During my PGCE year, our lecturers raised the idea of positive discrimination with reference to different marginalised groups: 'tilting' practise towards Pupil Premium students and the active choice to include female artists as role models for children are two examples which jump to my mind. Many of my classmates remain unconvinced. I cannot speak for our lecturers but I hope here to articulate why I feel that positive discrimination is necessary in primary schools. For the purposes of this discussion, I will focus on gender, but I believe that the principles discussed here (as with much of the feminism I ascribe to) can apply equally to any marginalised group. My previous post discussed how, 99 years after women's suffrage, gender stereotypes are limiting and damaging our young people. Positive discrimination is an important way to tackle this issue head on. I imagine positive discrimination as a set of scales. On one side is the daily gender-discriminatin
This is taken from Channel 4's 2017 " The Secret Lives of 5 Year Olds" . The series took a long, hard look at gender stereotypes. The conclusion I took away from the show: children have very clear ideas about the 'innate' characteristics and roles of men and women. Gender stereotyping does feel like a secret. It's something that happens passively. Teachers assume that boys will want the blue stickers and are surprised when the children in their class aren't bothered by the colour of sticker distributed to them (see the NUT's brilliant "Stereotypes stop you doing stuff" ). When gender stereotypes are considered in the Primary School, it's usually a cursory nod to including some strong women role models in the lessons or book corner. The big, horrible, incriminating secret is that teachers pass on harmful gender stereotypes everyday. I do not believe that the responsibility for dismantling the patriarchy lies solely with t