The Falcon Conference on Family Learning, Oslo, 
31 August – 3 September 2005

Promoting inclusion through family learning

Notes for a presentation from the United Kingdom

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1. Within the overall policy framework of combating social exclusion, the Government since 1997 has promoted family learning in various ways, particularly through the flagship Sure Start programme and, more recently, through the Family Language, Literacy and Numeracy programme. In 2005 it has published a brief progress report about the latter, summarising key issues and challenges. The report is intended in particular for policy-makers.

2. The cover of the report has six colour photographs, depicting between them eleven people. Six of the people are male, five female. Three of them are small children under five years of age, three are older children or teenagers, four are adults. Four of them appear to be of African or African-Caribbean heritage and three of South Asian heritage; six are white.

3. So the message communicated on the cover is one of inclusion – men and boys are included in addition to women and girls, and people of minority backgrounds are included as well as white people. In both these respects the proportions in the illustrations do not correspond to proportions in the real world – only 25 per cent of people who attended Family Leaning Week events in 2003 were male, and only 15 per cent were not white. Whoever chose the images for the cover was at pains to challenge stereotypes and to communicate that family learning involves males as well as females, and minorities as well as white people. (And also, for that matter, the cover challenged a prevalent assumption that family learning, like Sure Start, is essentially to do with only the first few years of life.)

4. In photographs inside the publication, 29 people are depicted. Again, they are disproportionately male – 18 are men or boys, 11 are women or girls. The breakdown by ethnicity, however, is very different from the breakdown on the cover – 25 of the people are white, and only four black or Asian.

5. These comments on the report’s illustrations are a way of beginning to focus the concerns in this presentation. The presentation is primarily about the inclusion through family learning of people of minority ethnic backgrounds – as distinct from inclusion and exclusion around, for example, age, disability, gender or sexual orientation. And its principal argument is that in family learning, as in most or all other areas of social policy, inclusion does not just happen by chance. It has to be worked on. And to be worked on, it has to be named.

6. Naming the problem is not the same as dealing with it, of course. But it’s a necessary start.

7. We need, obviously, to look at the text itself of the Government’s report, not just at the messages communicated through its illustrations. The text makes a single reference to ethnicity. In a bibliographical note in small print it cites an article published in the Journal of Marriage and the Family in 1999: ‘Parents who are more involved in their adolescents’ schooling, regardless of parents’ gender or educational level, have offspring who do better in school, irrespective of the child’s gender, ethnicity or family structure.’

8. Those last few words – ‘irrespective of the child’s…ethnicity’ – poignantly summarise the Government’s approach to family learning, as indeed to many other strands in the combating social exclusion agenda as well. Tolstoy famously declared that ‘all happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’ The Government’s implicit view is that no, each unhappy family is unhappy in the same way as other unhappy families, and that what they all need is much the same range of family learning programmes, particularly programmes focusing on language, literacy and numeracy.

9. A computer-search of the texts of other important policy documents shows that they too are, as the phrase is, colour-blind. For example, the framework for inspections by the Adult Learning Inspectorate (responsible for inspecting, amongst many other things, family learning programmes) mentions that judgements about leadership and management should include reference to equal opportunities, but does not indicate, let alone specify, the kinds of equality (and inequality) it has in mind. None of the following words appears in the framework: culture, diversity, faith, minority, race, racism, religion. Also, none of these words appears in what is in other respects an extremely sound and thorough survey of recent family learning initiatives in the UK: Literacy and Social Inclusion: the policy challenge, published in 2004 by the National Literacy Trust (NLT). Nor did the influential organisation known as NAICE (National Organisation for Adult Learning) include any of these words in its formal response to the NLT document. Similarly, a major study published in 2004 by NIACE, The Impact of Adults’ Participation in Family Learning, makes no references to issues around ethnicity.

