Teacher Political Neutrality and Other Relevant Matters
This is a rough beginners guide for teachers to know and understand their professional duties with regard to teaching partisan political content. I am concerned that few of my fellow professionals have had training on recognising or teaching political materials without breaching their political neutrality clause.
Please make sure to refer to any guidance from the DfE and Ofsted. This blog contains my ideas and interpretation and just aims to clarify my own thinking as much as anything else. If there is anything incorrect or wrong in this blog please do contact me so I can rectify this.
This resource is meant to be a brief introduction to this area based on my knowledge and experience from my formal education and training as well experiences of teaching undergraduates politics courses and as a primary teacher in England.
I believe this issue is of importance for us as teachers and the decisions we make in our classrooms could have far reaching implications both in the short and long term for many different groups in our society and for us as a profession. It’s a neglected area that does require further official guidance and clarification but this is a start.
This is a long blog so do skip to the bits of relevance to you. The section headings are:
Political Parties and Groupings in Britain
“The personal is political.”: Discussion of teacher political neutrality.
Teaching Activist Postmodern Intersectionalist Ideology and Other Radical Social Justice Theories in Schools: Particular issues relating to the teaching of social justice theories in schools.
“Some laws are unjust.” and “Some laws were considered just at the time but are now considered unjust.”: Safeguarding issues
Further Guidance: This includes definitions and categorisations of race, gender, sexuality and also what else I have found on this matter.
Political Parties and Groupings in Britain
There have been various political parties and groupings in the UK over time. They tend to fall, though not always neatly, on the right-left continuum as this is intersected with conservatives and progressives too. The conservatives want to conserve the social, economic, political and cultural while the progressives want to change these aspects of life.
Both major political parties are broad tent parties that have conservative and progressive wings within them on these issues.
Let’s go through some of the main ones:
| Party | Democratic Unionist Party
Northern Ireland |
UK Independence Party | Conservatives | Ulster Unionists
Northern Ireland |
Liberal Democrats | Alliance Party of Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland |
Social Democratic and Labour Party
Northern Ireland |
Labour | Scottish National Party
Scotland |
Plaid Cymru
Wales |
Sinn Féin
Northern Ireland |
Greens |
| Political Position | Right-wing | Centre right- right wing | Centre-right | Centre to centre-left | Centre-left | Centre-left to left-wing | Left-wing | |||||
The political parties in bold are the most well-known. However within and outside of the mainstream there are other individuals, groups and parties involved in politics who can and do influence politics. The following two are examples of this.
Brexit Party – a party hard to define as they were a single issue party that crossed all boundaries on the issue of leaving the European Union.They were headed by Nigel Farage who was formerly the leader of UKIP. The individuals involved came from every sector of society and politics. It was an eclectic mix of individuals politically and does not make much sense outside of the fact that they stood to end Britain’s membership of the European Union.
Momentum – A British left-wing political organisation that has been described as a grassroots movement supportive of the Labour Party. It is an organisation with a mixed set of ideas. It embraces internal democracy and the idea of activism based on intersectional social justice theories.
The following groupings show rough ideologies rather than political parties:
| Ideology | Fascist | Conservative | Liberal | Social Democrat | Marxist/Anarchist | Radical Social Justice Theories and Postmodernist Intersectionalists |
| Political Position | Hard Right/Far Right | Right | Liberal | Left | Far Left | Hard-left |
The activist postmodern intersectionalist ideology (informally known as woke) that Black Lives Matters (the organisation as separate to the movement which consists of many different groups with different beliefs) and other radical social justice theories, groups and individuals believe in, is political and quasi-religious.
- The adherents have fused their political ideas, social attitudes and moral values so there is no difference between them.
- Their beliefs can be enacted informally in society if people agree to it – a bit like how religious groups already act in our country.
It’s in institutions that it causes a problem as policy meets with real individuals with their differing partisan political beliefs.
In schools, teachers have to make sure they are not promoting their own partisan political ideas to children. It can be easy to confuse political ideas and moral values as for many people they are one and the same or similar enough not to be able to distinguish between them. Teachers duties and responsibilities do not include teaching a child a political identity based on their own preferences – they can talk and teach about identity, not teach it to children.
