Promoting Equality And Diversity In Education: Essay On Strategies And Impact.

Reflection on how promotion of equality and diversity helped create a safe and enabling learning environment

It can be said that Equality and Diversity refers to the idea of promotion and acceptance of the differences between people due to their different ethnic and cultural background. However, it can be mentioned that principles of equality ensures that everyone is treated equally and no one is treated unfairly. Individuals should not be discriminated on the basis of their age, race, gender, religion, sexual orientation and disability. Promoting Equality and diversity in education is of utmost importance (Cole 2017). In my opinion promotion of equality and Diversity has helped create a better learning environment for all students and learners alike. The principles of Equality and Diversity are governed by the provisions as stated in the Equality Act 2010 (Legislation.gov.uk, 2017).

Part A: Reflection on how promotion of equality and diversity helped create a safe and enabling learning environment

In my belief Teachers should aim to create an environment where students feel safe and comfortable. It is also to be mentioned that children should be respectful of the customs of other cultures and respect the differences of other cultures. In my opinion creating a safe learning environment following some rules to promote equality and diversity among the students is essential. It is to be mentioned that promotion of equality and diversity in the classroom does not need to be a challenge for teachers. Implementation of principles of equality and Diversity has helped setting rules in regards to how people are to be treated in a multicultural society. It also helps to remove prejudices and negative attitudes about other cultures and communities of the society. The principles of equality and Diversity clearly state that teachers and students should  be treated fairly and equally. I have been able to promote multiculturalism through lessons making students and learners familiar with other cultures and Customs of different cultures of the society. This has only been made possible due to promotion of equality and diversity educational environment. In my opinion the promotion of equality and Diversity, has enabled students to get access to all the facilities of and opportunities of the educational institution without any discrimination. It can also be noted that the promotion of equality and diversity has led to the identification of opportunities for teachers to teach students coming from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds and to work collaboratively with diverse groups.

Part B: Strategies used in the promotion of equality and diversity in a classroom:

• Implementation of policies and principles, which do not discriminate against students in the teaching practice, is vital. It can be stated that policies and procedures of a school should not discriminate against any of the students of such School. Discriminatory procedures will have negative impacts on the lives of students (Thompson 2016).
• Promotion of interaction between the staff of the school and students coming from different ethnic and religious backgrounds also helps to promote equality and diversity in an educational institution (Evans 2017).
• Promoting multiculturalism through lessons helps students learn about different cultures of the society and be respectful of the differences of different cultures (Banks 2015). This practice is vital for the achievement of the aforementioned goal. It is to be stated that children should be taught that they are all a part of a big society, therefore everyone deserves equal treatment.
• It is important to make sure that the training materials provided to the students do not promote discrimination. Removing biases and prejudices against anyone from the minds of teachers and students alike is also important to promote equality.
• In my opinion it can be said that stereotyping should be avoided by teachers while teaching students. Stereotyping in teaching is a malpractice as it in inculcates in the minds of the students a stereotypical (often a negative) image about a particular community of a society which is to be avoided for the achievement of the promotion of equality and diversity in an educational environment.

Strategies used in the promotion of equality and diversity in a classroom

Part A: Ten point Classroom rule that communicates the need to promote Equality and Diversity in the classroom

• Promotion of equality and diversity in the classroom is important to provide students with equal access to opportunity. No student should feel left out and neglected because of his cultural and ethnic background.  
• Giving equal respect to students and treating them equally also promotes more participation and interaction of students in the class.
• Promotion of equality in the classroom results in having equal expectation from all students and encouraging them to perform to meet such expectations
• Promotion of Equality and diversity in the classroom encourages students to participate more in group assignments. It also promotes interaction between students coming from different ethno cultural backgrounds.
• Treating students equally helps remove stereotypical ideas from the minds of students about certain communities and the cultures of such community.
• It is to be mentioned that promoting equality and diversity helps remove prejudices and biases from the mind of students
• Students are also expected to learn about new cultures and languages by the promotion of multiculturalism in the classroom
• It can be stated that students are expected to participate more in debates and discussions if inhibitions are removed from their minds
• Promoting equality and diversity in the classroom helps teachers identify the need and opportunities to work with diverse group of students.
• It is important to promote equality and diversity in the classroom as the Equality Act 2010 states that no person shall discriminate against any one on the grounds as mentioned in the aforementioned act.   

