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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qp1BZq14v8

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https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED614025.pdf

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https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/black-history-month-decolonise-languages-curriculum-kemi-badenoch-b2208535.html

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Earlier this year, Conservative MP Kemi Badenoch stated that the modern foreign languages (MFL) curriculum currently taught in schools does not need decolonising. This is despite Badenoch having no first-hand experience of studying in a UK secondary school, or of teaching in one.

As a 24-year-old French and Spanish teacher who teaches in a secondary school at the heart of a multicultural working-class community in west London, I have to disagree. The current Eurocentric MFL curriculum does not reflect my students, or me, in any manner, and is unrelatable for many of us.

Therefore, it is essential that we start decolonising the MFL curriculum immediately. It should be more representative of the diverse communities in which many of us teach, and in turn encourage students to pursue languages further in their education.

It is no surprise that the uptake of MFL has been in steady decline for a number of years. As key stage 3 and 4 curriculums focus heavily on grammar and omit any cultural context, the common pupil perception that learning languages is not only difficult but also out of touch with reality continues to prevail.

No matter the subject that is being taught, a cultural context is necessary for teaching and learning to occur. It is criminal that in languages - a field that is so culture-rich - we often neglect this context. When I reflect on my own experience of learning French and Spanish at secondary school, I remember the heavy emphasis on grammar, verb conjugations, and speaking with mainland Spanish and French accents.

It's safe to say that my love of French and Spanish did not come from my secondary school curriculum. Rather it came from music - most notably my mum's Planete Rap and Buena Vista Social Club CDs. During my first year of teaching, I had ambitions of being the "cool teacher", sharing this love of European music with my students, but the rose-tinted spectacles soon fell off as the pressures of marking deadlines and data drops sadly left little room for anything outside of the set syllabus.

Unfortunately, class and race also play a part in the low uptake of languages at GCSE and A-level. MFL is an inherently colonial and elitist subject; the fact that French, Spanish and German are the languages taught in schools is a result of these countries having gained "world power" status through their expansive empires.

In the education system, we sadly hold these languages in higher regard than the "community languages" that many of our EAL (English as an additional language) and ESL (English as a second language) students speak at home.

This lower uptake was brought to light in the Language Trends survey, which highlighted the disturbing correlation between schools with a lower proportion of students that study a language past KS3 and those that have the highest number of students who receive the pupil premium, are on free school meals, have lower attainment 8 results, or have EAL. It is known that both class and race are contributing factors to each of these categories, as a direct result of the various forms of racism and classism that exist within British society.

Working-class students are more likely than their middle-class counterparts to belong to either group, and are more likely to be electively withdrawn from languages before reaching their GCSEs. A similar point can be made about race. For instance, research shows that racial discrimination in the form of teacher bias has a direct effect on attainment 8 scores. This is observed most clearly in the case of boys from Black Caribbean backgrounds, who have the lowest attainment 8 scores of any group except pupils from Traveller communities - another ethnic group that faces a high level of discrimination.

Astonishingly, as is the case in France, the secondary MFL research community has opted for a "colour-blind" approach to studying the trends of language teaching in Britain, which has enabled racialised pupils to be discriminated against throughout the system.

This may be the reason why Black students are often missing from A-level and university language classrooms, and why UCAS has reported that there is a disproportionately low number of Black language teachers nationwide.

I firmly believe that decolonising the MFL curriculum is a major step in solving my subject's problems. I am aware that the statement "decolonising the curriculum" can fill some people, like Badenoch, with dread, as they imagine teachers harping on about white privilege and guilt.
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In reality, the phrase means taking part in the continuous process of acknowledging and critically examining the influence of colonial legacies on our education system. Questioning is an essential tool in decolonising the curriculum because it allows us to observe the different factors that have come to influence it.

We must first question why we teach these languages, by looking into the violent histories of linguistic colonisation. Moreover, we must incorporate culture in our teaching, because it will aid us in identifying the racist and colonial parts of our subject. Through teaching the histories of European empires - and most importantly, the impact they had on the rest of the world - we will be able to ditch our Eurocentric teaching lens.

This will aid us in hosting open conversations with our students about the underlying power dynamics of the hispanophone, francophone and German-speaking worlds, which will enable them to gain a broader cultural understanding of MFL.
Nki Osamo-Wright is a teacher of modern foreign languages in west London
Finally, we have to change the often elitist vocabulary that is used in lessons - not many of the students I teach have been horse riding, skiing or windsurfing! Instead, we must replace it with more inclusive language that students can use to accurately describe themselves, such as "I wear a hijab" or "I have braids". It is through this process of decolonisation that we can make MFL accessible to all children - not just the elite.

Why are schools teaching French and German - not Arabic or Somali?

Why are schools teaching French and German - not Arabic or Somali?

No matter the subject that is being taught, a cultural context is necessary for teaching and learning to occur

PA Wire

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Opinion: Why are schools teaching French and German - not Arabic or Somali?

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Earlier this year, Conservative MP Kemi Badenoch stated that the modern foreign languages (MFL) curriculum currently taught in schools does not need decolonising. This is despite Badenoch having no first-hand experience of studying in a UK secondary school, or of teaching in one.

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https://www.futurelearn.com/info/courses/decolonising-education-from-theory-to-practice/0/steps/190049

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There is a perception of modern languages, which is that it is really purely focused on learning language- that, is learning grammar in particular, learning long vocabulary lists, these sorts of things. Whereas in fact, language degrees at a university level have a very prominent cultural element. And what students are training for is to become culturally agile and be able to move between different linguistic and cultural contexts. And so I think that process of learning languages and acquiring the kind of knowledge of languages in their cultural context is really instrumental to decolonizing the curriculum across all disciplines. In all disciplines, we're engaging with our disciplinary area through a particular language.

And in the vast majority of cases here in Bristol, that language is English. So just through encouraging students to engage with different languages, we're encouraging to do that cultural work of thinking about something from a different perspective through their choice of language. In terms of decolonizing the teaching of modern languages, I think there are kind of two main things. In the kind of mid to longer term, I think the real issue is which languages we teach. And modern languages as a discipline as it's developed in the UK has predominantly focused on Western European languages. As it grew through the 19th century and the early 20th century, learning languages was the way of improving cultural cooperation.

So you get a big investment in language learning after the First World War, for example, and with the growing importance of the European project. And what that means is that we end up with sets of languages which are global in their scope because of the project of empire and the way in which languages such as French or Spanish were exported. But also, it means that students don't have access to languages, which are very widely spoken here in the UK because they don't fit historically into what modern languages has been. So you get African languages, for example, only being taught, really, at the School of Oriental and African studies in London.

So I think that we could really think more in a much more concerted way about introducing languages, non-European languages, into the curriculum. And here in Bristol, we do teach Arabic, Korean, and Mandarin, but these are not full degree courses. So you can take a unit learning Arabic from scratch, for example, but it's not a full degree course with all of the cultural apparatus and cultural unit- historical units surrounding it. So there have been, for a long time- for decades, really, there have been initiatives in what are sometimes called community languages or heritage languages. It's a big project up in Manchester, the multi-lingual Manchester project, which is about embedding those languages in the university curriculum.

Here in Bristol, we have a very large Somali population. So imagine a university where we were teaching Somali to students, say, from the medical school. What would that give them in terms of skills when they were then going out and working for the NHS? So I think that that's a really interesting way that we can decolonize modern languages. And I mean, my own teaching is in African literature and French. So I'm interested in how we can, using these hegemonic European languages within the confines of a degree in French, we can also pull them apart so we can start to challenge this narrow methodological nationalism which has dominated modern languages departments.

So through introducing, say, the teaching of the Haitian Revolution to the first year students- we teach the Haitian Revolution alongside the French Revolution. And we ask students to challenge ideas of freedom or ideals of freedom and equality that are put forward during the period of the French Revolution through the lens of the Haitian Revolution and through the lens of 20th century writers such as Aime Cesaire and CLR James and what they write about the Haitian Revolution. So I often give my students a film in Wolof which is the lingua franca of Senegal, even though they're studying a unit in what is supposedly francophone African literature.

I will always put that on the curriculum because it immediately challenges francophone Africa as itself being a colonial construct.

I question the extent to which modern is a useful term to have in the title of a degree or a school. The modern is such a slippery term to the extent that it comes to be a bit meaningless unless situated very precisely. In language education, modern is often posed in distinction to ancient languages, classical languages- Greek and Latin and so on. And in the 17th and 18th century, you get these big disputes around what kinds of knowledge should we cling to. Is it the ancient knowledge, or is it the modern knowledge?

But then, of course, as we know, from decolonial thought, modern then comes to operate as part of the European project of colonial modernity, and that's a project which arguably begins in 1492 with the contact across the Atlantic space. So I would advocate foregrounding multilingualism, foregrounding translation within a school of languages and cultures and that that term modern, it's useful to critique it. It's useful for students to think about it historically how it's been used and how that term itself retains a kind of power and agency. But I'm not sure that it's the most useful term for us to have.

I think in terms of our degrees in French, single honours degrees, that we have a lot of joint honours programmes with history and English and philosophy and with other languages within the school. I think it's important that these decolonizing approaches are taken aboard across all years of study and by all staff so to avoid the tokenistic inclusion of one Black writer on a first year course, for example. So that's why the Haitian Revolution, we integrate it with the teaching of the French Revolution. And the seminar groups are delivered by all of our colleagues. We also need to then recognise that students choose their pathways through degrees depending on the option units that they choose.

So you may have a student who then selects units on francophone African literature throughout the rest of their degree course and then does my final year on Pan-Africanism. And obviously, they're going to come out with a very different education to students who choose 19th century fiction and Renaissance culture except I think that joining up these conversations with colleagues who are early modern specialists, 20th century fiction specialists, means that those colleagues are also alert to what it means to take a decolonial approach.

And I found actually that my colleagues are really open to engaging with- re-engaging with their reading lists from that perspective and that at the moment, these conversations have become so widespread that they're full of ideas for how they can push their students to think more critically.

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Decolonising the 'Modern' in 'Modern Languages'

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There is a perception of modern languages, which is that it is really purely focused on learning language- that, is learning grammar in particular, learning long vocabulary lists, these sorts of things. Whereas in fact, language degrees at a university level have a very prominent cultural element.

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https://myprimarylanguagesclassroom.com/2021/05/16/decolonising-the-primary-mfl-curriculum/

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Back in 2012, when I was just a couple of years into my teaching career, I watched 'Andrew Marr's History of the World' on the BBC. The aim of the series was to tell the story of the entirety of human history, starting with the migration of early homo sapiens out of Africa and ending in the present day. What struck me the most about the series was an episode which featured a section on the Haitian Revolution of 1791. It saw enslaved Africans rise up against their French rulers, taking on the colonial might of not just France but also Britain and Spain. By 1804 independence from France had been won (although reparations would still be made to the former colonisers for the "theft" of slaveowner "property" until as recently as 1947), making Haiti the first republic led by black people and effectively signaling the beginning of the end for the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans. I was immediately struck by one question. Why was it I that I had never even heard of the Haitian Revolution, in spite of its profound impact on world history? A little more research soon uncovered other revolts by enslaved Africans in the former British colonies of Jamaica, Grenada and Barbados. Again, I had never heard of them. Clearly, even after studying history to A-Level, and French, and Hispanic Studies as a degree, there were huge gaps is my understanding of the long and complex histories that major European powers had, and continue to have, with their former colonies.

Citadelle Laferrière in Haiti, part of the country's defense system against possible future French incursions following the Revolution.

The fact that the British education system is very selective when it comes to the history it shares with the young people it claims to educate has been well known by black and minority ethnic (BME) communities for decades. It is the very reason that many such communities have long histories of supplementary schools, which promote an alternative to the version of history taught within the mainstream classroom. For too long, our education system has failed to tackle the thorny issues surrounding colonialism: the violence inflicted on the oppressed peoples of colonised territories, its uncomfortable views on race and the impact it still has in Britain, and many other parts of the globe, today. The murder of George Floyd and subsequent Black Lives Matter protests, seen around the world in the summer of 2020, have reignited debate about the way in which systemic racism, prejudice and lack of representation still affect the lives of minority ethnic groups living in a postcolonial world.

The murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the subsequent Black Lives Matter protests should be making us think again about representation of BME groups within the school curriculum

Unfortunately, often tokenistic gestures of "diversity" or "multiculturalism" take the place of actual, concrete action to address the underlying issues that lead to lack of representation within the curriculum. The problem with the concept of "diversity" is that it is based on the idea that there is a neutral point from which "others" are "diverse" (with the dominant aspect of this "neutrality" being whiteness). The concept of decolonising the curriculum goes further than simply ensuring that there are more black and brown faces in text books and the resources we create. It asks us to move beyond what we think we know, to question things that we may have assumed were fact and to move away from a Eurocentric view of the world.

So what does a decolonised MFL curriculum actually look like? The honest answer is, I don't fully know because I have never seen one and I certainly don't have all the answers.

For me personally, one of the first steps has been to re-examine the curriculum offer for MFL in my school and consider how we could help children to explore French as a global language, not just one spoken in France. This has meant forging links with partner schools in different parts of the Francophone world, not just mainland France, and adjusting planning to create units of work which allow learners to explore the cultures of countries like Rwanda, Guadeloupe and Senegal. It has also meant liaising with SLT to set aside time for a designated Semaine de la Francophonie, during which pupils learn more about the history, art and culture of various Francophone nations, drawing on their history and geography skills, alongside language teaching, in a cross-curricular approach. An 'Art Week', during which each year group will learn about and recreate the art of a Francophone artist is another move away from more "obvious" European painters such as Monet and Matisse. Importantly though, these topics and themed weeks don't just stop at the idea of French being a globally-spoken language, but encourage pupils to explore why this might have come to be. How is it that so many countries, in so many different corners of the globe all have the same official language? Does everybody in these countries speak French or are other languages present in the everyday lives of the populations and why might this be? Naturally, such discussions will draw out challenging issues. Can we talk about Carnival in Guadeloupe without addressing the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans, for example?

Guadeloupe is a beautiful island but we must also share with children troubling elements of its past

Whilst, as a primary practitioner, it can seem very difficult to address such topics with young pupils, I am in complete agreement with Lisa Panford and Melina Irvine 's comment in their recent ALL Language World presentation on decolonising the MFL curriculum, that we need to start our discussions on racism and colonialism as early as possible with primary pupils. This must, of course, be done in an age-appropriate way but it is essential if our children are to move through the education system with an awareness of the causes and current consequences of colonialism.

A decolonised curriculum also requires us to examine seemingly well-known aspects of history from a different perspective. Throughout my high-school history education, I learned about the First and Second World Wars solely through a European lens. I heard about battles in France and Belgium, dictators in Germany and Italy and analysed pictures of white Tommies in trenches. No mention was ever made of the contribution of troops from across the British Empire - as an example, over 1 million Indian soldiers served in World War One and around 2.5 million in World War Two - who fought for Britain and were, at the time, British citizens as a direct result of imperial expansion. The involvement of men from all corners of the globe, coming to fight for the "mother country" is, of course, the reason why we call them "World Wars" but this, to my knowledge, was never made explicit. When we commemorate l'armistice in MFL sessions, can we do so without reference to les tirailleurs sénégalais (West-African soldiers who fought for France) or the contribution of Malagasy troops?

Display of 'ID cards' commemorating soldiers from all over the world who fought and died for Britain and France in WW1, created by my Year 3 pupils.

As part of a decolonised curriculum I think it is also important to shine a light on the cultural achievements of former colonies, in spite of the oppressions of their colonial pasts. From Léopold Senghor's philosophy of négritude in Senegal, to the resident artists of Kigali's Inema Arts Centre and the Simón Bolívar orchestra of Venezuela, many groups in the global south have successfully reimagined culture for a postcolonial age and this is something that, as teachers, we must help our pupils to discover. In doing so, we enable learners to challenge their own misconceptions about life in countries which they may have - consciously or unconsciously - considered "poor", "backward", or "lacking in culture."

With this in mind, we must also be conscious of the images of people or places that we expose our pupils to, ensuring that we do not fall into the trap of presenting tired tropes, which do not represent the current reality of the country which they claim to depict. When we show children pictures or video clips of Côte d'Ivoire, do we show images of bustling Abidjan with its skyscrapers, alongside the beautiful beaches, rubber plantations and the national football team? The danger of a single narrative is well-documented but it is inevitable, especially when talking about places that we have never visited, that we may fall back onto unhelpful stereotypes ourselves. This is why creating links with partner schools can be so beneficial, not only for the pupils but for teachers too. I will often ask my colleagues in partner institutions questions about a particular unit of work and I hope in the future to be able to do more collaborative planning of units.

Decolonising in terms of MFL, or indeed any area of the curriculum, involves teachers and school leaders reflecting critically on what they think they already know, taking into consideration their own points of reference and bias and being prepared to admit that they do not have all the answers. Ultimately, it is a question of pluralising, creating greater equality and designing a curriculum in which all learners see themselves reflected. We should be aiming to create a curriculum which inspires all learners, enabling every pupil, no matter what their background or the colour of their skin, to achieve the best possible outcomes.
For more information around the subject of decolonising the curriculum and what it is like to grow up black and British, I have found the following really informative. Aisha Thomas's 2020 Ted Talk The Importance of Representation in Education Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire by Akala. Brit(ish) by Afua Hirsch

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Decolonising the Primary MFL Curriculum.

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Moving beyond diversity Back in 2012, when I was just a couple of years into my teaching career, I watched 'Andrew Marr's History of the World' on the BBC. The aim of the series was to tell the story of the entirety of human history, starting with the migration of early homo sapiens out of...

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https://uclpress.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14324/LRE.20.1.04

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While a clear rationale for the need to decolonise school geography curricula has been proposed, there are few examples of what this looks like in practice. Drawing on our professional practice in both a secondary school and a university setting, we outline two case studies of decolonising the curriculum that centre on promoting student agency. The first is a Year 7 geography unit of work, and the second is a walking tour of London for an initial teacher education programme for secondary school geography teachers. Through these case studies, we argue for the importance of encouraging students to think about geographical relations with other places, and build on studies which foreground the importance of place as a pedagogic device through which the aims of decolonisation can be furthered.

Introduction

During a breaktime conversation, two Year 7 students were excited to share with me (CN) that they had produced a podcast that centred on issues of race and racism. After a series of questions ensued about online safety and the practicalities of the project, I reflected on how the actions by these students indicated a profoundly different outcome resulting from my attempts to decolonise a series of geography lessons. These students had begun to apply the concepts of race and inequality to create a platform both to further their own learning and to address the continued marginalisation of Black voices. In the students' own words: 'We hadn't learnt about colonialism, as you said [referring to CN], it doesn't appear in the curriculum. So, when we started covering topics such as the Bristol Bus Boycott, we were really excited to link our knowledge.'

These students thus demonstrate a practical engagement with anti-racism. Indeed, it is an engagement which stems from a level of personal confidence and adeptness with technology, but we want to argue here that it is also enabled by what Healy and Mulcahy ( 2021) called an 'affirming ethics'. For these authors, curriculum and pedagogy 'invites an ethics of affirmation that augments the affective capacities of learner- and teacher-bodies, enlarging their potential to engage in ethical action' ( Healy and Mulcahy, 2021: 1). When applied to decolonising the curriculum, we argue that this focus on student agency is an important supplement to approaches to decolonising curricula. According to Morreira et al. ( 2020b: 137), enabling student agency is a decolonial practice, as it 'allows for the creation and maintenance of students as embodied, knowledge-making persons situated within communities, rather than as abstracted individuals to whom academia imparts knowledge created by others'.

As two geography educators - one teaching in a London secondary school (CN) and the other being the director of a university-based geography initial teacher education programme (ER) - we want to use this opportunity to reflect on how decolonising can be approached by both teachers and teacher educators. We see common themes between decolonising in higher and secondary education, such that we feel it is important to talk across these two contexts. Here we define decolonising as the set of heterogeneous pedagogical practices that bring to the fore the effects of colonisation and its consequences, such as forced migration, occupation and subjugation of Indigenous people, in a manner that interrupts 'the dominant power/knowledge matrix in educational practices' ( Morreira et al., 2020a: 2). The pedagogical means through which these ends are achieved by educators are diverse. We therefore begin this article with an attempt to map some of the approaches to decolonising deployed by geography teachers in UK secondary schools.

This analysis then draws on two case studies, one from a series of lessons in a Year 7 geography classroom, the other a (virtual) decolonising walking tour of central London for geography teachers completing their Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) course. This allows for reflection on the ways that decolonising might be adapted for different educational contexts. Both case studies foreground two distinct methods for promoting the agency of students. This first is to develop students' relational thinking - where they appreciate the geographical connections and traces that connect the UK to other parts of the world in the past and present. Building on ideas suggested by Morreira et al. ( 2020b) about the importance of place in decolonial efforts, the second method shows how a practical and embodied experience of a city helps students to reflect on the effects of colonialism.

Both these case studies contribute to the growing body of educational scholarship on practical methodologies for decolonising curricula (for example, Luckett et al., 2021; Liyanage, 2020; Le Grange, 2016). These two case studies are not templates to replicate - indeed, the strength of decolonial practices lies in their heterogeneity - but provocations that we hope inspire educators to think about how decolonising curricula can apply in various educational contexts and across various disciplines.

Approaches to decolonising the curriculum in geography education

In geography education, there is an increasing recognition of the way curriculum knowledge creates and perpetuates particular ways of seeing and acting in the world that remain 'deeply rooted in post-Enlightenment Euro-American claims to be able to pronounce universal truths and to theorize the world' ( Radcliffe, 2017: 329). The construction of the curriculum is therefore inherently political. For geographers, this is particularly problematic as the disciplinary history of the school geography curriculum is bound up with the project of empire ( RGS, n.d.a; Kearns, 2009).

Colonial legacies are still present in what is taught in the geography classroom, and in who is given the right to produce and disseminate geographical knowledge. Puttick and Murrey ( 2020) highlighted how the word 'race' does not appear once in the Department for Education's Key Stage 3 Geography Programme of Study or GCSE subject content, and A level subject content is similarly silent on this issue. More broadly, scholars have considered how the British education system can actively serve to create and reinforce racial and class-based inequalities ( Kulz, 2017). Similarly, in higher education, Rose ( 2020: 138) noted that in 2019 'there were 21,000 professors in UK universities and only 140 of those 21,000 professors identified as black (and of those, only 25 identified as female)'.

The murder of George Floyd catalysed a renewed impetus among geographical educators to do more to reflect on and address the silence of race in school curricula. Much of this work has been driven by efforts of individual geography teachers and academics. Individual teachers have shared their thinking and approach to the development of anti-racist geography curricula on Twitter (for example, 'Anti-racist Geography Curriculum', https://twitter.com/ARGeogCurric), blog posts (for example, Rackley, 2020) and via short, informal presentations at TeachMeets. Examples of geography teachers' practical efforts to decolonise curricula are numerous. For example, Robinson ( 2020) - a UK-based geography teacher - blogged about how she has used websites such as Dollar Street to counter generalised and stereotyped representations of Africa.

Table 1 summarises what we suggest are three current approaches to decolonising geography curricula. This has been derived from a summary of social media posts on Twitter, as much of the work of decolonising curricula currently exists in the format of online discussions and informal conversations among educators.

Table 1 shows three main approaches to decolonising curriculum content. Approach 1 is distinguished by a focus on addressing 'misconceptions', such as about the cultural-economic-environmental homogeneity of Africa. Approach 2 is distinguished by encouraging students to think critically about the dominance of discourses within geography and the contemporary political discourse. For example, Robinson ( 2020) spotlighted how in her teaching she foregrounds the idea that the United Nations Millennium Development Goals perpetuated African countries' dependence on the 'West' as an example of neocolonial relations (see also Durokifa and Ijeoma, 2018). This approach foregrounds how not only single lessons, but also schemes of work might be built around postcolonial approaches that encourage students to think critically about uneven power relations that continue to perpetuate inequalities and dependencies. Approach 3 can be distinguished by its incorporation of Black histories that have been hitherto marginalised from curricula. For example, the Windrush Foundation ( https://windrushfoundation.com/about-us/) is a UK-based charity that has created geographical schemes of work that 'highlight African and Caribbean peoples' contributions to UK public services, the Arts, commerce, and other areas of socio-economic and cultural life in Britain and the Commonwealth'. This approach is characterised by its affirmative 'curriculum-making' - reforming curricula to include the perspectives of those who have been marginalised.

We suggest that each approach is oriented by a different 'pedagogical imperative'. Approach 1 is characterised by a focus on correcting knowledge, Approach 2 is characterised by critical, postcolonial orientation that identifies power structures and inequalities, and Approach 3 seeks to rebuild curricula in a way that foregrounds the experiences of hitherto marginalised people, including the lived experiences of students themselves, in a manner that promotes student agency. Together, these approaches help to parse the catch-all term 'decolonising' in reference to geographical curricula. In practice, the school curriculum is likely to shuttle between these different approaches, and there may well be aspects of these different approaches within a single lesson or scheme of work. Moreover, they emphasise our understanding that discussions around decolonising the curriculum, in terms of what is in the curriculum, are inseparable from discussions around the pedagogies through which the curriculum is enacted.

Case studies and approach

The empirical material presented here centres on a scheme of work developed for a Year 7 geography class in a secondary school in London, UK (September-October 2020), and an extended 'subject session' delivered over the course of an afternoon as part of a PGCE geography programme for trainee teachers at King's College London (February 2021). The series of lessons delivered to the Year 7 class were part of a broader scheme of work on globalisation that was adapted to focus on aspects of globalisation that relate to the British Empire, the slave trade and the ways that these relations have a contemporary legacy in modern Britain.

For the PGCE course, the subject session was delivered through a walking tour of London which, due to COVID-19 restrictions, was led 'in the field' by CN, with ER and the student group joining remotely via Microsoft Teams. The name and objectives of the tour were inspired by an 'Uncomfortable Oxford' walking tour, whose website describes it as 'dedicated to raising awareness about the "uncomfortable" aspects of history and their impact today: racial inequality, gender and class discrimination, and legacies of empire' ( https://www.uncomfortableoxford.co.uk). Our walking tour lasted approximately three hours, and it was deliberately planned to encompass the key sites in London in which the remnants of empire and current debates are most overt. The tour began in South Kensington, which Gilbert and Driver ( 2000: 28) argued is the place where 'the connection between empire and the collection of knowledge was at its most explicit'. It encompassed five main stops: the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), the Victoria and Albert Museum and Natural History Museum, Sloane Square, Buckingham Palace and Parliament Square ( Figure 1).

Each stop facilitated the opportunity to discuss a different dimension of empire and colonialism. For example, the RGS was used to prompt discussions about the ways that many school trips continue to be motivated by ideas of exploration and travelling to 'distant' places, and Buckingham Palace was used to reflect on the Victoria Memorial and the interconnections between Africa and Europe. The key stops on the walking tour, and the corresponding dimensions of colonialism that were discussed at each stop, are listed in Table 2. Trainee teachers used a Google Jamboard to record their thoughts at and between particular sites, with an emphasis on thinking through how the walking tour might be incorporated into the geography curriculum. Our hope was that the walking tour would not only foreground colonialism in London, but also equip teachers with the confidence to translate aspects of the pedagogy and ideas into their own classrooms.

Both the Year 7 lessons and the walking tour took place in London. Gilbert and Driver ( 2000: 23-4) argued that 'London was not merely the political and financial capital of a global empire: it was also a place where the empire could be seen and experienced'. These authors reminded us that different parts of London (the Tube, Westminster, Oxford Street and so on) engineer different dimensions of 'imperial experience' that 'helped to shape the British sense of themselves, as a nation and as a people' ( Gilbert and Driver, 2000: 24). The urgency to critically interrogate London's colonial past-present is a pressing and almost limitless project. Rather than operating in a more abstract realm of theory, our idea of the walking tour was to enable students to develop a sense of the material ways in which power and inequality are fashioned through the spaces of the capital. The virtual nature of the tour meant that undoubtedly it was much harder for students to sense these relations, such that our preference would have been to conduct the tour in person.

While the methodologies explored here might be most easily transferable to other urban contexts in the UK and Europe, we suggest that there is no single methodology for decolonising curricula. Indeed, it is important that educators take into account local contexts and individual schools and classes when thinking about how to make decolonising meaningful in different settings. For example, an 'uncomfortable walking tour' may well be developed for secondary school-aged children, and decolonising a scheme of work can be applied to university degree courses. Our approach is one that sees decolonising as more than an intellectual exercise; it is a process of educating that has the potential to make new, more socially just worlds through enhancing student agency. This is a position that resonates closely with a broader shift in approaches to education. For example, education for environmental sustainability has recently focused on practical methodologies that support students to amplify their voices in the process of creating more environmentally sustainable futures ( Dunlop and Rushton, 2021; Rushton and Batchelder, 2020).

Both case studies take place in educational settings that give sufficient scope for pedagogical innovation and educator autonomy and freedom. We recognise that this is not the case at all in secondary and tertiary institutions. Indeed, there may be barriers to implementation, such as the time and space required to put together new programmes of study, and there may even be reluctance or apathy from school and university management to allow this work to take place. It may be that school curricula are planned and managed centrally in a way that ensures consistency across lessons, but that potentially comes at the expense of allowing individual teachers licence for curriculum experimentation.

In both our case studies, learners were already sensitive to issues of racial injustice. We recognise that the cases we present are emergent from, and enabled by, the contexts in which we teach. However, this is not to say that this work is complete, nor as 'unsettling' as it might have been. The affective dimension of this work had to be carefully calibrated in a manner that negotiated the expectations of the curriculum between students, teachers and parents, while continuing to challenge established discourses.

By its very nature, the work of decolonising is to unsettle dominant narratives, disrupt taken-for-granted ways of seeing and replace 'comfortable' narratives about British identity and history. Within the secondary school context, this generated conversations with department colleagues around what might be 'too shocking' to teach to particular year groups. This raises interesting questions about not only the expectation of shock and surprise in the classroom, and how to prepare students for this, but also how these affective dimensions of decolonial teaching might be planned for through different year groups as a form of progression.

By spotlighting these two cases, we acknowledge that this article is a modest contribution, but nonetheless we hope that it serves as the start of much more substantial practical, creative projects that address colonialism within geography education. Neither of us would consider ourselves as 'experts' in colonial and postcolonial geographies and/or theory. We approach this work through our own heterogeneous backgrounds and professional identities, and work with an ethic of 'decolonising solidarity'. This recognises that decolonising is a 'path towards a transformative learning gained through a social movement learning in which we each continually commit to a willingness to learn, to listen and to become' ( Kluttz et al., 2020: 64). In other words, decolonising is more than simply 'allyship', and it must be more than an academic exercise. It must be a process in which we, as educators, learn and are transformed.

