Educating for Race Equality - A Toolkit for Scottish Teachers is a resource commissioned by the Scottish Executive and developed by the Centre for Education for Racial Equality, Learning and Teaching Scotland and the City of Edinburgh Council Education Department. It will be distributed as a CD-Rom and is also available on www.digital-stream-ltd.com/rac-eq.
One of the case studies of good practice explains how staff at Arthurlie Nursery School in Barrhead, East Renfrewshire, are aware of the need to introduce pupils to cultures different from their own and implement anti-racist education, even though very few minority ethnic families live in the catchment area. It says, 'The school is bright, open, cheerful and welcoming; the ethos is one where children and their parents or carers would feel both secure and relaxed, with dedicated and motivated staff offering every opportunity for children to explore both their differences and their similarities.'
Park Drive Nursery in Bannockburn, Stirlingshire, is commended for having sought to acquire as wide a range of multicultural materials as possible.
The report on its approach says, 'The school is colourful, welcoming; it looks and feels a both safe and stimulating place where staff work together, engaging creatively and purposefully with children and parents or carers. The needs of children and parents are viewed in the context of the diverse and changing world, combined with a semi-rural, apparently monocultural identity.'
Other resources supplied as part of the Toolkit include an account of three primary school teachers who carried out a study that involved talking to both teaching and non-teaching staff, parents and children, and found that staff were unaware of some racist incidents that were taking place. The teachers' report says, 'In general, the adults do not see a racial problem, but the children do, and for all the usual reasons they often choose to say nothing ("grassing", "teachers don't believe you, or if they do, you get bashed later at home time".) So a lot of this behaviour remains invisible to the adults in the situation.'