10. The term ‘colour-blind’ is a shorthand way of criticising policies, projects and programmes that do not take into account relevant differences amongst people, and that therefore fail in practice to be genuinely inclusive. The term ‘difference-blind’, used in Canada and the United States, is in certain respects clearer. Another suggestion about semantics has been that the key term should be ‘colour- and culture-blind’. This was the term used a few years ago by the Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain in the critique it made of the Government’s agenda on combating social exclusion. Colour- and culture-blind approaches, said the Commission, do not work, and it enumerated ten different reasons. These included:

Spatial distribution of poverty

Black, Asian and Irish people will not, of course, benefit from measures which target areas where they do not live – the north-east, for example, or former mining communities, or seaside towns, or housing estates on the outskirts of large cities.

Anti-poverty measures which fail to reduce levels of street racism are of limited value for people who cannot take advantage of new employment, training or recreational opportunities because of fear of violence or harassment. Generally, street racism has an extremely damaging effect on lifestyle and quality of life of those who are attacked.

 

Institutional racism

The cultures and structures of regeneration projects and local partnerships must be rigorously reviewed if they are not to perpetuate some of the very inequalities they are seeking to address.

Cultural preferences

Different communities have different preferences and priorities in relation to matters such as household size, marriage, the upbringing of children and teenagers, gender roles and the division of labour, personal independence, physical and emotional space, the maintenance of tradition and cultural identity, self-employment, the features of a worthwhile job. Anti-poverty measures pre-supposed on a narrow range of cultural norms will inevitably disadvantage certain communities.

Discrimination

There is discrimination in employment practices. Therefore increasing the marketable skills of black, Irish and Asian people will not in itself ensure that they find jobs appropriate to their qualifications.

Asian, black and Irish organisations and communities are less likely than others to be present as equals in key deliberative and decision-making forums, less likely to have contacts, information and advocacy skills, and less likely to have developed familiarity with formal committee procedures.

11. In 2003-2004 a project in England known as the RAISE project focused on the inclusion of pupils of Pakistani heritage, and in the handbook which it in due course published there were descriptions of both the content and the organisation of various family learning programmes, though not by that name. The handbook introduced the descriptions by noting statistical data that demonstrate that Pakistani-heritage communities in England are severely disadvantaged in terms of income, housing and employment and it drew a distinction between three different kinds of programme in relation to the needs of disadvantaged and marginalised people:

• those which are precisely the same as for raising the attainment of all pupils in the same economic circumstances, for example the measures in programmes such as Education Action Zones, Excellence in Cities, the Schools Facing Challenging Circumstances programme, Sure Start, and local schemes supported by the Single Regeneration Budget or European funding
• those which are similar to the measures needed for all pupils in the same circumstances, but are not colour-blind or difference-blind, for example not blind to the fact that the Islamic faith is a significant component in the identity of most British Pakistanis, and not blind to the realities of racism and Islamophobia
• those which are distinctively and centrally responsive to British Pakistani experience and concerns in British society.

12. Most family learning activities in the UK are examples of the first kind of programme, as mentioned earlier in this paper. Examples of the second and third kinds, however, are described in some detail in the RAISE handbook. They include:

• surveys of parents’ perceptions and experiences, conducted mainly in the parents’ home languages
• close working with local mosques and imams, and with mosque-based schools (madrasahs)
• focusing on the importance in early childhood of talk, and demonstrating this to parents
• providing educational materials to support children and their families when they make extended visits to Pakistan
• creating books in two or more languages, ostensibly for children but in reality with the aim of informing parents about, and involving them as partners in, their children’s education

and

• in all such activities referring to issues of British Muslim identity (or identities) and to the realities and causes of Islamophobia, both at street levels and in institutions.

13. Most young people of Pakistani heritage in the UK were born here, but they learnt English as an additional language, not as their mother tongue. Their skills in everyday conversation are every bit as fluent as those of native speakers. But when it comes to using in writing the kinds of academic English they need to obtain good qualifications, and therefore good chances of obtaining employment and thus being included in the economy and in society, they meet certain distinctive difficulties. For many years this matter has been neglected at the level of national or regional policy. But recently the Government commissioned a study of key issues from a researcher at the University of Leeds; and in London there is currently an action-research project entitled Advanced Bilingual Learners in a small number of schools.

