Constructing 'racism' in Welsh secondary schools: policy and practice

Most staff in secondary schools agree that racism is a problem and that schools have a responsibility to act on it. The difficulty is that they may define 'racism' as limited to a very narrow range of actions (e.g., involving malicious and pejorative language; Greenland et al, 2018; 2020; 2021). In practice, racism in secondary education can range from the everyday (e.g., microaggressions); to actions by unexpected perpetrators (e.g., friends, other minoritised groups, members of staff); and can be embedded within systems and structures. Understanding how staff construct 'racism' is therefore a pressing and relevant research question.

To map and problematise staff representations of racism, and how these representations might be changed to include a broader range of events or experiences. We will consider extant policies, examples of practice, and the arguments that teachers deploy.

Research on racism is always highly sensitive and can impact on the reputation of indviduals and institutions. The main supervisor has considerable experience negotiating the data management and ethical issues involved (particularly within interviews and focus groups).