The killing of George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer in the USA in May sparked protests across the world, including the largest anti-racism protests the UK has seen in centuries. Sports teams and some police ‘took the knee’ in solidarity, while a flurry of corporate commitments on tackling diversity followed. Companies such as Amazon and Coca-Cola declared themselves allies of the Black Lives Matter movement, the co-founder of social media site Reddit resigned from its board, saying he should be replaced by a black candidate, while Lego told online affiliates to remove links to 31 mainly police-themed products, as part of its own stand ‘against racism and inequality’.
These represent something approaching a direct admission of structural racism, defined by equality think-tank Runnymede Trust as ‘the set of circumstances which holds “whiteness” to be superior’, with day-to-day examples including being overlooked for a job because someone with a ‘more English’ sounding name is preferable, or never seeing someone who looks like you in a role of significance to which you aspire.
Statistics indicate the UK is no stranger to structural racism. Black workers with degrees earn 23 per cent less on average than white workers, while 36 per cent of ethnic minorities live in poverty compared with 17 per cent of white people, to pick just two examples from an Equality and Human Rights Commission race report.
Along with the rest of society, the early years sector is likely to be structurally racist. Strikingly, no corporate statements in support of Black Lives Matter have been made by any nursery groups, to Nursery World’s knowledge. The best available data is from 2013, when the Department for Education’s Childcare and early years providers surveyshowed BAME staff made up 10 per cent of the workforce at full daycare settings, 9 per cent at before- and after-school settings, and just 4 per cent in primary schools with Reception classes.
But that is as far as the official data goes. The DfE has not published any more data on the ethnic makeup of the workforce since. The Early Years Workforce Strategy in 2017 promised to ‘review data collections with the aim of improving our understanding of overall diversity in the early years workforce, across all groups.’ However, it has not done this. The DfE declined to comment on why, pointing only to a diversity task and finish group it has set up to consider gender diversity in the early years sector in more depth. However, this group’s remit was only ever to look at gender.
RESPONSE
‘Why was the data relevant in 2013 and not relevant now?’ Dr Daniel asks. ‘It seems at best a little bit shoddy that it has stopped being collected, and at worst suspect.’
Shaddai Tembo, postgraduate research student at the University of the West of Scotland, agrees. ‘We know racism exists in primary and secondary schooling contexts, yet so often we seem to act as if the early years is free from such issues.’
Mr Tembo says the lack of data ‘reinforces whiteness’ by dismissing the relevance of race in educational contexts.
Analysis by the Education Policy Institute (EPI) in 2019 suggested 86.9% of childcare workers were white, compared with 77% of all 16- to 64-year-olds in employment, according to the Government’s Annual population survey.
Further analysis is not possible, the researchers say, as the sample size is too small.
Dr Daniel points out this lack of data means we don’t know where BAME people are situated in the workforce. ‘The early years sector is still a low-income workforce, so I cannot imagine it doesn’t have a high incidence of ethnic minority people. But we need to know how many BAME people are in leadership roles, and we need to know what those numbers look like in both the maintained and the PVI sectors,’ she says. ‘We have this enforced duality between the two, which is already damaging the sector because it is so divisive.
‘I also think it would be interesting to know what level of qualifications we are dealing with, and what that looks like in both sectors. There are tons of people doing brilliant jobs without qualifications, and we need to understand what that says about their life chances and how we can develop that talent. There are people with ability and skills, but the education sector has let them down, and that impacts their life chances and what they aspire to.’
Dr Daniel believes the structural racism of the education system is failing young BAME people.
‘There are too many people who don’t expect to get past a certain point. If they get their Level 3, they think they have reached their zenith because that is all that is expected of them. It is almost like the system only fits you for certain jobs.
‘The fear of collecting data is that it will lead to research, and when someone goes looking for why something is happening, the result is often uncomfortable. But then again, if you have no intention of doing anything about the issues, it stands to reason that you wouldn’t want to collect the data.’
DISCRIMINATION
Mr Tembo says his research has found a majority of black practitioners had experienced at least one incident of racism, and none had received any explicit training on how to respond.
‘Discussing race is often unsafe for black people who, in seeking to avoid “creating an atmosphere”, often stay silent,’ he says.
‘Bringing up the “race card” creates a space for exposure and vulnerability, to the point it is better to leave it and move on. Once again this is symptomatic of a culture of whiteness in early years settings that closes down or dismisses the significance of conversations around race.’
Conversations about race are vital among adults, and must be encouraged with children too, Mr Tembo says, but he warns that representation goes beyond material resources.
‘A few more books with non-white characters on the shelf alone, while progressive to an extent, does little to address the ways in which racism is directly experienced and felt by black and minoritised children,’ he says.
‘When we fail to address race and racism, we fail to adequately meet the needs of the child.’
The EPI points out that ‘research shows that an ethnically, culturally and linguistically diverse workforce, which better reflects wider society, can help children reach their full potential’. As a paper for the National Association of State Boards of Education in the USA put it, ‘Diversity …is a significant strength for young learners. It can help them develop a positive sense of their own racial and cultural identities to have effective interactions with teachers who look like them, understand their culture, and harbour no racial biases toward them.’
CASE STUDY
Dionne Jardine is the owner of Nido Montessori in Brighton. The setting employs 50 per cent BAME staff, but she says this is far from the norm.
‘I’ve done 15 years in childcare, and thinking about the other nurseries where I’ve worked, I’ve not ever seen one black person,’ she says. ‘It’s terrible.
‘I do wonder if it’s down to education and not being given the opportunities, but in childcare you don’t necessarily have to be academic to be a room leader or manager. We need to know if BAME people are not getting the jobs or not applying. I do wonder how many black nursery owners there are.’
After obtaining her Montessori qualification in 2004, Ms Jardine did a Level 2 in health and social care and her Level 3 EYFS qualification.
‘On health and social care it was predominantly black women, but they all went on to midwifery or to work in care homes, not childcare. On my Level 3 course everyone was white. The Montessori AGMs are all-white as well, when I think about it. But I’ve never felt like the only black woman in the room. I grew up quite oblivious to race. Things are changing, though.’
Ms Jardine says she has noticed a shift this year in particular. ‘My son asked me if I thought Mother Nature was racist. He’d seen all the Black Lives Matter protests in the news and Kobe [Bryant] and Chadwick Boseman died, and he thought that was the only explanation. That’s how much this is all affecting our kids.’
Ms Jardine says her predominantly white school has seen one incidence of suspected racism. ‘We had issues with one set of parents who were not happy with their daughter spending time with our black, male member of staff. They said it was because she didn’t feel comfortable around men, but we were very sure they had discussed his race and they had the fact he was black in the back of their minds.
‘We decided the best way to deal with it was to have him be very present for her, so he would always come out with her to meet the parents and was always the first to be involved with what she was doing or help her when she was sad. That helped the family accept him.’
She adds that the ethnic diversity of staff at her nursery should have a positive effect on the children.
‘Having a black doll in a basket or celebrating Eid doesn’t make your setting diverse,’ she says. ‘How much better is it to see multicultural members of staff every day? That is what makes you truly diverse, and makes children more able to go on and work together in harmony later.’