14. It is essential that family language and literacy schemes should take on board the insights and practical expertise of projects to develop the writing skills required for academic success. One of the most important insights is that pupils need substantial opportunities to use academic language orally before they put pen to paper, or fingertips to keyboard. This insight is of long standing and applies to all pupils, not just to those who learnt English as an additional language. But it is not yet sufficiently put into practice in schools, and barely at all in less formal settings. Amongst other things, it has much in common with concepts of ‘learning to learn’ (L2L).

15. Learning to learn is one of the principal strands of family learning. It draws on theories of multiple intelligences, learning styles, neuroscience, mind-friendly teaching and accelerated learning. But the L2L agenda, in common with other strands of family learning, needs to avoid being colour- and culture-blind. A recent project in the London Borough of Ealing looked at this matter. It noted that most L2L discourse fails to take into account concepts and experiences of ethnic and cultural diversity, and fails to recognise that schools and classrooms, and the educators and learners within them, are affected by colour and cultural racism. Time and again, when new ideas are implemented in colour-blind ways, Asian and black people are disadvantaged. For this reason alone it is important that theories of multiple intelligences and diverse learning styles should be examined critically. There are other reasons too, however. For the theories do appear, at first sight, to be highly relevant to issues of race equality and cultural diversity in education. If used critically and appropriately – i.e. not in colour-blind ways – they appear to have great potential for raising attainment of Asian, black and other ‘minority’ learners.

16. It is sometimes claimed that each person’s learning style is as distinctive as their fingerprint. This is a valuable metaphor if it directs attention to each learner as an individual, and encourages educators not to treat ‘all children the same’. It is a wrong and dangerous generalisation, however, if it implies that learning style is unrelated to the immediate subject-matter being studied; to relationships between educators learners and amongst learners; to issues of institutional and cultural racism; and to a learner’s sense of personal, cultural and ethnic identity.

17. L2L places emphasis on the creation of secure learning environments – places where all learners feel safe and affirmed. All should be enabled, it is said, to feel ‘IALACAS’ – ‘I am Likeable and Capable and Significant’. The B-A-S-I-S of a good classroom is to do with Belonging, Aspirations, Safety, Identity and Success. So far so good. But ‘belonging’ has to be conceptualised with awareness that not all British people are permitted or encouraged to feel that they belong to the nation; aspirations can be limited by discrimination on grounds of race, religion or culture; safety can be threatened by racist behaviour and language on the streets and in the school playground; within each person’s sense of identity there are often tensions and contradictions; success in society at large is rarer for members of certain communities than for others, because of patterns of inequality and unfairness.

18. If educators do eschew colour-blind approaches there are grave dangers of stereotyping – ‘minority pupils tend to have kinaesthetic learning styles’, for example. It may indeed be the case, however, that the culture of some communities is connected with, and reinforces, certain learning styles. Some cultures put high emphasis on co-operation and collaboration, for example, and are suspicious of competition as a motivating factor in learning. Some place high value on indirect expression, for example story-telling, metaphor and symbol, and on oracy and articulacy as distinct from writing. Some like to use visual and pictorial expression as well as texts and prefer engagement, interaction and challenge rather than passive and docile listening. Educators need to be sensitive to such cultural differences, and indeed this is one of the senses in which they should not be colour-blind or culture-blind. But they must at the same time guard against the dangers of stereotyping and of failing to recognise the distinctive needs, at any one time, of individual learners.

