Rosa Legeno-Bell, the founder of Diverse History — “the home of diverse educational consultancy and tutoring” — has two new projects, each promoting a more diverse history curriculum, for children of primary school age to enjoy and engage with. The projects bring new perspectives to England’s and Britain’s history of engagement with African people going back to Tudor times, the subsequent involvement of Africans in the British Empire and the impact of Britain’s involvement specifically on the culture and peoples of Benin. Both projects offer an opportunity for all children — whatever their ethnic background — to better understand the diverse society that is modern Britain.

Population figures for England and Wales in 2011 — the most recent census data available — confirm the increasing diversity of people living in twenty-first century Britain:

• The total population was 56.1 million, and 86.0% of the population was white
• People from Asian ethnic groups made up the second largest percentage of the population (7.5%), followed by black ethnic groups (at 3.3%), mixed/multiple ethnic groups (2.2%) and then other ethnic groups (1.0%)
• The percentage of the population that was white British decreased from 87.4% to 80.5% between 2001 and 2011; the ‘Other White’ grouping saw the largest increase in their share of the population, from 2.6% to 4.4%
• The percentage of the population from a black African background doubled from 0.9% in 2001 to 1.8% in 2011

It is evidence such as this, of a country more diverse than ever, that makes it imperative that all children of primary school age become familiar with Britain’s long history of involvement with peoples from other continents and cultures.

I have an interest in the city of Liverpool. A Scotsman by birth, I settled in Liverpool very many years ago and delved into its fascinating history, a hugely important aspect of which is the slave trade, which operated out of Liverpool, shipping goods to Africa, slaves to the Americas and cotton back home — bringing enormous wealth to the city and region.

It is little wonder that the Liverpool black community is, according to the National Museums Liverpool website, “the oldest in Europe. In the 1750s black settlers included sailors, freed slaves and student sons of African rulers. Despite challenges, black presence has grown and contributed to all aspects of Liverpool life.”

Liverpool also has the oldest Chinese community in Europe, dating back to the 1830s, through the employment of Chinese sailors and trade links with China. And Liverpool’s demographic now encompasses people from many different ethnic backgrounds — Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, black African, black Caribbean, Chinese, white British, white Irish and what is commonly referred to in officialese as ‘White Other’.

Diverse history reinforces the fact of Britain as a multi-ethnic society, with people from all backgrounds contributing to the rich diversity that is Britain today. Britain is also a democracy, the definition of which is power invested in all its citizens to the greater good and harmony of all in a society where all have equal rights under the law. But more than this, every individual in the society has a contribution to make in welcoming, respecting and benefiting from the diversity of its peoples, whatever their ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation or social standing. Every individual has a role to play in implementing the spirit of the law.

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The image of the Benin Bronzes at the head of this article is from the British Museum.

The status and visibility of women’s sport have undoubtedly improved in recent times — at the top level, at least. The pay disparity between men and women in some sports is closing, there is better marketing and more generous sponsorship, and women’s sport now receives far more screen time than was the case even a few years ago. In one respect it was good that Fallon Sherrock’s outstanding recent run in the Grand Slam of Darts, only ending after a close match against world number two and 2020 world champion Peter Wright, didn’t dominate the news. On the other hand, at a time when the 2021 World Chess Championship is taking place, it is not a little disquieting to read that there is not a single active woman player in the chess world’s top 100. Progress, then, but much more still to do — in sport and of course in life more generally — to meet the Fawcett Society’s vision of “a society in which women and girls in all their diversity are equal and truly free to fulfill their potential creating a stronger, happier, better future for us all.”

The alarming chess fact quoted above comes from a recent Guardian article to coincide with the series of matches between reigning world champion Magnus Carlsen and challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi to determine the world chess champion. According to the article, the greatest ever female chess player, Judit Polgar, says that it is “just as possible for a woman to become the best as any guy. But there are so many difficulties and social boundaries for women generally in society.” A development biologist at Manchester University, Emma Hilton, points out that chess has an “extremely skewed starting pool”: there are far more boys learning to play the game than girls.

It isn’t all doom and gloom, however. The smash-hit Netflix drama The Queen’s Gambit, credited with fuelling a resurgence of interest in the game of chess, has a female player as its central character. In real life, meanwhile, the English international master Jovanka Houska says that it is far more common to see women chess players and commentators than it was only a few years ago.

Diversity benefits us all in so many ways. The outstanding 2016 film Hidden Figures focuses on the stories of three black women who worked in different capacities for Nasa in the Sixties. It documents the racial bigotry — ingrained and structural as well as everyday and casual — that was prevalent in large parts of the United States at the time (ie within the lifetime of many people alive today). And yet what is uplifting about the film is that it drives its message home in a non-didactic and often humorous and irreverent way.

To take just one — laugh-out-loud — example: the embattled head of the Space Task Group (played by Kevin Costner), frustrated by yet another setback (at this point the USA was demonstrably lagging behind the Soviet Union in the space race), berates a roomful of identikit white-skinned and white-shirted middle-aged men, demanding an explanation for his team’s lack of progress.

Research shows that diversity fuels innovation, increases productivity, profitability and stability and has never been more important.

Kay Hussain, Chief Executive Officer, WISE, the campaign for greater gender balance in STEM, quoted on the Women in STEM website

So diversity is good for business and the economy, in all sorts of ways. But it matters at a more fundamental level too: it is essential to enabling all individuals to realise their potential in life — to ensuring genuine equality of opportunity for all, regardless of who they are.

