Racism and racist incidents

The Racism and Racist Incidents subgroup is one of the four workstreams within the Scottish Government’s Anti-Racism in Education Programme. The working group is currently  considering the issues raised in this section. The guidance in this section will be revised as necessary to reflect the outcome of the working group. The last update has been made in April 2024.

The Scottish Government Race Equality Framework identifies the following goal:

‘Minority Ethnic pupils have confidence in, and are effectively supported by, approaches in schools to prevent and respond to prejudice-based bullying and racist behaviour or incidents’.

Learners will have formed a view on whether both racist bullying and racist incidents are taken seriously by how they see anti-racism meaningfully embedded in the life of the learning community. A rights-based approach will reinforce to learners that they all have the right to be protected from violence and abuse.

Reflective questions

  • How do we ensure that all members of our learning community have a clear understanding of what constitutes both racism and racist incidents?
  • To what extent are staff, parents and learners clear about the processes and confident in addressing racism and racist incidents?
  • What long term approaches are adopted to achieve attitude change amongst learners and prevent potential racism and racist incidents?