I think everyone needs to remember that no laws have changed.
Humanist values underpin the current equality legislation, every individual is in equal status and value under the law and are afforded the same rights. It is this sense that we are equal whatever our ability or background.
Radical Social Justice movements do not believe this because their beliefs are rooted in a postmodern conception of power, knowledge and language. The activists believe we are born into certain unequal positions due to historic injustices that have occurred as a result of our immutable characteristics – e.g. race, gender. They look at the world through an identity lens, focusing only on identity markers, e.g. race rather than material status, e.g. class. In doing so they make assumptions about whole groups of human beings based on these identity characteristics. They may claim their own lived experiences as the authentic voice for a particular identity group but will not accept this from anyone else within it who disagrees with their ideology or beliefs. They assume that others also think in terms of identity and make consistent assumptions about their relative ranks. They further assume that if another person does not admit to seeing society this way, they are either mistaken or dishonest about their beliefs. They often believe that everyone sees power dynamics as operating in this way and is concerned with gaining power for the advancement of their own identity group. They reject wildly held concepts of universalism and definitions of race, gender, sexuality and transgender and assert their own as the true nature of society (see reference section at the end of this document). They have complicated and often contradictory beliefs about the intersections of these marginalised identities.
They present their own texts as the authoritative academic consensus of social science when, in reality, there are many other political and sociological analyses of society.
“The personal is political.”
This is a partisan political opinion not a fact. There are people who don’t agree that every aspect of their personal life is political for a wide range of reasons including their culture, tradition, religion and moral code.
This personal belief is only incompatible with teaching if the teacher in question allows it to influence their decision-making and teaching plus their conduct with their colleagues.
It could constitute harassment if a colleague were to try to force their ideas and opinions onto another person. This is not the same thing as an academic disagreement that we might have in the course of our interactions at work. At times we have to agree to disagree and other times we can find a compromise.
Head teachers need to think carefully about this situation. It’s one thing to suggest a person read a critical race theory book on twitter to persuade someone to change their mind, it’s quite another to do so in a workplace environment.
‘Allyship’ is another area where heads and teachers could fall foul of existing equality legislation – all of this needs to be read and understood. Can a BAME colleague have their word taken as truth regardless of what the evidence suggests?
2) A belief in the idea that the personal is political leads to another issue – a confusion between socialisation (the process of learning to behave in a way that is acceptable to society) with politicisation (the process of becoming or being made politically aware).
While socialisation is an accepted part of our role as a teacher, politicisation is not.
The curriculum should not be designed for the purpose of politicisation nor should content be selected or taught with a specific partisan political goal. It can and will be argued that the national curriculum does this already – e.g. climate change but the inclusion of grey areas does not give license to teachers to promote their own partisan political views on those matters nor increasingly elsewhere on the curriculum.
Nevertheless politicisation can occur indirectly as a result of the curriculum content we teach and we need to ensure that we are following the 1996 Education Act Sections 406 and 407:
It is clear that the promotion of partisan political views in the teaching of any subject in school is forbidden. This is not the same as teaching about partisan political views.
This is attended to in Section 407:
How do we offer a balanced presentation of opposing views?
I have never received formal training on this as a primary teacher but did so as a postgraduate prior to teaching undergraduates political courses. Please do check official guidance and with your school.
The following is what was recommended:
1) Questions should be valid in the field of study and not be worded so that they lead towards a particular answer.
2) The best arguments and counter-arguments should be presented. To present weak arguments is to indirectly lead towards one argument. Also it should not be the case that the partisan political view of the teacher is presented with less critique and the one they don’t prefer with more – e.g. one weak argument against an interpretation vs five strong ones against the counter-argument.
3) The views should receive equal weighting and necessary time both for study and critique. It isn’t always the case that the exact time given is the same so long as the views have been explained fully. What should not occur is a truncated version of one argument should be presented in twenty minutes while a full argument of another is given forty minutes.
4) Students should have the skills and ability to critique arguments. This should be modelled for students. The evidence of the arguments should be established using disciplinary knowledge and tools first.
5) Do not give your own partisan political opinion on the matter if it can possibly be avoided as this can and does sway students towards what they believe is the ‘correct’ argument. This also means that students do not bother to grapple with the issue themselves which is the purpose of studying the arguments in the first place.
