All teachers will need to gain an understanding of the impact of racism on educational achievement and how to begin to address and promote racial equality through developing positive attitudes and an inclusive classroom ethos, and through the use of teaching strategies and materials that reflect the cultural, linguistic and ethnic diversity of the classroom and society. Many providers address this issue through dedicated sessions and there are many websites that provide very full resources for initial teacher educators such as the excellent resource Educating for Race Equality- A Toolkit for Scottish teachers website which can be found at www.antiracisttoolkit.org.uk.
These materials explore in more detail the issues specific to the relationship between racism and the learning and teaching of EAL. Initial teacher educators may find it useful to examine aspects of this within their own dedicated sessions on race equality. We discuss the ways in which institutional racism may influence the delivery of services to children learning EAL in schools.We take as a reference point the definition of institutional racism employed by the Macpherson Committee. They argued that it is best thought of as the collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness, and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people. (Macpherson Committee of Enquiry, 1999, para. 6.34).
Section Editor
Charlotte Franson
On this page you will find web pages from the archived ITTSEAL site for teacher educators new to initial teacher training. Much of this material is being substantially rewritten and incorporated into our new site but we have maintained this archive to support referencing and site users.
The PDF pages are arranged in the same structure as on the original site. Please note that embedded hyperlinks in the documents will not work and external weblinks are no longer necessarily live. If you are searching for a particular resource which you cannot find, please contact us and we will try to help.
Combating racism
Education, Racism and Achievement
Expectations of pupils
The organisation of EAL teaching
Combating disadvantage in the classroom and curriculum