Teaching young children about the importance of diversity is, of course, hugely important. But that alone is not enough. Stereotypes are often deeply, if subconsciously, ingrained in the habits, impulses, thoughts, language and actions of many adults. It is no surprise, then, that — wittingly or otherwise — outdated attitudes are sometimes picked up by children. That’s why taking active steps to challenge outdated attitudes and to break down gender and other stereotypes is an urgent priority. Schools can play an important role.

In May 2021 groups including Girlguiding UK, the Fawcett Society and the National Education Union wrote to the then UK education secretary, calling on the government to address the language and ideas used in schools that perpetuate gender stereotypes. They argued that the curriculum, books and language used in schools — calling girls “sweetie” or boys “mate”, for example — reinforce outdated ideas of how girls and boys should look and behave. They said that schools should “actively challenge gender stereotypes” from an early age before they become ingrained.

Part 2 of this blog will highlight the steps that the toy giant Lego has been taking to challenge outdated gender stereotypes and champion diversity.

Image at the head of this article by Christoffer Borg Mattisson from Pixabay.

Votes for six-year-olds? Is this a joke?! Actually, once you disabuse yourself of the notion that the year 2 class at your local primary school will somehow have the casting vote on who the next prime minister is — of course they won’t — there is a case to be heard for a radical extension of the right to vote to enfranchise at least some children, as Professor David Runciman shows in his stimulating recent essay in The Guardian. More palatable to the political taste buds, perhaps, is the idea of a reduction of two years in the minimum voting age, which both Scotland and Wales have now introduced for local and devolved elections. And it doesn’t feel foolhardy to write that reducing the voting age to 16 for all UK elections is now a question of ‘when’ and no longer of ‘if’. Indeed, more intriguing is to speculate on which political party will be in government in Westminster when it eventually happens. At a time when trust in the political process is low across the world, it is more important than ever that young people are able and encouraged to play their part as active, informed and responsible citizens.

David Runciman is professor of politics at Cambridge University. His essay Votes for children! is a recent Guardian Long Read, the first in a series entitled Reconstruction after Covid. His thinking is based not, as you might initially guess, around the need to improve political education in schools — the idea that it will make lessons in politics or citizenship more meaningful to children if they have a vote — but on arguments about justice and democracy.

He makes a powerful case that the current political system is heavily stacked against young people — a combination of demography and geography. Is it any surprise, then, that many don’t bother to vote?

…in any society where the middle-aged and elderly are the dominant economic and political blocs, their interests predominate … Pensions will get protected while student debt goes unaddressed. The interests of mortgage payers will be prioritised over the interests of renters. A country in which more than 70% of the under-30s voted to remain in the EU will still choose to leave. Once the old outnumber the young, the political divisions between them will grow.

from Professor David Runciman, Votes for children!

Runciman also tackles counter-arguments relating to children’s competence — “we are applying standards to children that we have given up applying to anyone else” — their susceptibility to outside influence, and the need to ‘protect’ them from the adult world for as long as possible. He then makes the democratic case for the enfranchisement of children and outlines potential benefits of such a reform:

Giving children the vote would not let children control the future – the adults would still be in charge. But it could invigorate our democracy, improve it, vary it, leave it a little less ossified, a little less predictable, a little less stale.

from Professor David Runciman, Votes for children!

Professor Runciman’s essay is well worth the 30 minutes or so it takes to read. The best blue-sky thinking makes us re-examine even the things we take for granted — and that is no bad thing. His proposal will never fly, of course; as an academic and political philosopher, the professor is able to grapple with arguments that no mainstream politician would ever dare touch. Rather less controversial — though, Runciman argues, actually more open to the charge of gerrymandering — is the idea of lowering the minimum voting age across the UK by two years.

The Votes at 16 coalition campaigns for 16- and 17-year-olds to be able to vote in all UK public elections. The list of organisations who back the coalition is striking — from the Association for Citizenship Teaching to Barnardo’s and from the Children’s Society to the civil liberties organisation Liberty.

There is a fairness argument that the Votes at 16 campaign certainly doesn’t ignore – the long list of legal rights and responsibilities which extend to a young person from the age of 16, from paying income tax and National Insurance to starting a family, joining the armed forces and giving full consent to medical treatment.

But, according to their website, the campaign believes that lowering the voting age will:

• engage 16- and 17-year-olds at the ballot who hold many responsibilities in our society
• empower 16- and 17-year-olds, through a democratic right, to influence decisions that will define their future
• inspire young people to get involved in our democracy

In our blog Political literacy needs to be more than just a curriculum add-on, we argued that at a time when trust in the political process is low across large parts of the world, “citizenship education — political literacy — is more important than ever so that young people can play their part as active, informed and responsible citizens.”

A cohesive society, founded on strong communities, needs people to be politically literate and actively engaged as citizens. This means that we need to:

• help children to understand how society, and particularly the political process in their country, functions
• show children how to get involved and become active participants in their community and/or civil society more generally, and encourage them to do so
• promote a culture of shared values based on tolerance, mutual respect and non-violence
• teach children about their rights and their responsibilities
• ensure that children are aware of the power, role and importance of the media and develop their ability to assess the accuracy and reliability of the information they consume

Life-Based Learning champions engagement and participation — in other words, active citizenship — helping to build relationships between people and to strengthen communities. We regularly blog about opportunities for individuals, families, schools and community groups to get involved in making a difference — to their own lives, to their communities and to the world around them. And we have highlighted the link between active citizenship and individual wellbeing: “Evidence suggests that active participation — doing something positive, however small — is good for our mental health and wellbeing and helps to dispel the fatalistic notion that individuals are powerless in the face of the great problems and challenges that confront us.”

The image at the head of this article is from the website of the British Youth Council.