Black history and cultural diversity in the curriculum

On 18 November 2020, the House of Commons held an oral evidence session on including Black history and cultural diversity compulsory education. The evidence session was held in response to petitions to include Britain’s colonial history in the UK’s curriculum.

The briefing highlights the key learnings from our research on human rights education for debates about diversifying the curriculum. The research found that a focus on human rights in the curriculum can help to reduce racial prejudice and create a more integrated student body.

The findings of our research highlighted that governments should:

• encourage schools to adopt human rights education across all subjects and key stages of the national curriculum
• support schools to adapt their teaching in line with this approach by producing guidance and signposting to existing resources
• make sure that equality and human rights are a mandatory part of all teacher training
• encourage more ethnic minority people to enter the teaching profession and schools to recruit more ethnic minority staff
• encourage schools to give more attention to child wellbeing and create engaged citizens