School should be about play, fulfilment and learning. But it is also a place of surveillance, discipline and discrimination. Activist scholar Remi Joseph-Salisbury has researched policing, racism and education in the UK. He tells Rosie and Alexis what happens when policing enters the classroom, its impact on students and teachers of colour, and the need for wholesale reform – including a truly anti-racist curriculum.

Plus: how can we break the “school-to-prison” pipeline? What is Critical Race Theory and why has it prompted a backlash? What does it mean to really receive “an education”? And what’s the harm in the trope of the “inspirational super teacher”, as found in films from Sister Act to Dead Poets Society?

This episode was recorded prior to news being made public of the experience of the pupil known as “Child Q”, reported in mid-March 2022. Remi has since written about this.

Guest: Remi Joseph-Salisbury
Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong

Executive Producer: Alice Bloch
Sound Engineer: David Crackles
Music: Joe Gardner
Artwork: Erin Aniker

Find more about Uncommon Sense at The Sociological Review.

Episode Resources

Remi, Rosie and Alexis recommended

• John Agard's poem  “Checking Out Me History”
• Steve McQueen's TV drama “Small Axe: Education”
• Laurie Nunn's TV series “Sex Education”
• Jesse Thistle's memoir “From the Ashes: My Story of Being Métis, Homeless, and Finding My Way”

From The Sociological Review

• On “Prevent”, a counter-extremism policy at UK universities Niyousha Bastani 
• “Social Mixing in Urban Schools” Sumi Hollingworth
• “School-to-Prison Pipeline” Karen Graham

By Remi Joseph-Salisbury

• “Race and Racism in English Secondary Schools”
• “Afro Hair: How Pupils Are Tackling Discriminatory Uniform Policies”
• On the demonisation of Critical Race Theory

Further reading

• “Racism and Education: Coincidence or Conspiracy?” David Gillborn 
• “Race, Gender and Educational Desire: Why Black Women Succeed and Fail” Heidi Mirza
• “Lammy Review” MP David Lammy
• “How the West Indian Child is Made Educationally Sub-normal in the British School System” Bernard Coard
• The Halo Collective for a future without hair discrimination
• No More Exclusions for racial justice in education

Support our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense