscures the role that racism might play in determining those other factors, such as socio-economic status, housing conditions, geography etc. Sadly, the Commission ignored this warning too, and ended up building this biased approach into their definitions, including ‘explained’ and ‘unexplained racial disparities’ (p. 36), where the former describes disparities that are explained by other factors such as class, geography etc, and where the latter is reserved for disparities where there is not sufficient evidence. Strangely there is no room in these definitions for racial disparities caused by racism.

Having endorsed the Macpherson definition of institutional racism, which refers to ‘unwitting prejudice, ignorance and thoughtlessness’ which disadvantage minority ethnic people (p. 35), the report goes on to bemoan the fact that ‘it is now possible for any act, including those intended to be well-meaning, to be classified as racist’. Yes! That is the point of the Macpherson definition… but the commission seems to both accept the definition and deny its implications. Hence, having explained away most of the so-called racial disparities through attributing them to other causal factors, they argue:

If it is possible to have racial disadvantage without racists then we need to look elsewhere for the roots of the disadvantage. (p. 41)

Whereas that might lead someone who understood institutional racism to search for unwitting, ignorant or thoughtless practices within institutions, it leads the Committee to consider a comparative analysis between those groups who have done better / worse, to identify the relevant ‘cultural traditions, family and integration’ factors that can explain the differences. Unsurprisingly that leads quickly to a discussion of single parent families and the ‘wealth of evidence… pointing to a greater likelihood of negative outcomes tied to family breakdown’ (p. 42). And of course, there are higher rates of such family breakdown among the lowest achieving groups – Black Caribbean and White Working Class, thus demonstrating that racism can’t be the explanation for any of this. This constant discussion of the relative position of these two groups resonates with Hassan Mahamdallie’s observation:

How strange it must be for white working class children, usually looked down on by the entire British political elite, to find well-heeled Oxbridge educated… pundits suddenly jostling to champion their cause over that of their Black Caribbean and Pakistani schoolmates. (p. 234 in Brian Richardson (Ed.) (2005) Tell it like it is: How our schools fail Black children. London: Bookmarks.)

Observing that Black African children seem to have benefitted from the ‘newcomer optimism’ of the new migrant experience, the report recommends that the White Working Class and Black Caribbean children need initiatives aimed to improve their educational motivation (p. 69). At the very least the Commission recommends that government undertakes an evaluation of the relative success of some groups with a view to replicating the relevant factors (p. 17). Here is another example where the analysis fails to hold water, even on its own strange terms, because if it is true that the differences between groups are cultural or related to family relationships, it is difficult to see how any government intervention could replicate those factors.

The real problem (BLM & CRT)

It’s obvious from this glimpse that the report includes no insight into what is really going on in education. The commission flirts with acknowledging our intersectional lives, but steers clear of following through on a truly intersectional analysis. That would consider the complex ways in which different factors interact to influence individuals’ life chances. By contrast, as already noted, this approach seems more motivated to explain away racial disparities by invoking other causal factors.

The Black Lives Matters movements are dismissed on the grounds that their narrative insists nothing has changed and that the dominant feature of our society is institutional racism and white privilege. This, the report asserts, will achieve nothing ‘beyond alienating the decent centre ground’ (p. 27). Much of the problem appears related to ‘the pessimistic narratives about race [that] have also been reinforced by a rise of identity politics’ and single issue lobby groups (p. 31). And as the report concludes, the commission does not believe we can move forward by ‘importing bleak new theories about race that insist on accentuating our differences’ (p. 233). This is reinforced by the appeal to opinion poll data which shows BLM is perceived by many as stoking up racial tension. Strangely the report also claims 44% of minority ethnic respondents claimed the protests increased racial tension, but it’s not clear where this figure comes from as the actual polling data shows significant support among minority ethnic groups. The report makes no comment about the adverse reaction to BLM from Conservative MPs, the Conservative press, or far right organisations countering with a distorted ‘white lives matter’ slogan. Nor does it differentiate between protests and the removal of statues (the former are more popular and the latter more contentious).

