1 Introduction
1.1 In April 2005, York Consulting Ltd ( YCL) was commissioned by the Scottish Executive Education Department ( SEED) to review guidance on dealing with racist incidents ( RIs) and the practice in schools and Education Authorities ( EAs) in response to these incidents.
1.2 The project will be delivered over two phases and this commission is to deliver phase one and produce research on the:
- effectiveness and impact of the anti-racist website - Educating Race Equality - a Toolkit for Scottish Teachershttp://www.antiracisttoolkit.org.uk /; and
- practice employed by schools and EAs to deal with RIs within the school grounds and the influence of the anti-racist toolkit on this practice.
1.3 SEED has commissioned six other equality projects 1 and after the co-ordination meeting with all other project leaders, YCL started to undertake the work.
1.4 YCL's approach to addressing the research requirements includes both qualitative and quantitative elements to allow for the range of issues that need to be covered and the nature of the participants. These include:
- analysis of the content and assessment of the practical guidance contained within the anti-racist toolkit;
- a postal survey to schools to provide an overview of how RIs are addressed and the use of the anti-racist toolkit;
- a telephone survey with all EAs to request their locally issued guidance on dealing with RIs and raise awareness of the project;
- detailed consultations with EAs and schools across Scotland to identify the operation of the toolkit in different contexts, the level of understanding within schools and the range of policies and practices employed in tackling racist behaviour and school incidents.
1.5 This final report details the results from all the elements of this project and has been structured in the following way:
- Section 2 provides an analysis of the school postal survey;
- Section 3 reports on the assessment of the anti-racist toolkit;
- Section 4 analyses the guidance on RIs issued by the 32 EAs;
- Section 5 details the findings from the case study visits with schools and EAs;
- Section 6 summarises the research project and draws out recommendations for taking forward this area of work.
1.6 A list of the abbreviations used in this report is attached at Appendix E.