19. ‘Yu get mi miss, street life tough,’ said a fourteen-year-old of African-Caribbean heritage to one of his teachers. ‘An if yu nuh waan man tek step wid yu, yu afe bad it up. A don waan to be like dis, but a so it go.’ His words were transcribed by the teacher, who also made an approximate translation: ‘You understand, miss. Street life is hard. If you don’t want people to take advantage then you have to be aggressive. I don’t want to be like this, but I have to defend myself.’ On the basis of what he said, and of what several other young people said, a story was written to encode issues for family learning programmes involving African-Caribbean communities in England. It included reference to language and literacy but also to several other topics that family learning has to deal with. It began as follows:

 

Ages 5 – 8

Some of his teachers expected him to be a troublemaker. Had not the media and history books told them, or subtly suggested to them, that people like him are likely to troublesome, even at the age of five? Was this assumption not in the very air they breathed?

Not that they were consciously aware that they had been affected by media imagery, or by a legacy of negative stereotypes, or by the cultural contexts in which they daily moved and talked. But all the same they criticised and checked him more than they did other children, and more than was necessary. They had, they thought, to keep him under tight control.

Ages 8 – 11

It slowly became clear to him, though he couldn’t himself have yet voiced it like this, that he had a choice. Either he could accept the teachers’ valuations of himself, as an object to be feared and controlled, or – with a sense of mounting injustice – he could resist, could assert himself, stand up for himself. He chose the latter.

To begin with, his assertiveness took the form of ignoring instructions, or complying with them only slowly. Later, it took the form of questioning, asking for reasons, challenging, disobeying. The teachers’ expectations, as they saw the matter, were confirmed: indeed, he was an aggressive troublemaker, he had attitude, he was someone to be kept under tight control if at all possible.

One result of these tensions and conflicts was that he became increasingly less interested in the whole business of writing. Since no one was interested in what he said or thought, why should he bother to write? He was not only a troublemaker, his teachers could see, but not at all bright either.

20. The story then described some of his experiences between the ages of 11 and 15:

… that day a teacher said something slightly sarcastic about him, and other kids laughed. The day he was beaten in a playground fight. The day he was badly let down by his own poor writing skills. Embarrassed about his poor writing skills, he avoided writing as much as he could.

He began to suspect – though still he could not have voiced this – that the school didn’t care about him, for it didn’t recognise and include him, it didn’t seem to know him. Also, to his dismay, he found that his parents were unwilling or unable to help him. They too didn’t seem to understand what he was going through.

He did, however, feel recognition, inclusion and respect from his friends…

Troubles and tensions mounted. Getting involved in fights and needing, he strongly believed, to prove his manhood by being hard, being bad – he must have respect from his peers or life wouldn’t be worth living…

… He left school with minimal, indeed worthless, paper qualifications. No chance of employment. He wasn’t interested in training, since so far as he could see there weren’t any jobs available any way. Drifted, along with his friends, into drugs and crime. Frequently stopped by the police. Eventually, convictions and detention.

I don’t care, he said, whether I live or die, and I don’t care whether anyone else does, either.

21. Discussion points arising from the story were provided. They included the following:

If more of his teachers had resisted media imagery and the legacy of history, both as individuals and collectively, as a staffroom and as a profession.

If more of the staff had seen and treated him as an individual.

If they had taken a sympathetic interest in who he was, and in his family and community stories, and in the future ahead of him.

If they had been able to tell him and show him that they had high hopes for him.

If more of the teachers had looked at themselves and their own attitudes and ways of interacting with pupils.

If his schools had provided a curriculum which recognised and included his identity, history and future.

If he had been helped to develop skills in avoiding destructive conflicts with others.

If there had been sympathetic adults around, both at school and in the community, who could have seen at an early stage what was happening, and could have worked with him and his friends – mediating in conflicts, advocating and defending where necessary, and challenging them to think about and to change their own behaviour and attitudes.

If the primary/secondary transfer arrangements had more consciously anticipated the kinds of problem which arose.

If he had received more focused and systematic assistance for his writing, as distinct from being given so-called remedial reading.

If family learning policies, programmes and events had helped him and his family to understand what was happening, and to take action before it was too late.

If.

Robin Richardson