Some schools have become a “battleground of blame and violence” due to the influence of far right and populist movements on children and young people, the incoming President of NASUWT Scotland – The Teachers’ Union will argue today (Friday).
Racist, misogynistic and anti-immigrant rhetoric is trickling into schools, fuelled by social media, and leading to incidents of harassment, threats and violence, David Anderson, a computing specialist from East Ayrshire, will tell the NASUWT’s Scotland Annual Conference, which begins today in Glasgow.
A motion on tackling the far-right is due to be debated at the conference which calls for pupils to be educated about the dangers of hate speech from primary school onwards in order to challenge the spread of prejudice-based abuse.
Mr Anderson will tell the conference: “Abusive rhetoric by politicians is trickling down and facilitating increasingly abusive and hateful speech in social media, which in turn seems to be spurring rapid increases in the frequency of bias-motivated incidents of harassment, threats, and violence, including rampant surges in hate crimes.
“Schools and classrooms in some cases have become a battleground of blame and violence.”
Nearly two-thirds (63%) of teachers in Scotland who responded to the Union’s recent behaviour in schools survey feel that social media negatively impacts pupil behaviour.
5% of female teachers in Scotland who responded to the survey reported experiencing sexual abuse from pupils, compared to 2% of male teachers. Female respondents reported sexism and misogyny as among the types of abuse they receive from pupils.
Mr Anderson will also call for vigilance and a united front to continue to challenge prejudice and hatred in the face of national and global threats to hard-won progress on equality.
He will say: “Education is often perceived as a threat by the extreme right. Internationally, we see the closure of departments of education and the removal of programmes to promote equality within society. In the USA it’s called DEI, Diversity Equality Inclusion - that’s in the NASUWT DNA! We must protect and call out any attempt to water down or attack these principles.
“Education remains the best tool we have to counter racist narratives, to address prejudice against refugees and to tackle intolerance in our communities.”