It is thus important that all educators reflect carefully on what it means to 'decolonise curricula well'. For Kluttz et al. ( 2020: 63), decolonising involves 'being comfortable with being uncomfortable'. This idea of being made 'uncomfortable' is one we emphasise in our case studies - especially in our example from the initial teacher education programme, where the walking tour of London was entitled 'The Uncomfortable London Tour'. In the pre-session guidance and reading for the walking tour, we described this as a process of shifting away from the (re)telling of knowledge about particular places and instead foreground the topics that might be easily ignored or glossed over as they require forms of reflection, discussion and new viewpoints to be negotiated.

It is the negotiation of these boundaries between acceptability and controversy that makes efforts to decolonise curricula in schools and universities in the UK all the more complex. In the following section, we outline empirical materials from our two case studies. In so doing, we draw out the different pedagogical techniques through which decolonising takes place.

Methodologies for decolonising a Year 7 geography curriculum

Tracing relationships

As part of a unit on globalisation, I (CN) wanted students to be able to trace the geographies and histories of colonial influence on London. Figure 2 shows the 'triangular trade' in slaves between the UK, Western Africa and North America. Students described this map so that they understood how slave labour was transformed into goods, at the same level as sugar for example, and shipped to the UK, where profit from the sale of these goods accumulated. Figure 2 prompted a discussion about the way that capitalism operates through the accumulation of profit from labour, and several astute students remarked at the way that commodities such as tea continue to draw lines between former British colonies such as India and Kenya in a way that continues to maintain and perpetuate unequal relationships.

Establishing this relational understanding was the first step in allowing students to visualise the connections between modern UK cities and slavery. This allowed scaffolding in subsequent lessons for more complex discussions that required students to apply this approach to thinking about the connections between slavery and contemporary UK companies ( Table 3). In one lesson, students were asked to explore the direct and indirect connections between British banks and the slave trade (see Mulhern, 2020), which led to discussions and reflections on how this might influence decisions both about how to open a first bank account and about the banks that students felt they wanted to use. In this way, attempts to decolonise the curriculum can link to broader cross-curricular links between geography, history and life skills, for example.

Tracing the historical links between UK cities and the profits and influence of slavery is important for several reasons. First, it helps students recognise the 'relationality' of cities in a way that troubles the idea of the city as a point on a map that is confined in space and time. Geographers have noted how cities are established and maintained through linkages and flows of materials and people that expand what we geographically understand by cities (for example, Massey, 2005). Second, experiences of cities can be 'haunted' by their past, such as the lingering ways that colonial architecture can affect how people experience cities (for example, Till, 2005).

These conversations around the way slavery has benefited UK businesses and shaped cities became more personal and applied as lessons progressed through the scheme of work ( Table 3). While students were initially introduced to the concept of slavery and the idea of 'triangular trade', in later lessons, the emphasis shifted towards how the legacy of slavery feels as it materialises in the architecture of cities, and what students felt should be done about it. These questions play to the strength of geography as a subject which has the potential to expose learners to genuine social and environmental issues. In these lessons, students were asked to think about how they felt walking past statues of slave owners and to reflect on how this might be different for different groups of people. This was an exercise in developing student empathy in trying to think about what might initially seem an innocuous and unnoticed part of a city, through different perspectives.

The scheme of work culminated in a task that asked students to research the ways that London architecture and street names have a colonial legacy and to design their own vision for a London that was 'welcoming to everyone'. This task was designed to allow students to apply what they had learnt through the lessons in a manner that allowed knowledge to be assessed; it also encouraged students to envisage more equitable futures. This is a form of speculative storytelling that is about thinking creatively and expansively about what futures can and should feel like.

Figure 3 shows an illustration of a student's response to the task of creating a more equal city. It is clear that they have thought carefully and creatively about this task. The writing at the bottom of the page reads: 'as the ship moves further [ sic] in, everything is more modern and equal. This symbolises time and how it moves.' There is a sense here of leaving some elements of the past to decay, such as a statue of a slave trader. The image shows how the student is thinking about ethical businesses and fair trade alongside aspects such as the school curriculum and the Black Lives Matter protests.

In addition to the sentence at the bottom of Figure 3, the student also includes various elements that for them characterise a more equal world. These include a group of people being able to protest about 'freedom' and an end to 'modern slavery'. The students were taught about modern slavery as part of a class discussion on the way that slavery continues in the twenty-first century, and this student recognises that struggles to eradicate slavery are important and ongoing. Figure 3 also shows a teacher in a school teaching 'the trade triangle' - a reference to the content about which they had been learning. This shows a certain level of recognition that content in schools also plays an important role in anti-racism. Another element to Figure 3 is a feeling that statues of slave traders should be taken down. Discussion of statues did not feature as part of the lesson sequence; this feature shows the student bringing in ideas from outside the classroom, and connecting these broader debates to the task.

What is revealing about this scheme of work, however, is not only the representations the students drew, but also the ongoing conversations around race, identity and equality that propagated through subsequent schemes of work. For example, as intimated in the introduction, two students used the ideas from the lessons to start a podcast themed around issues of race. These students also felt confident sharing a Panorama BBC television documentary entitled 'Am I British?', which looks at the systematic discrimination that young people born in the UK experience. Figure 4 shows this post from the student on the class digital classroom, accompanied by the student's own description of the documentary.

This example thus highlights the complexity not only of how we decolonise the curriculum, but also of how we assess the success of this work. Tasks such as that shown in Figure 3 may give educators an opportunity to assess the way that concepts are being applied, and how knowledge from previous lessons is being brought into a task, but these tasks also require a great deal of thought from students, illustrating their effort in grappling with these complex themes. It is Figure 4, however, that may be more indicative of the effectiveness of this attempt at decolonising. The scheme of work allowed ideas of racism to be validated, such that a student could feel confident sharing a documentary that spoke to themes that resonated with them and their lived experiences. It is this relatively small - but likely significant for the student - practical act that speaks to the student's increased confidence and agency.

Methodologies for decolonising the curriculum in a PGCE geography course

The materiality of place: 'uncomfortable' walking tour

Truman and Springgay ( 2019: 527) suggested that walking tours are 'a research method, a tourist event, and an everyday practice that are a ubiquitous method of getting to know a place, including its hidden histories, obscure stories, and state-sanctioned narratives'. They contended that:

conventional walking tours can reinforce dominant histories, memories, power relations, and normative or fixed understandings of place. This place-based knowledge can serve various forms of governance or ideology and maintain the status quo, including the ongoing violence of settler colonisation and erasure of racialized, gendered and disabled bodies.

( Truman and Springgay, 2019: 527-8)

Our walking tour of London was intended as an opportunity for teachers studying at a central London university to rethink familiar places, and as a chance to attempt to do what Daigle and Sundberg ( 2017: 1) described as 'unsettle Eurocentric colonial discourses that many students carry into the classroom'. The tour created openings for trainee teachers to raise points for class discussion, and to think through how they might adapt ideas from the walking tour to incorporate into their own teaching in secondary schools. We note that due to COVID-19 restrictions we were not able to carry out the walking tour in person as a group and that this important aspect of physically walking the path towards greater decoloniality together was not possible on this occasion.

Creating the walking tour required us, as the 'educator-guides', to begin by troubling our own taken-for-granted ideas about these places which we encounter and interact with on a semi-regular basis. Our hope was to introduce the trainee teachers to the silences and debates which each site prompts, but importantly to 'unsettle' and 'surprise' our students with the way colonial histories of familiar places have been silenced. It is through mobilising these emotions and affects that we wanted to inculcate a sense of why decolonising matters.

The tour started at the Royal Geographical Society. The RGS plays an important role in UK geography education. For example, it provides classroom resources, hosts internationally regarded conferences and organises competitions for secondary school students. Yet, the history of the society was 'closely allied for many of its early years with colonial exploration in Africa, the Indian subcontinent, the polar regions, and central Asia' ( RGS, n.d.b: n.p.). We therefore wanted teachers to be aware of this history, and to reflect on some of the ways in which colonial visions of the world still inform the discipline of geography, its subject matter and its pedagogies. The answers to these questions were not prescribed, but the questions were framed as provocations for the trainee teachers to reflect on using a Jamboard ( Figure 5).

Figure 5 shows the ways that the trainee teachers are beginning to think through practical classroom tasks that ask students to question the importance of elements of the geographical canon. For example, one trainee teacher suggests the need for 'open discussion of the relevance' of explorers such as Livingstone and Shackleton. Another trainee teacher suggests a practical classroom activity involving creating a timeline of the history of the RGS to get students to reflect on 'what would be acceptable nowadays' ( Figure 5).

Between the stops on the tour led by CN, students were invited to share their ideas and enter into a conversation facilitated by ER about the relevance of each place. These conversations generated important considerations of the ways that race, class and gender intertwine in particular places to create social exclusions. They matured as the tour progressed, with a greater focus on the places in between the official tour stops emerging as teachers discussed themes such as gated private gardens and the role of Black domestic labour in the UK economy.

At the tour's second stop, the Victoria and Albert Museum and Natural History Museum, trainee teachers reflected on questions related to the way that many objects in European museums are stolen and curated as the spoils of empire ( Hicks, 2020). The Jamboard reflections from this stop incorporated questions which could give rise to perceptive enquiries and tasks for classroom lessons, such as:

At the tour's third stop, Sloane Square, the focus of the tour shifted to the embodied experiences of space. Emphasis was placed on how individuals feel in a particular space, and the association of places with those who were directly and indirectly involved in the slave trade. Here, key themes represented on the Jamboard centred on how students in the classroom could investigate perceptions of space. For example:

At the fourth stop, Buckingham Place, ideas of the Commonwealth were explicitly explored. Students discussed the tensions around the celebration of the Commonwealth, and different opinions of the monarchy. There were many perceptive ideas for classroom discussion here that could equally form the basis of new enquiry-based units, such as:

Parliament Square was the fifth and final stop. The idea here was to reflect on the way recent government decisions had discriminated against Black communities such as the Windrush migrants, and how this should be taught in schools. This was an area that trainee teachers found much harder to reflect on, likely as a result of worries around politicisation of the discipline ( Standish, 2012), and perhaps concerns about being too 'overtly political' in the curriculum. The construction of the walking tour in a way that progressively made issues of race and colonialism less abstract and more immediate was a deliberate pedagogical device used to scaffold the tour. It served to allow trainee teachers the chance to grapple with what we as teacher educators regard as increasingly challenging areas because they involve reflecting on, and opening up debate around, complex and contested contemporary issues.

Conclusions and reflections

We began by outlining three approaches that characterise what we consider to be dominant ways of approaching decolonising the geography curriculum in secondary schools in England. We then described how we both approached the task of decolonising the curriculum in our own work as teachers and educators in a secondary school and university setting. We highlighted how our approach is one that focuses on enabling agency in our students. For trainee teachers, our goal was for them to develop the ability to apply ideas of decolonising the curriculum in their own practice. For secondary school students, the aim was to encourage them to feel confident in discussing issues of race and racial discrimination in the classroom, and to take positive, productive steps to learn more about these issues.

We have shared two practical approaches to decolonising the curriculum in a school and a university setting. This contributes to the growing body of work on decolonising the (geography) curriculum by showing the different ways in which it can be achieved in practice. The two case studies show quite contrasting approaches. The example from the Year 7 classroom focuses on developing relational understandings and interconnections. In contrast, the walking tour of London was structured to allow a material and sensuous engagement with key sites in London.

The outcomes from both methods are interesting to compare. The walking tour generated a rich set of reflections and discussions that show that a wonderful set of possible new lesson enquiry questions were generated as the tour progressed. These thoughts require further elaboration and unpacking, but they have the potential to provide a wealth of new avenues for teaching geography in secondary schools. These could be incorporated into existing schemes of work, or potentially used to construct new units. The Year 7 lessons meant that the students learnt the key concepts of globalisation, but in a way that also enabled them to reflect on issues of slavery and its continued influence on students' lives. What was most positive was how discussions of race and racism normalised these conversations and led to the theme being continued to be discussed through latter topics.

There is, however, a vacuum of government guidance and support on issues of decolonising the curriculum. For example, the term 'decolonising the curriculum' was mentioned briefly only once in the 'Sewell report' on Race and Ethnic Disparities ( Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, 2021). Educators therefore are left having to weigh up if the teaching of 'uncomfortable' histories and 'uncomfortable' presents that disrupt certain ideas of British nationalism and pride are legitimate, appropriate and possible.

Daigle and Sundberg ( 2017: 338) described how their approach to decolonising a university degree programme 'blurs the boundaries between our teaching responsibilities and our personal political commitments to movements for decolonisation and Indigenous self-determination'. We would, however, argue that in curriculum-making the teacher is an 'active professional who does not just deliver central content, but instead makes conscious and considered choices' that shape teaching and learning practices ( Dessen Jankell et al., 2021: 66). In this way, the teacher is not a bystander to the knowledge that is delivered; indeed, it is the teacher's professionalism and academic rigour that shapes what is taught and how it is taught. In the words of one of the reflections from our trainee teachers during the walking tour: 'Leaving these "stones unturned" [colonial ideas] can be as much of a political statement as opening up discussion in the classroom.'

We wish to thank our groups of students, whose thinking and contributions made this research possible. Our thanks also go to the editors and reviewers who provided supportive and helpful guidance.

Research ethics statement

The authors declare that ethical procedures were followed throughout this research, informed by GDPR ( 2018) and BERA ( 2018) guidance, and approval was obtained through the authors' university institution processes.

Consent for publication statement

The authors declare that research participants' informed consent to publication of findings - including photos, videos and any personal or identifiable information - was secured prior to publication.

Conflicts of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest with this work. All efforts to sufficiently blind the authors during peer review of this article have been made.

Approach to decolonising in geography

Approach 1:
Challenging misconceptions

Approach 2:
Identifying power inequalities

Approach 3:
Reconstructing the curriculum

Focus

Challenging narratives of British superiority and colonial 'ways of seeing'

Identifying structures of inequality and oppression

Affirmative curriculum-making

Pedagogical imperative

Correcting misconceptions/generalisations

Critical approaches

Enhancing student agency and capabilities to make change

Examples

Challenging ideas of the homogeneity of Africa
Spotlighting the histories of empire and exploitation through which the economic development of Britain was underpinned

Critical approaches to geographical knowledge production, models and concepts (for example, problematising ideas of development)
Emphasising an attention to power-geometries and inequalities that are perpetuated through neo-colonial relations

Introducing knowledge that has typically been left out of the curriculum and textbooks, for example, the Windrush scandal
Encouraging individual reflection and responsibilities

Location

Dimension of colonialism discussed

Victoria and Albert and Natural History Museums

Should museums return their colonial artefacts?

How does our thinking change when we consider what geography looks like from the perspective of former colonies?

Buckingham Palace

Who is visible and invisible in colonial architecture?

How does the meaning held by memorial architecture change over time?

How can those currently not represented in London's architecture be made visible?

Parliament Square

How to celebrate contributions of those marginalised still in society?

How might this be made into a classroom activity?

1

What does globalisation mean?

2

How do our products depend on a global supply chain?

3

How have people migrated around the world over time?

4

How has Britain left its colonial influence around the world?

5

How has slavery shaped British cities, and what should they look like?

6

What does it mean to be an ethical business?

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Methodologies for decolonising geography curricula in the secondary school and in initial teacher education

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While a clear rationale for the need to decolonise school geography curricula has been proposed, there are few examples of what this looks like in practice. Drawing on our professional practice in both a secondary school and a university setting, we outline two case studies of decolonising the curriculum that centre on promoting student agency.

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https://freedomtoteach.collins.co.uk/more-diverse-english-curriculum/

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Mapping a more diverse English curriculum - Collins | Freedom to Teach

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Quite rightly, schools are taking steps to ensure that their English curriculums are more representative of the diverse country that … Continued

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https://my.chartered.college/impact_article/multidirectional-narratives-diversifying-the-english-and-history-curriculums/

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SHILPA DARBAR, HEAD OF HISTORY, ST ALBANS HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIRLS, UK

ALEXANDRA GREENFIELD, HEAD OF ENGLISH, ST ALBANS HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIRLS, UK

The selection of texts in English and case studies in history is crucial both in terms of how students respond to and engage with these subjects, and in creating what Victoria Elliott defines as ‘disciplinary powerful knowledge’ (2021, p. 8): the texts, sources and voices that we choose to include in our curriculums create a culture that can elevate certain values and belief systems, often at the expense of others. In their study of students aged 12 to 14, Harris and Reynolds found that ‘although many students enjoy history, they fail to fully understand its value… [Some children,] especially those from minority ethnic backgrounds, feel a lack of personal connection to the past, as they do not see themselves in the history they are taught.’ (2014, p. 46) Similarly, Barton and Levstik (2004) argue that identification is integral to the rationale for studying history; they illustrate that students need to identify with the past, at a personal, family or national level. Yet in our experience, history in UK schools has been more about identifying with a national story of progress and achievements. Likewise, in September 2020, Teach First surveyed to what extent black literature was being incorporated into the GCSE English curriculum. Their report found that ‘the biggest exam board, accounting for almost 80% of GCSE English literature entries, does not feature a single book by a Black author, and just two books by ethnic minority authors’ (2020, p. 6). Furthermore, a 2018 report by the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education found that only four per cent of children’s books published in 2017 featured a minority ethnic character and, additionally, only one per cent of those characters could be considered the main character (2018). Such findings suggest the potential for many English curriculums, like history, to exclude or entirely ignore the experiences of those students studying that very curriculum.

In order to achieve and, crucially, sustain any meaningful change when creating a diverse curriculum, it is important to have a clear pathway – one that is coherent, joined up and embedded in the culture of the department and school. Creating a diverse, challenging curriculum is important for introducing all students to a wealth of perspectives, experiences and cultures as well as in terms of representation. It was clear to us that our curriculums were no longer reflecting the students in our classrooms, which was confirmed by the data acquired from our school admissions department. Our school is an all-girls, independent secondary school with a diverse student body. We have a slightly higher than average proportion of students from minority ethnic backgrounds when comparing to the Independent Schools Council’s 2019 census, which found that 33.8 per cent of pupils who attended independent schools in the UK came from minority ethnic backgrounds.

The steps outlined below demonstrate how we approached a curriculum review in history and English; however, the process is transferable across subjects.

Step 1: Audit the current offer

Before implementing any new change, it is essential to thoroughly audit what is already in place. This not only ensures that positive elements are retained, but also enables an open and hopefully honest conversation with the whole department about why we teach what we do. Having established an accurate understanding of the demographic of our students, we used this to ensure that our new curriculum achieved the personal connections we desired. Given that we have most freedom in curriculum design at Key Stage 3, we began by critically evaluating what topics, case studies and texts we currently taught and what cumulative narrative was created through the teaching of those. Using Paul Washington-Miller’s definition of an inclusive curriculum as one ‘which provides all students regardless of background and immutable characteristics with an equal opportunity to achieve the learning outcomes of their programme’ (Washington-Miller and Maharasingam, 2020), we questioned to what extent our Key Stage 3 curriculum achieved this. We were mindful of the potential danger of making changes as a tokenistic gesture; our route to avoid this was to create a multidirectional narrative that embedded diversity The recognition of individual differences in terms of race, ... More rather than ‘tacked it on’ (Dennis, 2016).

Step 2: Establish shared goals

In both departments, we knew that a clear rationale and set of outcomes was essential from the outset. As such, open discussion and agreeing shared goals and a vision for the curriculum with our departments formed the bedrock of our path to change; in our departments, we created lists of non-negotiables, desirables and absolute nots, cross-referencing this list with the findings of the audit to identify the gaps. This gave us a structure for what was needed next. We knew that we wanted to create what Bennie Kara calls a ‘culturally connected curriculum’ as ‘a far better way to promote diversity’ than just including content relating to minority ethnic experiences ‘with no other purpose than to pay lip service to representation’ (2021, pp. 46–47). Therefore, we knew that a tokenistic inclusion An approach where a school aims to ensure that all children ... More of diversity was not only misplaced in terms of its pedagogical value but it actually had the potential to further the ‘othering’ of these narratives and, by extension, the students in our classrooms.

Step 3: Design alternatives

Based on these discussions, we moved to design alternative curriculum models. It was essential that the whole department in both subjects were a part of this and, as such, models were discussed and refined before reaching a consensus.

In English we were driven by a desire to ensure that our curriculum was led by an aggregation of skills and knowledge, rather than text choice; in our minds, the texts needed to remain the vehicle rather than the driver. Our three principles when choosing high-quality texts were that: 1) they were the best placed to enable students to learn and practise the chosen core skill, 2) they were accessible to the class and year group, and 3) students heard and saw themselves in the literature. Putting these principles into practice, our Year 9 Term 1 unit teaches Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet concurrently with Malorie Blackman’s Noughts and Crosses, enabling students to appreciate the structure of tragedy across genres. This exemplifies the development of a multidirectional narrative in English through which students can appreciate the ways in which texts ‘talk’ to one another, creating a tapestry of global literary heritage.

In history, we wanted the Key Stage 3 offer to be a coherent global history across the three years and for students to clearly see the importance of chronology and themes over time, as well as keeping an enquiry question-based approach. Figure 1 shows how we implement this. The guiding principle was to establish a multidirectional memory of history, using diverse examples and case studies to enrich what is taught consistently throughout the three years. For example, in our study of the medieval world, we take the students on a journey of experiences and practices in Britain, Europe and then the wider world. With the topics established, we turned to plan our assessments. We ensured that all narratives were assessed like for like, so that the diverse stories did not become an appendage and were given the same level of importance and gravitas throughout the year (The Black Curriculum, 2020).

Figure 1: History Key Stage 3 curriculum structure

| Term 1: Power, authority and people (with a GB focus) | Term 2: Ideas and influences that shaped the world | Term 3: Depth studies and individual exploration

Year 7:
Medieval and early modern –

c1000–1600

Why have people made Britain their home?

How did wider influences from around the world shape modern Europe?

How did empires develop around the world?

Year 8:
Early modern

c1600–1900

How was power challenged in this period in Great Britain?

What was the experience and impact of expansion and exploitation around the world?

How have women shaped the world we live in today?

Year 9:
Modern world

1900–2020

How did imperial rivalries for global power and influence develop in the modern world?

How and why did dictatorships emerge across the world in the 20th century?

How has the fight for freedom and equality progressed in the 21st century?

Step 4: Implement with regular review

The success of any new change implementation requires regular and honest reviewing with all stakeholders. For us, this meant gathering feedback from both staff and students. Firstly, through regular meetings with staff, we were able to assess whether the new structure was working practically in the classroom. Exclusively, the feedback was positive, largely due to the collaborative approach adopted throughout the process. Teachers were receptive to and fully engaged in the shaping of the schemes of work and specific lesson resources, which encouraged ownership of the changes.

Likewise, we invited the students to feed back on their experience of the content; this allowed us to check that we had truly embedded the multidirectional approach we set out to. Pupil voice is invaluable as part an ongoing review of our Key Stage 3 offers. Ultimately, the goal is to ensure personal connection to their learning, so an annual survey will allow us to gauge the extent to which this has been achieved. Pupils and parents commented on how much they were enjoying the reformed curriculum; indeed, in history, Year 7s and 8s talked with excitement about looking forward to the upcoming new diverse content in Year 9.

Conclusion

Rather than becoming static, the curriculum should acknowledge and respond to the realities of the world in which our students live. This is particularly important for the subjects of history and English, which invite us, as both teachers and students, to question what exactly has made us who and what we are. However, the possibilities for embedding meaningful multidirectional narratives across all subjects present an exciting opportunity. Based on our experience, middle leaders should lead such change with confidence that their departments will be supportive of this need to make bold and necessary changes.

Alexandra is currently exploring the impact of diversifying the English curriculum as part of her CTeach accreditation.

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Multidirectional narratives: Diversifying the English and history curriculums : My College

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SHILPA DARBAR, HEAD OF HISTORY, ST ALBANS HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIRLS, UK ALEXANDRA GREENFIELD, HEAD OF ENGLISH, ST ALBANS HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIRLS, UK The selection of texts in English and case studies in history is crucial both in terms of how students respond to and engage with these subjects, and in cre…

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Diversifying and Decolonising English Literature

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Diversifying and Decolonising English Literature

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https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2016/may/04/top-10-landmarks-in-gay-and-lesbian-literature

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Show caption
One of the most beautiful love letters ever written ... Tilda Swinton as Orlando in Sally Potter's 1992 film version

Ask me on another day and it would be other books: Shakespeare's sonnets, Gilgamesh, the Greek Anthology, Sappho, Katherine Philips, Plato, Jean Genet, Ronald Firbank ... So these 10 items are mere suggestions, not commandments.

My favourite working definition is that a gay text is one that is amenable to a gay reading. As simple as that. These categories exist not for their own sake, or for critics', but in the service of the reader - the gay or lesbian reader first of all, but others too.

In books like these, you hope not only to see how people once lived out their same-sex desires and relationships, but to learn from them how we might live differently, today, to our own advantage. Such works open our eyes to fresh possibilities. That's why my new book Homintern is subtitled How Gay Culture Liberated the Modern World.

1. The diaries of Anne Lister (1791-1841)
A great treasure of lesbian social history. Lister is a wonderful character, pleased to be thought "gentlemanly" but insulted when someone calls her a mere "fellow". Her courtships of women are all the more fascinating when you reflect that they're from Jane Austen's time. But here people get stomach upsets and venereal diseases. Not to mention hot lesbian action: Lister uses "kiss" to mean a great deal more than kissing. I like to imagine Lister herself striding into one of Austen's balls and distracting the heroine's attention from all the complacent Darcys and Bingleys in the room.

2. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (1855-1892)
This is the American epic poem its author wanted it to be, befitting the landmass and political system it celebrates. But it also delivers intensely personal lyric poetry about comradeship between men. Its poems about Whitman's nursing of injured soldiers in the American civil war are tremulous with pity and warm affection. Yet even the focused intensity of a love poem like When I heard at the close of the day, clearly speaking of a particular individual, relates outwards to the grander theme of democratic comradeship. Each handclasp represents all handclasps. Eye contact with a stranger, accepted and maintained, represents the warmth of equality. The lanky, relaxed verse, with its long lines and self-perpetuating lists, creates the impression of a society of endless possibilities, where the pursuit of happiness is taken as seriously as life and liberty themselves.

3. Poems by Constantine Cavafy (1863-1933)
Cavafy's poetry is about desire and loss. Everything is subject to time, but art can stave off oblivion for a while - for a few centuries, say - until the loving epitaph on a tombstone finally crumbles to dust. Time is not wasted, as long as it has its moments of beauty, moments to be recollected and experienced again through the medium of art. After a brief sexual encounter, lovers part. But later, even many years later, one of them writes a poem fixing their moment in amber. The body may perish but the sculpture remains. The love poem provides a future for the past.

4. Dusty Answer by Rosamond Lehmann(1927)
Lehmann's first novel was enthusiastically received for capturing the mood of the inter-war generation. Judith, its central character, gets involved with her neighbours, a group of young cousins of both sexes. While she is trying to decide which of the boys to fall in love with - without noticing that one of them is having an affair with a male fellow-student at Cambridge - she herself goes up to university, where she has an intense affair with Jennifer. When the dance of relationships eventually peters out, Judith ends up a little older and a lot wiser. She is stronger on her own. Published a year before The Well of Loneliness, this is a far more relaxed account of relationships among a group of privileged young people before and after the first world war. With no axe to grind, it barely distinguishes between hetero and homo.

5. The Well of Loneliness by This was a daring experiment in stretching the remit of the realist novel to include the lives of "inverts", female and male. Hall did not intend it to be dull, of course, but the sheer weight of detail does at times have that effect. This is all to the good: it roots lesbianism as solidly in English country life as a fox hunt or a mansion. But the central character must move abroad to Paris for any sense of a viable place for lesbians in society. What most outraged the readers who eventually managed to get the book banned was its portrayal of women ambulance drivers on the western front as lesbians. An anguished and depressive book, it is still held in high esteem and great warmth by many lesbian women. Justly so.
From gay conspiracy to queer chic: the artists and writers who changed the world
6. Orlando by Virginia Woolf (1928)
One of the most beautiful love letters ever written. Addressed to Vita Sackville-West, it originally included photographs of her in both feminine and masculine clothes. Vita is Orlando, a dashing young man in Tudor times, who buckles a few swashes at home and abroad before changing sex and living on to the 1920s. As a man, Orlando courts women, as a woman men - so far so conventional - but as a wo/man, s/he is swaggeringly queer. The book is a jeu d'esprit that Woolf clearly wrote when intoxicated with love. While waiting for the trial of The Well of Loneliness, Una Troubridge helped her lover Radclyffe Hall endure the stress by reading Orlando to her.
Top 10s
7. The Pure and the Impure by Colette (1932)
Colette thought that this would eventually be recognised as her best book. It is a subtle and amiable ramble through the varied ecologies of desire. After an opening scene in an opium parlour, apparently full of same-sex couples of both sexes, its successive topics include: a modern Don Juan, masculine women and their liking for horses, the lesbian poet Renée Vivien, the domestic happiness of the Ladies of Llangollen, Proust's dubious portrayals of lesbians, the social habits of man-loving men ... Eccentric to the point of queerness, it is a book unlike any other, neither memoir nor fiction, neither dissertation nor tract. It deserves a helpful edition with footnotes to keep the reader abreast of the details of Colette's life in Paris.

8. Hemlock and After by A serious comic novel about the limits of liberalism. Its central character Bernard Sands is a married, middle-aged writer who has come to accept that he is gay. Writing in a Dickensian tradition of moral satire, Wilson plunges Sands into one of the most troubling dilemmas of modern liberalism: how to reconcile a social conscience with personal comfort and desire. The book is unusual in not portraying camp gay men negatively. Bernard is standoffish with them, but that is seen as his moral weakness, not theirs.

9. Another Country by One of the greatest American novels of the postwar period, full of passionate rhetoric and fury at social injustice. Reading it is not a comfortable experience. The reader is wrong-footed by what happens at the end of the first section, and indeed never fully recovers from it. At the book's heart is one of the happiest portrayals of a gay male couple that you'll find in any novel before the gay liberation period. Significantly, Baldwin locates their idyll not in the US but in France. Even the apparently happy ending is undercut by a nervousness about US society's capacity to offer the pursuit of happiness - let alone its capture - to everyone.

