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Name/Title
to go here
The intersectionality of quality and equality
education for ethnic minorities in Britain: Race,
class, gender and the Caribbean dimension
Professor
Heidi Safia
Mirza
Intersectionality
race, class and gender
What is an intersectional analysis?
How does race, class and gender impact on
our understanding of learning, teaching and
systems of assessment ?
In the context of intersectionality what factors
affect pupil assessment?
….gender is always
lived in the modalities of
ethnicity and class, and
nationality in the
modalities of gender and
race , and class in the
modalities of gender and
nationality’ ( Prins
2006:278)
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g
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Race
Race
g
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CRENSHAW’S TRAFFIC LIGHT METAPHOR
It is the work of the black
and postcolonial
feminist to ask the
simple question
what does this mean? –
and begin to plot a
history’
(GayatriSpivak,1988:297)
Race class and genderWhich one?
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Gender and race- Are all the
girls really doing that well?
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Race and ethnicity makes
a difference to Class
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Ethnic Monitoring and
Hierarchies of Difference
GCSE 5 A*- C grades
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
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0
Chinese
DfES /SFR
Indian
White
Bangladesh
Pakistan
African
GCSE results, England 2009
Caribbean
Theories of ‘black underachievement’
in Britain and Caribbean
Cultural




Black masculinity
Female centeredness
Peer pressure ( gangs)
Resistance and ‘Acting
white’
 Parental involvement
 Bullying and violence
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Structural
 Teachers perceptions
 Institutional racism
 Transition from primary
to secondary
 Curriculum and
pedagogy and books
 Poor neighbourhoods
teaching and resources
What assessment tells us about
Progression and Transition
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Achieving Quality Education
What makes a difference?
Can it be measured?
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Teacher training for inclusion, diversity and
equality
Supplementary Community schools ( indigenous
knowledges)
School leadership , ethos & distributive
leadership (effective schools)
Setting Inclusive targets ( assessment for social
justice not league tables)
Monitoring achievement of ethnic/gender groups
through formative assessment and review
For a black person to become
educated is therefore to become
human.
Nothing is more astonishing than
to hear a black (wo)man express
himself properly, for then he is
putting on the white world.
Education in this sense is not
about the process of learning or
teaching or schooling- it is about
refutation.
Franz Fanon Black Skin White Masks
1952 ( Pluto Press 1986)
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