Anti-racist legislation and the role of schools
The law can be quite daunting. This resource aims to clarify the key messages concerning anti-racist legislation and provide a practical platform for you to devise or identify appropriate teaching and learning materials.
Sometimes it is helpful to step back from policy and practice and think about the broad intent of the law to get a better understanding of what it is trying to achieve.
This section of the website explains the law so that you are clear what is required to comply with the legislation.
The main law in this area is the Race Relations Act. It requires all public authorities to put plans in place to promote race equality in a way that is appropriate to their communities and relevant to the work and services they carry out.
The main part of the law is called the general duty. Put simply, this means that authorities have to show what they are doing to promote race equality in all that they do by:
eliminating race discrimination
promoting equality of opportunity
promoting good race relations.
To support this, a set of specific steps has been identified and outlined in a Race Equality Scheme and for education authorities and schools, this is in the form of a race equality policy.
This means that each education authority in Scotland has to prepare and keep an up-to-date written statement of its policy for promoting race equality. The policy applies to each school under its management and the policy should be reviewed and the action plan updated.