10. The Twyborn Affair by Eddie Twyborn is born a boy. As Eudoxia, she marries an elderly Greek man. As Eddie, he fights heroically in the first world war before working as an increasingly masculine jackaroo in the remote outback. As Eadith, she runs a brothel in London. As Eddie, at the start of the blitz, he walks out on his previous life ... White's great meditation on gender fluidity and the contingency of desire is both lushly camp and awkward in its campness, as if the author could not quite come to terms with the inflexions of his own gendered vocal chords. Often rather brash, White is paradoxically also a master of the tentative. He sees social manners from the inside of the outsider. Fathers tend to be silent, mothers silencing. Lovemaking is fumbled when it comes to the words, but snatched or worse from the body.

From Walt Whitman to Colette and even Virginia Woolf, these books offer readers a vision of how we might live differently, and better

Passionate rhetoric ... James Baldwin in 1979. Photograph: Ralph Gatti/AFP/Getty Images

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Top 10 landmarks in gay and lesbian literature

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Ask me on another day and it would be other books: Shakespeare's sonnets, Gilgamesh, the Greek Anthology, Sappho, Katherine Philips, Plato, Jean Genet, Ronald Firbank ... So these 10 items are mere suggestions, not commandments. My favourite working definition is that a gay text is one that is amenable to a gay reading.

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https://www.bl.uk/medieval-literature/themes/gender-and-sexuality

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Gender and sexuality

Examine representations of gender, sex and relationships in medieval literature, from the works of women's writers to tales of courtly love to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

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Gender and sexuality | The British Library

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Gender and sexuality Examine representations of gender, sex and relationships in medieval literature, from the works of women's writers to tales of courtly love to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

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https://www.shakespearesglobe.com/discover/blogs-and-features/2020/05/26/anti-racist-shakespeare/

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Professor Farah Karim-Cooper examines the racial meanings behind the language of light/dark and white/black used in Shakespeare's England

This May, instead of sitting in our homes waiting for a global pandemic to run its unrelenting course, we should have been hosting a third Shakespeare and Race symposium at Shakespeare's Globe.

In 2018 we curated a festival devoted to the topic which inaugurated our commitment to racial justice in the fields of academia and performance and to investigating attitudes towards race in Shakespeare's time and what it means to us now. Even though we are unable to welcome speakers from around the country and from the US to have these important conversations, I felt it was important to remind our audiences that the issues that would have been discussed at the symposium are still present in our minds. Some of the questions that we wanted to explore include: how does Shakespeare's work engage with race, racism and people of colour? What was the early modern experience of race? How do modern productions tackle this topic, if at all?

How does Shakespeare's work engage with race, racism and people of colour? What was the early modern experience of race? How do modern productions tackle this topic, if at all?

The topic of race in Shakespeare and pre-modern studies is vast and fraught with its own politics related to lack of diversity in the field of premodern literature and drama and the marginalisation of scholars of colour. It is why a group of scholars of colour formed a consortium and series of conferences called RaceB4Race, led by Professor Ayanna Thompson, Director of the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. This forum consists of scholars who study the medieval as well as the early modern periods and provides a safe space to discuss the latest research into a wide range of topics striving to make the discipline anti-racist, to discussions on early modern writers and their preoccupation with the language that constructed a sense of difference that still governs some of the ways we talk and think about race today.

When writing about Shakespeare and race as a scholar of colour there are various challenges that perhaps white scholars don't face. The two main challenges are, first, the realisation that the poems and plays that were written in the early modern period were largely written for a white readership/audience, so a scholar of colour might come to it with an imposed sense of alienation; the second is the grief and hurt caused when reading racist language about people of colour. It's hard, people. Whether it is Iago's racist language in Othello or the seemingly out of place racist slurs Lysander throws at Hermia when he rejects her after being bewitched by the flower: 'Ethiope'; 'Tawny Tartar' in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Each time a scholar of colour encounters such language it stings; it has to be quickly shaken off so that the analysis can take place in spite of this confrontation.

So let's focus on language in order to see how words matter across time and space not just in the moment. 'Words, words, words', as Hamlet says, are the first thing we encounter when reading or listening to Shakespeare. In her ground-breaking study Things of Darkness: Economies of Race and Gender in Early Modern England, Kim F. Hall points to the 'polarity of dark and light' created by words in Renaissance texts. She says that:

Descriptions of dark and light, rather than being mere indications of Elizabethan beauty standards or markers of moral categories, became in the early modern period the conduit through which the English began to formulate the notions of "self" and "other" so well known in Anglo-American discourse.

It is a little odd but not perplexing that for years white scholars refused to or did not see the racial meanings behind the language of light and dark or white and black. In Renaissance texts related to beauty, behaviour and courtesy, whiteness is figured as an ideal in interior as well as exterior terms. In the imaginations of Shakespeare's contemporaries, whiteness was linked to a group of qualities associated with virtue and everything that is good. This influenced the ways in which the English began to consider difference. How one appeared in their demeanour, behaviour and physical complexion would have been viewed as a reflection of the inner self. This appears to have been a moment in history when whiteness was being emphatically placed above blackness for all sorts of reasons, skin colour being one tangible way of understanding difference.

How one appeared in their demeanour, behaviour and physical complexion would have been viewed as a reflection of the inner self.

The early moderns would have inherited their ideas about the values of white and black from a range of sources: artists manuals that describe the nature and symbolism of colour; poetry of the classical and medieval periods that praised ideals of whiteness; sermons that talked about death and damnation using the language and imagery of blackness and darkness; and religious painting - portraits and frescoes - that emphasised the shimmering divine light of God or Christ and the darkened complexions of devils, demons and death. Kim Hall talks specifically about Royal portraits of the Tudors which showcase the relationship between whiteness and power. Elizabeth I's portraits in particular often show her with a glowing whitened face - cosmetically enhanced in person - meant to remind the viewer of her virgin purity, Christian grace and monarchical supremacy. Many sonnets that Shakespeare would have read and certainly some of the poetry he wrote tended to use imagery associated with whiteness to describe female beauty:

The Lily in the field,
That glories in his white:
For pureness now must yield,
And render up his right:
Heaven pictured in her face,
Doth promise joy and grace.
Fair Cynthia's silver light [the light of the moon that is!]
Compares not with her white...

This anonymous poem dated around 1593 compares a beautiful English woman to a lily and the moon, suggesting both would be fairly jealous of the lady who is much whiter and shinier than they are - the shine was an important feature since it reflected God's light, showing the lady to have a perfect soul. You get the picture.

If white was considered virtuous then does that mean black was considered bad? Not in every context of course; there was a great appreciation of night by poets (Romeo and Juliet often praise night), even while there was a fear in this period of the palpable darkness of and the 'terrors' of the night, to allude to a pamphlet written by Elizabethan author Thomas Nashe. There was also an appreciation of the melancholy spirit which was produced, according to the ancient theory of the four humours, by a substance in the body known as black bile. Melancholy could be positive- if it was a state of mind held by poets and thinkers in moderation; but it could also be negatively viewed because too much black bile could make an individual excessively melancholic, which, in whacky early modern theory could lead to idleness, villainy or 'madness', characteristics often associated with Black Africans or 'Moors' at the time. Either way it's fairly clear how these concepts are racialised and disturbing to consider the destructive force such language can have.

From looking closely and more deliberately at the language in Shakespeare's England particularly in his own work we can see how binaries of black and white helped create or contributed to concepts of race; we gain a deeper understanding of racial difference today and therefore a deeper awareness of what we are up against in the fight against racism. I think this is one of the chief values of studying Shakespeare and race.

FINIS.

#SuchStuff s1 e4: Shakespeare and Race

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Anti-racist Shakespeare | Blogs & features

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Professor Farah Karim-Cooper examines the racial meanings behind the language of light/dark and white/black used in Shakespeare's England This May, instead of sitting in our homes waiting for a global pandemic to run its unrelenting course, we should have been hosting a third Shakespeare and Race symposium at Shakespeare's Globe.

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https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/literature/charles-dickens-race-and-colonialism

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What can the works of Charles Dickens tell us about race and colonialism in the Victorian era? Dr Alex Tickell, a Senior Lecturer in English, explores...

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https://www.tpt.org/somalia-a-nation-of-poets/

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Somalia: A Nation of Poets - Twin Cities PBS

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More than any other country, Somalia is a nation of poets. Their culture revolves around poetry, an art form that remains significant as Somali refugees relocate throughout the world. Poets in Minneapolis and Columbus express the best of this tradition. Produced with Ka Joog and the Somali Museum of Minnesota.

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https://www.ted.com/talks/jamila_lyiscott_why_english_class_is_silencing_students_of_color

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Jamila Lyiscott: Why English Class is Silencing Students of Color

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What if someone told you that the way you use language every day had the power to disrupt or uphold social injustice? Language is saturated with history and culture and memory, yet the way that it is policed within our classrooms and our communities is deeply connected to racism and colonialism.

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https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/disturbing-resilience-scientific-racism-180972243/

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Scientists, including those who study race, like to see themselves as objectively exploring the world, above the political fray. But such views of scientific neutrality are naive, as study findings, inevitably, are influenced by the biases of the people conducting the work.

The American sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois once wrote, "The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line." His words were borne out, in part, by science. It was the century when the scientifically backed enterprise of eugenics-improving the genetic quality of white, European races by removing people deemed inferior-gained massive popularity, with advocates on both sides of the Atlantic. It would take the Holocaust to show the world the logical endpoint of such horrific ideology, discrediting much race-based science and forcing eugenics' most hardline adherents into the shadows.

The post-war era saw scientists on the right-wing fringe find ways to cloak their racist views in more palatable language and concepts. And as Angela Saini convincingly argues in her new book, Superior: The Return of Race Science, published May 21 by Beacon Press, the "problem of the color line" still survives today in 21st-century science.

In her thoroughly researched book, Saini, a London-based science journalist, provides clear explanations of racist concepts while diving into the history of race science, from archaeology and anthropology to biology and genetics. Her work involved poring through technical papers, reports and books, and interviewing numerous scientists across various fields, sometimes asking uncomfortable questions about their research.

"Mainstream scientists, geneticists and medical researchers still invoke race and use these categories in their work, even though we have been told for 70 years that they have no biological meaning, that they have only social meaning," Saini says.

Scientific research has struggled with concepts of race for centuries, often proposing misleading or erroneous explanations of racial differences. Contentious debates among Europeans about the origins of modern humans began in the 19th century, and many of the continent's leading scientists believed firmly that Europeans exemplified the most evolved and intelligent humans. Human fossils in Europe provided the first data points in the budding field of paleoanthropology, but the region was in reality just where European archaeologists happened to start looking. Fossils, as well as cave art, DNA samples and other evidence later uncovered around the world pointed to a more complex picture of human origins: Elements of modern humans emerged throughout Africa, and those people migrated east and then north and west in waves.

Rather than distinct races, groupings or borders, the continually mixing populations produced only gradients, with some traits slightly more common in some regions than others. Lighter skin color in northern climates emerged late; some Britons were shocked to learn that Cheddar Man, the remains of a man who lived in southwest England almost 10,000 years ago, would today have been considered black.

In the 1950s, geneticists began to confirm what some archaeologists had already surmised: "Individual variation within population groups, overlapping with other population groups, turned out to be so large that the boundaries of race made less and less sense," Saini writes. The conclusion was that no "pure" races exist that are distinct from others. Despite this evidence, those eugenicists still practicing sought to prevent their supposedly superior race from being overrun by immigration, miscegenation and higher birth rates among other ethnicities.

While few people study or advocate for eugenics today, some scientists in the rapidly advancing field of genetics held onto related ideologies after World War II. They simply used different terms, Saini points out, as some continued with race-focused research while referring to "populations" and "human variation" rather than "races" and "racial differences." Geneticist James Watson, for instance, a co-discoverer of DNA's double helix structure, has frequently been the subject of withering criticism for voicing racist beliefs, including that differences on tests of intelligence have a racial component, and arguing that Indians are servile and that Chinese people have somehow become genetically conformist.

A handful of researchers with similar beliefs, including former Nazi scientist Otmar von Verschuer and British eugenicist Roger Pearson, had trouble getting their research published in reputable journals and formed their own journal in 1961. Mankind Quarterly became a platform for race science-a place to publish questionable research under the trappings of objective science. Intelligence, a more respected psychology journal that's published by the major publishing company Elsevier, also occasionally included papers with pseudoscientific findings about intelligence differences between races. Until recently, that journal had two eugenics supporters, Gerhard Heisenberg and Richard Lynn, on its editorial board. But by the time Saini finished her book late last year, after interviewing the journal's editor-in-chief, she saw that the pair had been removed from the journal's list of board members.

"The extreme stuff poses a dilemma for legitimate scientists, since you can't read every crank's work and falsify it," says Aaron Panofsky, a sociologist of science at UCLA and author of the book, Misbehaving Science: Controversy and the Development of Behavior Genetics. Researchers don't want to endow these papers with more legitimacy than they deserve, but they don't want to ignore them and risk fueling conspiracy theories, either.

While Mankind Quarterly has managed to hang on into the 21st century, "hard-core scientific racists are mostly old white men, and they're not being reproduced in academia," Panofsky says. Even so, plenty of racist, young white men continue to promote concepts of scientific racism, such as the participants in the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia-an event that even the scientific journal felt the need to condemn.

Even more well-meaning epidemiological scientists nonetheless still use race as a crude proxy for myriad social and environmental factors. Saini cites an example of a 2017 study with statistical errors claiming that race and biology indicate that the airways of asthmatic black Americans become more inflamed than those of asthmatic white Americans. Black Americans do suffer more from asthma than whites do, but they're also affected more by environmental hazards like air pollution from highways and factories as well as disparities in access to high-quality healthcare. These many forms of inequality and structural racism-which sociologists have documented for decades-were swept under the rug in favor of a race variable that led to findings that could be easily misinterpreted.

In another example, Saini describes the ill-fated 1990s Human Genome Diversity Project, which analyzed the genetic variations of small, remote populations referred to as "isolates," including the Basques in Europe, the Kurds of eastern Turkey and Native American tribes. Indigenous rights activists, understandably sensitive to being exploited, resisted the project, surprising the naive scientists.

Time and time again, groupings by race, even if they don't use the term "race," can be dangerous and misleading to people looking for inherent biological differences. But Saini doesn't think we can be "colorblind" or "post-race" in scientific research either. Scientists who claim to be so tend to have the same problem as the asthma study, ignoring racial inequalities all around that influence a study's findings. Saini also explores the possibility of affirmative action policies, reparations or environmental justice advocacy, all intended to mitigate structural, historical and scientific racism.

Like many geneticists, Saini argues that since race is a social construct, it doesn't belong in genetics research. Scientists in other fields have the freedom to study race, she writes, but with that freedom comes responsibility. They can't afford to leave room for misinterpretation. Researchers using racial categories "should fully understand what they mean, be able to define them, and know their history," Saini writes.

The rest of us, too, need to be aware of racial stereotypes, lest we fall prey to them. "That's part of the reason that we're fascinated by DNA ancestry testing," Saini says. "The reason it matters to us is because we feel that these racial categories have some meaning, that they can tell us something about ourselves, and that's just wrong. They can't."

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The Disturbing Resilience of Scientific Racism

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A new book explores how racist biases continue to maintain a foothold in research today

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https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/10-amazing-women-in-science-history-you-really-should-know-about/

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22 pioneering women in science history you really should know about

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https://iai.tv/articles/decolonising-science-auid-1688#:~:text=Decolonising%20science%20is%20not%20just,of%20thinking%2C%20writes%20Sundar%20Sarukkai.

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Decolonising science is not just a negative project of getting rid of dominant patterns of thought and opening up a space for more local knowledge systems. It is also a production of new forms of thinking, writes Sundar Sarukkai.
Decolonisation is largely seen as a critique of the dominance of knowledge and intellectual practices of dominant (colonial) cultures as well as a call to replace them with 'indigenous'/'local' knowledge systems and practices.

Specifically, it is a call to replace/modify the hegemony of 'Western' systems of knowledge in the sciences, medicine, philosophy, education, development and in all aspects of the society in non-western societies. It is a recognition that Eurocentric models that are an integral part of education, knowledge systems and political processes in the non-West are not universal and have to be replaced with the intellectual productions of the local and the marginalised.

Knowledge has become a term that is used to create hierarchies within, and among, societies.

Decolonisation is a cleansing process that is used across a wide range of activities and social structures such as in decolonising the university, pedagogy, curriculum, library, methods and aims of research, development, ideas of progress, ways of being human and being social. Typically they draw attention to a variety of knowledge systems produced by communities across the world, such as in medicine, in mathematics, in education systems, narratives on the universe, society and so on. The call for pluriversity instead of university, by scholars such as Mbembe and Mignolo, is based on ideas of pluralism and epistemic diversity.

Arguments for Decolonisation
The project of decolonisation attempts to set right the wrong history of intellectual traditions in different parts of the world and in different communities. Knowledge has become a term that is used to create hierarchies within, and among, societies. This is accomplished by valuing knowledge of the colonisers along with claiming that this knowledge is not present or available to the colonised and those lower in the social hierarchy. Thus, European colonial discourse repeatedly claimed that logic, mathematics, science, art and even religion (interpreted in a particular manner consistent with Christian theology) were higher order systems that were only possible for the European mind. This conclusion was not based on knowledge, or a critical analysis, of other knowledge systems. In this process, the knowledge systems of the colonised are presented and constructed in particular ways in order to negate their epistemological value. Moreover, colonialism created societies where the colonised were forced to repudiate the knowledge produced out of their experiences and their intellectual labour, and replace it with the systems of the colonisers.

It is important to recognize that the colonisers are not merely the European powers but also the marginalised groups within every society. As de Sousa Santos points out, colonialism is not only a relation between West and the non-West. He sees Southern Europe as being colonised by Northern Europe and those who are seen to be 'colonised' today includes migrants, poor, minorities, indigenous populations, victims and many others. Thus, the world of knowing and understanding created by communities of the poor, the dispossessed, those outside the dominant castes, women, migrants and so on needs to be recovered and engaged with for decolonisation to be possible.

Some would argue that the world has paid a price in terms of the destruction of human societies as well as the environment due to this skewed dependence on one dominant Eurocentric knowledge system. This does not imply that non-western metaphysics are all non-violent and peaceful but it is necessary to reflect on the possibility that certain worldviews associated with colonialism and power are inherently more violent and destructive of nature and societies.

Critiques of decolonisation
Perhaps the strongest critique of decolonisation is that (theoretical) knowledge is universal and does not depend on local contexts. It is the argument that science and mathematics are independent of the cultural and human qualities of those who produced these disciplines. Proponents of this view would claim that science is only a record of the truths of nature and does not encode European culture or white male privilege.

The world has paid a price in terms of the destruction of human societies as well as the environment due to this skewed dependence on one dominant Eurocentric knowledge system.

Another argument is that the western production of knowledge is a superior form of knowledge, one that was not produced by other cultures. This argument claims that non-western epistemologies cannot create today's technology and science, and it would be impossible to imagine progress and development if we did not accept the universality of these western systems. To consolidate such ideas, western scholarship repeatedly points out that non-western societies did not 'possess' concepts like Reason, Logic, Freedom, Liberty, Politics etc., thus suggesting that all these societies would continue to be in a state of nativity if not for colonial knowledge systems. Thus, they would suggest that it is the west that has shown the path to other societies. To the argument that there are vibrant epistemologies of the global South, they would argue that even if these were accepted as knowledge, they nevertheless are not relevant for today's world or that they are more primitive compared to their intellectual practices.

Science and mathematics have posed the greatest challenge to decolonisation. While it has become easier for the west to accept alternate epistemologies related to culture in general, they resist any such idea of alternate epistemologies - whether from the non-west or from proponents of feminist epistemologies, subaltern epistemologies and so on - for the natural and social sciences, mathematics, logic and even philosophy to a great extent. This view has also become part of institutional knowledge in Asia and Africa. Moreover, science and mathematics are seen as global practices with the power centres being located in the dominant societies of the west and hence there is a genuine concern that talk of alternate epistemologies will exclude membership in this global system.

Counter arguments
Since the universality of science and mathematics is an important critique of the decolonisation project, it is necessary to understand how this claim can be challenged. Indian mathematics is an excellent example of an alternate understanding of mathematics. It is primarily empirical not formal, has no complicated metaphysics associated with entities like the square root of 2 or negative numbers (both of which plague the metaphysics of Greek/'western' mathematics), had developed trigonometry, algebra and early ideas of calculus such as limits and infinite series through a completely different system of numbers and concepts. Moreover, the philosophical and theological basis of Platonism (one which is very much present in modern day science and mathematics) are not present in non-Greek and non-western mathematical systems.

If we consider the long history of technology in Asia and Africa, much before the growth of science in Europe, we have many examples of complex technological processes including the production of materials like steel, zinc and alloys, chemistry, ship building and so on. In the domain of medicine and health, there are even today powerful cultures of knowledge of healing across the world, which are quite different from western medicine. These medical systems are used by millions today in Asia and Africa, even in the midst of the covid pandemic but yet are devalued by western medicine.

IScience is more than just knowledge - it is a social process and uses a variety of methods, concepts, approaches, and converting knowledge into technology.

Finally, science is more than just knowledge - it is a social process and uses a variety of methods, concepts, approaches, and converting knowledge into technology. So when we are told that science is universal and that there is only 'one' science, what does this 'oneness' amount to? I am not suggesting that what science describes and articulates is not true or is different for different cultures but only pointing to other ways of understanding how science is not necessarily universal. The universality of science can be questioned at different levels ranging from alternate descriptions of the physical world through the use of different conceptual schema to the pragmatic ways of converting scientific knowledge into technology. For example, if we had a different concept of nature then we would have a science - as an activity that describes nature - that is quite different from the one we have now in the guise of modern science.

Decolonising Science - Decolonisation at all levels
It is necessary to recognize that decolonising science is to decolonise different domains related to science. Thus, a proper decolonisation of science would require the decolonisation of the following domains that support the institution of science globally: History of Science, Philosophy (& Methodology) of Science, Social processes of Science through the focus on the categories of gender, class, caste and privilege, Science Education through changes in the curriculum, pedagogy as well as the larger idea of university itself, Science Communication, Health practices and Science Policy.

Decolonising science would not be possible without decolonising each of these domains. For example, even today history of science and mathematics is still taught as if the origin of modern science in Europe is a representation of European Enlightenment and as if mathematics had never been seriously produced in cultures other than Europe. Mainstream journals in the history and philosophy of science continue to promote these ideas, sometimes explicitly but many times implicitly by deciding what (and who) to publish and what not to publish.

As a discipline, philosophy of science has continued to perpetuate the myth that the only meaningful philosophical foundations for science has to come from western philosophy. This is ironic considering that the greatest obstacle to modern science in Europe came from Greek philosophy and scholasticism, but yet the roots of philosophy of science go back to this tradition to understand science. What makes this discipline a colonial project is that there is a complete absence of attempts to draw upon other philosophical traditions, which offer far more perceptive insights into the foundational themes of modern science. Similarly, there is an urgent need for decolonising science education which continues to propagate the story that scientific ways of thinking are a special quality of the western mind.

How would decolonised science look?
I would argue that decolonising science is not just a negative project of getting rid of something. It is also a production of new forms of thinking which include the following:

● Setting right intellectual history.
● Maintain honesty in a global history of ideas.
● Accept ethics as an integral part of knowing and knowledge.
● Focus on the particular/local and not the universal/global.
● Factor the importance of the Body in knowledge production.
● Create the possibility of a broader and more democratic and participative vision of the future.
● Focus on science not just in terms of knowing but in terms of the potential of harmoniously 'being' together.

This is not a wish list but is a pragmatic project. To accomplish this, we need to recognize how a new science can be done without radically overturning some of the ideas of science that we have today. Here are some specific ways of accomplishing such changes in the doing of science:

● Science should engage with a broader description of phenomena, not restricted to just measurable quantities of phenomena.
● Rethink how we conceptualize the idea of 'certainty', especially in terms of the end goal of scientific knowledge.
● Prioritize knowledge that promotes harmony and better living for all.
● Develop a science which understands nature not as a machine but as a living organism. We know that different definitions of Nature lead to different forms of science as well exemplified in the traditional sciences of physics, chemistry and biology. If we include conceptualizations of nature from different communities in the world, then different sciences based on these different views of nature are possible.
● Allow conceptual structures that are different, concepts that challenge received dualities such as body-mind, human-nonhuman, human-nature, reason-emotion, qualitative-quantitative and so on.
● Question the extraordinary amount of scientific knowledge that is being produced, thereby becoming more ethically aware of the question: "Why do we want to know this?" Unbridled curiosity should no longer be allowed to legitimize unaccountability in scientific exploration and scientific creation.

These elements can all contribute to a meaningful and positive project of decolonisation as it liberates the spirit of science from cultural prejudices, utilitarian ends, from narrow visions of governments and the military, as well as from senseless capitalism.

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Decolonising science is not just a negative project of getting rid of dominant patterns of thought and opening up a space for more local knowledge systems. It is also a production of new forms of thinking, writes Sundar Sarukkai.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5ELSdgEwcE&ab_channel=CambridgeUniversityAstronomy

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Decolonising science | Cambridge Festival

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https://medium.com/@chanda/decolonising-science-reading-list-339fb773d51f

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[Image: two people with beards, one in a turban, one in a hat, holding what look like geometric tools] source: wikipedia
Thank me for my free labor maintaining this list by making a donation to A note on Making Meaning of "Decolonising" - and in relation to that I want to be clear that the original motivation behind the creation of this list was to address a land claim issue: the use of Maunakea by non-Kanaka Maoli for science. Please be thoughtful about using "decolonising" if you're not going to tie it into the physicality that colonialism necessarily requires. Intellectual colonialism only works when there is a physical threat associated with it. funds for the Kānaka Maoli Protectors of Mauna a Wākea, and if you are using it for academic work cite and/or acknowledge it. Citation is care.
A twitter thread by Melissa Daniels (Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation) on engaging in colonialist activity under the guise of "decolonising education"

October 2016 Introduction

In April, 2015, one of the most visible topics of discussion in the Astronomy community was the planned Thirty Meter Telescope and protests against it from Native Hawaiians who didn't want it built on Mauna Kea. I wrote a lot about this on social media, spending some significant time trying to contextualize the debate. This reading list was originally created in response to requests for where I was getting some of the information from. A lot of people asked me about what I'd been reading as reference points for my commentary on the relationship between colonialism and what we usually call "modern science."

In August 2016 I updated to announce: I'm happy to report that Sarah Tuttle and I will be contributing to this list with our own publications in future thanks to this FQXi grant that we are co-I/PI on: Epistemological Schemata of Astro|Physics: A Reconstruction of Observers. The grant proposal was based on a written adaptation of a speech I gave at the Inclusive Astronomy conference, Intersectionality as a Blueprint for Postcolonial Scientific Community Building.

As part of this work, I've continued to expand the reading list, which seems to have become a global resource for people interested in science and colonialism. As I originally said, I make no claims about completeness, about updating it regularly, or even ever coming up with a system for organizing it that I find to be satisfactory. You'll find texts that range from personal testimony to Indigenous cosmology to anthropology, to history to sociology to education research. All are key to the process of decolonising science, which is a pedagogical, cultural, and intellectual set of interlocking structures, ideas, and practices. This reading list functions on the premise that there is value in considering the ways in which science and society co-construct. It is stuff that I have read all or part of and saw some value in sharing with others.

I am especially indebted to the #WeAreMaunaKea movement for educating me and spurring me to educate myself.

Original April 2015 Commentary

There are two different angles at play in the discussion about colonialism and science. First is what constitutes scientific epistemology and what its origins are. As a physicist, I was taught that physics began with the Greeks and later Europeans inherited their ideas and expanded on them. In this narrative, people of African descent and others are now relative newcomers to science, and questions of inclusion and diversity in science are related back to "bringing science to underrepresented minority and people of color communities." The problem with this narrative is that it isn't true. For example, many of those "Greeks" were actually Egyptians and Mesopotamians under Greek rule. So, even though for the last 500 years or so science has largely been developed by Europeans, the roots of its methodology and epistemology are not European. Science, as scientists understand it, is not fundamentally European in origin. This complicates both racist narratives about people of color and innovation as well as discourse around whether science is fundamentally wedded to Euro-American operating principles of colonialism, imperialism and domination for the purpose of resource extraction.

This leads me to the second angle at play: Europeans have engaged what is called "internalist" science very seriously over the last 500 years and often in service and tandem with colonialism and white supremacy. For example, Huygens and Cassini facilitated and directed astronomical observation missions in order to help the French better determine the location of St. Domingue, the island that houses the modern nations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Why? Because this would help make the delivery of slaves and export of the products of their labor more efficient. That is just one example, which stuck out to me because I am a descendant of the Caribbean part of the Atlantic Slave Trade, and I also have two degrees in astronomy (and two in physics).

There is a lot that has been hidden from mainstream narratives about the history of astronomy, including 20th century history. Where has the colonial legacy of astronomy taken us? From Europe to Haiti to now Hawai'i. Hawai'i is the flash point for this conversation now, even though the story goes beyond Hawai'i. If we are going to understand the context of what is happening in Hawai'i with the Thirty Meter Telescope, we must understand that Hawai'i is not the first or only place where astronomers used and benefited from colonialism. And in connection, we have to understand Hawai'ian history. Thus, my reading list also includes important materials about Hawai'i's history.

tl;dr: science has roots outside of the Eurasian peninsula known as Europe, it likely has its limitations as one of multiple ontologies of the world, it has been used in really grotesque ways, and we must understand all of these threads to truly contextualize the discourse in Hawai'i around science, Hawaiian epistemologies and who gets to determine what constitutes "truth" and "fact" when it comes to Mauna a Wakea.

Finally, I believe science need not be inextricably tied to commodification and colonialism. The discourse around "diversity, equity and inclusion" in science, technology, engineering and mathematics must be viewed as a reclamation project for people of color. Euro-American imperialism and colonialism has had its (often unfortunate) moment with science, and it's time for the rest of us to reclaim our heritage for the sake of ourselves and the next seven generations.

Note: this reading list is woefully low on materials about science in the pre-European contact Americas, Southeast Asia and parts of Australasia. I'm probably missing some stuff, but I think it signals a problem with research in the history of science too. Also I make no claims about completeness or a commitment to regularly updating it with my newest finds. Also see A U.S./Canadian Race & Racism Reading List.

May 2017 edit: I also just learned that there is a Reading List on Modern and Colonial Science in the Middle East.