Part B: Role as an Equality and Diversity Coordinator

It is to be mentioned that enhancing a school’s initiatives in promoting Equality and Diversity is the primary responsibility of an Equality and Diversity coordinator. The ways in which a school can achieve the desired goal are:

• Design Themed weeks- It can be stated that to promote multiculturalism in a school, having themed weeks can be beneficial. Themed weeks aim for the students to explore the different customs of different cultures and respect the differences of different cultures. Having themed weeks in a school will also enable students learn about different topics in a fun and interactive way.  
• Developing a forum for reporting incidents of discrimination- It can be said that the primary responsibility of an Equality and Diversity Coordinator to make sure that no discrimination happens against any individual in the school. To achieve this initiative it is quintessential to create a forum where incidents of any kind of discrimination can be reported anonymously. It is very important to target the practices of discrimination that happens in a school and to deal with such incidents in a way to prevent the occurrence of such incidents in the future.
• Raising awareness about the importance of Equality and Diversity- It is to be said that students must be made aware of the principles as state in the Equality Act 2010. Students in an educational institution should be made aware of the social injustices that are happening in global communities to make them realize the importance of promotion of Equality and Diversity in a society. Awareness can be raised by interacting more with students, encourage the participation of students in interactive quizzes and encouraging multiculturalism.

Professionals or agencies to work with for promoting school’s Equality and Diversity agenda:  

• The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA)– It is the responsibility of the aforementioned agency to assure the quality of higher education offered by United Kingdom to students. It also aims to ensure that information regarding Higher Education is offered to the public (Qaa.ac.uk 2017). Therefore, it can be said that it is essential to comply with the standards of the aforementioned agency to provide equal learning opportunities to all students and also to promote the school’s equality and diversity agenda.
• Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted)- It is a non ministerial department of the government of United Kingdom which is responsible for inspecting educational institutions such as state schools and independent (Gov.uk 2017). It is essential to work with the aforementioned department as it will report to the UK parliament about the school’s equality and diversity agenda.
• Pearson Uk-It aims to provide content, assessment, information, curricula to make the experience of learning more effective (Pearson.com, 2017). It can be said that consulting with Pearson can be helpful in promoting the equality and diversity agenda of the school. Content related to the promotion of Equality and Diversity can be provided by the aforementioned company to make students learn about the urgent need of promoting equality and diversity
• Ofcom- It is the regulator of communication in UK. It is to be mentioned the functions of Ofcom involve regulating Television, radio, phones, mobiles and postal services. It helps to ensure that people of United Kingdom receive best communication services with protection from scams. Working with Ofcom can be helpful for promoting Equality and Diversity agenda of the school as communicating the need for promotion of Equality and Diversity can be closely monitored by Ofcom (Ofcom, 2017).

Steps that can be taken by school to promote and ensure a culture of Equality and Diversity in a wider community are:

• Celebrate Occasion – Celebrating different festival of the world enable students to understand the cultures, customs and traditions of different religions of the world. It also aims to make he students understand that they are all a part of a wider and global community. It is also important to mention to the students the story and the reason behind celebrating such festivals and occasions and have interactive sessions with them asking them which festival appealed to them the most.
• Telling stories- It is important for schools to have interactive story telling classes. It is to be mentioned that choice of stories must be done very carefully to avoid portraying stereotypes. Stories which are thought provoking should be told to students to enable them to form their own perspectives about different cultures and communities in a society.
• Physical Impairment games- Students must be made aware of the different types of physical disabilities of people. Games that raise awareness can be promoted in a classroom to make students understand the difficulties faced by people with physical difficulties. Common examples of such games can include activities like: guiding a fellow student who is wearing a blindfold, lip reading characters on the television without the sound. The aim of such activities is to make students feel compassionate about the unfortunate in the world.
• Teaching New Languages- Teaching new languages to students is important to overcome the language barriers. Learning new languages can help students learn about different cultures of different communities and interact closely with people of different ethno-cultural backgrounds.    
• Hold discussions and debates- It can be said that holding discussions and debates among students in a class is important to assess and evaluate the perspective of students regarding important social issues. Students are to be divided in groups and encouraged to debate amongst themselves on ethical and social issues. The aim of such debates and discussions is to make students aware of the social and ethical issues in a society and formulate their own opinion about such issues.    