Teaching Postmodern Intersectionality and Radical Social Justice Theories in Schools
There are some who will argue that outside of teaching politics as a subject, the radical social justice and postmodern intersectional ideas and theories are not political but social or moral. This is incorrect. All radical social justice and postmodern intersectionalist theories are activist ideologies and therefore political and politicised. They must be treated and taught as such.
In terms of teaching current radical social justice and postmodern intersectionality theories including Critical Race Theory, it is important to explain what current thinking in society is as this is what the activist postmodern intersectionalist ideology and other radical social justice theories are criticising. They should use common definitions and meanings for this. It is imperative that they explain these as their critique won’t make sense unless one does, given that the use of language and semantics is a core part of their critique. I would make the school’s current policies clear to pupils, e.g. the use of racist language for example.
Before presenting and teaching activist postmodern intersectionalist ideology and other radical social justice ideas or theories it is important that teachers take the following considerations into account when using any material:
a) These theories view ‘through the lens of..’ and contain theorists from many different fields including history, geography and sociology.
b) They consider the the system of the countries they live in to be racist, sexist, homophobic and transphobic. They consider the disciplinary knowledge and tools used by established fields of study such as history as part of the system and reject them.
c) They do not have alternative disciplinary knowledge and tools and therefore have no means to establish if their evidence is ‘true’ – e.g. in History a photograph can only be used as evidence if it is undoctored and can be verified in a reliable way.
d) Instead they appear to use the rule of thumb that evidence that supports their ideas is ‘true’ and evidence against it is the product of the system and false.
It is unclear how or why the evidence they accept is not also the product of a racist, sexist, homophobic and transphobic system but the evidence that does not support their ideas is. In other words, why does such a system allow any critique of itself given that the power is in the hands of a specifically stated group of individuals? It seems to reject the idea or belief in honesty as an idea or principle.
Another way that evidence that does not support their ideas is dealt with is through the rewording of the stipulative definitions they use (see below for further explanation).
e) They consider many of the common definitions, understanding of terms and concepts used by society to be racist, sexist, homophobic and transphobic. They reject these.
f) They make use of stipulative definitions instead – these are definitions used by academics for the sake of argument.
g) There are no standard stipulative definitions and multiple ones can exist for each word, term or concept and they have no internal consensus to their use. Teachers need to check which definition or meaning is intended by the author so as not to misrepresent them or their views.
h) The stipulative definitions are changing all the time. The reason they change appears to be in order to absorb instead of address criticism of the ideas they present. In which case, it is imperative that one teaches the definitions as the opinion of one person and not as the established definition.
Example:
Definition: White privilege (or white skin privilege) is the societal privilege that benefits white people over non-white people.
Counter: Indian and Chinese people succeed better than white people in the education system.
Definition: White privilege does not just refer to skin colour, those who attain educationally also have white privilege.
One has to check in the materials presented if the definition used for the word is indeed stable throughout the material and explain any differences to pupils as one goes through the material. There is a tendency in oral argumentation for activist postmodern intersectionalist ideology and other radical social justice theorists to flit back and forth between different definitions. The Motte and Bailey fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy has to be looked out for. The interpretations that employ this would not be considered the strongest arguments for the particular theory.
In order to remain politically neutral as possible I would teach pupils that the activist postmodern intersectionalist ideology and other radical social justice theorists have not agreed on standard definitions and terminology yet and these are subject to change from what they have been taught.
It is important to then present the counter-critique to activist postmodern intersectionalist ideology and other radical social justice theories arguments. One needs to ensure that the meaning of definitions and terminology are clear here too to ensure that the actual points are being critiqued.
It is vital that pupils are allowed and able to take part in a discussion about what they are learning, as well as ask questions to both clarify and critique the material presented.
It is not the role of the teacher to persuade pupils of any particular partisan political stance or lead them to a ‘correct’ answer or viewpoint. Pupils must know and be able to express their views on the matters at hand. It is valid to academically challenge what pupils already think and believe. However the teacher needs to respect the fact that a pupil may not change their views and they can not use ‘academic challenge’ as a means of changing the pupils views to their own partisan political view.