October 2017 edit: I gratefully acknowledge Duane Hamacher of the Indigenous Astronomy twitter account for suggesting texts on Australian Indigenous astronomy and for introducing me to research on subarctic Indigenous astronomy.
Black Women Physicists in the Wake Intersectionality as a Blueprint for Postcolonial Scientific Community Building Women in Astronomy: Ain't I a woman? Living at the intersection of gender, race, and sexuality The Self-Construction of Black Women Physicists
Martin Kusch's Sociology of scientific knowledge bibliography may be of interest.

As of May 2017 Beatrice Martini has posted Decolonizing technology: a reading list.

Works by me that may help you contextualize the list with problems I've been thinking about. These are partly here not because I particularly enjoy tooting my own horn but because I found that without them, people were assuming I hadn't contributed to the dialogue myself beyond this reading list:

Making Meaning of Decolonising (in dialogue with Tuck and Yang)

The List

We Live In the Future. Come Join Us. by Bryan Kamaoli Kuwada

Protecting Mauna A Wakea: The Space Between Science and Spirituality by Keolu Fox

Maunakea: Redirecting the lens onto the culture of mainstream science by Aurora Kagawa-Viviani

The fight for Mauna Kea and the future of science by Sara Segura Kahanamoku

Science, Time, and Mauna a Wākea: The Thirty-Meter Telescope's Capitalist-Colonialist Violence ( Part I, Part II), Uahikea Maile

Multicultural settler colonialism and indigenous struggle in Hawai'i: The politics of astronomy on Mauna a Wakea a dissertation by Joseph Salazar

Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonialism by Noenoe K. Silva

A Nation Rising: Hawaiian Movements for Life, Land and Sovereignty, Noelani Goodyear-Ka'opua, Ikaika Hussey, and Erin Kahunawaika'ala Wright, editors

How contributions from Christopher Columbus' Sephardic astronomer illustrate complex legacies of exploration and conquest by Shakeah Calluccie

voices of fire: reweaving the literary lei of pele and hi'iaka by ku'ualohoa ho'omanawanui

Transient Workspaces: Technologies of Everyday Innovation in Zimbabwe by Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga

Taking Back Our Spirits: Indigenous Literature, Public Policy, and Healing by Jo-Ann Episkenew

African Cultural Astronomy: Current Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy Research in Africa eds. Jarita C. Holbrook, Johnson O. Urama, and R. Thebe Medupe

Alaska Athabascan Stellar Astronomy by Christopher M. Cannon

Night Skies of Aboriginal Australia: A Noctuary by Dianne Johnson

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code by Ruha Benjamin

Captivating Technology: Race, Carceral Technoscience, and Liberatory Imagination in Everyday Life ed. Ruha Benjamin

The History of White People by Nell Irvin Painter

The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies eds. Ulrike Felt, Rayvon Fouché, Clark A. Miller, and Laurel Smith-Doerr

Pursuing Intersectionality, Unsettling Dominant Imaginaries by Vivian May

Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples by Linda Tuhiwai Smith

Medicalizing Blackness: Making Racial Difference in the Atlantic World, 1780-1840 by Rana A. Hogarth

In the Wake: On Blackness and Being by Christina Sharpe

Against Purity: Living Ethically in Compromised Times by Alexis Shotwell

The Crest of the Peacock: The Non-European Roots of Mathematics by George Gheverghese Joseph; Many thanks to Archishman Raju for sending me the following significant caveat about this book: I just wanted to bring to your attention that there is a strong charge on G. Joseph for appropriating information amounting to plagiarism (I think). (See http://ckraju.net/Joseph/Complaint-about-Joseph-to-Manchester.pdf , and attachments http://ckraju.net/Joseph/Annexures-Manchester.pdf ). It is particularly ironic in this context that someone from University of Manchester would take credit for ideas developed in India. Addendum from Chanda: the link in the letter to the advertised PhD position is available on the Wayback Machine.

Science, Colonialism and Indigenous Peoples: The Cultural Politics of Law and Knowledge by Laurelyn Whitt

Gender and Scientific Authority, eds. Barbara Laslett, Sally Gregory Kohlstedt, Helen Longino, and Evelynn Hammonds

Beyond Banneker: Black Mathematicians and the Paths to Excellence by Erica N. Walker

Einstein on Race and Racism by Fred Jerome and Rodger Taylor

Epistemic Injustice by Miranda Fricker

Science as It Could Have Been: Discussing the Contingency/Inevitability Problem eds. Lena Soler, Emiliano Trizio, and Andrew Pickering

Black, White, and in Color: Essays on American Literature and Culture by Hortense J. Spillers

Has Feminism Changed Physics? by Amy Grave (neé Bug)

(Baby Steps) Toward a Feminist Physics by Barbara Whitten

Has Feminism Changed Science? by Londa Schiebinger

Knowing Otherwise: Race, Gender, and Implicit Understanding by Alexis Shotwell

Cognitive Repression in Contemporary Physics by Evelyn Fox Keller

Academic Articles on race and genetics by A.A. M'charek

Language, Identity, and Ideology: High-Achieving Scholarship Women (South African context) by Y. Dominguez-Whitehead, S. Liccardo, and H. Botsis

Conceptualising transformation and interrogating elitism: The Bale scholarship programme (South African context) by H. Botsis, Y. Dominguez-Whitehead, and S. Liccardo

Beyond South Africa's 'indigenous knowledge - science' wars by Lesley J.F. Green

Decolonizing Science and Science Education in a Postcolonial Space (Trinidad, a Developing Caribbean Nation, Illustrates) by Laila Boisselle caveat from Chanda: I *hate* the use of "developing nation" here. It's a colonialist term.

Women, Science, and Technology: A Reader in Feminist Science Studies eds. Mary Wyer, Mary Barbercheck, Donna Cookmeyer, Hatice Ozturk, and Marta Wayne

Ghost Stories for Darwin: The Science of Variation and the Politics of Diversity by Banu Subramaniam

The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation by John M. Hobson

Interrogating Whiteness and Relinquishing Power: White Faculty's Commitment to Racial Consciousness in STEM Classrooms eds. Nicole Joseph, Chayla Haynes, Floyd Cobb

On the possibility of a feminist philosophy of physics by Maralee Harrell

Challenging epistemologies: Exploring knowledge practices in Palikur astronomy by Lesley J.F. Green

'Indigenous Knowledge' and 'Science': Reframing the Debate on Knowledge Diversity by Lesley J.F. Green

The Rain Stars, the World's River, the Horizon and the Sun 's Path: Astronomy along the Rio Urucauá, Amapá, Brazil by Lesley Green and David Green

Colonialism & Science: Saint Domingue in the Old Regime by James E. McClellan III

Is Science Multicultural? Postcolonialisms, Feminisms, and Epistemologies by Sandra Harding

Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?: Thinking from Women's Lives by Sandra Harding

The 'Racial' Economy of Science: Toward a Democratic Future ed. by Sandra Harding

Science and Other Cultures: Issues in Philosophies of Science and Technology ed. Sandra Harding with Robert Figueroa

Science and Social Inequality: Feminist and Postcolonial Issues by Sandra Harding

Sciences From Below: Feminisms, Postcolonialities, and Modernities by Sandra Harding

The Postcolonial Science and Technology Studies Reader ed. by Sandra Harding

Hating Empire Properly: The Two Indies and the Limits of Enlightenment Anticolonialism by Sunil M. Agnani

Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature by Donna J. Haraway

Beamtimes and Lifetimes: The World of High Energy Physics by Sharon Traweek

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn
The Ursula Franklin Reader: Pacifism as a Map
A People's History of Science: Miners, Midwives, and Low Mechanicks by Clifford D. Connor

Why I Am Not A Scientist: Anthropology and Modern Science by Jonathan M. Marks

Notes on Dialectics by C.L.R. James (available scanned here.)

Science and Technology in Korea: Traditional Instruments and Techniques by Sang-woon Jeon

Daughters of Alchemy: Women and Scientific Culture in Italy by Meredith K. Ray
Wikipedia entry on Alhazen Wikipedia entry on History of Scientific Method Wikipedia entry on Physics in the medieval Islamic World
People's Science: Bodies and Rights on the Stem Cell Frontier by Ruha Benjamin

The World and Africa: An inquiry into the part which Africa has played in world history by W.E. Burghardt Du Bois

The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation After the Genome by Alondra Nelson

Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A. Washington

Tribal peoples have crucial role to play in global conservation Guardian Op-Ed

Collection of documents about TMT situation specifically: aoletmt.com [As of October 2016 this link seems not to work anymore; as of July 2020 TMT seems to have taken this over and turned it into a pro-TMT website.]

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Thank me for my free labor maintaining this list by making a donation to funds for the Kānaka Maoli Protectors of Mauna a Wākea, and if you are using it for academic work cite and/or acknowledge it...

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https://royalsociety.org/blog/2021/12/disability-history-royal-society/

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We're currently celebrating UK Disability History Month, which runs from 18 November to 18 December 2021. Friday 3 December was also the International Day of People with Disabilities. To mark these important annual events, I thought I'd take a look through our archive and book collections, to highlight the work of Fellows who have contributed to the Royal Society's mission to champion science for the benefit of humanity.

One Fellow who immediately stands out is the barrister and mathematician Henry Martyn Taylor FRS (1842-1927). Educated at Trinity College Cambridge, he later returned to the college to take up a post as tutor of mathematics, specialising in geometry. At the age of 52, an attack of influenza was followed by total blindness, leading him (in the words of his Royal Society obituary) 'to consider how he could best turn his special abilities to account in the service of those who were similarly afflicted.'

Henry Martyn Taylor FRS

To this end, Taylor taught himself to use a Braille typewriter, transcribing texts on maths, astronomy and geology and inventing a Braille mathematical notation which quickly became standard and proved of huge value in scientific education for the visually impaired. To fund his efforts, he set up the Embossed Scientific Books Fund at the Royal Society (well documented in our New Letter Books), continuing a Society connection which included his election to the Fellowship in 1898 and his demonstration of a 'Model showing the twenty-seven lines on a cubic surface' at a Soirée the following year - item 8 on this list of exhibits.

The homepage of the UK Disability History Month website notes that 'many disabled people have an invisible / hidden impairment'. One of the impairments on their list is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), including the form first named in World War I as ' shell shock '. Early military reactions to this condition, and the treatment of sufferers, seem unbearably brutal and callous to modern researchers, but there were humane exceptions.

One of the best known is the story of psychiatrist W H R Rivers FRS (above), a Royal Society Royal Medal winner in 1915 and a resident psychiatrist at the Craiglockhart War Hospital near Edinburgh. Here, he became renowned for his compassionate concern for the men in his care, encouraging them to express their emotions at a time when this was far from the norm. Rivers's relationship with his most famous patient, the poet Siegfried Sassoon, is sensitively covered by author Pat Barker in her Regeneration trilogy, which you can borrow from our Library 'Fellows in Fiction' shelves.

In 1836 the Reverend William Taylor FRS (1790-1870) - no relation to the aforementioned Henry Martyn Taylor, as far as I can ascertain - was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society while superintendent of the Wilberforce Memorial School in York, and was subsequently one of the founders of the College for the Blind Sons of Gentlemen in Worcester. He's best known for the invention of the Taylor slate, a tactile aid for visually impaired students of mathematics which proved so valuable that it remained in use until the 1970s.

The citation on William Taylor's election certificate commends him as the 'author of Diagrams of Euclid for the use of the Blind - and of many other inventions of great service to persons deprived of sight'. We have a copy of his 1859 work On the education of the blind (below) in our printed collections, together with the aforementioned book of embossed Euclid diagrams, which use a concept similar to the well-known Braille notation.

Bringing the story up to the present day, new developments in information technology - including ' Dasher', the tool invented by the late David MacKay FRS - are steps in the right direction for improving accessibility. However this article, featuring comments from current Foreign Member of the Royal Society and 'Father of the Internet' Vint Cerf, shows that much work remains to be done. Cerf mentions the need for financial incentives to be put in place to make the benefits of new technologies available to everyone; the full title of the book pictured above ('On the education of the blind, especially those in the opulent classes...'), hints at a perennial issue in this area. In research released earlier this year, the Royal Society explored where under-representation of students and staff with disabilities in STEM is occurring and what practical action could be taken to address this.

Moving into the realm of sports and physical education, I've previously written on our blog about Ludwig Guttmann FRS, who founded the Paralympic Games. Prior to my research for this article, though, I was unaware of the fundraising work for accessible sport carried out by Harold 'Tommy' Thompson FRS, chemist and Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society 1965-1971, whose extensive papers are housed in our archives. A quick inspection of the folders covering his trusteeship of the Disabled Sports Foundation revealed files of positive letters from football clubs (signatures include Brian Clough, Bobby Robson and Sir Matt Busby) in response to Thompson's efforts to get them involved in the 1981 UN International Year of Disabled Persons:

There are certainly many more stories to be uncovered in our archives, so do drop us a line if you're interested in researching the history of scientists with disabilities, or you're feeling inspired by researchers such as Henry Martyn Taylor, W H R Rivers and Harold Thompson.

You can discover more scientific life stories in our case studies produced for the International Day of People with Disabilities, celebrating the work of Dorothy Hodgkin FRS, John Cornforth FRS and the many scientists with disabilities, past and present, involved in advancing our understanding of the world around us.

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Disability history and the Royal Society | Royal Society

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We're currently celebrating UK Disability History Month, which runs from 18 November to 18 December 2021. Friday 3 December was also the International Day of People with Disabilities. To mark these important annual events, I thought I'd take a look through our archive and book collections, to highlight the work of Fellows who have contributed to the Royal Society's mission to champion science for the benefit of humanity.

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https://www.nsta.org/science-teacher/science-teacher-septemberoctober-2021/gender-inclusive-biology-framework-action

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Now that gender and sexual diversity are more visible than ever, our science curriculum must adapt to serve our students and prepare them for the future. Among youth ages 13-18, 10.5% identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual ( Kahn et al. 2018) and at least 0.7% identify as transgender ( Herman et al. 2017). Public awareness has grown to a point where 27% of Americans know someone who is transgender, and 45% view gender as a spectrum rather than a binary ( n = 1306; Carmichael 2020). On television, one in 10 characters in the 2019-2020 broadcast season was LGBTQ ( GLAAD 2020). Yet schools remain a place where youth experience daily bullying and harassment on the basis of sexual orientation or gender expression ( Kahn et al. 2018).

Even teachers actively working against bullying may be surprised to learn about the impact of LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum on youth safety and learning. When a school implements LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum, students report less victimization, less absenteeism, and more positive relationships with their teachers ( Kosciw et al. 2014; 2018). Yet this is exceedingly rare in science classes, with only 2.4% of LGBTQ students seeing any LGBTQ-inclusive science content in 2017 ( Kosciw 2018). Lack of inclusive curriculum also impacts students' career pathways-LGBTQ high school seniors who saw positive LGBTQ representation in science class were 17.3% more likely to choose a STEM major ( n = 1124; Kosciw 2014).

High school biology teachers have rich opportunities to include gender diversity in our teaching. Inquiry lessons, by nature, allow students to create and discuss claims from evidence, and this can include claims about gender. When we teach genetics, we can highlight the complexity of genetic sex determination to add depth, rigor, and relevance to the lesson. When we teach evolution, we can include diverse animal reproductive strategies that make for captivating case studies. When we teach anatomy and physiology, we can expose students to data that challenges the notion of binary "male" and "female" bodies, and validates the complexity of human experience.

This article will outline a thinking framework that any teacher can use to adapt curriculum through a lens of gender diversity. We will illustrate the adaptation of several sample lessons to achieve three key outcomes: (1) to support and reduce harm to LGBTQ students, (2) to engage all students with inquiry into science in society, and (3) to develop student empathy toward diverse identities and perspectives. Additional resources are included at the end of the article to continue teachers' explorations of creating inclusive classroom culture.

A Framework for Gender-Inclusive Biology

We use the five attributes of authenticity, continuity, affirmation, anti-oppression, and student agency to guide us in adapting any lesson to be inclusive of diverse gender, sex, or sexuality.

1. Authenticity - Provide accurate content and language that acknowledges both gender diversity and scientific precision. For example, "ovaries produce eggs" in meiosis, not "women produce eggs." Ask: Is the content accurate or oversimplified?

2. Continuity - Consistently include gender, where applicable, as one of many lenses for analysis. Begin with a diversity lens instead of teaching an oversimplification that is later changed for exceptions. Ask: Do we have a consistently inclusive lens or a special token lesson?

3. Affirmation - Highlight and celebrate the naturally occurring diversity of human and nonhuman species. Frame diverse phenomena, such as chromosomal intersex traits, with interested curiosity. Do not sensationalize or pathologize these variations. Ask: Do we normalize or stigmatize variation?

4. Anti-Oppression - Encourage students to identify and analyze the patterns that inform society's status quo. Help students recognize recurring injustices such as intersex genital mutilation, court-ordered sterilization and chemical castration of transgender and gay individuals, and sex verification in sports. Ask: Do we empower or marginalize groups?

5. Student Agency - Provide students choices and habitually incorporate a student feedback cycle. Students engage more when they explore their own questions and make decisions, especially in learning about gender, sex, and sexuality. Ask: Do we invite the sharing of student experience?

Authenticity

As science teachers, we are uniquely equipped to transform students' curiosity about gender into authentic, meaningful inquiry experiences. Biology teachers constantly strive for more authentic lessons that connect to student experience. When teaching for equity, we elicit and center student ideas to support how their understanding changes. So when students ask about gender and biology, to be authentic with them in the classroom, we must remain "faithful to their line of inquiry" ( Ontario Ministry of Education)!

The National Research Council's describes science partly as continually extending, refining, and revising knowledge, a disciplinary core idea with "broad importance" across domains and grade levels. We can answer our students' questions not with pretend authority, but with a challenge to restructure previous scientific understandings about gender, including the teacher's own. This creates a genuine opportunity to apply scientific knowledge and skills to classroom and student experiences.

For example, lessons about skeletal development often include the classification of bones as "male" or "female," oversimplifying forensic pathology techniques. When lessons reinforce how popular media misrepresents the use of bones as unquestioned "proof" of someone's identity, we end up limiting the questions our students can pose. Sex classification systems are based on small samples of skeletons from one location, thus flattening details about the spectrum of sexual characteristics and morphology. For example, a common manual for skeletal pathology uses a system based on "49 adult skeletons from a 19th-century cemetery in Canada" ( Bass 2005; Bone 1993).

Instead of rigidly classifying the sex of any human remains, we can guide students in questioning these models used by scientists. After learning about a male-classified human skeleton that was later found to have XX chromosomes, our students reflected on their own legacy and the physical evidence they'd leave behind for future scientists to interpret ( Hendenstierna-Jonson et al. 2017). This links structure and function to other elements of everyday life by giving students an authentic connection to their learning and development ( CCC).

The NRC also views science as an "evidence-based, model and theory building enterprise" ( National Research Council 2013). A responsible approach to three-dimensional learning about gender requires we explicitly frame gender as a vital lens of inquiry for empirical data analysis. If students are given an opportunity to examine how sex hormones like estrogen and testosterone impact multiple organ systems, independent of gendered labels, they construct a deeper understanding of the phenomena first. They then compare this knowledge with social, medical, and academic stereotypes about gender and ability. Thus, students develop the skills, connections, and scientific knowledge to critically examine complex ideas and competing models that can bridge life experience and societal concerns. To illustrate some of these adaptations for authenticity, we provide a sample activity called "Modeling Patterns and Variations in Studying Human Skeletons" at .

Continuity

Students process many messages about gender diversity from their families, friends, media, and school. When we teach about gender, we must plan proactively to make sure our messages are internally consistent from lesson to lesson, while also acknowledging students' experiences outside of biology class. For example, in a genetics unit, we may initially teach students that females have XX chromosomes and males have XY chromosomes because so many textbooks and lesson materials use this oversimplification. But some students will think and some will even ask out loud, "What if someone's XX but they identify as a male because they're transgender?"

The student's question reveals our teacher oversight-we never formally defined "male" and "female" in the first place. When we realize this issue, we take a moment to clarify that when we say "male" and "female" in the genetics unit, we are referring to chromosomal sex, not gender identity. We may also acknowledge that some humans are not XX or XY, but students hear this as an "exception to the rule" because we are discussing it after we have already learned the rule.

What if, instead of teaching a simplification, we started each unit by defining sex and gender in context? For example, in genetics the important difference between "male" and "female" is in the X/Y chromosomes, but in an evolutionary context, the sexes are distinguished by their behavior or the size of their gametes instead. And in anatomy and physiology, "male" and "female" traits are often shaped by levels of estrogen and testosterone.

Gender-inclusive teaching requires continuity in the terminology and concepts taught from one lesson to the next. To provide continuity, we must consistently include gender, where applicable, as one of many lenses for analysis. This means beginning each unit of study with a diversity lens rather than teaching an oversimplification that will later require amendment. When we address gender diversity in a piecemeal, reactionary way or through a detached, one-time "very special lesson," we miss the opportunity to make connections between multiple units of study.

When talking about gender, sex, and sexuality, our language should focus on the precise organ, function, or pattern being studied. In Figure 1, we suggest language updates for a typical high school biology curriculum. Even more hostile or reticent students and families can usually appreciate how greater precision helps us communicate in science.

Affirmation

When we normalize gender and sexual diversity in natural phenomena, we celebrate and affirm all student experiences through an inclusive, inquiry-focused lens. When students extend their critique of scientific models to chromosomes, hormones, and other gender-dense phenomena, they take a powerful step in analyzing how their own learning and construction of scientific knowledge affects their identity and community.

The National Research Council asserts that "science teachers need to acquire effective strategies to include all students regardless of ... gender backgrounds" ( NGSS Appendix D). When students see positive representations of naturally occurring diversity, they are empowered to pursue their curiosity. We as teachers can do so much by offering different models and phenomena without injecting prior misconceptions or incurious attitudes. Choose language that turns toward, not away from, diversity and complexity. Show students that myriad, naturally occurring families exist, such as same-sex swan couples who see 80% of their offspring survive to adulthood compared to only 30% of offspring from different-sex swan couples ( Braithwaite 1981). Students can also see how gender expression is different from sex and chromosomes by exploring a game about meiosis and intersex traits. This normalizes student experiences without singling out any one student uncertain about their developing identities. In expanding our scope to recognize real phenomena, our striving toward NGSS requires we also acknowledge the flaws in a binary model.

The SEPs and DCIs under the NGSS also directly affirm student questions (and identities) that even the most prepared science teacher may be unable to predict. If students ask about eugenics and the idea of a "gay gene," teachers can point to evidence of how same-sex behavior persists across species and all eras of human history, far more commonly than many other genetic conditions ( Roughgarden 2013; 256, cf. 284). On our website, we have compiled a Queer Species Database with hundreds of instances of diverse sexual behavior, sex, and gender. Teachers can pull from this body of evidence as needed to affirm student experiences regardless of their stated identity.

Although students and their families will hold varying perspectives on LGBTQ+ issues, teachers should encourage all to be curious and learn from gender diversity in biology. Diverse phenomena hold countless opportunities to strengthen our understandings in science, and they should not be framed as merely sensational or pathological "exceptions."

Anti-Oppression

Science is a human endeavor, and the ways we understand science and apply it societally can have lasting impacts on both individuals and groups ( NSTA NGSS Appendix H: Nature of Science April 2013, p. 6). One part of creating a gender-inclusive biology curriculum requires identifying places where societal power and oppression impact specific marginalized gender groups, including transgender, intersex, and gender non-conforming people. Science involves describing and explaining phenomena, not prescribing what should happen in systems. Many decisions are not made using science alone, and the NGSS recognizes that scientists and engineers of "diverse backgrounds...rely on social and cultural contexts to resolve issues" ( NSTA NGSS Appendix H: Nature of Science April 2013, p. 6). Involving our students in critiquing how scientific models are created and their social implications is only one way we can help dismantle structural inequities in science education (Bakshi 2020).

One excellent lesson that highlights these disparities is the Sex Verification of Athletes interactive created by HHMI BioInteractive. In this lesson, which targets NGSS Performance Expectations HS-LS1-2 and HS-LS3-1, students explore how biological sex has been defined and measured in sports throughout history. In the process, students develop a model to represent how intersex traits-such as differences in genital structure, gonads, and hormone synthesis or sensitivity-can arise from genetic inheritance. This lesson intersects with all parts of our framework, but especially highlights the ways that people with intersex traits have been mistreated, objectified, and ostracized from the athletics community based on differences that are natural and random.

Student Agency

Good teaching requires knowing our students well and listening to their feedback to adjust our teaching practice. This is especially true when creating a gender-inclusive curriculum that works in the specific context of our classrooms. While making shifts toward a gender-inclusive teaching model, it is valuable to ask your students what they are interested in learning about, and hear their questions and concerns. A regularly scheduled check-in for student feedback can be one step in creating a safer space for students to engage in questions and topics that may be deeply personal or challenging to discuss.

Key Terms for Gender, Sex, and Sexuality
Familiarize yourself and your students with these terms and concepts before beginning any activity where gender, sex, and sexuality may come up. See Online Resources for some graphical conversation starters that may help you introduce these terms to your students.

Gender identity: A personal sense of one's own gender. Self-determined and distinct from a person's sex assigned at birth.

Sexual orientation or sexuality: A person's attraction toward men, women, both, another gender, or neither. Distinct from gender identity.

Sex assigned at birth: The determination of a newborn infant's sex as male or female, usually from inspection of the external genitalia by health care provider.

Transgender: Broadly, any person whose gender identity is not fully aligned with their sex assigned at birth.

Cisgender: A person whose gender identity is aligned with their sex assigned at birth.

Intersex: Any person with sex characteristics than vary from the typical patterns of male or female development. Intersex people are born with these differences or develop them in childhood.

Inclusive Classrooms in Any Subject Area
Use these best practices to create a safer classroom culture for all students, whether you teach biology or another subject. In a safe and inclusive classroom, students will be more willing to ask about how gender, sex, and sexuality relate to the content they are learning.

Proactively learn your students' names and gender pronouns on the first day of school. Share how you would like to be called, then ask your students to introduce themselves, either publicly in class or on a private survey. If you must call out names from the roster before asking, call out last names instead of first names.

Listen to students and trust them as the experts on their needs.

Openly acknowledge to your students when your own expression or behavior is uninformed or incorrect. When given a clarification, respond with curiosity and not defensiveness-this is an opportunity to do better.

Highlight narratives of strength among marginalized groups. Resist the urge to define marginalized groups by their trauma and tragedy.

Address casual offensive comments in the classroom promptly and firmly. Focus on the harm done to the individual and community, and coach students in repeating non-harmful forms of expression.

One way to involve students in the process of adapting your curriculum is to co-create language and diagrams that accurately describe the phenomena they are learning about ( Figure 2). During a lesson on mitosis, for example, we are likely to encounter a diagram that shows silhouettes of a figure in a dress creating eggs and a figure in trousers creating sperm. When encountering this diagram for the first time, we can ask students to think about different ways of describing the process that are inclusive and universal. For example, egg creation occurs in ovaries, and sperm creation occurs in testes. By revising the model with accurate labels of the location of these processes, we eliminate inaccuracies and provide opportunities for students to be a part of creating their own learning materials, adding to their learning experience.

Figure 2

Before (left) and After (right) diagrams demonstrating modifications to promote student agency.

Similarly, during a lesson on pedigrees and genetic inheritance, the terms "mother," "father," and "biological parent" are often used to describe the two individuals who create the egg and sperm that become a new person. However, we know that the relationship of these three people cannot always be described by those words-for families who adopt, use surrogacy or donor gametes, or see a parent transition gender, these terms may directly contradict the way they describe themselves. This idea of "the two individuals who created the egg and sperm that became a new person" has no official, accurate, and inclusive name in the English language. So this is a great opportunity for students to co-create language that accurately describes this idea. In the past, students have come up with words such as "Biological Life Transmitters" (BLTs), "Gene-Givers" (GGs), or "Storks," since those cells "bring" the baby. This is a rare opportunity for the students to teach language to the teacher rather than the other way around, and models the way that science and language are constantly shifting to be more accurate and inclusive. Student agency allows students to take ownership in what they are learning, and for students with high interest in these topics to explore them even further.

Objections to Gender-Inclusive Biology Teaching

We recognize that each of our readers teaches in a unique setting and must adopt gender-inclusive teaching practices in a way that fits their school community. Many teachers worry that their administrators or students' families will raise objections to teaching about gender, sex, and sexuality in biology class. In Table 1 (see Online Connections), we address some common objections and offer solutions-focused responses and resources.

Conclusion

This overview demonstrates how teachers can use the five elements of the Framework for Gender-Inclusive Biology Curriculum to make high-impact adaptations to their biology lessons. Adaptations can be as simple as substituting one term for a more precise and inclusive term. Adaptations can also be more involved, such as a multiday inquiry on how binary sex classifications are oppressive to intersex athletes. These adaptations achieve three key outcomes: (1) to reduce harm and support LGBTQ-identified students; (2) to engage all students with opportunities to share ideas and construct their social understanding of scientific evidence; and (3) to develop student empathy toward diverse identities, perspectives, and scientific ethics. Although our examples focus on high school biology topics, we believe the framework can also be used to create and adapt curriculum in K-8 science and in other content areas.

When we intentionally teach about gender in biology, we are able to shape the way students understand themselves, science, and society. One of our students who identifies as transgender said, "Your class is the reason I know what I want my career [in STEM] to be, and that means a lot to me." One intersex student cited a gender-inclusive biology course as "one of the motivations that makes me believe school isn't just a hell hole." A cisgender ninth grader said after a gender-inclusive meiosis activity, "This makes much more sense because lots of different people are out there and this way you understand better when you meet someone new."

Classroom teachers and workshop attendees remark that they appreciate the authenticity and rigor that a gender-inclusive curriculum provides. We believe that teaching gender and sexual diversity in the biology classroom is a natural fit and better reflects real-world science and engineering practices. As one student concluded: "It's biology, and if we wanna be talking about people, we have to be talking about all people." ■

Online Connections

Table 1: Common Objections to Gender-Inclusive Biology Teaching https://bit.ly/3l1jVjb

Online Resources for Gender-Inclusive Biology Teaching

The Gender-Inclusive Biology Project: free classroom-ready lessons and resources for K-12+, curated by the authors of this article. www.genderinclusivebiology.com.

Gender Inclusive Classrooms (Elementary school focus) www.genderinclassrooms.com

STEM Teaching Tools Practice Brief: http://stemteachingtools.org/brief/76

Teaching Outside the Binary (Middle school focus) www.teachingoutsidethebinary.com

GLSEN Educator Resources www.glsen.org/resources/educator-resources

Gender Spectrum www.genderspectrum.org

InterACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth https://interactadvocates.org
Graphical conversation starters for teaching key terms for gender, sex, and sexuality:

References

Bakshi, L. 2020, October 29. Building an Anti-Racist Science Classroom. Next Gen Navigator blog. https://www.nsta.org/blog/building-anti-racist-science-classroom.

