A critical race theory framework for education
policy analysis: the case of bilingual learners and
assessment policy in England
Alice Bradbury
I read Alice Bradbury’s research on how educational policies can discriminate against minority students, even when they appear to be “neutral”. This is a very important topic that many people do not pay enough attention to.
Bradbury combines Critical Race Theory with policy analysis to show how policies can “serve to perpetuate white dominance while appearing neutral and meritocratic”. Her example is the baseline assessment policy in England, which required all children to be assessed in English only at the age of 4-5. This seems fair on the surface, but in reality it significantly disadvantaged bilingual students.
The problem is that when EAL (English as an Additional Language) children scored low on these English-only tests, it created low expectations that followed them throughout their school careers. Teachers and the system thought these children were less capable, when in fact they just needed to be assessed in their native language.
This picture is key to understanding how educational inequalities continue to exist. We need to examine policies more closely to see who really benefits and who is harmed, even when discrimination is not obvious or intentional.
The School That Tried to End Racism – Channel 4
I found this video to be a simple but very effective way of communicating the inequalities that are inherent in our society and which those in a position of advantage often do not even notice.
Children are a great example of representing the innocence of thinking that we are all equal.
It would be interesting to understand how, over the years, this sense of equality is lost in some people, the community and the people who form them.
This observation makes me reflect on how children, by nature, do not see race as a barrier until they are taught to do so by society. When we are young, we play with everyone without thinking about skin colour or background. But at some point, this changes.
The problem is that our social systems – schools, workplaces, the media – slowly teach us that some people are “different” or “inferior” to others. This happens so gradually that many people don’t even realise it’s happening to them. Those who benefit from these inequalities become particularly blind to them because recognising the problem would mean admitting that their advantages were not entirely earned on merit.
Research shows that as early as age 5, children begin to show racial biases learned from their environment (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2010). This is not because children are naturally racist, but because they absorb the messages around them like sponges. They notice when certain groups are absent from their books, their teachers, or positions of power. They learn from adult conversations, even those adults think children are not listening to.
What saddens me the most is that we could maintain that sense of childhood equality if we really wanted to. Instead, our society systematically strips it away from us, replacing natural acceptance with learned prejudice. Understanding this process is the first step to breaking it.
Reference: Derman-Sparks, L., & Edwards, J. O. (2010). Anti-bias education for young children and ourselves. National Association for the Education of Young Children.
Racism shapes careers: career trajectories and
imagined futures of racialised minority PhDs in UK
higher education
Rhianna Garrett
Rhianna Garrett’s research focuses on how racism affects the career paths of doctoral students from ethnic minorities at UK universities.
Garrett interviewed 22 doctoral students from ethnic minorities to understand how their identity influences their future career plans. What she discovered is quite shocking: many brilliant students choose not to pursue an academic career because of the racism they experience.
The students described academia as an environment that requires them to “give up” part of themselves in order to fit in. One participant said that it is necessary to become like the typical academic, i.e. “middle class, Cambridge graduate” and usually white. Another student said that being in academia was like “being literally kicked around like a football”, i.e. constant pain and struggle.
What makes the situation even sadder is that these students often had mentors from racial minorities who inspired them, but they also saw how these same mentors were treated badly by the system. They witnessed some faculty members leaving academia after only 2-3 years due to pressure and discrimination.
Research shows that universities need to do more than recruit diverse students: they need to change the entire culture to truly value different perspectives and identities. Without this change, we will continue to lose talented researchers who could make an important contribution to knowledge and society.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. Learning how to get it right
Asif Sadiq
Everyone is an individual with a unique identity, rather than simply a representative of the groups to which they belong. When universities try to resolve racial inequalities by looking only at simple categories such as “black” or “Asian,” they are not grasping the full picture.
A black student might also be a worker, neurodiverse, or have English as a second language-all of these elements together shape his experience, not just his race.
The research I read on doctoral students clearly demonstrates this. Students did not experience discrimination just because of race, but because of how their race combined with other parts of their identity. Pakistani Muslim women had different experiences from Black Caribbean men, who were different from mixed-race students.
Perhaps the problem with addressing awarding gaps is that we treat people as if they only have one major identity. We put students in a box and then wonder why our solutions don’t work. But real people are complex: they exist at the intersection of many different identities and experiences.
If we want to truly understand and fix educational inequality, we need to see students as whole people with multiple identities, not just numbers on spreadsheet. This takes more work than simple statistics, but maybe it’s what we actually need to do.