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-discriminating messages that young girls receive through television, books, magazines, their peers, potentially their parents and other loved ones (males and females). On the other side is positive discrimination. As teachers we have the power to put some alternative messages in the other side of the scales. We can make sure that when children are in our classrooms they see lots of successful examples of women, as artists, as businesswomen, with short hair, without make-up.
As the excellent Guerilla Girls noted in 1989:
The situation has not improved greatly. A child wandering any gallery in the UK could not be blamed for thinking that only men can be artists. They may not even consciously realise that they think this, but if the idea is there, nestled in their schema around art, they may find that they later limit themselves. If we make sure that children experience examples of successful female artists in the classroom, the art scales could be set to gender-neutral.
The same argument can be applied to the "meritocracy" argument. We do not currently live in a meritocracy, with regard to gender, class, or background. If we agree that we should be aiming for a meritocratic society, how do we get there? Positive discrimination. Children need to see examples of people like them being successful in order to have those dreams. Hypothetically, if we were able to provide a 50-50, gender stereotype free education for our young people, then those children would grow up free of limitations. As adults they could begin to judge one another according to merit and could leave positive discrimination behind. Notice I say, hypothetically. Whether we should even be aiming for a meritocracy is a topic for further discussion.
Meanwhile, let's get tilting...
I would genuinely welcome any challenges to my view on positive discrimination. I've found it a very challenging concept to articulate and would appreciate the chance to delve further into the potential pit-falls and assumptions around the idea.
P.S.
I wonder if the need for positive discrimination is intricately intertwined with being conscious of our own privileges? Perhaps I need to rethink this whole post...
Molly explains privilege better than I ever could anyway:
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