Bass, W. 2005. Human Osteology: A Laboratory and Field Manual, 5th ed. Special Publication No. 2 of the Missouri Archaeological Society. Columbia, MO. http://coas.missouri.edu/mas (After Rogers and Saunders (1994:1049, Table 1).)

Bone, K.E. 1993. A Bias in Skeletal Sexing. Master's Thesis, University of Tennessee. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes/4135

Braithwaite, L.W. 1981. Ecological studies of the black swan: III. Behavior and social organization, Australian Wildlife Research 8 (1): 135-46. http://hdl.handle.net/102.100.100/292286?index=1. (as cited by Roughgarden, J. 2013. Evolution's Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People. University of California Press, Berkeley. p. 136.)

Carmichael, M. 2020, Jan 7. Press Release: Ipsos Surveys Around Gender. Ipsos Global Market Research. www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2020-01/topline_what_the_future_gender.pdf

Gates, G. 2011. How many people are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender? The Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law. http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/Gates-How-Many-People-LGBT-Apr-2011.pdf.

GLAAD. 2020. Where We Are on TV: 2019-2020. GLAAD.org. https://www.glaad.org/whereweareontv19

GLSEN and InterACT. 2020. Gender Triangle Education Guide. https://www.glsen.org/activity/gender-triangle-education-guide

Hedenstierna-Jonson, C., et al. 2017, Sept 8. A female Viking warrior confirmed by genomics. Am. J. Phys. Anth. (164:4) available at https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.23308.

Herman, J. L., et al. 2017. Age of Individuals Who Identify as Transgender in the United States. Los Angeles, CA: The Williams Institute.

HHMI BioInteractive. 2019. Sex Verification Testing of Athletes. https://media.hhmi.org/biointeractive/click/testing-athletes/

Kahn, E., et al. 2018. HRC 2018 LGBTQ Youth Report. https://www.hrc.org/resources/2018-lgbtq-youth-report

Kosciw, J.G., et al. 2018. The 2017 National School Climate Survey: The experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer youth in our nation's schools. New York: GLSEN. https://www.glsen.org/research/2017-national-school-climate-survey-0

Kosciw, J.G., et al. 2014. The 2013 National School Climate Survey: The experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth in our nation's schools. New York: GLSEN. https://www.glsen.org/sites/default/files/2020-03/GLSEN-2013-National-School-Climate-Survey-Full-Report.pdf

Kann, L., et al. 2018. Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance-United States, 2017. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report Surveillance Summaries 67 (8).

NGSS Lead States. 2013. Appendix D: "All Standards, All Students": Making the Next Generation Science Standards accessible to all students. Next Generation Science Standards: For States, by States, Volume 2: Appendixes, ed. NGSS Lead States, 25-39.

NGSS Lead States. 2013. Appendix H-Understanding the scientific enterprise: The nature of science in the Next Generation Science Standards. Next Generation Science Standards: For states, by states, 430-436.

Roughgarden, J. 2013. Evolution's rainbow: Diversity, gender, and sexuality in nature and people. University of California Press, Berkeley.

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Gender-Inclusive Biology: A framework in action

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Now that gender and sexual diversity are more visible than ever, our science curriculum must adapt to serve our students and prepare them for the future. Among youth ages 13-18, 10.5% identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual ( Kahn et al. 2018) and at least 0.7% identify as transgender ( Herman et al.

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https://cosmosmagazine.com/people/society/top-10-ancient-arabic-scientists/?amp=1

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Arabic scientists who made advances in science and technology while Europe was in a cultural decline during the Dark Ages.

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https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-science-takes-so-long-catch-up-traditional-knowledge-180968216/

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Our knowledge of what animals do when humans aren't around has steadily increased over the last 50 years. For example, we know now that animals use tools in their daily lives. Chimps use twigs to fish for termites; sea otters break open shellfish on rocks they selected; octopi carry coconut shell halves to later use as shelters. But the latest discovery has taken this assessment to new heights-literally.

A team of researchers led by Mark Bonta and Robert Gosford in northern Australia has documented kites and falcons, colloquially termed "firehawks," intentionally carrying burning sticks to spread fire. While it has long been known that birds will take advantage of natural fires that cause insects, rodents and reptiles to flee and thus increase feeding opportunities, that they would intercede to spread fire to unburned locales is astounding.

It's thus no surprise that this study has attracted great attention as it adds intentionality and planning to the repertoire of non-human use of tools. Previous accounts of avian use of fire have been dismissed or at least viewed with some skepticism.

But while new to Western science, the behaviors of the nighthawks have long been known to the Alawa, MalakMalak, Jawoyn and other Indigenous peoples of northern Australia whose ancestors occupied their lands for tens of thousands of years. Unlike most scientific studies, Bonta and Gosford's team foregrounded their research in traditional Indigenous ecological knowledge. They also note that local awareness of the behavior of the firehawks is ingrained within some of their ceremonial practices, beliefs and creation accounts.

The worldwide attention given to the firehawks article provides an opportunity to explore the double standard that exists concerning the acceptance of Traditional Knowledge by practitioners of Western science.

Traditional Knowledge ranges from medicinal properties of plants and insights into the value of biological diversity to caribou migration patterns and the effects of intentional burning of the landscape to manage particular resources. Today, it's become a highly valued source of information for archaeologists, ecologists, biologists, ethnobotanists, climatologists and others. For example, some climatology studies have incorporated Qaujimajatuqangit (Inuit traditional knowledge) to explain changes in sea ice conditions observed over many generations.

Yet despite the wide acknowledgement of their demonstrated value, many scientists continue to have had an uneasy alliance with Traditional Knowledge and Indigenous oral histories.

On the one hand, these types of knowledge are valued when they support or supplements archaeological, or other scientific evidence. But when the situation is reversed-when Traditional Knowledge is seen to challenge scientific "truths -then its utility is questioned or dismissed as myth. Science is promoted as objective, quantifiable, and the foundation for "real" knowledge creation or evaluation while Traditional Knowledge may be seen as anecdotal, imprecise and unfamiliar in form.

Are Indigenous and Western systems of knowledge categorically antithetical? Or do they offer multiple points of entry into knowledge of the world, past and present?

Ways of Knowing
There are many cases where science and history are catching up with what Indigenous peoples have long known.

For instance, in the past two decades, archaeologists and environmental scientists working in coastal British Columbia have come to recognize evidence of mariculture-the intentional management of marine resources-that pre-dates European settlement. Over the course of thousands of years, the ancestors of the Kwakwaka'wakw and other Indigenous groups there created and maintained what have become known as "clam gardens"-rock-walled, terrace-like constructions that provide ideal habit for butter clams and other edible shellfish.

To the Kwakwaka'wakw, these were known as loxiwey, according to Clan Chief Adam Dick (Kwaxsistalla) who has shared this term and his knowledge of the practice with researchers. As marine ecologist Amy Groesbeck and colleagues have demonstrated, these structures increase shellfish productivity and resource security significantly. This resource management strategy reflects a sophisticated body of ecological understanding and practice that predates modern management systems by millennia.

These published research studies now prove that Indigenous communities knew about mariculture for generations-but Western scientists never asked them about it before. Once tangible remains were detected, it was clear mariculture management was in use for thousands of years. There is a move underway by various Indigenous communities in the region to restore and recreate clam gardens and put them back into use.

A second example demonstrates how Indigenous oral histories correct inaccurate or incomplete historical accounts. There are significant differences between Lakota and Cheyenne accounts of what transpired at the Battle of Greasy Grass (Little Big Horn) in 1876, and the historical accounts that appeared soon after the battle by white commentators.

The Lakota and Cheyenne can be considered more objective than white accounts of the battle that are tainted by Eurocentric bias. The ledger drawings of Red Horse, a Minneconjou Sioux participant in the battle, record precise details such as trooper's uniforms, the location of wounds on horses, and the distribution of Indian and white casualties.

In 1984, a fire at the battleground revealed military artifacts and human remains that prompted archaeological excavations. What this work revealed was a new, more accurate history of the battle that validated many elements of the Native American oral histories and accompanying pictographs and drawings of the events. However, without the archaeological evidence, many historians gave limited credence to the accounts obtained from the participating Native American warriors.

Hypotheses incorporating traditional knowledge-based information can lead the way toward unanticipated insights. The travels of Glooscap, a major figure in Abenaki oral history and worldview, are found throughout the Mi'kmaw homeland of the Maritime provinces of eastern Canada. As a Transformer, Glooscap created many landscape features. Anthropologist Trudy Sable (Saint Mary's University) has noted a significant degree of correlation between places named in Mi'kmaw legends and oral histories and recorded archaeological sites.

Opportunities at the Intersection
As ways of knowing, Western and Indigenous Knowledge share several important and fundamental attributes. Both are constantly verified through repetition and verification, inference and prediction, empirical observations and recognition of pattern events.

While some actions leave no physical evidence (e.g. clam cultivation), and some experiments can't be replicated (e.g. cold fusion), in the case of Indigenous knowledge, the absence of "empirical evidence" can be damning in terms of wider acceptance.

Some types of Indigenous knowledge, however, simply fall outside the realm of prior Western understanding. In contrast to Western knowledge, which tends to be text-based, reductionist, hierarchical and dependent on categorization (putting things into categories), Indigenous science does not strive for a universal set of explanations but is particularistic in orientation and often contextual. This can be a boon to Western science: hypotheses incorporating traditional knowledge-based information can lead the way toward unanticipated insights.

There are partnerships developing worldwide with Indigenous knowledge holders and Western scientists working together. This includes Traditional Ecological Knowledge informing government policies on resource management in some instances. But it is nonetheless problematic when their knowledge, which has been dismissed for so long by so many, becomes a valuable data set or used selectively by academics and others.

To return to the firehawks example, one way to look at this is that the scientists confirmed what the Indigenous peoples have long known about the birds' use of fire. Or we can say that the Western scientists finally caught up with Traditional Knowledge after several thousand years.

This article was originally published on The Conversation.
George Nicholas, Professor of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University

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When Scientists "Discover" What Indigenous People Have Known For Centuries

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When it supports their claims, Western scientists value what Traditional Knowledge has to offer. If not, they dismiss it

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Promoting Inclusivity in Science Classroom

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Promoting Inclusivity in Science Classroom

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https://stao.ca/how-can-a-teacher-create-an-inclusive-science-classroom/#:~:text=Establishing%20a%20classroom%20where%20all,relating%20to%20the%20particular%20unit.

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Written by Katy Paton

Personal observations and experiences within a variety of school environments have reinforced my understanding of how a teacher can create an inclusive science classroom. Having a strong understanding of the material itself, linking the curriculum to current events, creating a supportive environment, capturing students' interest and maintaining it through hands-on experiences, facilitating engaging reflection, and utilizing a variety of assessments; a teacher's role is critical for the students' success.

Initially, teachers should familiarize themselves with what an inclusive science classroom looks and feels like, and where possible, visit classrooms where the inquiry process is utilized. While observing a teacher completing a unit, I noticed that she prepared and planned thoroughly, and made independent advance discoveries. She identified a clear learning goal, and reinforced it throughout the lessons. Having this goal and knowing the topic well allowed her to guide the students' learning, enforce key concepts, and support their knowledge as they progressed in their inquiry.

An engaging classroom is one where curriculum content is linked to current events. When the Olympics were underway and students were studying structures, the formative assessment activity was to design, build, and test a bobsled track using classroom materials to meet student-defined success criteria. Later, the focus shifted to the materials used, which led to discussions on recycling and conservation and, in turn, related to an upcoming school recycling initiative. Teaching lessons that are relevant and timely heightens students' interest in the topics and increases their enthusiasm.

Maintaining an environment that is exciting and challenging is vital for an inclusive classroom. Students must feel that they are safe and supported. Mistakes should not be viewed as any sort of failure, but rather as a point of learning in the investigative process. During one class, students built boats using a variety of materials which the teacher discussed with them while asking thought provoking questions, but primarily allowed them to discover their own answers. No criticism or evaluative statements were made throughout the building process. Had the teacher been intrusive, the students may have refrained from creating their own versions of a boat. One of the greatest successes of the class was the number of times that they modified their designs, and were they not comfortable exploring and testing options, this would not have happened.

Establishing a classroom where all students are involved, using hooks to capture interest, and providing hands-on experiences allows everyone to become part of the lesson. Successful hooks range from exploration stations, pertinent books, relevant videos, and completing group activities relating to the particular unit. Once students are hooked, having hands-on experiences and active involvement becomes exciting, and they subsequently make their own discoveries. It is vital to use materials that are safe, age appropriate, and easy to find so that the students are not frustrated, and are challenged without being overwhelmed. Materials can be provided to the table groups in pre-arranged bins, both to avoid chaos, and also to promote student responsibility through maintaining and storing these bins themselves.

All students can benefit from a hands-on approach within a structured lesson, and this was demonstrated while working with a student with autism and another who was a non-English speaking newcomer to Canada. Having understood the goal of the lessons, they were able to thrive with hands-on experiments to a much greater degree than simply completing written or oral work. The non-English speaking student worked independently after being shown the goal, and observed other students completing their activities. Both students worked at their own pace, and continually refined their work. At the end of the boat building lesson, the student with autism was able to articulate why he thought his boat did not float and identify the necessary changes, specifically to remove the clay which weighed down his boat. The non-English speaking student did not articulate what should be changed, but demonstrated her understanding by adding a plate under the boat for balance, and removing several cups that caused it to capsize. Creating an inclusive science classroom provides opportunities for all students to succeed, and having a hands-on, structured approach facilitates this goal.

A critical component of a unit is taking the time to review work. This can be achieved by having students complete charts, worksheets, or design reports. Individual conferences and classroom discussions allow for further review of their findings. Gallery walks are useful, as when students are presenting their findings and explaining their thought processes, teachers can make additional notes to capture ideas that may not have been evident. Even if an explanation is not correct, understanding their rationale is beneficial. Students should be given the opportunity to modify their work based on class discussions to solidify their learning. Having the opportunity to individually consider their work, discuss results with the group, and continually improve, promotes a positive and open classroom environment.

Using a range of assessment techniques allows students to demonstrate their understanding in different ways. Teachers should not rely on a limited number of assessment methods based on their own comfort level. Supporting assessment techniques with individual conferences, group discussions, and gallery walks allows for a better understanding of students' thinking. Additionally, having students complete success criteria checklists gives them the opportunity to recheck their work, confirming that they achieved their intended goals. Incorporating varied assessment techniques allows students to shine in a variety of ways, and gives teachers a comprehensive understanding of their learning.

By applying a hands-on approach within a structured environment, teachers can capture the students' attention. Students have a strong innate desire to learn, and it is critical to teach lessons that are accessible to everyone. Having a solid understanding of the subject, linking it to current events, maintaining a supportive environment, providing hooks, hands-on and engaging activities and experiences, providing reflection time, and using varied assessments ensures that teachers create an inclusive science classroom, which in turn allows for the greatest possibility of success for every student.

Katy Paton is a 2014 Galbraith Science Education Award recipient

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How Can a Teacher Create an Inclusive Science Classroom?

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Written by Katy Paton Personal observations and experiences within a variety of school environments have reinforced my understanding of how a teacher can create an inclusive science classroom.

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https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20201204-lost-islamic-library-maths

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How modern mathematics emerged from a lost Islamic library

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Centuries ago, a prestigious Islamic library brought Arabic numerals to the world. Though the library long since disappeared, its mathematical revolution changed our world.

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https://www.pearson.com/uk/educators/schools/subject-area/mathematics/the-power-of-maths.html?start=52

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We want everyone to believe they can do maths. That's why we're actively advocating the power of maths and working to ensure everyone can engage with the subject and what it can do.

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https://www.qmul.ac.uk/maths/news-and-events/news-/items/6-inspirational-lgbtq-mathematicians-we-think-you-should-know-about-.html

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When we talk about LGBTQ+ mathematicians, there might not be many people that come to mind. There's Alan Turing, of course, and there are theories that maybe Leonardo Da Vinci was gay or that perhaps Florence Nightingale was a lesbian, but no one really knows for sure.

Mathematics, and STEM in general, have typically been thought of as heterosexual, male-dominated fields and there hasn't always been a visible community for gender and sexual minorities. But this is changing! With organisations such as Spectra, 500 Queer Scientists, LGBTQ+ STEM, and Pride in STEM, we are not only seeing a more visible and active community, but the next generation of academics in STEM has a supportive network of role models and mentors.

To celebrate LGBTQ+ History Month, we've put together a list of some modern day LGBTQ+ mathematicians we think you should know about.

Ron Buckmire
Originally from Grenada but now living and working in California, Ron Buckmire was named LGBT Educator of the Year in 2011 by Out to Innovate. He is the Associate Dean for Curricular Affairs and Professor of Mathematics at Occidental College in Los Angeles. His research interests lie in applied mathematics, computational aerodynamics and numerical analysis. Ron is passionate about widening participation for historically excluded groups, particularly the LGBTQ+ community and racial and ethnic minorities. Coming out in the late 80s, he became involved in LGBTQ+ activism in the early 90s and was one of the founding members of Spectra, the association for LGBTQ+ Mathematicians.

Autumn Kent
Autumn Kent specialises in topology and geometry and is currently a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Wisconsin. She has published over 20 papers and received a number of awards throughout her career, including a Simons Fellowship in 2019. A pansexual trans woman, Autumn is active in the LGBTQ+ community and in 2019 she organised the LG&TBQ+ conference to foster collaboration between LGBTQ+ mathematicians working in geometry, topology, and dynamical systems.

Emily Riehl
Emily Riehl is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, specialising in category theory and homotopy theory. In 2020, she was awarded JHU President's Frontier Award, a $250,000 award that support individuals "who are breaking new ground and poised to become leaders in their field". A graduate from Harvard, Cambridge and the University of Chicago, Emily has held teaching positions in the US, Europe and Australia. As one of the founding board members of Spectra, Emily is an active member of the LGBTQ+ community in mathematics.

Anthony Bonato
Anthony is a Professor in Mathematics at Ryerson University in Toronto. His research is in Graph Theory and Network Science and he has authored over 130 publications. He also writes a great blog called The Intrepid Mathematician, which has over 280,000 views and covers everything from Maths to pop culture to queer issues. Anthony is the chair for LGBTQ+ Math Day at Ryserson and sits on the EDI board for Banff International Research Station.

Tyler Kelly
Tyler is a reader in geometry at the University of Birmingham and is the recipient of a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship. Their research focuses on algebraic geometry, specialising in its interactions in mathematical physics and mirror symmetry. Tyler works hard to promote the inclusion of the LGBTQ+ community in Mathematics and STEM and is a member the LGBTQ+ STEM's Steering Committee. Tyler is currently working onscheduled for July 2022, which will be thefirst conference to celebrate and promote research advances of LGBTQ+ mathematicians specialising in algebraic geometry, arithmetic geometry, commutative algebra, and number theory.

Juliette Bruce
Juliette is an early career mathematician whose research interests lie in algebraic geometry, commutative algebra, and arithmetic geometry. After getting her PhD from University of Wisconsin, Madison, Juliette moved to UC, Berkley to work as a NSF Postdoctoral Fellow. She is passionate about inclusivity, diversity and justice in the mathematics community, and has organised and spoken at a number of conferences and seminars dedicated to celebrating the contributions of gender and sexual minorities to the field of mathematics. She is currently working on Spec

Below we have included a list of useful resources for LGBTQ+ mathematicians and their allies.
http://lgbtmath.org/ https://500queerscientists.com/ https://lgbtstem.wordpress.com/ https://prideinstem.org/ https://www.noglstp.org/outtoinnovate/
And some general LGBTQ+ resources for Queen Mary staff and students.
LGBTQ+ Society QMOUT, QMUL's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBTQ+) staff network group LGBTQA+ History Month 2022

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6 inspirational LGBTQ+ mathematicians we think you should know about

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When we talk about LGBTQ+ mathematicians, there might not be many people that come to mind. There's Alan Turing, of course, and there are theories that maybe Leonardo Da Vinci was gay or that perhaps Florence Nightingale was a lesbian, but no one really knows for sure.

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https://theconversation.com/gender-parity-and-queer-awareness-needed-in-mathematics-87234

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Equity, diversity and inclusion - EDI - is a trending concept these days. Many institutions now have policies, initiatives and even vice-presidents devoted to EDI - including my own institution, Ryerson University. There is much discussion about how EDI affects productivity and innovation.

Recently, EDI in mathematics was brought to the public discourse. Last month I sat on a panel for EDI in Mathematics at the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences. Also, Ryerson Science and the Canadian Science Policy Centre recently released the report: Forging Paths to Enhanced Innovation which I highly recommend you read.

We, unfortunately, have an EDI crisis within mathematics. For example, the average Canadian mathematics department has on average fewer than one-fifth female professors. There are only a handful of gay, bisexual or lesbian mathematics professors in Canada that I know. My own department has only three women faculty out of 21 tenured or tenure-track professors: Our percentage of women math faculty members is only 14 per cent.

http://www.the10and3.com/where-are-the-women-professors-in-canadas-math-and-science-departments/

I'm a gay mathematician. I've faced challenges in my journey to full professor of mathematics and I talk about these challenges when I can. I am hoping to inspire others to do the same.

Up until now, I've found the silence on EDI in mathematics, especially on lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans issues, deafening. I had no role models or advocates as I progressed in my academic career. No one talked about EDI in mathematics departments and few professors or students were public about their identities. There are, however, a few vocal advocates for EDI right now, like Dean Imogen Coe at Ryerson. That makes me think we are on the right track.

The landscape in context

To better understand why there are so few LGBTQI2S voices in mathematics, I gathered together some statistics that might shed light. First, to make a broader point, I start with some shocking statistics related to gay youth.

According to Egale, a LGBTQI2S advocacy non-profit, about one-third of LGBTQI2S teens have attempted suicide, compared to seven per cent of youth in the general population. About half of LGBTQI2S teens have considered suicide, and 19 per cent of trans youth had attempted suicide in the previous year. Almost 70 per cent of trans youth reported verbal harassment over their gender identity, and about half of LGBTQI2S teens were harassed over their sexual orientation. One in five LGBTQI2S adolescents were physically assaulted.

Out of 195 countries in the world, homosexuality is criminalized in 72 of them. That's 38 per cent. Same-sex marriage is a good indicator of a positive environment for LGBTQI2S folks, but only 23 countries (that's seven per cent) have legalized same-sex marriage. We are all waiting to see the results of the Australian same-sex marriage referendum this week.

One of my undergraduate professors said that mathematics is a byproduct of luxury in a society. People will not do mathematics if they are struggling with other more basic issues like personal safety or acceptance.

It's tough to encourage youth to study calculus when they are getting beat up for being who they really are. When your government criminalizes your identity, it makes it that much harder to think about number theory.

There are no surveys that I am aware of specifically regarding LGBTQI2S folk in mathematics. None, and it's 2017. There is only one relevant survey: Queer in STEM, which was a U.S. national survey, published last year in the Journal of Homosexuality and written about last year in Wired magazine.

The survey had 1,400 responses to a 58-page questionnaire and we may glean some interesting things from it. A majority of participants (57 per cent) were out to their colleagues, which is slightly higher than the U.S. workforce at 47 per cent. That's positive news.

Also, when there was better gender parity in an academic department, participants reported a higher degree of openness. So better EDI in your STEM workplace makes LGBTQI2S folks more open. When there was a higher degree of openness, participants reported a safer and more welcoming environment.

Changing the culture

There are a number of measures we can take to support EDI.

We need an articulated strategy to achieve gender parity in mathematics departments in the not-so-distant future. To do this, we need to pay special attention to academic hiring, which has a lasting impact on departments owing to the long-term nature of tenure. The process - the way in which we do this outreach and hiring - is incredibly important, as are the outcomes for greater diversity.

There must be greater attention to EDI in senior roles such as mathematics department chairs. I did a stint as department chair and encourage my colleagues, especially my women colleagues, to do the same. We also need to see greater diversity in all levels of university administration and in the leadership in professional societies.

There should greater emphasis on EDI in endowed research chairs. Given the poor track record of universities nominating women for Canada Research Chairs, the Government of Canada introduced new measures for greater EDI in these positions. I hope one day there will be endowed chairs in mathematics specifically aimed at LGBTQI2S people. An Alan Turing Chair has a nice ring to it. The same holds for student scholarships both within and outside the university.

We need to work to make sure our LGBTQI2S know they are not alone. They need to know they are just as capable of progressing successfully in mathematics as their heterosexual or cisgendered counterparts.

Mathematics is a difficult subject regardless the context you are working in and we need as many minds as possible to advance the subject. A proof of the Riemann hypothesis is possibly sitting in some transgendered teens brain as I write this. What an incredible tragedy if that proof never comes to fruition.

There are a small set of groups devoted to queers in STEM. Spectra is one group I know of supporting LGBTQI2S folk in mathematics. Other organizations focus more broadly in STEM, such as LGBT STEM, National Organization of Gay and Lesbian Scientists and Technical Professionals and Out in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.

Implementing the ideas described in the recent Forging Paths report by Ryerson Science and the Canadian Science Policy Centre, such as changing perceptions and challenging stereotypes within STEM-based professions, would send us in a positive direction.

We have a long way to go, but I am convinced that with collective effort, EDI in mathematics is achievable. We can no longer hide behind claims that mathematics is genderless, racially neutral and independent of LGBTQI2S issues. Mathematics is studied by people, and its application affects people.

Mathematicians need to embrace our diversity as a strength, not as a burden or weakness.

Diversity gives new perspectives and challenges the status quo. Isn't that what mathematicians actually do for a living? We can and we must do this.

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Gender parity and queer awareness needed in mathematics

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Equity, diversity and inclusion - EDI - is a trending concept these days. Many institutions now have policies, initiatives and even vice-presidents devoted to EDI - including my own institution, Ryerson University. There is much discussion about how EDI affects productivity and innovation. Recently, EDI in mathematics was brought to the public discourse.

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https://www.mashupmath.com/blog/famous-women-mathematicians

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March is Women's History Month, a time to honor, celebrate, and acknowledge generations of women of all backgrounds, their struggle to achieve equality in society, and their incredible contributions in fields including civil rights, athletics, art, politics, mathematics, and every other facet of life imaginable.

Women's History Month is a special opportunity for students to learn about famous women mathematicians throughout history and their contributions to the field of study-ranging from discovering fundamental theorems to rocket science and putting astronauts into orbit.

Why is it important for students to learn about female mathematicians? Because the History of Mathematics is overly focused on the contributions of a small group of male mathematicians like Issac Newton, Albert Einstein, and Euclid, while often ignoring the diverse contributions of women and minorities

If you are looking to promote gender equality and celebrate Women's History Month with your kids this month and beyond, sharing the contributions of famous female mathematicians is a great way to inspire students, teach them about the history of mathematics, and remind them that math is accessible to everyone.

In Febraury, we celebrated Black History Month by sharing 11 Famous African American Mathematicians You Should Know About. And now that the calendar has turned to March, we are sharing 11 Famous Women Mathematicians and Their Amazing Contributions in honor of Women's History Month.

Some ideas for celebrating these famous women is by focusing on a different individual each day, assigning individuals for a famous woman mathematician research assignment, or by sharing this article on your classroom's bulletin board.

Note that you can certainly share this list of famous female mathematicians with your kids during any time of the school year. However, March, being Women's History Month, is an extra special opportunity to provide your students with a deeper understanding of these women and their contributions within the context of history and the fight for gender equality.

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11 Famous Women Mathematicians and Their Incredible Contributions! - Mashup Math

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Celebrate Women's History by learning about these famous women mathematicians and scientists and their amazing contributions. A full biography of each famous female mathematician is included!

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https://theconversation.com/amp/yes-mathematics-can-be-decolonised-heres-how-to-begin-65963

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At a time when decolonisation, part of which involves changing the content of what's taught, is dominating debate at many universities, the discipline of mathematics presents an interesting case.

But it's not obvious how mathematics can be decolonised at the level of content. This means that those within the discipline must consider other aspects: curriculum processes, such as critical thinking and problem solving; pedagogy - how the subject is taught and, as a number of people have argued, addressing the issue of identity.

Students' mathematical identities - how they see themselves as learners of mathematics and the extent to which mathematics is meaningful to them - are important when thinking about teaching and learning in mathematics.

In his book Leading for change, South African educationist Jonathan Jansen suggests that transforming university campuses into deracialised spaces requires attention to both the academic and the human project. I take the human project to mean how students see themselves. What might this mean for mathematics?

So what is mathematics?

For starters, it's important to explore what mathematics actually is.

Mathematician and academic Jo Boaler points out that mathematics is the only subject where students and mathematicians give very different answers to this question.

Mathematicians view the subject as an exciting, creative endeavour in which problem solving, curiosity, excitement, intuition and perseverance play important roles - albeit in relation to abstract objects of study.

For school and even undergraduate mathematics students, these aspects of mathematics are often not experienced and remain opaque. Students tend to believe that mathematics is a set of procedures to be followed. They think only particularly gifted people can do and understand these procedures. This suggests that the way mathematics is usually taught doesn't provide opportunities for accessing mathematical knowledge. It doesn't allow students to identify with mathematics, nor make them aspire to become mathematicians.

As a result, mathematics has a problem with diversity. All over the world, black and women mathematicians remain rare. They simply don't take mathematics at higher academic levels as much as their white and male peers.

One reason for this is given by a study in the US, which showed that the more a field attributes success to giftedness rather than effort, the fewer female and black academics are in that field. This is because the field perpetuates stereotypes about who belongs in the field. The same study found that mathematics professors hold the most fixed ideas about giftedness.

But this view of giftedness versus effort is not borne out by research. A number of scholars have argued that all people are capable of learning mathematics, to high levels.

This suggests that a lot of the "bad press" around mathematics as a subject and discipline lies with how it is taught and learned.

What is learning?

When scholars theorise learning, the thinking always happens in two directions: to the past, and to the future.

Some see learning as building on current knowledge in a step-wise linear way. Some see it as working in a spiral -- coming back to old ideas in new ways. Still others view learning as disrupting or transforming current knowledge.

For teachers, working with current knowledge means finding ways to ascertain, predict, anticipate and think about students' ideas - and finding ways to engage with these. An important part of students' ideas about mathematics is how they see themselves in relation to mathematics. Research in schools has shown that one of the key factors in students' mathematics achievement is a teacher who believes that they can do mathematics.

