Teachers in Scotland will be given 'white privilege' lessons
Teachers in Scotland will be given 'white privilege' lessons and 'anti-racism learning resources' as part of efforts to 'decolonis the school curriculum.
Education Scotland has introduced the new guidance over fears that groups impacted by racism are not currently sufficiently represented in the curriculum.
Among its recommendations is a call for young children to be given books, 'dolls and figures' and 'dressing up clothes' which 'normalise diversity'.
The details of the plans are in a new 38-page document titled 'promoting and developing race equality and anti-racist education'.
The plans will also see teachers invited to take a 'white privilege test', while an anti-racism 'toolkit' asks staff to consider 'white fragility'.
It also promotes 'decolonising' the curriculum in order to challenge longstanding biases and omissions.
The guidance says: '(Decolonising) reflects the concern that literature, cultures, successes and histories of groups impacted by racism are not sufficiently evident in the curriculum, and that the historical role of Scotland in the colonies and in the slave trade has not been consistently explored and acknowledged within the curriculum.'
The guidance also claims that research over the past two decades has shown how racism is part of everyday life for ethnic minority pupils, even if overt examples are rare.
Its section on 'decolonising' the curriculum reads: 'The term reflects the concern that literature, cultures, successes and histories of groups impacted by racism are not sufficiently evident in the curriculum and that the historical role of Scotland in the colonies and in the slave trade has not been consistently explored and acknowledged within the curriculum.
'To understand the full complexity of decolonising, it is important to remember that racism is rooted in colonialism: when Western countries justified the enslavement of people by spreading the belief that those people were sub-human.'
'Even after colonised countries gained their freedom, the long-standing power imbalance and those beliefs of racial superiority and inferiority remained: this is known as "coloniality".