“Some laws are unjust.” and “Some laws were considered just at the time but are now considered unjust.”
This can be both a moral and a partisan political opinion of both past laws and current ones.
It is one thing to teach past examples of laws that were enacted but which we now consider unjust and another to argue that current laws will fit into this category in the future. We have no way of knowing what those living in the future will think of our actions in the here and now. They will form their opinions based on ideas and beliefs that we have no way of knowing or understanding just as those in the past would not have known ours now.
This is not to paint those in the past as backward and uninformed. They had the information and knowledge of their time and we should not attribute intent or ideas to them that they did not have. This also does not mean we get to dismiss everything thought and said in the past without examination and analysis ourselves. In fact this is a vital element of producing new thinking is to know and understand past and current arguments.
More to the point there are clear guidelines about how we teach about civil and criminal law in schools.
There are requirements on all schools in relation to Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural (SMSC) development.
Maintained schools have obligations under section 78 of the Education Act (2002) which requires schools, as part of a broad and balanced curriculum, to promote the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils at the school and of society. Guidance supporting the promotion of SMSC development was published in November 2014 and includes the following statement:
‘The school’s ethos and teaching, which schools should make parents aware of, should support the rule of English civil and criminal law and schools should not teach anything that undermines it.’
The point that needs to be clarified here is what would constitute undermining civil and criminal law. It’s important the law is explained and how it works.
A tendency I’ve seen among some adults privately is to believe that if a law does not work perfectly that means the law does not work. This is a personal political opinion and cannot be stated as fact. Examining the efficacy of a law or whether fidelity to the law has been maintained are different matters but the content should not be taught with the intent of undermining the law or ‘proving’ it doesn’t work.
Further Guidance
Societal and Postmodern Intersectionalist and Radical Social Justice Theory Categorisations of Immutable Characteristics
There are many different concepts and categorisations of race, gender, sexuality and transgender.
Race Constructs:
One of the contested issues for which there is little research or evidence is what exactly people do believe about race now. It is often assumed by critical race theorists that all those under colonial rule have the same concept of race. This is not proven. Education, personal/family/group/societal experiences of colonialism and religious belief are all factors in the ideas any one person holds about race. It is therefore important not to assume when talking about race but instead explore ideas that are held.
Monogenism: This is a religious belief held by most of the world’s major religions which is that all humans have a single origin.
Polygenism: A belief that humans do not have a single origin. This is a belief that exists in origin stories of some cultures as well as later beliefs in scientific racism
Current scientific thinking based on evolutionary ideas would favour monogenism.
Pre-colonial concepts of race:
Groups of humans have always identified themselves in relation to neighbouring but the difference between these concepts of race and colonial ones is that these differences were not understood to be natural, immutable and global, which is how some people view race today.
Some cultures did start to link physical differences with inherited intellect, behavioural and moral qualities in different parts of the world.
Colonial:
It is important to note that the colonial experience was not uniform. This is a mistake that is often made by Critical Race Theorists and those who subscribe to other postmodern social justice theories that incorporate race. If a teacher intends to talk about a particular group of people’s beliefs about race before, during or after colonialism it is best to research that particular group and/or colony. Generalisations from the experience of the people of any one colony should be avoided.
Carl Linnaeus – Scientific Racism: It’s important to remember that this classification was not the result of scientific study as we know it now. It was a classification of humans based on the knowledge Linnaeus had and this was not first hand or through large scale research either.
| Racial Group | Americanus
(choleric) |
Europeanus
(sanguine) |
Asiaticus
(melancholic) |
Afer or Africanus
(phlegmatic) |
Monstrosus |
| Colour | red | white | yellow | black | dwarfs of the Alps, the Patagonian Giant, the monorchid, Hottentot |
| Physical features | black, straight thick hair | browny, with abundant, long hair; blue eyes; | stiff; black hair, dark eyes; | black, frizzled hair; silky skin, flat nose, tumid lips; | |
| Behaviour | righteous; stubborn, zealous, free; painting himself with red lines | gentle, acute, inventive; covered with close vestments | severe, haughty, greedy; covered with loose clothing | relaxed; females without shame; mammary glands give milk abundantly; crafty, sly, lazy, cunning, lustful, careless; anoints himself with grease | |
| Governance | governed by custom | governed by laws | governed by opinions | governed by caprice | N/A |
Linnaeus’s model was not linear nor hierarchical. That does not mean that issues of superiority or inferiority were not assumed and subsequently attached from the characteristics outlined, especially as Linnaeus favoured his own race.