The future is important because universities must produce future thinkers, leaders, professionals and citizens. These institutions are the bridge between the past and the future.

Educational theorist Etienne Wenger argues that learning is fundamentally about becoming a certain kind of person. At universities, students are inducted into disciplines, fields and professions that require them to be certain kinds of people with certain orientations to the world, to knowledge, to other people and to practice.

Traditionally universities have focused on knowledge and hoped that identity will follow. This hasn't been entirely unsuccessful. But to genuinely transform the academic project, universities must do explicit identity work with their students. Academics must engage in the human project, thinking about who their students are and what their previous experiences of mathematics and of learning mathematics have been.

Towards genuine change

There have been attempts to transform the content of school mathematics curricula. These include ethnomathematics, which excavates the mathematics in cultural objects, artefacts and practices; and critical mathematics, where mathematics is used to critique aspects of society and where students critique mathematics, for example, how algorithms structure our lives in ways which reproduce inequality.

However, not all of mathematics can be accessed in these ways. For true epistemological access to mathematics, students need to study it systematically, as a body of knowledge in and of itself. This can be both empowering or disempowering.

Much, though certainly not all, of mathematics was created by dead white men. But maths should and does belong to everybody. Everybody deserves access to its beauty and its power - and everybody should be able to push back when the discipline is used to destroy and oppress.

To transform mathematics teaching and learning in ways that empower students, universities need to give students the theoretical grounding they need to access the subject and support them to identify with it -- to want to learn it, to become the mathematicians of the future, to enjoy and critique mathematics and its applications.

This means that as teachers, my colleagues and I need to believe - to know - that all students can do mathematics. This knowledge must be transmitted to them. They must be shown that mathematics is a human enterprise: it belongs to all, and it can be taken forward to transform society.

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Yes, mathematics can be decolonised. Here's how to begin

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At a time when decolonisation, part of which involves changing the content of what's taught, is dominating debate at many universities, the discipline of mathematics presents an interesting case. But it's not obvious how mathematics can be decolonised at the level of content.

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https://thecritic.co.uk/decolonise-maths/

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https://www.storyofmathematics.com/

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This is Storyofmathematics.com (SOM), the go-to website for all things math-related! With the click of a button, you'll be able to access a wide selection of

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https://www.storyofmathematics.com/

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This is Storyofmathematics.com (SOM), the go-to website for all things math-related! With the click of a button, you'll be able to access a wide selection of

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https://theconversation.com/five-ways-ancient-india-changed-the-world-with-maths-84332

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It should come as no surprise that the first recorded use of the number zero, recently discovered to be made as early as the 3rd or 4th century, happened in India. Mathematics on the Indian subcontinent has a rich history going back over 3,000 years and thrived for centuries before similar advances were made in Europe, with its influence meanwhile spreading to China and the Middle East.

As well as giving us the concept of zero, Indian mathematicians made seminal contributions to the study of trigonometry, algebra, arithmetic and negative numbers among other areas. Perhaps most significantly, the decimal system that we still employ worldwide today was first seen in India.

The number system

As far back as 1200 BC, mathematical knowledge was being written down as part of a large body of knowledge known as the Vedas. In these texts, numbers were commonly expressed as combinations of powers of ten. For example, 365 might be expressed as three hundreds (3x10²), six tens (6x10¹) and five units (5x10⁰), though each power of ten was represented with a name rather than a set of symbols. It is reasonable to believe that this representation using powers of ten played a crucial role in the development of the decimal-place value system in India.

Wikimedia

From the third century BC, we also have written evidence of the Brahmi numerals, the precursors to the modern, Indian or Hindu-Arabic numeral system that most of the world uses today. Once zero was introduced, almost all of the mathematical mechanics would be in place to enable ancient Indians to study higher mathematics.

The concept of zero

Zero itself has a much longer history. The recently dated first recorded zeros, in what is known as the Bakhshali manuscript, were simple placeholders - a tool to distinguish 100 from 10. Similar marks had already been seen in the Babylonian and Mayan cultures in the early centuries AD and arguably in Sumerian mathematics as early as 3000-2000 BC.

But only in India did the placeholder symbol for nothing progress to become a number in its own right. The advent of the concept of zero allowed numbers to be written efficiently and reliably. In turn, this allowed for effective record-keeping that meant important financial calculations could be checked retroactively, ensuring the honest actions of all involved. Zero was a significant step on the route to the democratisation of mathematics.

Shutterstock

These accessible mechanical tools for working with mathematical concepts, in combination with a strong and open scholastic and scientific culture, meant that, by around 600AD, all the ingredients were in place for an explosion of mathematical discoveries in India. In comparison, these sorts of tools were not popularised in the West until the early 13th century, though Fibonnacci's book liber abaci.

Solutions of quadratic equations

In the seventh century, the first written evidence of the rules for working with zero were formalised in the Brahmasputha Siddhanta. In his seminal text, the astronomer Brahmagupta introduced rules for solving quadratic equations (so beloved of secondary school mathematics students) and for computing square roots.

Rules for negative numbers

Brahmagupta also demonstrated rules for working with negative numbers. He referred to positive numbers as fortunes and negative numbers as debts. He wrote down rules that have been interpreted by translators as: "A fortune subtracted from zero is a debt," and "a debt subtracted from zero is a fortune".

This latter statement is the same as the rule we learn in school, that if you subtract a negative number, it is the same as adding a positive number. Brahmagupta also knew that "The product of a debt and a fortune is a debt" - a positive number multiplied by a negative is a negative.

Shutterstock

For the large part, European mathematicians were reluctant to accept negative numbers as meaningful. Many took the view that negative numbers were absurd. They reasoned that numbers were developed for counting and questioned what you could count with negative numbers. Indian and Chinese mathematicians recognised early on that one answer to this question was debts.

For example, in a primitive farming context, if one farmer owes another farmer 7 cows, then effectively the first farmer has -7 cows. If the first farmer goes out to buy some animals to repay his debt, he has to buy 7 cows and give them to the second farmer in order to bring his cow tally back to 0. From then on, every cow he buys goes to his positive total.

Basis for calculus

This reluctance to adopt negative numbers, and indeed zero, held European mathematics back for many years. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was one of the first Europeans to use zero and the negatives in a systematic way in his development of calculus in the late 17th century. Calculus is used to measure rates of changes and is important in almost every branch of science, notably underpinning many key discoveries in modern physics.

But Indian mathematician Bhāskara had already discovered many of Leibniz's ideas over 500 years earlier. Bhāskara, also made major contributions to algebra, arithmetic, geometry and trigonometry. He provided many results, for example on the solutions of certain "Doiphantine" equations, that would not be rediscovered in Europe for centuries.

The Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics, founded by Madhava of Sangamagrama in the 1300s, was responsible for many firsts in mathematics, including the use of mathematical induction and some early calculus-related results. Although no systematic rules for calculus were developed by the Kerala school, its proponents first conceived of many of the results that would later be repeated in Europe including Taylor series expansions, infinitessimals and differentiation.

The leap, made in India, that transformed zero from a simple placeholder to a number in its own right indicates the mathematically enlightened culture that was flourishing on the subcontinent at a time when Europe was stuck in the dark ages. Although its reputation suffers from the Eurocentric bias, the subcontinent has a strong mathematical heritage, which it continues into the 21st century by providing key players at the forefront of every branch of mathematics.

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Five ways ancient India changed the world - with maths

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It should come as no surprise that the first recorded use of the number zero, recently discovered to be made as early as the 3rd or 4th century, happened in India. Mathematics on the Indian subcontinent has a rich history going back over 3,000 years and thrived for centuries before similar advances were made in Europe, with its influence meanwhile spreading to China and the Middle East.

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https://www.britannica.com/science/algebra/Islamic-contributions

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Algebra - Islamic contributions: Islamic contributions to mathematics began around ad 825, when the Baghdad mathematician Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī wrote his famous treatise al-Kitāb al-mukhtaṣar fī ḥisāb al-jabr wa'l-muqābala (translated into Latin in the 12th century as Algebra et Almucabal, from which the modern term algebra is derived).

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https://www.pearson.com/uk/educators/schools/subject-area/mathematics/the-power-of-maths/diversity-and-inclusion-in-maths/maths-diversity-and-inclusion-poster-series.html

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These posters show key mathematicians who have inspired us and positively impacted the way that we live today; from Katherine Johnson, the first African-American woman to work as a NASA scientist, to Al-Khwarizmi, the man who is considered to have written the first book on algebra.

Explore our series of posters

Featuring a short description of their mathematical achievements, these posters can be downloaded and used to inspire your students in the classroom or as starter questions to be used in lessons as discussion topics.

We'll be releasing one new poster each month until the end of the year, so please make sure you visit us again to get the whole set!

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Maths: Diversity and inclusion poster series | Pearson UK

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These posters show key mathematicians who have inspired us and positively impacted the way that we live today; from Katherine Johnson, the first African-American woman to work as a NASA scientist, to Al-Khwarizmi, the man who is considered to have written the first book on algebra.

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https://mathsnoproblem.com/blog/learner-focus/inclusive-approach-maths-teaching

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Maths - No Problem! Maths Mastery for Primary School Education

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Inclusive teaching practices lead to an inclusive classroom setting

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Inclusive teaching in the primary maths classroom builds high expectations and meets the needs of all pupils. Learn how to implement it in your classroom.

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https://teachingdk.wordpress.com/2020/06/05/decolonising-the-science-curriculum/

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https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/193488/race-science-about-biology-about-power/

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Science journalist and author Angela Saini tackled the question of why science continues to be plagued by ideas of race.

Angela's lecture, named after her new book Superior: The Return of Race Science, was delivered to mark Black History Month at Imperial. Organised by the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Centre, the lecture was attended by over 300 people.

In case you missed it, here are our top takeaways from Angela's lecture.

You can also listen to an audio interview with Angela Saini below.

From eugenics to genetics

"Scientists who want to further work in their field are continuing to use language of the past." Angela Saini

Angela discussed how eugenics transformed into genetics following World War Two, with many scientists who had been proponents of eugenics just switching fields. Genetics was seen as a move away from studies that involved crude measures, such as skull structure.

Angela explained how private funding has helped certain research publications continue to perpetuate damaging myths around race, and has allowed those who support racial segregation to claim that 'science is on our side.'

"There is a huge amount of capital in saying that race is biologically underpinned," Angela said. "The idea of race never really went away. Yes, the language may have changed, but the categories used to group people never really went away."

Even in today's digital age, Angela said that controversial science found in publications like Mankind Quarterly continues to be shared. "Scientists who want to further work in their field are continuing to use language of the past."

Race in medical research

"Medical research gives data based on race but other explanations, such as diet, are overlooked in favour of racial explanations." Angela Saini

Angela argued that even the most well-intentioned scientists who are anti-racist can fall back on using racial groups to categorise and analyse subjects in their research.

"Race is the perfect example of science gone wrong," Angela explained. "Even the best scientists will resort to race." Many scientists are unable to explain how they define race and use the idea of race as a proxy for something else.

Angela said: "Medical research gives data based on race but other explanations, such as diet, are overlooked in favour of racial explanations. Some scientists are projecting contemporary notions of race onto the evidence. Reconstructing the truth in this way is deeply dangerous.

"If you can't define your variables, don't use them. If you can't define race, don't use race."

Angela argued that when medical research is centred on race, it can be an attempt to prove that race is an inherent, biological difference and not a social construction. "It is morally wrong to use race in biological settings," she said.

Constructing identity around myths

"Race science is not about biology, it's about power. It's a game we've been playing for hundreds of years, and we're still playing it today." Angela Saini

Angela mentioned the recent growth in popularity of ancestry testing. Angela claimed that this type of testing is flawed as it focusses on segregating people into groups. "It speaks to the fuzziness of race. Ancestry testing is a multi-billion dollar business that reinforces the idea that race is real," Angela said.

Angela went further and commented that "race makes less sense the further you go into the past." She said: "People are constructing identity around myths, and then using science to reinforce those myths. We still live with these myths now. Race science is not about biology, it's about power. It's a game we've been playing for hundreds of years, and we're still playing it today."

Imperial College Union and the African Caribbean Society are marking Black History Month with a range of events throughout the month.

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"Race science is not about biology, it's about power" | Imperial News | Imperial College London

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Science journalist and author Angela Saini tackled the question of why science continues to be plagued by ideas of race. Angela's lecture, named after her new book Superior: The Return of Race Science, was delivered to mark Black History Month at Imperial. Organised by the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Centre, the lecture was attended by over 300 people.

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https://500queerscientists.com/

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500 Queer Scientists Visibility Campaign

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A visibility campaign to highlight the accomplishments and lives of LGBTQAI+ people working in science, technology, engineering, and math.

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https://www.stonewall.org.uk/resources/gender-stereotypes-wont-hold-us-back-poster-set

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Our 'Gender Stereotypes Won't Hold Us Back' poster set is aimed at primary school children.

Teachers and other school staff can use them in lessons or as part of displays, supporting your important work on tackling gender stereotypes. There is even a handy glossary to help children with some of the words that might be new to them.

Learn how you can help LGBTQ+ people Sign up for news

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Gender Stereotypes Won't Hold Us Back - poster set

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Our 'Gender Stereotypes Won't Hold Us Back' poster set is aimed at primary school children. Teachers and other school staff can use them in lessons or as part of displays, supporting your important work on tackling gender stereotypes. There is even a handy glossary to help children with...

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https://womenyoushouldknow.net/downloadable-stem-role-models-posters/

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https://bdsip.co.uk/diversity-and-the-science-curriculum/

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The focus on diversity in the science curriculum is nothing new. Indeed, prior to the current discussion around race and social justice, teachers of STEM subjects were grappling with the gender gap and in response to this, Teach First launched their STEMinisim campaign in February 2020 with Missing Elements: Why 'steminism' matters in the classroom which highlights the following stark statistics:

When looking specifically at STEM-based careers, only 22% of roles are occupied by women. At management level this drops to just 13%.

49% of British adults were unable to name a female scientist that was dead or alive.

In a sample of Double Science GCSE specifications from the biggest three exam boards, there were forty mentions of male scientists - or concepts and materials named after them - while there were only two mentions of women.

The lack of female models in science will have a likely influence on whether female students see a place for themselves or whether they look to scientific careers at all. Indeed, to quote Toni Schmader, who studies stereotypes and social identity at the University of British Columbia, "Stereotypes reflect what people see in everyday life and can play an important role in constraining children's beliefs of what they can/cannot do' ( Yong, 2018). Miller's 2018 meta-analysis of five decades of Draw-A-Scientist studies found that 'children's depictions of scientists ... have become more gender diverse over time, but children still associate science with men as they grow older'. This goes some way to illustrating the fact that if our curriculum, and society at large, places an emphasis on representing diversity, there will be an impact.

Representation within science is important. I will never forget a conversation with a young science teacher in a school I was supporting where she asked if I had taught science in the school she had attended. Asides from making me feel simultaneously old and surprised at being remembered by someone I hadn't actually taught, I was taken aback by her recollections of seeing someone who looked like her, and left wondering whether that had influenced her to later follow the same path.

As we now explore wider issues around diversity in the curriculum, there is a need to ensure that this is done in a coherent and meaningful way, which may feel like a daunting task. So let's reframe it: How can we make the curriculum more relevant for our students through careful consideration of the examples and role models that we use?
Celebrating Diversity
Our first consideration is what we mean by the term 'diversity'. Merriem-Webster defines it as 'the inclusion of people of races, cultures. etc. in an organisation or group'. However, when we consider the nine characteristics of the Equality Act (2010) , this definition could be seen as too narrow. Consequently, we would suggest the more comprehensive definition offered by Deer (2020) in ' Promoting equality and diversity in the classroom ':
Equality and diversity, sometimes called multiculturalism, is the concept of accepting and promoting people's differences . The fundamental goal when promoting equality is to raise awareness and make sure that all individuals are treated equally and fairly . This is regardless of their age, gender, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or race.
So in what ways could we diversify the science curriculum to ensure that we promote representation? Immediate thoughts could link to the inclusion of:

diverse representation within texts, videos or website links being shared

diverse role models as part of your setting's STEM initiatives

scientific contributions of under-represented groups being highlighted throughout the year (as opposed to a focus during Black History Month).

The danger is that these practices can link to a 'tick box' implementation rather than a holistically, integrated curriculum implemented year on year. Sophie Thompson captures the spirit of this well in her article for The Headteacher, when she says, ' The goal ... is to build a curriculum that embraces, celebrates, highlights and foregrounds diversity .'

Deer (2020) proposes a series of questions that can help to review the diversity reflected within your curriculum. These include:

The benefits of increased diversity and representation within the curriculum include:

Greater understanding of and between different cultures

Enrichment of the school community by sharing experiences of different people.

Greater engagement with the curriculum.

All that said, we need to bear in mind the advice of Mark Hughes in Embedding Equality and Diversity in the Curriculum: a physical scientist's practitioner's guide. Hughes warns us to avoid the assumption that 'all students from a particular group will either act in the same way or have the same needs and aspirations'. He suggests we should establish pupil voice as part of the development process, since students 'can also be a great source of ideas for changes you may wish to make to your curriculum. They may have experience of what has or has not worked.'
Staff Training
Staff training is necessary to ensure that meaningful curriculum changes occur to reflect diversity and representation. The Science Museum Group provide support and training for teachers through the 'collaboration between schools, young people, their families, museums and science centres'. Their aim is to 'find ways to connect school science with students' diverse identities and lives.'

The Association of Science Education series of B est Practice Guidance Documents provides important advice on key aspects of the teaching and learning of science. They are short, easily accessible guides that contain links to further support. They include advice on many aspects including best practice guidance on diversity and equality within science.

The Barking and Dagenham Race and Social Justice Programme has a curriculum workstream. Using audits, school facilitators have identified emerging best practice that can be shared across settings and areas where further training would be beneficial to support the development of our local strategy. Further information about the offer will be made available to schools in due course.

In summary, diversity fosters innovation and science needs creative innovators. It is therefore imperative to create a climate in which our differences are valued, reflecting the strength diversity brings to our curriculum.

If you would like to explore further support in relation to this issues raised in this article, please contact Paul Hammond, Senior School Improvement Adviser (Secondary).

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Diversity and the Science Curriculum - BDSIP

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The focus on diversity in the science curriculum is nothing new. Indeed, prior to the current discussion around race and social justice, teachers of STEM subjects were grappling with the gender gap and in response to this, Teach First launched their STEMinisim campaign in February 2020 with Missing Elements: Why 'steminism' matters in the classroom [...]

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First Hand Experience of Diversifying Science Curriculum

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First Hand Experience of Diversifying Science Curriculum

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https://www.diverseeducators.co.uk/reflections-on-improving-diversity-and-inclusion-in-science-teaching/

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"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 force 1 . More worryingly, black students represent only 6.2% of university entries on STEM courses 2 and LGBT+ people are 20% less represented in STEM fields than expected 3 . The number of people with a known disability working in STEM subjects is far lower than those working in non STEM fields 4 . 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 year 5 . 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 arts 6 . 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.

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Reflections on Improving Diversity and Inclusion in Science Teaching | Diverse Educators

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Children will be encountering information via the media, family and friends. There can be a temptation to try to shield them from complex and difficult issues, to turn off the television and shut down conversations.

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https://www.geography.org.uk/Cultural-diversity-in-geography-education#3

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https://www.geography.org.uk/Creating-an-inclusive-geography-classroom

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'The 'sensitive teacher' seeks to develop students' self-esteem, values students for who they are and creates a classroom climate in which all students can succeed.'
Biddulph et al, 2015

What is inclusion?

It is a commitment to educating all children together. Every teacher has a responsibility to 'include' all students in the curriculum, regardless of their academic or physical ability, ethnicity, social class, gender or religious belief. Geography teachers should set high expectations for every student in their lessons. This means stretching more able students and, equally, providing challenge for students who have low levels of prior attainment or come from disadvantaged backgrounds. The Teachers' Standards explicitly require you to: ' Set high expectations which inspire, motivate and challenge students' and ' Adapt teaching to respond to the strengths and needs of all students '.

For more information see Teaching students with different learning needs and Teaching for differentiation.

Recently schools have been made more aware that social deprivation inhibits educational success. Ofsted's report on Unseen Children in 2013 identified white British children from low-income backgrounds as a group at significant risk of underachievement. Birmingham University's research in 2010 revealed that fewer students from 'deprived' households studied GCSE geography. Striving to achieve more inclusive geography classrooms is a way to help to overturn these statistics.

Read Weeden, P. and Lambert, D. 'Unequal access: why some young people don't do geography', Teaching Geography, Summer 2010.

Since 2011 the 'pupil premium' has provided funding to raise the attainment of disadvantaged students of all abilities and to close the gaps between them and their peers. Discuss with your geography mentor how this funding is used to support students in your school.

Biddulph (2017) discusses how recent changes have resulted in worrying trends that pose questions about the 'inclusive' nature of school geography in today's schools. She argues that in a 'fake news' world there is a ' new imperative for all young people to develop the knowledge, skills and understanding necessary to interrogate what they read, see and hear. '
Reading for trainee teachers and NQTs

Biddulph, M. 'Inclusive geographies: the illusion of inclusion', Teaching Geography, Summer 2017

Biddulph, M., Lambert, D. and Balderstone, D. (2015) Learning to Teach Geography in the Secondary School: A Companion to School Experience, 3rd edition. Abingdon: Routledge. Pages 165-6.

Hare, R. 'Creating an inclusive classroom: How best to ensure that all students progress and thrive', The profession (Chartered College of Teaching) June 2018

Jones, M. (ed) (2017) The Handbook of Secondary Geography. Sheffield: Geographical Association. Chapter 13, 'Differentiation' by Jane Ferretti, pp166-7.

An inclusive classroom

An inclusive classroom is a way of thinking that creates a learning environment appropriate for all. Students are encouraged to cooperate with, and support, each other and geographical learning is seen as a common enterprise. It is not helpful for a teacher to categorise or label students as part of a 'group'. Get to know your students as individuals; this means learning their names quickly, so you can address them personally and they will be more comfortable and confident to contribute orally. Show students that everyone's ideas are valued; one way of doing this by including work from a range of students in wall displays. Organise mixed ability groupings and learning activities where students support each other. Bear these things in mind and use The circles of inclusion on p 167 of Jones (2017) as an aide memoire when you plan your lessons.

Inclusive fieldwork

Fieldwork's role in facilitating social inclusion is often championed by geography teachers. Students from socially deprived areas have a lot to gain from the opportunity to experience different environment. Fieldwork is a potentially emancipatory experience for some students and provides them with valuable opportunities to experience an environment at first hand. Victoria Cook (2006) reports from her research:
'These kids have a very small social space [...] the kids also have a very limited idea of places. I think when you take them to somewhere like Flamborough Head, the awe of the environment there, they're just gobsmacked. They've just never seen that before. And the parents don't necessarily take them to these places.'
Organise fieldwork so it is appropriate and accessible for as many people as possible. There are many different types of disability that need to be considered and individuals will have different needs. Pook (2017) discusses planning fieldwork on the beach to include a wheelchair user. Some disabilities might be obvious, such as students who have mobility difficulties, but there are many unseen disabilities such as specific medical conditions e.g. epilepsy, diabetes or asthma. It is easy to make erroneous assumptions about what students with particular conditions can or cannot do; the best thing is simply to ask them (or their parents). Students who lack confidence or get anxious about undertaking activities outdoors, or have phobias e.g. about heights, must also be catered for.

Teaching inclusive geography

As well as striving for inclusive fieldwork and an inclusive geography classroom, also consider the subject content of your geography lessons. Is it inclusive? Widening participation is important in geography. Yet between 2003 and 2007 geography GCSE consistently had more entries from Indian and Chinese ethnic groups but fewer from African, Caribbean, Pakistani, Bangladeshi ethnic groups. What can you do to ensure your geography lessons are relevant and interesting to all students?

A relevant question to ask is whether we give these students the opportunity to study their own personal geographies in our lessons. Are we making the content we teach inclusive and relevant to these students? Read Lucy Doyle's article in Teaching Geography (Spring 2019) who has investigated this in her classroom.

We teach inclusive geography because we want to make a difference to learners. As geography teachers we can help to break down barriers and reduce ignorance and prejudice. Both in and out of school life, young people live, interact and work in communities that are diverse in terms of cultures, religions or beliefs, ethnicities and social backgrounds. In geography lessons we can use this diversity as a platform to provide meaningful interactions between students. We can encourage learners to explore their own identity, discuss their ideas and address sensitive and controversial issues. An inclusive geography classroom should provide a positive teaching and learning environment to promote self-esteem and help students to understand and value diversity and challenge assumptions. Refer to the readings below to explore aspects of inclusive geography teaching.

Some aspects of geography can require sensitive handling with particular students because, for example, of their background, culture or religious beliefs. See the webpage on Values and controversial issues and the support sheet Ideas and resources for teaching about cultural diversity.
Reading for trainee teachers and NQTs

Barton, R 'Inclusion and emotional mapping', Teaching Geography, Spring 2005. This article describes an inclusive way of exploring students' emotional responses to areas of the school with year 7 students with specific learning, behavioural and communication problems.

Cook, V. 'Inclusive fieldwork in a "risk society", Teaching Geography, Autumn 2006; outlines the findings of a research project into fieldwork provision in inner-city schools.

Doyle, L., 'Do we give EAL students the opportunity to study their own personal geographies?', Teaching Geography, Spring 2019.

Evans, L. and Smith, D. 'Inclusive geography' in Balderstone, D. (ed) (2006) Secondary Geography Handbook. Sheffield: Geographical Association (download).

GA webpage on Exploring inequality which is part of on-line CPD for KS3 on 'Exploring our global village'.

Hopkins, P. Botterill, K and Sanghera, G.'Towards inclusive geographies? Young people, religion, race and migration', Geography, Summer 2018.

Kitchin, R. 'Investigating disability and inclusive landscapes', Teaching Geography, April 2001. This presents activities designed to encourage students to consider the ways in which disabled people are geographically excluded, and suggests ways to be more inclusive.

Pook, B. 'Inclusive Geography for students with complex learning needs', Teaching Geography, Summer 2017.

Wallace, G. 'Refugee Boy: Geography, inclusion and inequality' Primary Geography Spring 2008. This article shows how a school serving a culturally-diverse population (where 25% of the pupils are refugees and over 60% are entitled to free school meals) used a project based around Refugee Boy by Benjamin Zephaniah (2001) to help raise achievement in geography, promote inclusion and combat inequality.

Reference
Ofsted, Unseen children: access and achievement 20 years on, Ofsted 2013 (www.gov.uk)
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Creating an inclusive geography classroom

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'The 'sensitive teacher' seeks to develop students' self-esteem, values students for who they are and creates a classroom climate in which all students can succeed.' Biddulph et al, 2015 What is inclusion? It is a commitment to educating all children together.

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https://decolonisegeography.com/resources/

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Decolonising Geography challenges the reproduction of colonial practices of knowledge in our classrooms. It contributes to developing curricula that challenge ‘universal truths’ and objective knowledge in geography by offering pedagogical techniques to empower students to take responsibility in co-c…

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https://www.oxfordcartographers.com/our-maps/peters-projection-map/

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Maps not only represent the world, they shape the way we see it. The revolutionary Peters Projection map presents countries in their true proportion to one another: it has been adopted by the UN, aid agencies, schools and businesses around the world.

WHAT IS THE PETERS MAP

The Peters World Map is an Equal Area cylindrical projection with standard parallels at 45 degrees thus resulting in a distortion of shape which is stretched about the equator and squashed towards the poles, but having the great advantage that all countries are correct in size in relation to each other. Widely used in educational and business circles as an icon of the modern concept of world equality.

THE HISTORY

Five thousand years of human history have brought us to the threshold of a new age. It is an age typified by science and technology, by the end of colonial domination, and by a growing awareness of the interdependence of all nations and all peoples. Such a moment in history demands that we look critically at our view of the world as portrayed by the World Map. Surprisingly, to a significant degree, this view is based on the work of cartographers from an age when Europe dominated and exploited the world.

Traditional map projections, of which the Mercator is one example, have tended to show countries incorrectly in proportion to one another, exaggerating the size of high latitude countries such as Canada and making tropical regions such as Africa appear much too small. Mercator's projection was designed in the 16th century for navigational use but was adopted, inappropriately, for use as a world reference map. Most alternative projections now in use, such as Robinson, Van der Grinten, or Eckert IV, still do not preserve the quality of 'equal area'. The Peters map, the work of the German historian Arno Peters, provides a helpful corrective to the distortions of traditional maps. While the Peters projection map is superior in its portrayal of proportions and sizes, its importance goes far beyond questions of cartographic accuracy - it challenges our view of the world.

Does the world map you use convey a sense of Separation or Connectedness? You can Get a free map and a free 4 page Peters Projection explanation just by clicking here

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PETERS PROJECTION MAP Maps not only represent the world, they shape the way we see it. The revolutionary Peters Projection map presents countries in their true proportion to one another: it has been adopted by the UN, aid agencies, schools and businesses around the world.

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https://www.tes.com/magazine/analysis/general/5-things-geography-teachers-can-do-combat-racism

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5 things geography teachers can do to combat racism

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The geography curriculum must be representative and inclusive of all pupils, says teacher Shiv Das

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https://decolonisegeography.com/blog/2021/03/challenging-white-gcse-geography-global-development/

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In 2018 I was lucky to be awarded a grant from the British Academy and Journal of Moral Education Trust to research whiteness in the Geography GCSE curriculum in England. Existing research pointed to the obstinate whiteness of the subject in Higher Education, but what about in schools? Previous school studies used the language of 'Eurocentric' geography and, after linking Eurocentricity with whiteness in a 2013 GCSE textbook chapter (Winter, 2018), I realised the time was right to investigate!

The funding allowed me to carry out research in two multicultural co-educational schools where I analysed GCSE policy and teaching texts, observed lessons, interviewed students and teachers and organised workshops to discuss the project findings with participants, teachers of other subjects, parents and governors.

I focused the study on the topic of 'Global Development' because it seemed to offer the most scope (a close contender, for obvious reasons, was 'Migration' - maybe the focus for the next study?). As a curriculum researcher, I've always believed in the power of curriculum to influence what students think. By this I don't mean that all students engage with and take on board what they are taught in the classroom - far from it! But I was curious to understand if the 'framing' of knowledge about global places that students studied in geography lessons matched the knowledge they gleaned at home, through the media, from friends and communities. I also believe that geography isn't just a way of describing the world, but a discourse through which the world is constructed. So, how we describe the world contributes to how the world is, what it's understood to be. Since geography constructs the world through a white lens, then whiteness becomes the norm and 'non-white' becomes the other.