This fits neatly with Liz Truss’s widely reported speech as Equalities Minister, when she warned that focusing on the protected characteristics and intersectionality was worthless and that it was imperative to refocus on geography and socio-economic factors through the ‘levelling up’ agenda. Significantly, when the Commission sets out their account of the intersection of different causes of inequalities they only include ethnicity (because that is the focus of the report), socio-economic background and geography (both of which link to the levelling up agenda) and culture and degree of integration (which enables them to identify some important causes within the disadvantaged groups themselves) (p. 10). Tim Creswell has already written on the problems of ascribing causation to ‘geography’ as a separate factor, when it might be more accurately seen as just the place where other factors coalesce.

What is going on in schools?

This dismissal of single-issue groups arguing that systemic or institutional racism is deeply embedded in our culture has been connected to schools by Kemi Badenoch, the Women and Equalities Minister, who argued schools must remain impartial and assume a balanced approach when / if teaching about these issues. In a parliamentary debate on Black History Month, she argued that:

Any school which teaches these elements of political race theory as fact, or which promotes partisan political views such as defunding the police without offering a balanced treatment of opposing views, is breaking the law.

The report also addresses this issue, but in a rather confused fashion, noting:

We heard examples of some schools using materials which reflected narrow political agendas or gave a biased picture of historical and current events. (p. 92)

This leads the Commission to conclude that, even though they have no evidence about whether this is common:

It is important that education practitioners teach in a way that is politically impartials [sic] in line with their statutory obligations… [and then in bold] The commission would welcome the government to set up school leadership expectations around political neutrality and transparency on curriculum design.

And further, the Commission requests the DfE commission research ‘to better understand whether schools are teaching in an impartial way’.

On the face of it this resonates entirely with Badenoch’s comments in the House of Commons and it certainly reflects the rather strange take on impartiality embedded in the guidance on Relationships and Sex Education. That guidance is also the subject of a legal challenge undertaken by the Coalition of Anti-Racist Educators and the Black Educators Alliance in relation to a potential breach of the Equality Act. However, the slightly confusing issue is that the Commission make no specific references to the nature of the ‘narrow political agendas’ they have been informed about. Earlier they noted that minority ethnic teachers are often blocked from making the curriculum more inclusive, and that senior white teachers often fail to reflect the diverse experiences of students (p. 75). In theory, it is possible that the Commission is criticising this, but having dismissed white privilege and expressed scepticism about institutional racism, it is not entirely clear how they explain this. It is significant though that the Commission has chosen to join the fray on teacher impartiality, especially when it seems to have been somewhat shoehorned in to their discussion.

There is another aspect of the report that resonates with the culture wars in education, and that is the rather unexpected approval of ‘knowledge-rich’ teaching and the Conservative government’s national curriculum, which is described as ‘the product of years of dialogue and research’ (p. 92). Quoting E.D. Hirsch and Michael Young, the report leaps from the observation that we need a wider curriculum that develops a more inclusive account of history and a wider range of literature (p. 90), to make the assertion that:

A well-sequenced, knowledge-rich curriculum, based around subject disciplines, can help students to acquire a sense of place and a framework for understanding cultural diversity. (p. 92)

In order to achieve this, the report asserts that British history should not be taught solely as the story of ‘imperial imposition’ and that a more complex and nuanced story should be told. But, in keeping with their rejection of negative narratives, the Commission rejects work on decolonizing the curriculum, which is (mis)characterised as ‘banning white authors or token expressions of Black achievement’ (p. 8). Instead the report recommends the creation of a resource library called ‘The Making of Modern Britain’ to tell:

A new story about the Caribbean experience which speaks to the slave period not only being about profit and suffering but how culturally African people transformed themselves into a remodelled African / Britain. (p. 8)

Others have addressed what a strange view of history is reflected in this statement, here I will simply observe that to frame this as new reflects an ignorance of academic history and school history. Whereas the report intimates that history in schools adopts a simplistic and negative account of Britain’s imperial history, the little research that exists on the issue paints a more varied picture, indicating that it is common to teach about the empire but that teachers largely avoid presenting a simple negative narrative, rather opting to explore more diverse perspectives. Other projects have already begun to explore the diverse histories of Britain’s population, for example Bangla Stories, Child Migrant Stories, and Our Migration Story. It feels to me like the Commission is pretty late to the table on this, but to praise the curriculum as seeking to reflect ‘the multi-layered story’ of Britain, whilst criticising schools for being unable to deliver it as proposed, is to misinterpret both the curriculum and the direction of travel in curriculum reform in the DfE. In fact, the last round of curriculum reforms created a situation where there are options at GCSE that might diversify the curriculum, but these are quite marginal. For example, AQA (the biggest exam board) GCSE specifications for History include an option to study migration, but this is studied by 4% of candidates, and the English Literature syllabus includes one optional novel by a minority ethnic British writer (Meera Syal) about life in Britain. In Citizenship at key stage 3 the curriculum was rewritten to eradicate a chunk of work on ‘identities and diversity’ so that it now makes no mention of identity, diversity, migration (all this is delayed until key stage 4 where the subject struggles for space among a busy GCSE timetable).

In conclusion

The report presents its intersectional analysis as though the Commission were embarking on some significant new line of enquiry. Sadly, it fails to draw on the work that has already been undertaken on patterns of educational inequality, dating back to Gillborn and Mirza’s important study of race, class and gender in education in 2000. Not only does it fail to build on this rich seam of thinking (referencing neither of these authors) it instead articulates a carefully plotted position in the culture wars being stoked up by various commentators and politicians:

• It rejects or waters down definitions of racism.

• It seeks alternative explanations to ensure incidences of racism are minimised.

• It attacks anti-racist campaigners as negative and contributing to the problem rather than seeking to solve it.

• It promotes a politically controversial form of curriculum planning and calls for a form of history education which has been actively hampered by the government, whilst praising the very curriculum that has held us back.

• It casts aspersions (with no clear evidence) on teacher’s impartiality.

Reviews and reports are quite commonplace in government. This report for example calls for another four reviews, one into care, one into the factors underlying educational success, another into the pay gap in the NHS and a fourth into how to support families. It is useful to compare this review to another one recently undertaken into the Home Office in relation to the Windrush Scandal. This Commission addresses the Windrush Scandal at the beginning and end of its report, noting initially that minority ethnic people have ‘rightly felt let down’ but then reassuring us that ‘outcomes such as these do not come about by design and are certainly not deliberately targeted’ (p. 27). By the time they return to the issue in the report’s conclusion, it is referred to as an ‘egregious act of discrimination’ (p. 234) before the authors move on to note that we shouldn’t focus on the battles of the past, but rather focus on ‘what matters now’ to build on progress. By contrast, Wendy William’s Review into the Windrush Scandal (2020) noted that migration policy during the post-war period has been racially motivated and that the Home Office (policymakers and staff) lost sight of the people they had a duty to protect. Whilst the Commission promotes history as the route to create a sense of citizenship and integration (p. 90) Williams notes that many of those affected by the Home Office’s attempts to deport them failed to keep paperwork precisely because they already felt such a strong sense of Britishness. Williams criticised the Home Office senior staff for showing little awareness of indirect racism and argued they should be more reflective and revisit their unconscious bias training to make it more effective. By contrast the Commission has added additional criteria about intention to their understanding of racism (undermining our understanding of institutional racism) and argued against the use of unconscious bias training.

This is simply to note that it would have been possible to have achieved more through this report. The failure to do so is itself a political act. Our response to it cannot be anything other than a political act, in that it requires us to adopt a position in relation to the issues raised. The duty to be impartial (as tested in court) does not mean teachers have to present opposing arguments regardless of their merit, it means we have to interrogate the evidence and help students come to a balanced view. Students deserve impartial teaching which is politically balanced, but in order to achieve that teachers engaging with politically imbalanced sources have to adopt an informed and critical approach.

Photo courtesy of Steve Calcott https://flic.kr/p/AouWd