This model underpinned other ideas that emerged in later centuries including the idea of human socio-cultural evolution from primitive to civilised and this was echoed in Darwin and his contemporaries. Evolutionary ideas led to further scientific claims about race science, ideas about species and subspecies of humans and polygenism.
Race Essentialism: This was a belief that race was an entirely biological phenomenon and this was core to a person’s behaviour and identity. This reinforced ideas of white supremacism in the US as well as underpinned the race model used by Nazi’s in Germany and apartheid South Africa.
The Nation of Islam arose post-war in the US whose flipped race essentialism teachings were promoted by Malcolm X, including:
- that black people are the original people of the world
- that white people are “devils”
- that blacks are superior to whites, and
- that the demise of the white race is imminent
Therefore there are two types of race essentialism – one that promotes white superiority and one that promotes black superiority.
Current Ideas about Race:
There are different fields that study race and have different ideas about what race constitutes.
Scientifically, it is thought that we have a single origin and are a single species. The concept and usefulness of race as a biological category is contested but biologically race can be a population or a geographical group indicated by shared biological markers.
Some geneticists discuss the social construction of race e.g. The American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG): “Although a person’s genetics influences their phenotypic characteristics, and self-identified race might be influenced by physical appearance, race itself is a social construct.” https://www.cell.com/ajhg/pdf/S0002-9297(18)30363-X.pdf
Sociologists generally understand race and racial categories as socially constructed, and reject racial categorisation schemes that depend on biological differences alone.
Critical Race Theory (CRT) has a materialist branch and a postmodern one – both of which are political. Its history and framework are very much American and some argue do not transfer well to the UK which has a different history to negotiate. It includes beliefs not shared by the majority of the population including “Interest Convergence” which assumes that white people only support BAME people when it benefits them, the permanence of racism which assumes racist attitudes have not improved and probably never will and an explicit opposition to liberalism. They use race essentialist categorisations but the precise impact of biology on behaviour and vice versa is not clarified. There are times when they define race based on skin colour but at other times they do so on behaviour. In both cases, race and politics is aligned with whites on the right and other races on the left. It is important to check what the precise classification, categorisation and definition is that is being used by the author of any materials one might teach and not to assume it.
Further information – https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/style-guide/ethnic-groups. Race is not defined but ethnic groups are. There is no one categorisation or classification of race that is selected.
Sex, Gender and Sexuality:
Biologically humans are born male, female or intersex. Transgender It is possible to transition physically from male to female and female to male through sex reassignment surgery (SRS), also known as gender reassignment surgery (GRS)
Gender is considered to be based on socially constructed features including the range of characteristics pertaining to and differentiating between masculinity and femininity. Gender is not considered to be biological. Some theorists use biology as the basis of social constructs of gender while others do not.
Human sexuality is the way people experience and express themselves sexually. Sexual orientation is a person’s pattern of interest in the opposite or same sex. Sexuality is not considered to be socially constructed by innate.
Gender analysis draws strongly on queer theory which posits that gender, sexuality and sometimes even biological sex are socially constructed categories that are oppressive and should thus be deconstructed. This stands in opposition to the commonly held liberal view that believes that sex, gender and sexuality exist but give no grounds for discriminating against anyone. It is important to check what the precise classification, categorisation and definition is that is being used by the author of any materials one might teach and not to assume it.
Further information – https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/articles/whatisthedifferencebetweensexandgender/2019-02-21
Legal Case
R (on the application of Dimmock) v Secretary of State for Education and Skills [2007] https://www.newlawjournal.co.uk/content/law-reports-166
In this case while balanced presentation did not occur, the context in which the film was shown mattered. The subject matter was already on the curriculum and the film was shown to support it. This should not be taken as a precedence for unbalanced presentation of views. The complaint was related to the video being shown and not if a balance of views had been presented or time given to question in the lesson.
Some further information
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/whall/?id=2020-03-10b.44.0