Scotland's Teachers Urged to Take 'White Privilege' Test in a Bid to 'Decolonise' Schools

According to Scotland’s Education Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville, it was vital to embed “anti-racism into the ethos and practice” of the country’s education system.

Teachers in Scotland were invited to take “white privilege” tests as a part of the government’s larger efforts to “decolonise” the school curriculum, according to the Times, which cited a new anti-racism framework for educators released Thursday.

As such, new guidance developed by the Scottish Government’s executive agency Education Scotland, purports to promote “race equality and anti-racist education” in schools.

It lists recommendations for Scottish educators that include providing entry-level students with diversity-themed dolls, dressing up clothes, books, as well as in “worked examples in mathematics” as children grow.

The agency also shares a link to “resources for practitioners” which, apart from everything else, discusses how to make mathematics “antiracist”.

“Portrayals of diversity should avoid stereotyping groups,” the guidance claims. “Novels can portray strong friendships between characters from different ethnicities or have plots which challenge racial and other stereotypes. They can also develop the empathy of learners through sharing the lived experience of their peers.”

With the help of the anti-racist ‘toolkit’, the teachers have also been asked to consider their own “white fragility” – an apparent defensiveness by the white people when they are confronted about racial inequality that “safeguards a person’s privilege”.

Legacy of Colonialism and What Should Schools Do About It

Education Scotland says that the process of “decolonising” the curriculum should come through understanding that “racism is rooted in colonialism” and the ideas about “sub-human” colonised people put forward by the West.

“Groups of people were racialised as a way of justifying their oppression by colonial powers such as Britain (with Scottish people playing a key role),” a separate guidance from Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights claims. “The impact of this persists into life today, and this is why the concept of decolonising the curriculum has come to the fore.”

Education Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville hailed the new framework as promoting and inspiring “a sense of belonging, inclusion and social justice”.

“Racism of any form has no place in Scotland,” she added.