UK education policy and ‘race’

This chapter is concerned with the significance of ‘race’ in UK education policy particularly since 2012, and the impact it has had on students’ educational experiences and attainment. However, at the outset it is important to state that, while student attainment at age 16 in England, Scotland and Wales is referenced in this chapter, much of the content focuses on ‘race’ in English education policy. This is because Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales have devolved political and administrative powers from the government of Westminster (England), and hence are responsible for shaping and delivering their own education systems (DfE, 2016a; Scottish Government, 2016; Welsh Government, 2016). Notwithstanding its devolved powers, Northern Irish educational policy is omitted as its educational provision is divided by religion, with Protestant and Catholic students largely attending separate schools. In contrast to the rest of the UK, Northern Ireland does not measure school performance data by ethnicity owing to schools being predominantly White and the fact that religious affiliation is synonymous with ethnicity (Doherty and Poole, 2002). The sectarian nature of educational provision in Northern Ireland, combined with the omission of ethnicity as a unit of analysis, makes comparative analysis of student attainment across UK countries difficult. There are two other key reasons for the greater focus on England. First, of the constituent countries, England has the most ethnically diverse school population, with 31% of students from Black, Asian, Minority, Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds attending primary schools, and 28% in secondary schools (DfE, 2017b). In Welsh schools BAME students account for 9% of students (Lewis and Starkey, 2014), although the actual numbers are quite small (Welsh Government, 2017).