The findings from the study are very rich, but depressing too. I identified three main themes from the data, although overlaps between themes occur: 1) geography divides the world, 2) colour-blindness and 3) performativity.

In the first theme a number of devices were found to impose an 'us' and 'them' binary on the world, dividing 'developed' from 'developing' countries without explanation of the historical and contemporary political drivers of global inequality. One such device is comparison of extreme-country-cases, using reductive statistical indicators. For example, one GCSE textbook compares 'the world's highest- and lowest- scoring countries in 2015' using the Human Development Index (HDI):

Widdowson et al, 2016, p. 253.

In the second theme, the concept of 'race' and its effects in reproducing racialised difference and value, and in normalising whiteness, was erased from the curriculum, even though it lurked below the surface and was manifest through implicit racialisation. Students were aware of the colour-blind curriculum:

Interviewer: ... did you notice these things that we've been talking about [whiteness] or not?

Student: I don't think so. I think when it's so subliminal, until things like this are pointed out, it kind of goes under the radar.

The final theme, performativity (Ball, 2003), was found to be the super-glue that holds the white geography curriculum firmly in place. Project teachers worked in a pressurised environment of high-stakes assessment and accountability, with an externally prescribed, mandatory, curriculum, underpinned by the notion of curriculum knowledge as objective, undisputable fact. The over-crowded curriculum and teachers' responsibility to serve their students prevented them from challenging the white geography curriculum.

What's to be done? The Decolonising Geography WhatsApp Collective is working hard to disrupt the obstinate white school geography curriculum in many ways. Members are introducing decolonising ideas and practices into schools, critically reviewing material for examination boards and publishers, developing the #Voicesproject to understand the experiences of marginalised groups, writing articles for educational publications and presenting their work at conferences, like the Geographical Association conference in April, 2021. If you're interested to join the Collective, please e-mail decolonisegeography@gmail.com with your name, job title and mobile number.

Ball, S.J. (2003). The teacher's soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal of Education Policy 18(2): 215-228.

Ross, S., (Ed.) Rowles, N., Holmes, D. and Digby, B. (2016) GCSE Geography AQA Oxford University Press.

GCSE Geography Paper 2 (2018) Challenges in the human environment 01.3.

Widdowson, J., Blackshaw, R., King, M., Oakes, S., Wheeler, S. and Witherick, M. (2016). AQA GCSE (9-1) Geography London: Hodder.

Winter, C. (2018). Disrupting colonial discourses in the Geography curriculum during the introduction of British Values policy in schools. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 50(4): 456-475.

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Challenging white GCSE Geography: global development - Decolonising Geography

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In 2018 I was lucky to be awarded a grant from the British Academy and Journal of Moral Education Trust to research whiteness in the Geography GCSE curriculum in England. Existing research pointed to the obstinate whiteness of the subject in Higher Education, but what about in schools?

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https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1NAXMyWHbLv626Hb2UYAmF3UMAlZ0OUUD

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https://decolonisegeography.com/blog/2021/08/why-the-word-slum-should-not-be-used-in-geography-classrooms/

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The term 'slum' conjures images of densely populated urban environments characterised by disease, poor sanitation and waste management as well as high levels of deprivation. It also brings to mind images of a growing industry, 'slum tourism', through which the affluent traveller can seek to experience the hardships of urban poverty in the hope that they might develop empathy for those living in such places. Teachers may have shown documentaries such as Kevin McCloud's Slumming it, or extracts from Danny Boyle's movie Slumdog Millionaire. However, as this article will show, the term 'slum' in fact has a charged political history, and is one that ought not to be used lightly in a classroom context. Understanding the politicised nature of the term - and its ongoing and deeply problematic presence in geography classrooms and curricula - requires that we begin by reconstructing something of its historic emergence and circulation.
Historical origins of the term 'slum'
In his book Slums: The History of a Global Injustice, Alan Mayne (2017: 16) has suggested that the term 'slum' "first entered the English language during the early nineteenth century, emerging from the idiom of everyday slang talk in London". From here, it spread to be applied first in other British cities, then to urban areas around the British empire. As Mayne puts it, "Thus a London slang word was adopted in hitherto non-English speaking societies to describe diverse social conditions in terms that were comprehensible to the new ruling culture" (ibid: 16).

When geography teachers in schools teach about concepts, we tend not to consider the ways in which they travel. This is odd, given that the academic discipline of geography - and especially those working within the sub-discipline of the history of geographical knowledge - has itself been increasingly interested in the mobility of knowledge and of concepts. Edward Said (1984), in an important essay in his book The World, The Text and the Critic, wrote of what he called "travelling theories". Said suggested that concepts, ideas and theories change their meanings as they move from one context to another, and that any attempt to grapple seriously with a particular concept or theory needs to be attentive to the ways in which its meaning shifts as it moves between contexts.

How, then, has the concept of the 'slum' travelled? Mayne suggests that having originated in London, the word travelled to colonial contexts but then returned to be used as a term of comparison, often fixing colonial urban areas as 'backward' in comparison to Britain. For example, he quotes modern historians writing of London in the 1880s that 'large areas of Europe's most populated city resembled the slums of Calcutta', by extension fixing modern Calcutta as being equivalent to the London of the 1880s. From here it was an easy move for the term 'slum' to develop its contemporary use, with its "almost exclusive application to Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America" (Mayne, 2017: 17). This move was driven as much by post-colonial governments in the wake of decolonisation as it was by policy-makers and academics from Europe. Institutions of global governance got in on the act too, with the UN playing a crucial role in the take-up and translation of the term, incorporating it into numerous reports and giving it pride of place in both the Millennium Development Goals and the more recent Sustainable Development Goals, Goal 11 of which includes the target to 'upgrade slums' by 2030. Such widespread use of the term has meant that it has now been taken up and deployed to describe urban areas "in nations that English-speakers had never mastered or colonized" (ibid: 17).

In an important essay from 2007, geographer Alan Gilbert (2007) was especially critical of the take-up of the term 'slum' in the Millennium Development Goals. As he put it, "After decades when most prudent academics and practitioners had avoided using it, the United Nations thrust the word 'slum' into full focus as the target of their main shelter campaign" (Gilbert, 2007: 697). Gilbert was particularly concerned that "use of the word slum will recreate many of the old stereotypes about poor people that years of careful research has discredited" (ibid: 710). Mayne, though, is less charitable to other urban scholars, arguing that the use of the term 'slum' by the UN was based on the work of a whole range of urban thinkers, writers, planners and architects who had themselves normalised its usage (Mayne, 2017:19).

What work has the term 'slum' done as it has travelled? Mayne (2017: 24) suggests that is has "reshaped the meaning" of a host of other words that had emerged in particular circumstances: banlieue and bidonville in France and French-colonized Africa, favela in Brazil, villa miseria in Argentina, kampung in Indonesia, barriada in Spain and Peru and quartieri periferici in Italy, to name only a few. The term 'slum' also brought with itself a new social practice and social type, namely the 'slummer' who 'slums'. Initially, in nineteenth century London, the 'slummer' was embodied by a "gentleman observer of city 'low life" such as Henry Mayhew, author of London's Labour and the London Poor. The social practice of slumming, Mayne argues, "shifted gear in the late twentieth century with the emergence in the cities of the developing world of what has been variously called 'slum tourism', 'reality tourism', 'poverty tourism', 'poorism' and 'dark tourism'" (ibid: 24).

Mayne suggests that the term 'slum' persists today because:

"We, mainstream society, use and embrace it ... Sometimes we embrace it in order to do nothing: in our contempt for 'losers' and 'users' we feel righteously justified in neglecting the 'underclass'. Sometimes we embrace it in the name of humanitarian action ... For the most part, however, we perpetuate slum stereotypes because they help us define (and congratulate) ourselves in juxtaposition to our imagined opposite ... Meanwhile, in the developing world today, slum stereotypes are used by the elite and the rapidly expanding middle classes" (ibid: 38).

Mayne roundly condemns the continued use of the term 'slum', but it remains a staple part of popular debate and policy-making discourses around urban issues. The term can also be found in geography exam specifications, textbooks and resources, meaning that it will inevitably find its way into classrooms as well.
The 'slum' in British geography curricula
Exam specifications play a crucial role in shaping what terms get used in classrooms. If a concept is used in an exam specification, then teachers are likely to use it in a classroom context in order to ensure that students are familiar with its meaning should it be used in an exam question.

Several English GCSE geography exam specifications use the term 'slum'. In the AQA specification, slums are categorised as a '"challenge" in need of being "managed". The word is only used in the context of studying urban experience in low income countries or so-called 'newly emerging economies'. When it comes to teaching about urban issues in the UK, the AQA specification asks instead that teachers cover "urban deprivation, inequalities in housing, education, health and employment". Meanwhile, Edexcel's B specification also uses the term slum in the context of the study of a megacity in a "developing" or "emerging" economy.

Similarly, Scottish geography exam boards continue to use the term uncritically in exam questions and mark schemes, perpetuating its presence in classrooms as a consequence. For example, in one paper a photograph is labelled as showing 'Mumbai slum', and the associated mark scheme refers to 'slum rehabilitation' projects in a solely positive light, something which we will go on to show does not match the reality of such programmes. Another SQA mark scheme marks students down "if no specific city/slum is referred to". Meanwhile, SQA's specification for their Higher qualification offers advice to teachers on how to teach about "developments in a slum region of the developing world", refers to "slum housing" in Mumbai, and even suggests that teachers consider showing "recent television programmes on slum developments" to support their teaching.

Not all exam specifications use the term 'slum', showing that it is perfectly possible to teach without this fundamentally flawed term. Edexcel's A specification refers to "housing shortages" and "squatter settlements" when studying urban issues in a "developing" or an "emerging" economy context. No explanation is given as to why the term 'slum' appears in Edexcel's B specification, but not in its A specification. The term is also not used in either the OCR A or the OCR B specifications.

At A Level, the term slum is not included in either the Edexcel or AQA specifications. However, it does appear in some textbooks. To take one example, Hodder's substantial A Level textbook (Skinner et al, 2016) draws on reports by UN HABITAT to write about "people living in slum conditions" (ibid: 382). The book does note that "the term 'slum housing' has been criticised by those who see it as a political label", marking a rare occasion where critical thinking about the term 'slum' sneaks into an educational resource for school and college students. Nevertheless, the very next paragraph in the book proceeds to use the term 'slum' uncritically no fewer than 5 times, and the paragraph following that uses the term on 6 further occasions. When the book then later offers a case study of Mumbai an entire sub-section is entitled "the Dharavi slum" (ibid: 441). This continued and repeated use of the term 'slum' makes a mockery of the brief allusions to critical thought on the concept elsewhere in the book.
Why is the term 'slum' problematic?
Mayne suggests 6 main ways in which the term 'slum' is misleading and potentially dangerous:

1. The term "is merely a stereotype, a fantasy of its' users imaginations, that generalizes into one abstraction a diversity of settlement types and human conditions. Urban poverty is real and so are disadvantaged neighbourhoods, but slums are not" (Mayne, 2017: 9-10).

2. The term "misrepresents poor neighbourhoods and their residents as being deficient, disordered and unchanging, whereas disadvantaged households and communities actually display strategy, energy and resilience in the face of hardship and constrained livelihood choices" (ibid: 10).

3. "Slums are said to have their own separate existence, and yet to draw parasitically upon their host societies", whereas "in reality, the labour of poor communities contributes significantly to urban, regional and national economies" (ibid: 10).

4. "Slum people are always characterized - sometimes with patronizing good intent, sometimes in contempt - as what the dominant culture regards as being the deficient 'Other'" (ibid: 10).

5. When it comes to policy-making and attempts to reduce urban poverty and inequality, "the unhelpful meanings embedded in the concept of slums always compromise the good intentions and short change the urban poor" (ibid: 10).

6. "All the talk about slums originates with outsiders ... by and large 'slum' dwellers do not use the word themselves, if they do so they parody its meanings or attempt to mobilize support for strategies that reject of reformulate outsiders' assumptions about slums " (ibid: 13).

Mayne mounts a persuasive case, and we would urge geography teachers and educators to read and think hard about his book and the implications of his argument. However, there is another reason that ought to be added to Mayne's list here - and, it should be said, it is one that he shows clear awareness of throughout his book. In her writings on urban life in India, Pushpa Arabindoo has drawn attention to the physical violence and displacement with which the term 'slum' has often been bound up. She highlights, for example, the actions of Maharashtra State's Slum Rehabilitation Authority in early 21st century Mumbai, and the wider National Urban Poverty Reduction Policy launched in India in 2009, with its commitment to making Indian cities 'slum free' by 2020. These policies, Arabindoo (2011) argues, have amounted to little more than an attempt at the "freeing up of inner-city slumland to the speculative exuberance of private capital", and the eviction of people from 'slums' has been used in order to further a "calculated plan to recapture valuable land for real-estate development", though the plan itself was often "couched in a nobler discourse". Arabindoo drives home the point about the true violence entailed in these attempts at 'urban reform':

"Since the beginning of the 21st century, major Indian cities have officially launched at an unprecedented scale massive and often brutal eviction drives amidst a national commitment to a 'slum-free' urban India. An estimated 300,000-450,000 people were evicted in Mumbai between October 2004 and January 2005, with 200,000 more facing displacement ... In Delhi, at least 200,000 of the city's 3 million slum dwellers have been evicted since 2004 to facilitate the city's preparation for the (much-maligned) 2010 Commonwealth Games ... In Chennai, the scenario is worse where alongside the 200,000 already displaced there are plans to evict an additional 300,000. Given the city's 1 million-plus slum population, this comprises a worrying 50%." (ibid: 637)

Nor is such violence contained to India. As Trevor Ngwane has catalogued, evictions and violence have have become part of daily life for shack dwellers in South African cities (Ngwane, 2021). This violence has a long history , but in the South African context a key moment was the passing of a Slums Act in 1934 that was, as Kerry Ryan Chance (2018: 94) describes it in her book Living Politics in South Africa's Urban Shacklands, "a colonial precursor to apartheid-era law" (pg 94). As Chance continues, "by proclaiming black communities 'slums', land was appropriated by apartheid agents, particularly on the desirable urban city center and immediate periphery". Chance's scholarship has shown how the term slum "is still a pejorative" in post-apartheid South Africa, but that simultaneously political declarations in favour of a "tomorrow that is free from slums" have been mobilised to support evictions and to justify violence against South African shack-dwellers "under a liberal logic of citizen rights" (ibid: 94-95).

So, the travels of the term 'slum' continue, as it shifts it's meaning from a racialised tool for securing colonial land-grabs to a liberal-humanist justification for 'slum upgrading' or eradication. Wherever it travels, though, the term seems to bring with it epistemic and/or physical violence and displacement.
Climate displacements and ongoing urban inequalities
None of this is to neglect the issues of urban poverty and inequality, or the structural forces driving them. The total number of people living in deprived urban areas across the world is expected to triple by 2030 (Walia 2021: 154). Urban changes are highly dynamic, and today climate change is a major cause of migration to cities. The example of Bangladesh is instructive. Despite being one of the lowest carbon emitters, Bangladesh is projected to have one in seven people displaced by climate change by 2050 (ibid: 35). Like other low-lying countries, Bangladesh already has swathes of land submerged due to sea-level rise and the anticipated three-foot rise in sea levels will cover one fifth of the country (Glennon, 2017). Yet climate change is never a singular factor pushing people to move. In the case of Bangladesh, it combines with poverty, the destruction of forests and the salinity intrusion generated by monocultural rice production and shrimp farming to cause indebted farmers to lose their land (Walia 2021: 153). Dispossessed farmers move to the capital city to escape environmental destruction and many women find work in the polluting garment industry. It is no wonder that Dhaka is amongst the world's most crowded cities, with thousands of new arrivals every day. Meanwhile, workplace disasters continue to devastate lives and livelihoods. Yet while the poor are forced into overcrowded living conditions, the global real estate market sits at $217 trillion. Urban poverty and its current spatial distribution is not an inevitable consequence of climate change, but is produced by multiple socio-economic and political processes and decisions (ibid: 254). Gita Dewan Verma suggests that "the root cause of urban slumming seems to lie not in urban poverty but in urban wealth" (Verma, 2002: xix; Davis, 2006). In Walia's terms, "real estate capital accumulation is yet another means of dispossession" whereby private property segregates the wealthy from the impoverished with gated communities situated next to low quality housing, creating a class ordering of urban space (Walia, 2021: 155). Looking at urban poverty in Dhaka, we can see that this class ordering of urban space is not an inevitable feature of urban life in low-income countries but is instead globally produced by multiple factors, including real estate markets, CO2 emissions, and the operations of large agribusinesses.
Conclusion: Refusing 'slum' stereotypes
As educators we can and we should refuse the material and epistemic violence encoded into the term 'slum'. In doing so, we would be following the lead of low income urban dwellers themselves. As Chance (2018: 95) makes clear, "residents in Cape Town and other cities have resisted ... using "slum" to refer to their communities, especially because the term so often has been used in the service of forced relocations to less desirable areas, and also because it suggests impermanence to long-standing residency." In her book, she quotes at length from Abahlali baseMjondolo, an inspirational social movement that has been organising residents in South African shack settlements to resist evictions and campaign politically for their rights:

"The word 'slum' ... makes it sound like places where poor people live are a problem ... because there is something wrong with poor people ... but it does not admit that ... places where poor people live often lack infrastructure and toilets because of the failure of ... the government to provide these things. The solution to the fact that we often don't have toilets in our communities is to provide toilets where we live and not to destroy our communities and move us out of the city" (Abahlali baseMjondolo, quoted in Chance, 2018: 95).

In reminding us recently that "the production of space itself has become key to capitalist accumulation", AbdouMaliq Simone (2019: 23) has suggested that urban rent remains "one of the most valued commodities" and that, as a consequence, a host of "familiar tools for making space uninhabitable" have been deployed against the urban poor. Against such tools and strategies of violence and marginalisation, Simone invokes a strategy of refusal premised on "non-reductionism" (22). Simone suggests this strategy of refusal must involve "a refusal to participate in institutions which function largely to attribute failure to the behavior [sic] of their constituents" (pg 23). It is precisely such a strategy of refusal that Abahlali's call to abandon the term 'slum' is involved in. As geography educators, we have a responsibility to join them in this refusal.

The violence done against the urban poor in the name of 'slum reform' should be all we need to agree with Mayne when he insists that "the time has come to ban this deceitful word from today's reform agendas as well as from rigorous research" (pg 12). And, we would argue, from geography specifications and textbooks, curricula and classrooms, too.
Reference list
Arabindoo, P. (2011), 'Rhetoric of the slum: Rethinking urban poverty', City15: 6: pg 636-646

Chance, K.R. (2018), Living politics in South Africa's urban shackland London: University of Chicago Press

Davis, M. (2006), Planet of Slums London: Verso

Gilbert, A. (2007), 'The return of the slum: Does language matter?', International Journal of Urban and Regional Research31: 4: pg 697-713

Glennon, R. (2017) 'The Unfolding Tragedy of Climate Change in Bangladesh', Scientific American, https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-unfolding-tragedy-of-climate-change-in-bangladesh/ Accessed 4th August 2021

Mayne, A. (2017) Slums: The history of a global injustice London: Reaktion Books

Ngwane, T. (2021), Amakomiti: Grassroots democracy in South African shack settlements (London: Pluto Press)

Said, E. (1983), The World, the Text, and the Critic Harvard University Press

Simone, A. (2019). Improvised lives: Rhythms of endurance in an urban south London: Polity

Skinner, M., Abbiss, P., Banks, P., Fyfe, H., and Whittaker, I. (2016), Geography for A-level and AS 4th Edition London: Hodder

Verma, G. (2002), Slumming India: A chronicle of slums and their saviours Penguin Books India

Walia, H. (2021). Border and Rule: Global migration, capitalism, and the rise of racist nationalism. Haymarket Books.

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Why the word 'slum' should not be used in geography classrooms - Decolonising Geography

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The term 'slum' conjures images of densely populated urban environments characterised by disease, poor sanitation and waste management as well as high levels of deprivation. It also brings to mind images of a growing industry, 'slum tourism', through which the affluent traveller can seek to experience the hardships of urban poverty in the hope that they might develop empathy for those living in such places.

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https://www.em-edsupport.org.uk/Pages/Download/918ffab8-e31e-4a80-9bf1-fe27a1396d48/PageSectionDocuments

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Didau & Robinson - It’s Your Time You’re Wasting!

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Diversity in Schools - Decentring, Decolonising the Curriculum - Bennie Kara

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https://www.teachit.co.uk/english

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Thousands of engaging English literature and language classroom resources for KS3-5 teachers, including lesson ideas, exam practice tasks, creative activities and revision resources.

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https://neu.org.uk/media/11236/view

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https://ukfeminista.org.uk/resources/secondary/#:~:text=Integrate%20anti%2Dsexism%20activities%20into,initiate%20discussions%20about%20sex%20inequality.

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Here's how you can tackle sexism in the classroom.

Download tips for secondary school teachers

A quarter (25%) of secondary school teachers say they witness gender stereotyping and discrimination in their school on a daily basis.

- "It's just everywhere": A study on sexism in schools and how we tackle it, UK Feminista & National Education Union, 2017

Over a quarter (29%) of teachers in mixed-sex secondary schools say they hear sexist language in school on a daily basis.

- "It's just everywhere": A study on sexism in schools and how we tackle it, UK Feminista & National Education Union, 2017

4. Promote equal participation in class discussions

Research by the Institute of Physics on participation in physics lessons revealed, "on average, from around 100 observations, that teachers were asking both genders similar amounts of questions - but boys were shouting out and putting their hand up a lot more."

Monitor girls' and boys' participation in class-wide and group discussions. If girls are being inhibited from participating equally, there are a range of tactics you can use to widen participation. For example, make students aware of the problem; establish ground-rules for discussions to facilitate a supportive and respectful environment; select students to speak, rather than waiting for volunteers; or give students opportunities to consider questions independently or in pairs before having a class-wide discussion.

Over a third (37%) of female students in mixed-sex secondary schools have been sexually harassed while at school.

- "It's just everywhere": A study on sexism in schools and how we tackle it, UK Feminista & National Education Union, 2017

7. Champion a whole school approach to tackling sexism

Individual activities and one-off events addressing sex inequality can make a real difference. However, securing comprehensive, long-term change requires a 'whole school approach'. This means that action to promote equality between girls and boys is guided by an over-arching framework and involves all members of the school community.

Propose the whole school approach to your senior leadership team. Use UK Feminista's resources to highlight why this approach is necessary and how it can be implemented. UK Feminista can provide additional training, advice and resources to schools wanting to develop a whole school approach to tackling sexism.

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Here's how you can tackle sexism in the classroom. Download tips for secondary school teachers A quarter (25%) of secondary school teachers say they witness gender stereotyping and discrimination in their school on a daily basis.

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https://neu.org.uk/advice/challenging-sexism-schools

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In 2017, the NEU and UK Feminista launched a study about the experiences and views of students and teachers on sexism and sexual harassment in schools. The report found that sexual harassment, sexist language and stereotypes are widespread

Key findings

Over a third (37%) of girls at mixed sex schools have been sexually harassed while at school.

Almost a quarter (24%) of female students at mixed-sex schools have been subjected to unwanted physical touching of a sexual nature while at school.

66% of female students and 37% of male students in mixed sex sixth forms have experienced or witnessed the use of sexist language in schools.

A quarter of all secondary school teachers say they witness gender stereotyping and discrimination in their school on a daily basis.

Over a third (34%) of primary school teachers say they witness gender stereotyping in their schools on at least a weekly basis.

"A boy touched my bum and tried to touch my boob. I felt uncomfortable and I didn't tell him because I was scared but I tried to ignore him." - Female student"

5 Places to start

The NEU recommends that schools should adopt a 'whole school approach' to tackling sexism.

This involves building an institutional framework, staff capacity and empowering students.

Tips on what you can do to get started:

1. Listen to girls and women. Often behaviours are under the radar and students and staff are not reporting them. You should survey staff and students to identify what the problems and experiences are and what needs to change. Don't be afraid to ask about these experiences- sexual harassment is happening in every school - primary and secondary. You can use and adapt some of the questions used by the NEU in the 'It's Just Everywhere' report. UK Feminista has some templates for students and staff.

2. Create momentum for reflection and change. Establish a working group with members of STL, colleagues and union reps to drive forward institutional change. One person cannot do this on their own- know who your allies are!

3. Use your national and local curriculum. Think about the role of the curriculum and audit the representation of girls and women. Many schools are auditing their curriculum at the moment. Evaluating what is already happening is key; and learning more about what are the barriers to encouraging girls and boys to speak up about sexual harassment and stereotypes about gender, race and LGBT+ people. How can preventative work on attitudes be embedded in the curriculum? What local history projects can you plan about women who have challenged sexism and fought for women's rights in your local area?

4. Raise awareness of what sexism and sexual harassment is and why it is harmful. Assemblies, tutor time and staff CPD and Inset will need to be used to start a conversation amongst the whole school community and feed into curriculum teaching and learning. Often staff are not at all confident about what level of behaviour and stereotyping needs to be challenged, and how is the best way to do it. Talk, share, plan. Reflection and collaboration is key.

5. Use student activism and voice. Sexism affects students' daily lives: they know what the issues are and have ideas of what would make a difference. Young people very often want to take action themselves through particular projects, research or campaigns. What girl clubs or sports activities might be needed? Do you have a dedicated LGBT+ student space? AGENDA provides excellent and practical examples of the power of using student voice to promote social justice.

Resources to help

Who else has a role to play?

The NEU believes that the Government has a vital role to play in supporting schools to make change.

The NEU will keep campaigning for:

A national education strategy to tackle sexism and sexual harassment. Education policy must support a wider vision of education as we recover from Covid-19. Schools must be empowered to develop the social and emotional aspects of learning and use the curriculum to challenge sexism and sexual harassment.

Greater support for schools to meet statutory Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) requirements. Teachers must have access to training to embed a gender equity approach to RSHE.

Properly resourced schools, local authorities and specialist services. There needs to be strong systems of pastoral and specialist support within and around the school to ensure that cases of sexual harassment and sexual abuse are managed effectively and with positive outcomes for children and young people.

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In 2017, the NEU and UK Feminista launched a study about the experiences and views of students and teachers on sexism and sexual harassment in schools. The report found that sexual harassment, sexist language and stereotypes are widespread Over a third (37%) of girls at mixed sex schools have been sexually harassed while at school.

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https://www.childcomwales.org.uk/publications/tackling-islamophobia-resource/

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The resource

The resource consists of three lesson plans, designed for secondary schools, to help increase awareness of Islamophobia, tackle common myths and misconceptions about Islam, and present the real life experiences of young Muslims in Wales.

It includes four videos to use in the classroom:
Experiences
This video presents the experiences of some young Muslims in Wales, including direct racist abuse and the effect this can have on families.
Meaning of Islam
In this video, young Muslims in Wales discuss what Islam means to them. For many, it is summed up in one word: peace.
Media portrayal
How can the media shape our views? Young Muslims in Wales share their concerns about Islam is sometimes portrayed in the media.
Hobbies
What do we all have in common? Can our commonalities bring us closer together?

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Tackling Islamophobia Resource - Children's Commissioner for Wales

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The resource consists of three lesson plans, designed for secondary schools, to help increase awareness of Islamophobia, tackle common myths and misconceptions about Islam, and present the real life experiences of young Muslims in Wales.

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https://equaliteach.co.uk/downloads/EqualiTeach-Faith-In-Us.pdf

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https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/diversity-in-history-posters-12698738

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Smart and exciting displays and lessons on historiography and GCSE history topics (Weimar & Nazi Germany; Medicine through Time; Cold War; Elizabeth I)

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Smart and exciting displays and lessons on historiography and GCSE history topics (Weimar & Nazi Germany; Medicine through Time; Cold War; Elizabeth I)

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Smart and exciting displays and lessons on historiography and GCSE history topics (Weimar & Nazi Germany; Medicine through Time; Cold War; Elizabeth I) Report this resourceto let us know if it violates our terms and conditions. Our customer service team will review your report and will be in touch.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Ihs241zeg&vl=en

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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The Danger of a Single Story | TED

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https://www.historybombs.com/2020/11/womens-history/

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Women's history is on the rise, but how is this reflected in our schools? We ask teachers about the role of women's history in the classroom, especially for Women's History Month.
Women's history has been enjoying some much-deserved, and well-overdue, limelight these last few years.

The Suffragettes' struggle was brought to the big screen in the 2015 star-studded movie The Suffragette. The Suffragist Millicent Fawcett made headlines (again) when hers became the first female statue in London's Parliament Square in April 2018.

Caroline Criado Perez, the writer and activist who campaigned for the statue, also successfully led a campaign that resulted in Jane Austen gracing the British £10 note the year before. The National Trust even unearthed the untold stories of women in their historic sites as part of their year-long programme, Women and Power, in 2018. While, more recently, the award-winning movie The Favourite shined a light on the immense influence and power of women in the 18 th century court of Queen Anne.

Safe to say, it's an exciting time for women's history. Women's contributions to history are consciously being sought after, and it feels like history's public image is finally on its way to shaking off its inherent masculinity. However, is this progression reflected within the classroom?

Women's history in the National Curriculum

Look at the National Curriculum in England and you'll see that women are only mentioned once in the key stage three history programme of study - unsurprisingly in 'women's suffrage'. Fortunately, while it's optional, many schools seem to choose to teach it.

"Women's suffrage is commonly taught in schools", says British history teacher Jackie Teale, adding, "It's the only sequence of lessons that I can think of that focuses primarily on women."

However, we'd be wrong to jump to the assumption that just because the term 'women' is only named once in the study programme that women's history is wholly excluded in all other topics. Elsewhere in the programme, 'Christendom, the importance of religion and the Crusades' and 'Ireland and Home Rule', for example, could both easily include the female experience without being blatantly labelled 'women's history'.

In fact, some people think the category of women's history - and even Women's History Month - is problematic. By separating women's experiences into just one category of history are we novelising something that should instead be dispersed organically throughout all historical categories, all year round?

With that in mind, perhaps the lack of specifically 'female' history in the National Curriculum isn't a bad thing.

"I'm not sure that most students, particularly at key stage three, would recognise women's history as anything other than history", Teale points out. "Women's history could be fitted within any of the programmes of study on the curriculum."