Part A: Five Things that promoted Equality and Diversity in my teaching practice:

• Paying special attention to students who are from different ethno-cultural backgrounds- It can be said that people from diverse backgrounds need to be treated equally and at the same time their needs are to addressed to make them feel a part of the bigger student community(Griffith and Burns 2014).
• Promoting discipline- it has been done to ensure that both male and female students are to be treated equally. It can be said that the same disciplinary actions have been imposed on students irrespective of their genders. This practice is known to break the gender stereotypes in a classroom and promote equality of all genders
• Having a seating arrangement in the classroom that promotes equal participation of students- It can be said that the students are required to interact more with teachers to have a better learning experience. Therefore in my opinion it can be said that the seating arrangement of students are to be done in a way which promotes equal participation of students irrespective of their gender. Shy students tend to sit in the back to avoid participation in any kind of interactive session. Such students are to be placed in the front and encouraged to participate more in discussions and debates.
• Having equal expectation from all students- As a teacher it can be said that teacher should keep the same expectation regarding behaviour and academic performance from all students. This promotes equality and also encourages students to work hard together knowing that they all get equal treatment from teachers.
• Establishing rules regarding the conduct of students- It can be said that establishing a set of rules regarding the conduct of students is important as it prevents students from discriminating against any fellow student and misbehaving with teachers and staff.        

Part B: Opportunities that I missed to promote Equality and Diversity in the school

• Listing things that come from other countries- It can be said that encouraging students to maintain a list of the commodities and goods that come from foreign countries is effective for the promotion of multiculturalism. The opinions of students regarding such goods and commodities are to be shared in the classroom. Such a practice makes students realize that they are part of a much bigger global community. It also makes them realize that interdependence between different countries is important.
• Introducing students to different forms of music- Music can be a great medium for people to connect all over the world as it is known to transcend all barriers. Introducing students to different forms of music will help them to have a better understanding of different cultures of the World.

Part C: A brief report on the impact made on the school’s Equality and Diversity agenda

In my opinion it can be said that the procedures and policies that have been implemented to promote equality and diversity have impacted the school’s equality and diversity agenda.  It can be said that every student’s individual needs have been addressed. All students are treated equally as aimed for the in the equality and diversity of the school’s agenda. Everyone has been given equal access to all opportunities of the school irrespective of their race, gender, religion and ethno-cultural background (Reece and Walker 2016). In my belief it can be said that the policies as formulated have been successful in teaching the students about multiculturalism and the importance of interdependence between different communities. Awareness has been raised among the students about the need and importance of promotion of Equality and Diversity. They have also been made familiar to the principles of the Equality Act 2010.      

Conclusion

Thus to conclude it can be stated that the need to promote Equality and Diversity is great in an educational environment. According to the Equality Act 2010 no person should be discriminated on the grounds of race, religion, gender, age disability and religion. Implementation of these principles is necessary in every learning environment. It can be stated that several steps can be taken by schools to promote and ensure a culture of Equality and Diversity in the classroom as well as in a wider global community. Several strategies can also be implemented to promote equality and diversity in the classroom. Promotion of Equality and diversity in the classroom encourages students to participate more in group assignments. It also promotes interaction between students coming from different ethno cultural backgrounds.

Reference List:

Banks, J.A., 2015. Cultural diversity and education. Routledge.

Castagno, A.E., 2014. Educated in whiteness: Good intentions and diversity in schools. University of Minnesota Press.

Cole, M. ed., 2017. Education, equality and human rights: Issues of gender,'race', Sexuality, disability and social class. Routledge.

Evans, J. ed., 2017. Equality, education, and physical education (Vol. 21). Routledge.

Gov.uk. (2017). Ofsted - GOV.UK. [online] Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted [Accessed 18 Dec. 2017].

Griffith, A. and Burns, M., 2014. Teaching Backwards. Crown House Publishing.

Legislation.gov.uk. (2017). Equality Act 2010. [online] Available at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents [Accessed 15 Dec. 2017].

Ofcom. (2017). Home. [online] Available at: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/ [Accessed 18 Dec. 2017].

Pearson.com. (2017). Pearson | ?The ?world's ?learning ?company | UK. [online] Available at: https://www.pearson.com/uk/ [Accessed 18 Dec. 2017].

Qaa.ac.uk. (2017). The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA). [online] Available at: https://www.qaa.ac.uk/en [Accessed 18 Dec. 2017].

Reece, I. and Walker, S., 2016. Teaching, training and learning: A practical guide. Business Education Publishers Ltd.

Thompson, N., 2016. Anti-discriminatory practice: Equality, diversity and social justice. Palgrave Macmillan.