Teaching Beyond the Curriculum
Abstract
In the UK, questions about the overrepresentation of BAME groups with special educational needs have been raised for more than six decades. ’The widely-held belief that Black children were somehow educationally subnormal’ (Demie & McClean, 2017, p. 1) was formally articulated by Coard in 1971. In his paper, titled ‘How the West Indian child is made educationally sub-normal in the British school system’, Coard expressed real concern over the large numbers of children from African and Caribbean backgrounds that were being labelled with ‘educationally sub-normal’ (ESN), and how this label invariably led to stigmatisation, lowered expectations, school exclusion and poor self-esteem and educational outcomes. It is against this background that the current pilot study emerged. Drawing on survey data of 224 students at a Post-92, London-based university, students with overlapping intersectional identities (that is BAME and SEND) were considered in terms of ‘ecological niches’ that might cause disadvantage and discrimination (Bronfenbrenner, 1993). To date, there is no research examining intersectional discrimination within HE in this way. While additional research investigating this topic is warranted before the findings may be generalised to a larger population, the results reveal that students with SEND are much more likely to encounter specific forms of interpersonal and microaggressive discrimination simply because of their BAME identity. The results are timely given the ongoing SEND review (DfE, 2022).
Denise Miller achieved a BA in Education from the University of Greenwich. Taught in primary schools for eight years before training to become an educational psychologist. After achieving an MSc in Educational Psychology from University College London, started working as a fully qualified educational psychologist. In 2014, Denise successfully completed a doctorate in Educational and Child Psychology, and then returned to the University of Greenwich as a lecturer. Currently, Denise is an associate professor in the School of Human Sciences, and a child and educational psychologist in private pra