Government’s race report failed to include findings saying pupils experience discrimination, in education research it commissioned

The Government’s race disparity report failed to include findings, in research it commissioned, which had stated that black and South Asian children experience discrimination and racism at school, a freedom of information response has helped* reveal.

One of three reports by the research organisation NatCen, ordered by the race commission and seemingly funded by the taxpayer, featured seven separate findings on race-related disadvantages said by ethnic minority focus group participants to have been experienced at school and university.

These included that black and South Asian participants who had attended mainly white schools or colleges felt that teachers had had lower expectations of them, with a suggestion that this had then affected subsequent choices at school and university.

Yet none of these findings, or indeed the NatCen report on education as a whole which contained them, were referenced in the report of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities (CRED), led by Dr Tony Sewell.

The NatCen report also recommended that “discrimination based on class and ethnicity at school” should be addressed – but this suggestion also seems not to have been mentioned in the CRED report.