Category: ACERT

Making Gypsies, Roma and Travellers visible in the curriculum

Richard Kerridge, History Subject Adviser at the Examining Board OCR, asked the ACERT Education Network to join him in pressing for a more representative curriculum when he spoke to our meeting on 26th April. In many areas, Gypsies, Roma and Travellers are often the largest minority group but they will not find themselves reflected in the curriculum.

Previously, Richard was a History teacher in Mildenhall and Ipswich, and as a fellow of the History Association (to which most History teachers belong) he developed a range of resources for teaching the history of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people with Helen Snelson,  PGCE History Curriculum Leader at the University of York and the historian Professor Becky Taylor.

Detailed lesson plans and adaptable teaching materials are freely available on the York CLIO website. There is a four lesson sequence that focuses on the history of Gypsies and Travellers from the start of the first industrial revolution period to the eve of the First World War. This is an appropriate focus for the KS3 curriculum There is also an explanatory article on the importance of including Gypsy, Roma and Traveller perspectives across the curriculum. There are also has a comprehensive collection of links to useful resources and podcast tasters.

Richard is keen to meet with ACERT members who are interested in developing and sharing materials across the curriculum.

National Survey provides evidence of racism, disadvantage and ill health

Here are some of the key findings relating to Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities from the Evaluating Equality National Survey (EVENS).

  • Over half the respondents from the Gypsy/Traveller ethnic groups , reported having experienced a physical racist assault
  • More than a third of the Roma and the Gypsy/Traveller ethnic groups reported racial discrimination from the police
  • Close to half of the Gypsy/Traveller ethnic groups reported having experienced racial discrimination in public places
  • Roma and the Gypsy/Traveller ethnic groups, had the highest rates of reporting increased police activity within their community and the highest rates of reporting being stopped by the police during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic
  • On average, ethnic minority groups fare well in comparison to the White British group in relation to educational attainment (although this is markedly not the case for the Mixed White and Black Caribbean, Gypsy/Traveller and Roma ethnic groups).
  • Gypsy/Traveller and Roma men had a higher risk than White British men of being in precarious employment (that is, with temporary and zero-hours contracts, or solo self-employed)
  • Gypsy/Traveller, Mixed White and Black Caribbean and White Eastern European people are much more likely to be in semi-routine and routine occupations
  • Given its coverage of the experiences of Gypsy Traveller and Roma people, EVENS has also been able to uniquely document that the majority of Gypsy/Traveller people (almost three in five) and just over a quarter of Roma people lived in caravans and mobile homes.
  • Gypsy/Traveller and Roma ethnic groups were less likely to experience loneliness during the pandemic than the White British group.

Community researchers provide powerful evidence of discrimination

The largest number of Roma, Gypsy and Traveller participants in any national survey to date were reached by six Roma and Traveller researchers being employed and trained in research techniques to go out and record responses from community members.

The figures were recorded as part of the Evidence for Equality National Survey (Evens) of ethnic and religious minorities.

Prof Nissa Finney, who led the project, said: “Evens allows us to compare the pandemic experiences of Roma and Traveller people to other ethnic groups, which hasn’t been possible before now. The disadvantage that we’ve found with the data is striking.

“Rigorous, robust, reliable data like that in Evens is essential for designing appropriate and effective policies and interventions. There’s still work to do to improve data and data collection – marginalised communities can be mistrustful of research and of its ability to bring change.

“A clear message from our study is the need for political commitment to better monitoring and measurement of the full range of ethnic groups. This is how we’ll make visible in evidence and policy those people who have been invisible.”

The study was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and undertaken by the Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity, in collaboration with community groups and charities.

Gypsy, Roma and Traveller women co-create “Sisterhood”

Film Director Rosa Cisneros and editor Maria Polodeanu have compiled an inspiring short film about the importance of equity, motherhood, friendship and education in our communities for March 8th International Women’s Day

Rarticipants from across the UK contributed materials, including the poems of Dee Cooper – Family, It hurts you know, Romany Queen, Our Daughters.