Moreover, when Adam MacKinnon, Head of History at Cranmore School in Surrey, asked his male year-6 students their thoughts around studying the Tudor queens Mary I and Elizabeth I, he summarises, "they said they hadn't really thought about it from the point of view that they were women, but more that they were the ruling monarchs at that particular time."

So perhaps, excluding the label 'women's history' can itself be beneficial within schools. Indeed, asking teachers which female characters are most commonly covered in the classroom, they threw out a varied list from across the centuries, including Boudicca, the Tudor queens, Queen Victoria, Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole, as well as key Suffrage activists and Rosa Parks.

MacKinnon made a point of stating that, "women like Boudicca, Mary Tudor, and Elizabeth I are discussed in our lessons in the context of their role rather than specifically their gender."

Even in the USA, Sheila Mehta, who teaches modern US history to 16-17 year olds in Round Rock, Texas, told us that her school supports her in teaching what she calls "inclusive history". She explained, "[we] include female voices from the eras, movements, events we study to be as comprehensive as possible."

Teaching under pressure

Teachers are enthusiastically incorporating women's voices and experiences wherever possible. That, however, reveals a significant problem in teaching women's history in schools. The responsibility and drive to teach our students about women's experiences in history seems to be coming from the teachers themselves rather than the examination boards, who have the power to give women's history a core role.

By leaving it to the teachers to consciously choose to include female experiences and contributions in class, women's history is being treated as 'other' - a novelty addition to the masculine historical 'norm'.

"It is quite male-centric", claims Mehta, commenting on the Texas curriculum for modern US history. "While not terribly surprising with the culture of the state, it also misguides students who feel as if women just stood on the side-lines of history".

Back in the UK, this sentiment is echoed by Teale, who states, "It's unlikely that if a teacher has a weak knowledge of a particular time period that they will be able to plan and teach lessons with women and other marginalised groups fully integrated into the picture."

This leads onto another risk of leaving the inclusion of women on the history teachers themselves. It's still widely reported that teachers are working longer hours, in increasingly unsupportive environments - all in a sea of budget cuts. Almost a third of education professionals work more than 51 hours a week and the Education Support Partnership saw a 35 per cent increase in teachers calling their emotional support helpline last year.

Teachers are under a lot of pressure. And, as with anything in life, pressure brings inflexibility. When teachers are battling with time limitations and looming deadlines they will likely, and understandably, stick to the well-worn path rather than try to create new tracks - opting for a more male-centric traditional approach to history over a more female-inclusive one.

Within US and UK popular history, women have long been treated as a minority group, when they actually make up more than half the population. While it is fantastic to see enthusiastic teachers incorporating alternative histories into their lesson plans, it is too risky to leave that heavy (but necessary) responsibility on teachers, who are already battling time and curriculum pressures.

So perhaps, if we want women's history to continue to rise both outside and inside the classroom, the Department for Education and exam boards need to make more of a conscious effort to bring the female experience into the curriculum. That way history's women can be presented in our school books as well as our cinema screens.
With thanks to Jackie Teale, Sheila Mehta, and Cranmore School for their contributions.

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Women's History | KS3 & GCSE History | Blog - History Bombs

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Women's history is on the rise, but how is this reflected in our schools? We ask teachers about the role of women's history in the classroom, especially for Women's History Month. Women's history has been enjoying some much-deserved, and well-overdue, limelight these last few years.

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https://the-fsa.co.uk/2020/04/26/teaching-womens-history-in-schools-time-to-take-action/

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More young people are studying GCSE history than ever before. As the guardians of our past, history teachers have a tremendous responsibility to ensure that these young people have access to a wide range of historical narratives. Women's history, in particular, needs to be brought to the forefront. Recent statistics show that history is the most popular of all non-compulsory subjects at GCSE level and is the fifth most popular subject overall. Interestingly, it is girls who are driving this popularity, and a significant number of them will go on to study history at A-Level and beyond. For history teachers, this affirms the need to adapt teaching and learning so that it reflects the diversity in our classrooms. We have a responsibility to present to these young women (and men) the full range of historical narratives, including those which reflect the wide-ranging experiences of women. But what about the National Curriculum? How are teachers expected to reflect this diversity of experience and to incorporate women's history into their teaching, if at all?

Women's History in the National Curriculum

In the previous National Curriculum for History, which was introduced in 2007 and replaced in 2014, historical diversity was listed as one of six key concepts or skills that teachers should develop in all of their students. It was defined in the following manner:

Understanding the diverse experiences and ideas, beliefs and attitudes of men, women and children in past societies and how these have shaped the world.

However, in the document's explanatory notes, diversity was further defined in terms of cultural, ethnic and religious diversity, with no mention of women's history at all.

Fast forward to 2010 and there was some cause for optimism when the-then Education Secretary, Michael Gove, announced his overhaul of school history. In his announcement, he talked about giving all children the opportunity to learn about 'the struggles of the past' and to 'hear our island story.' What his comments turned out to mean, however, was the continuation of a single narrative of the past in which women's history would play no significant role. This was made clear in the 2014 National Curriculum for Key Stage 3 History in which diversity was framed in terms of its citizenship value, with no emphasis whatsoever on the historical experiences of women:

History helps pupils to understand the complexity of people's lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups, as well as their own identity and the challenges of their time.

Similarly, the National Curriculum for GCSE History (or Key Stage 4) is equally vague when it comes to diversity. It states that all students should develop their knowledge of the 'wider diversity of the human experience,' but offers no working definition of diversity for teachers nor does it advocate specifically for the diversity between male and female experiences of the past.

Changing the Worldview: Women's History in Schools

While some teachers are right to be concerned about the lack of official provision for teaching women's history in schools, the new curriculum does offer some advantages for those who are keen to create a more inclusive classroom by offering their students a wide range of historical perspectives. After all, Gove's redesigning of the curriculum was actually intended to give teachers more freedom in the classroom by encouraging creativity.

So, what does this mean for women's history in schools? Well, above all, it means no excuses. If there is no strict framework for teaching diversity, then it follows that there is an incredible amount of opportunity for women's narratives from all backgrounds to be heard, whatever topic we are teaching.

As Carol Adam argued in 1983, if we only ever give students access to material that reflects one world-view, a view which is typically white and male, then no matter how well they engage, they will only ever have a conceptual awareness that relates to one-half of the population. In Adam's words, they will be operating in a 'restrictive, historical field.' Given the current popularity of history with so many girls and young women, the need to escape this restrictive field has never been more pressing and it is teachers who need to lead the way by designing a curriculum which includes women's experiences and narratives.

Kaye Jones is a former historian and newly-qualified teacher of history. Alongside a colleague, she set up the Invisible Histories project, which provides resources to support the creation of truly inclusive history teaching. She is keen to hear from any teachers who are passionate about women's history and want to incorporate it into their classroom practice.

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Teaching Women's History in Schools: Time to Take Action

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More young people are studying GCSE history than ever before. As the guardians of our past, history teachers have a tremendous responsibility to ensure that these young people have access to a wide range of historical narratives. Women's history, in particular, needs to be brought to the forefront.

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https://teachingwomenshistory.com/tag/national-curriculum/

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In this post, project organisers Abigail Tazzyman and Bridget Lockyer reflect on the first session of Moving Beyond Boundaries at Huntington School

On the 26 th February Moving Beyond Boundaries: Gender, Knowledge, History held its first session at Huntington School in York with twenty-five AS level students from Huntington, Fulford and Bootham Schools. In this session we introduced the project and ourselves and tried to gauge students' current knowledge of women's history, their experience of being taught it at school and their views on its role and importance. We were lucky enough to have use of the school library with plenty of room for group work and movement, providing an interactive learning and teaching environment.

We began the session with the basics, asking students to shout out which elements of women's history up they could remember learning about. We asked them to include any women that they had studied in subjects other than history such as English, Maths, Science, Art, Music etc. The first list was relatively short: the Suffragettes, women who worked in the First World War effort, Marie Curie, Rosalind Franklin, Christina Rossetti, Charlotte Bronte and Amy Johnson. Amy Johnson and Charlotte Bronte found their way onto the list because two of the Huntington School houses are named after them.

This list was expanded after the students were asked to fill out a written questionnaire and to compare their responses in small groups. Mary Seacole, Rosa Parks, Boudicca, Mother Teresa, Elizabeth Fry and various queens of England were added to the list. A few women writers were named: Caryl Churchill, Susan Hill and Angela Carter as well as the artist Georgia O'Keeffe. The flapper girls of the 1920s and women in 1950/60s Britain also got a mention. Overall, their knowledge was what we expected, it fitted with what we had learnt from conversations with history teachers and chimed with our own experiences of women's history at school. The students obviously had some understanding of women's history, but this was focused around key individuals who were often presented as the exceptions.

We were however very reassured by the level of engagement and contribution of all the students taking part. Both in small groups, class discussions and presentations the students were responsive, offering honest and thoughtful answers and giving clear consideration to the material they encountered. The most fruitful discussion sprung from a question about equal representation of men and women on the history curriculum. Most of the students recognised that women were less represented than men. Yet the reasons they gave for why this was the case was interesting and particularly thought-provoking for us as a team.

The students felt that although it was true that women were less represented on the curriculum, this was not deliberate. For them, women in the past contributed little to society. Compared to men, they had not taken part in or even been present during big, 'world-changing' events, and this was because they lacked the opportunities to do so. The exclusion of women on the curriculum now was just a consequence of them being prevented from doing anything worthy of note in the past. From the student's perspective, we could not learn about a history which never existed in the first place.

We were particularly struck by the implication that the curriculum emerged organically, merely reflecting the 'truth' about women's position and roles in the past. We asked the students to think about who devises school curriculums and why, and that this is not an objective process. One student suggested that a male bias could emerge because most of the people making decisions on the curriculum were male themselves.

Within the students' responses there were also judgements on what counted as noteworthy and which parts of history warranted being taught in school. In a discussion about the women on the banknotes campaign, a few of the students argued that Jane Austen was less important and influential than Charles Darwin (the current face of our £10 notes). They contended that Austen had only been chosen because she was a woman, and that her actual contribution, writing novels, was quite insignificant in comparison. Here, we reminded the students that male writers had also featured on the banknotes in the past, most notably Charles Dickens.

When we asked which parts of history the students considered to be important, there was general agreement that war, politics and science were the most significant. These were the things that had shaped society, and the students wanted to learn history that better enabled them to understand contemporary Britain. They felt that they should not be 'forced' to learn about women's history, when, as they argued, their contribution to the making of Britain (and the world) was so limited. Again, women's cultural contributions were sidelined, regarded as less significant. They also did not consider that the reason why they believed women had not been part of political or scientific developments was because they had not been taught about it.

Not all of the students felt the same. A small minority argued that for a woman to be recognised at all given the challenges she faced, was remarkable and should be taught in schools. They also argued that women have often been written out of history, meaning that their contributions have been forgotten or undervalued. They acknowledged that women's lives were less recorded than men's and that in general, the curriculum struggles to cover the lives of ordinary people, only the famous or exceptional, and this was partly to blame for the under-representation of women.

It was interesting that the few students who challenged the dominant view were mainly from Fulford School where they have an initiative called 'Feminist Fridays', a time dedicated to focusing on and learning about women and women's rights both in the past and present. As a result, they appeared to be more open to taking a more critical look at women's inclusion on the history curriculum.

We finished the session on an activity which questioned students' assumptions of women's roles at different points in British history: Roman, Medieval, Victorian, 1950s and 2014. This exercise was to get students to think about what women have been doing for the last two millenia. For example, most of the groups initially stated that women were unlikely to work during their allotted time period, but on further consideration, began to list some of jobs women might have done.

It is important to note that we were very keen to hear the views of all the students in this first session, and we made sure that we did not disagree or argue with their contributions. Instead, we wanted to open up the debate and encourage them to think more critically in the weeks to come. The project now moves on to the workshop stage where each week the students will engage with a new area of women's history that they have not previously encountered. It will be interesting to see whether or not their perspectives will change.

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National Curriculum - Teaching Women's History

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In this post, project organisers Abigail Tazzyman and Bridget Lockyer reflect on the first session of Moving Beyond Boundaries at Huntington School On the 26 th February Moving Beyond Boundaries: Gender, Knowledge, History held its first session at Huntington School in York with twenty-five AS level students from Huntington, Fulford and Bootham Schools.

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https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/not-his-finest-hour-the-dark-side-of-winston-churchill-2118317.html

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Not his finest hour: The dark side of Winston Churchill

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Winston Churchill is rightly remembered for leading Britain through her finest hour – but what if he also led the country through her most shameful hour? What if, in addition to rousing a nation to save the world from the Nazis, he fought for a raw white supremacism and a concentration camp network…

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https://www.history.ac.uk/library/collections/teaching-british-histories-race-migration-and-empire#key-stage-3-11-14-year-olds

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How to use this page

This collection of links to resources on British histories of race, migration and empire is a collaboration with the Runnymede Trust as part of an effort to increase the presence of Black history, histories of colonialism and of migration in the UK history curricula.

We have asked for people to suggest useful sites, and you can make further suggestions via our webform.

The resources range widely in scope and type. We have organised them according to Key Stages, as well as listing resources for academic researchers, teachers, lecturers, tutors and others. As such, some resources may appear in several sections.

Join the conversation about this resource and the need for change in history education on Twitter using the hashtag #TeachRaceMigrationEmpire. Read an introductory blog post on Teaching British histories of race, migration and empire from the campaign's convenors, Hannah Elias and Sundeep Lidher.

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Teaching British Histories of Race, Migration and Empire

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This collection of links to resources on British histories of race, migration and empire is a collaboration with the Runnymede Trust as part of an effort to increase the presence of Black history, histories of colonialism and of migration in the UK history curricula.

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https://theblackcurriculum.com/

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We empower young people and educators across the UK to engage with Black British history 365 days a year.

One of our main goals since 2019 has been to embed Black histories into the UK national curriculum.

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We empower young people and educators across the UK to engage with Black British history 365 days a year. One of our main goals since 2019 has been to embed Black histories into the UK national curriculum.

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https://www.hackneyservicesforschools.co.uk/extranet/hackneys-diverse-curriculum

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We have developed a new set of teaching resources to mark Windrush Day 2022. They enable students to learn about the Windrush generations and their contribution to life in Britain, using Veronica Ryan's sculptures and the work of Thomas J Price as inspiration.

Students will explore the role of statues and sculptures, and how to use art as a form of expression and cultural identity. The resources were created by a dedicated team of Hackney teachers and education consultants.

If you already have login details, you can view the new resources now. If not, please request access first.

About the resources

"I believe Black History should be taught as part of British History and thought about how we can do this in Hackney. I am therefore proud to present Hackney's Diverse Curriculum - the Black Contribution. This groundbreaking work has been curated by Hackney teachers and supported by Hackney Council, and will enlighten young people with an education not just about the history of Black people, but about a history that belongs to us all.

I would like to thank the diligent and passionate work of our teachers for this rich and insightful curriculum. Thanks must be extended to our roundtable participants and the leadership of Orlene Badu and the website team and communication team from Hackney Council for taking my aspirations and ambition for a Black Curriculum and making it a reality. As well as providing balance to how we teach British history in schools, we hope it inspires a more tolerant and inclusive-minded community.

We welcome other boroughs or educators to access the Diverse Curriculum to adapt and use within their own teaching. We look forward to hearing back from how the work resonates with both teachers and students and look forward to building upon this work in the future."
Cllr Anntoinette Bramble, Deputy Mayor of Hackney
"I am pleased that Hackney Education has been able to provide resources to use in schools. These resources were written by Hackney teachers and education staff to make sure the full contribution of the black community, past and present, is recognised. This is an important step in our ongoing journey to make sure we understand each other and educate out racism and bias. My thanks to all involved."
Annie Gammon, Former Director of Education
Request access

To request access to these resources please complete the following form. Please note, we offer one account per school. You will be contacted with login details for your school/setting/organisation.

By applying for access to this content the account holder understands and agrees to the following conditions.

This website and its content is copyright of The London Borough of Hackney - © London Borough of Hackney 2022. All rights reserved. Any redistribution or reproduction of part or all of the contents in any form is prohibited.

You may not distribute or commercially exploit the content. Nor may you transmit it, upload it or store it on any other website or other form of electronic retrieval system.

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New Windrush resources available now! We have developed a new set of teaching resources to mark Windrush Day 2022. They enable students to learn about the Windrush generations and their contribution to life in Britain, using Veronica Ryan's sculptures and the work of Thomas J Price as inspiration.

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https://www.solgrid.org.uk/education/wp-content/uploads/sites/43/2020/02/SecondaryBooklet1-Updated2016.pdf

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https://flashacademy.com/educators/whole-school-approaches-to-eal-students-inclusion/

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With the number of EAL student admissions into schools across the UK on the rise, it is important that as educators, you prioritise ensuring feeling comfortable and included in their school experience. In this blog, there are going to be some l approaches to the inclusion of EAL students that you can take, which are not just implemented in the classroom, but across the whole school.

'How Our School Works' Video or Talk

One of the most effective ways to develop a sense of inclusion for EAL students is producing a 'How Our School Works' video or (PowerPoint) talk. Involving the whole school (especially students) in the production will help EAL students to relate. This will benefit EAL students, but also their parents. Depending on the circumstances, parents may not know the inner workings of a British school or the curriculum. Explaining this via a video or talk will give them all the essential information they need. There is no specific structure as the video may vary from school to school, but this is something that can be developed and changed over time to fit your ethos.

Developing an EAL Policy

Developing an EAL policy - regardless of the number of EAL students at your school - is essential. This is something that should co-exist with your school's equality policy. This policy should reiterate exactly how your school will:

Give all EAL students a safe and secure place to learn whilst supporting them and aiding them in becoming independent learners

See to it that there is enough curricular support to aid students to make progress to the best of their abilities and higher attainment levels

Place EAL students into groups/categories based on their academic potential, rather than their English proficiency

Hope and aspire for the highest expectations and achievements for all EAL students

Develop a school-to-parent and community engagement plan

Here are some ideas for your policy. These should also map out and make it clear that your school aims to provide students with:

In-depth assessments for the needs of newly arrived EAL students to ensure that the current attainment level of the student is clear

In-class support for EAL students - ensuring that they are not omitted from classroom activities

The appropriate curriculum or syllabus and access to the appropriate resources to learn it

Extending Your Professional Development

One of the best ways as educators that we can approach the inclusion of EAL students is to first extend our knowledge on EAL students. This can be done by networking at events with other professionals and specialists. These events and courses are usually difficult to find, so it helps to do your research. FlashAcademy® are coming together with EAL Success to bring the EAL Success Roadshow to London and Manchester in 2020. The Roadshow includes guest speakers from schools as well as linguist experts and specialists - sharing experiences and advice to schools. If you want to register your interest, click here. The Bell foundation also runs a number of courses for teachers over the year, which you can find on their website.

Training and coaching all staff in EAL student Welfare

If your school has an EAL co-ordinator, SENCO, inclusion co-ordinator or anyone who works closely with both newly arrived, low or high-level EAL pupils, it could be useful if they took on the role of holding sessions for all staff. This training, in particular, is crucial for NQT's (newly qualified teachers). More than likely, they may not have had enough time during school placements or at University to have an in-depth look at the needs of EAL students. Experienced staff may also need to refresh their approaches to the needs of EAL students also.

Here are a few themes that maybe useful to include in your EAL training:

Summarise the EAL proficiency stages and how they are implemented in the classroom

Tips about planning lessons with EAL students in mind

Resources and learning materials to support reading and writing

Source material that supports EAL pupils in the classroom

Invest in resources that are specially designed to cater specifically to the needs of EAL Students. This means that learning can be more approachable (especially if resources use a pupil's first language ability) and pupils can stay in the mainstream classroom whilst learning.

FlashAcademy® EAL is available from 38 home language and accelerates English acquisition through curriculum-mapped lessons, challenges and games which simultaneously teach and test pupils. Features include:

Object translator, which can translate any object into English just from a picture taken by the user

A real-time leader board where pupils with different first languages can play together for the top spot

An exciting range of word games to test pupils' understanding

"Attainment for pupils with EAL has doubled since using the FlashAcademy® EAL resource - it has been remarkable. It helps that pupils love it. Having their own app makes them feel really special." Clare Evans, To find out more about FlashAcademy® EAL and how it can help your EAL students, click here. Deputy Head Teacher, Anderton Park

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Whole School Approaches to the Inclusion of EAL Students

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With the number of EAL student admissions into schools across the UK on the rise, it is important that as educators, you prioritise ensuring feeling comfortable and included in their school experience. In this blog, there are going to be some l approaches to the inclusion of EAL students that you can take, which are not just implemented in the classroom, but across the whole school.

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https://www.bell-foundation.org.uk/eal-programme/guidance/effective-teaching-of-eal-learners/

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The context for EAL pedagogy

Learners with EAL have a dual task at school: to learn English (language) and to learn through English. For this reason, EAL teaching aims to teach English using the mainstream curriculum as the context. These relationships can be seen in the graphic. Specific teaching strategies and resources are therefore necessary to make the language of the curriculum accessible to learners who use EAL.

Rationale for EAL pedagogy

EAL pedagogy is underpinned by the following principles:

1. Bilingualism and multilingualism are an asset - the ability to use more than one language is a valuable skill that learners who use EAL bring with them, regardless of whether they are New to English or not. Learners actively use the languages they already know to learn English.

2. Cognitive challenge should be kept appropriately high - high expectations around cognitive challenge should be maintained. Access to the curriculum is needed, but this does not imply the "dumbing down" of the content. For example, a learner from Greece might be highly skilled at Maths but using English as the language of instruction might be preventing them from engaging fully in the Maths lessons in England.

3. Learners' proficiency in English is closely linked to academic success - Research has found that proficiency in English is the strongest predictor of academic achievement (Strand and Hessel, 2018)

Underlying teaching principles

Given the principles underpinning EAL pedagogy, effective practice for learners using EAL is likely to include:

Activating prior learning
Activities that enable learners to activate their prior knowledge of the topic of the lesson facilitate greater understanding and engagement. Example strategies include taking advantage of the learner's first language and finding out what the learner knows through questioning.

Providing a rich context
EAL learners will benefit from being provided with additional contextual support to help them make sense of the information conveyed to them in English. The use of images andgraphic organisers (e.g. diagrams, grids, charts, timelines) are very useful for this purpose.

Making the English language explicit in the classroom
Within the context of the curriculum, learners with EAL can be encouraged to notice the language used and understand how it is used. This implies pointing out key forms and structures that allow pupils to meet the language demands of the tasks. Strategies include providing oral and written models and scaffolding speaking and writing throughspeaking and writing frames.

Developing learners' independence
The independence of learners who use EAL can be fostered by developing their organisational, thinking and social skills (for instance, working co-operatively with others, taking turns and asking for help). In terms of organisational and thinking skills, teachers can provide learners with opportunities to model and extend what has been taught and support them in developing note taking and summary-writing skills. Social and cultural norms in the classroom will need to be made explicit to the learners. Pupils might be used to different rules and codes of behaviour in school in other countries; for instance, in Japan it is inappropriate to look a teacher in the eye whilst many teachers will expect it in an English school. Teachers can convey information about school social skills by translating simple lists or presenting them pictorially for the learners. Providing a new arrival learner with a buddy speaking the same language, who can explain these different cultural school norms, is another way of doing so.

Supporting learners with EAL to extend their vocabulary
EAL learners at all levels need to be given opportunities to grow their English vocabulary range. This could be done by taking advantage of their first language(s) through translation, the use offlashcards and images. It is important to remember to develop the learner's academic language skills, for instance by focusing on the differences between formal and informal vocabulary.

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Effective Teaching of EAL Learners - The Bell Foundation

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Effective Teaching of EAL The context for EAL pedagogy Learners with EAL have a dual task at school: to learn English (language) and to learn through English. For this reason, EAL teaching aims to teach English using the mainstream curriculum as the context. These relationships can be seen in the graphic.

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https://www.bell-foundation.org.uk/eal-programme/guidance/education-policy-learners-who-use-eal-in-england/

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https://litincolour.penguin.co.uk/assets/Lit-in-Colour-research-report.pdf

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http://www.theinclusionsolution.me/the-winters-group-racial-justice-resource-guide/

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The Winters Group Racial Justice Resource Guide

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Posted by The Winters Group, Inc. | | The Winters Group Resources |

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https://www.instagram.com/p/CBTcjAXJ-SV/?fbclid=IwAR2BCiYZ3HRmP84FuA4PErWeHAlHeVdFqsOR-pAdBHzEZPBeNSthL4F6Ok4

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View this post on Instagram

A post shared by SOPHIA 菲 LI (@sophfei)

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https://www.teachit.co.uk/cpd/english/encouraging-more-diverse-reading-experiences

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Encouraging more diverse reading experiences

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Diverse reading lists, classroom resources and curriculum enhancing ideas to diversify your KS3-4 English curriculum and introduce students to new literary voices.

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https://www.bameednetwork.com/resources/

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To achieve our collective mission of an education sector that is reflective of society, we've gathered a range of useful resources and reading for our network.

These pages are a work in progress and new content will be added regularly.

If you'd like to recommend any content to be added to these pages, please get in touch with us.

Dr Muna Abdi shares some of the ways you can show up and stand up as an ally.

Download and print a poster for your school staff room or offices to spread the word about our network.
Click here to download
Access an interactive and printable poster of book recommendations for children and young adults from Darren Chetty and Karen Sands O'Connor for 'Beyond the Secret Garden' with Books for Keeps.
Click here to download
A report we return to time and time again is from McKinsey and was published in 2015.

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To achieve our collective mission of an education sector that is reflective of society, we've gathered a range of useful resources and reading for our network. These pages are a work in progress and new content will be added regularly. If you'd like to recommend any content to be added to these pages, please get in touch with us.

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https://www.bl.uk/womens-rights/activities/map-of-womens-resistance

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Explore A map of women's resistance in the UK

The fight for women's rights has demanded courage, creativity and a conception of a better world.

Learn more about the lives, activism and achievements of the women involved with our map of women's resistance across the UK. Browse by themed categories and click on the images to see original sources, from photographs to oral histories.

We hope these histories will inspire you to keep learning. There are many more stories to be unearthed and told, and new stories will evolve. The fight for women's rights remains unfinished business.

[Please note that the map contains discussion of sexual and domestic violence, abortion, sex work and enslavement. Some locations are approximate, because the places are historical and details are not available.]

About the map

A map of women's resistance in the UK has grown out of The Business of Women's Words: Purpose and Profit in Feminist Publishing (BOWW), a partnership project between the University of Sussex, the British Library and the University of Cambridge, generously funded by The Leverhulme Trust.

We have created our map primarily for young people, secondary students and teachers, but we hope everyone can enjoy it.

All content was created in 2019-20. © British Library. Available under the Creative Commons License.

With thanks to Alice O'Driscoll and Charlotte James for contributing ideas and content.

Click on each map entry to see a short label text, images from original sources or multimedia from the British Library and other collections, plus links to further reading. The map is best viewed in full-screen.

Download a plain-text version of the map.

Our map focusses on events, organisations and people from the 18th century onwards. It offers a selection of entries that spatially visualise examples of women's lives, campaigns or activities that have promoted social, cultural or political change, championed equality and representation, and challenged oppression.

It cannot cover all of this rich and detailed history, and it is important to highlight that many of the women and groups featured have connections to other locations in the UK and around the world, and equally have been influenced or part of international networks.

Many examples of women's resistance have gone unseen, both in the past and today, and there continue to be gaps in our collective knowledge of women's history because of systemic oppression and discrimination.

We hope our map provides an opportunity for young people and teachers to engage with women's rights and history through the lens of location and primary sources. Equally, we hope that the map encourages critical thinking about activism and specifically how resistance can play out in different forms and at local, national and international levels.

Follow the links below for creative activities and teaching resources to accompany the map.

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A map of women's resistance in the UK | The British Library

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Discover stories of women's lives, rights and feminist resistance through over 60 locations around the UK. Browse by themed categories and access original sources, from photographs to oral histories.

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/class-clips-video/ks3-gcse-history-black-power-a-british-story-of-resistance/zh9h6g8

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Prior to this lesson you may wish to introduce your students some of the events mentioned in this short film to provide context. For example:

The arrival of the Empire Windrush in 1948.

The 1948 British Nationality Act, which conferred equal citizenship status to people in Britain and her colonies.

The Notting Hill riots in 1958 and murder of Kelso Cochrane in 1959.

Enoch Powell's 1968 'Rivers of Blood' speech.

You may also wish to elicit from the students what they already know about the relationship between the police and the black community. Students might provide more contemporary or American examples e.g. the killing of George Floyd. You could also ask students if they have ever heard of 'Black Power' either in Britain or in America. Depending on the focus of your lesson, you may wish to pause this short film at certain points to check for understanding, asking such questions as:

Why did the British Black Power movement form?

What did the British Black Power movement focus on?

Who was involved in the British Black Power movement?

When was the British Black Power movement most active?

What is the legacy of the British Black Power movement?

You could ask students to summarise the key points of the short film. This could be done in various different ways, through storyboarding the key points, bullet points, etc. The Mangrove Nine case could act as a case study/example as part of a GCSE course. Click or tap here for another BBC Teach film about The Mangrove Nine. After watching the video, students could research one of the activists discussed in the video: Altheia Jones-LeCointe, Olive Morris or Darcus Howe. Another potential avenue is introducing students to primary source material related to the British Black Power movement. The National Archives and the Black Cultural Archives hold a range of source material from a variety of different perspectives. The Ansel Wong collection at the BCA includes many grassroots pamphlets and newspapers. The National Archives contains police reports on 'black activism', witness statements and seized Black Panther campaign material. Students could be asked to analyse how a particular source could be useful to a historian wishing to research more about the Black Power movement. If your focus is more comparative, you could introduce students to another example of injustice or police mistreatment. This could either be from the same time period but a different location (i.e. one local to your school), or it could be from a later time period (e.g. Stephen Lawrence and the Macpherson Inquiry). Click or tap here for three BBC Teach films about the murder of Stephen Lawrence.

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KS3/GCSE History: Black Power - A British Story of Resistance

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Prior to this lesson you may wish to introduce your students some of the events mentioned in this short film to provide context. For example: The arrival of the Empire Windrush in 1948. The 1948 British Nationality Act, which conferred equal citizenship status to people in Britain and her colonies.

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https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/sessions-and-resources/

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Education sessions and resources - The National Archives

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Our taught sessions and online resources cover a variety of time periods and places. Many contain structured investigations for use directly in the classroom. Others are more suited for research and preparation. They all allow access into our unique collections.

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https://support.pearson.com/uk/s/group/0F95p0000010wJ1CAI/english-diversifying-the-curriculum