Despite Legislation the African Caribbean Child is Still Disadvantaged within the Current State Provision - Thesis Proposal Example

A Discussion of the ment "Despite legislation the African Caribbean child is still disadvantaged within the current provision". This paper looks at the current state of the Afro-Caribbean child in the UK, in terms of state provision, and discusses the statement "Despite legislation the African Caribbean child is still disadvantaged within the current state provision". First a general introduction to the topic is provided, including a discussion of why the topic is important, including definitions and examples of the relevant terminology. Next, a general literature review is provided, of the subject in relation to the statement under discussion. Evidence is provided for or against the statement, in relation to the issues being addressed. Finally, a Conclusions section is presented, which discuses the statement itself, and the issues discussed in relation to the statement as presented within this paper. This section includes a discussion of whether more research should be conducted in this area, and why, and also discusses which other areas are important and relevant with regards to this statement. In many developed, industrialised, countries, including the UK, discrimination against children from different racial backgrounds is a topic that is widely discussed in government and, more generally, in the wider media. In the UK, in particular, this topic has been a part of public consciousness since the cold-blooded murder of Stephen Lawrence, in the streets of London, and the subsequent independent investigation, which suggested that, at some level, institutional racism was directly responsible for failing to lead to any conviction for his murder (Mcpherson, 1999). As Webb (2004) states, in the last few decades in Britain, successive acts of parliament have attempted to tackle discrimination and to promote equal opportunities for members of ethnic minority communities, however, despite these efforts, children continue to be omitted from the general equality debate, even though it is widely recognised that children experience significant discrimination from both individuals and at an institutional level, which affects their health and the quality of the health and education services received by these children. In the last half of the twentieth century, a global recognition of children's rights developed, culminating in the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, sealed in 1989, and the establishment of Children's Rights Commissioners in many Western countries - in fact, of all the modern, industrialised countries, only the US did not sign this treaty (Webb, 2004). Although the UK signed this treaty, it has - at a governmental level - been slow to respond to the developments of this treaty and to necessary implementations of the implications of the Treaty, and has not adequately addressed the undoubted disadvantages that children experience as a result of what is, in effect, a society that inherently discriminates against them (Webb, 2004). At local and regional levels, in the UK, however, the Convention is used to inform the way in which strategies and services are informed and organised, although, even when there is a genuine commitment to applying the terms of the Convention, there can still be a poor understanding of how discrimination against children manifests itself, such that the terms of reference of the Treaty are not applied at all, or are applied incorrectly or inappropriately (Webb, 2004). At this point, it will be useful to provide a discussion of the term 'discrimination'. Discrimination can take many forms, either direct or indirect: indirect discrimination is defined as the inequitable treatment of one group disadvantaging another, as opposed to direct discrimination in which the focus of the discriminatory attitudes and actions is the group itself (Webb, 2004). Discrimination can also be manifested either at an individual level, or at an institutional level; at an institutional level, discrimination can occur when the structures or policies of organisations result in sections of the community being discriminated against (something that is often called 'institutional racism') (Webb, 2004). Direct discrimination can be manifested in the following ways: stereotyping, exploitation, or overt discrimination, in which, for example, children are directly excluded from adult spaces, for example, in hotels or public houses, which can lead to marginalisation, in which a group experiencing the discrimination is not seen as part of the core of the business or service; for example, in the UK in 1994, research revealed that children were not prioritised in the commissioning process in local audits (Webb, 2004). As children are dependent and powerless, in legal terms, indirect discrimination can result when, for example, carers are disadvantaged as a result of gender or racial discrimination, or where they are disadvantaged through marginalisation (Webb, 2004). As Webb (2004) discusses, direct indirect discrimination can also occur when racism and sexism is applied to children directly, which has been suggested as a possible explanation for the high exclusion rate of Afro-Caribbean boys from UK schools (ONS, 2001). As pointed out by Webb (2004) and by ONS (2001), indirect discrimination can therefore be compounded by direct discrimination, meaning that certain groups of children, for example Afro-Caribbean children, can experience multiple jeopardy: an Afro-Caribbean child could, for example, experience direct racial discrimination, be living in poverty, and could also belong to an ethnic minority community, which is itself discriminated against, all of which will mean that the child could be subject to multiple layers of discrimination, which will further affect his or her circumstances; the effects of these multiple disadvantages may therefore not be simply additive but may act in synergy to paralyse services and to leave children in danger. Racial discrimination can be argued to be the most severe form of indirect discrimination: as a result of societal-level racism, many black and ethnic communities in the UK, for example, are at risk of poverty, as many adults in these communities are unemployed or in low paid work (Webb, 2004). As a consequence of this societal-level racism, and its effects on their communities, children from within these communities are more likely to attend poorly resourced inner city schools, and/or be excluded from these schools, all of which are factors that are known to be linked with adverse health status (Webb, 2004). In addition, as Webb (2004) points out, many parents of Afro-Caribbean children living in the UK, particularly the mothers, do not speak English well, and may not read, and so information that is crucial to their ability to make informed choices about their children's future can be lacking in these households; this is analogous to the situation in developing countries, where it is known that illiteracy in mothers is positively linked to infant mortality rate (Cleland et al., 1998). It is well known that Afro-Caribbean children do not have equality of access to services, which are often cited as examples of institutional racism (see, for example, Webb, 2000). For ethnic minority communities in general (Afro-Caribbean communities included), services can be dependent on postal addresses, which disadvantages asylum seekers, for example (Webb, 2004). In addition, services are often planned using whole population data, yet in many ethnic minority communities, there is a population shift to the left (19% of white British are under 16, for example, but the figure for Afro-Caribbean communities is 28%); using whole population data to arrange services therefore ensures that areas with high densities of ethnic minority communities can be under-resourced when it comes to the provision of services for children, as there are more children in these communities than in the country as a whole, despite the increased need of these services in these communities, due to the effects of poverty (Webb, 2004). It has been noted by many researchers (for example, Webb, 2004) that services are also discriminatory in terms of them being culturally inappropriate (Webb et al., 2002) or simply inaccessible, or because members of ethnic minority communities are stereotyped in ways which interfere with their care (Cleland et al., 1998). In addition, reports come out almost weekly from organizations, such as the Institute for Race Relations which suggest that there is indirect, inherent, racism present in the education sector in the UK, with lower teacher expectations of the achievements of Afro-Caribbean children and fewer job opportunities leading to Afro-Caribbean children, who enter schools as the highest achieving racial group in the UK, leaving school with the least number of GCSE passes. In addition to this, Afro-Caribbean pupils are more likely to be excluded from school than any other racial group, by a factor of three, as 13 in every 10,000 white pupils are excluded, but government data shows that 38 out of every 10,000 black pupils are excluded. In addition, Afro-Caribbean pupils, whilst more likely to continue in to higher education than their white or Asian counterparts, if they last this long at school without being excluded, are less likely to find full time employment after graduating than their white or Asian counterparts. It is often suggested by researchers that the problems faced by Afro-Caribbean children can be attributed to their social background - coming from poorer backgrounds, the argument goes, it is expected that Afro-Caribbean children will fair less well in school than children coming from more affluent backgrounds. This is perhaps a convenient excuse with which politicians can disregard the issues, but this cannot be the basis of any serious research paper - after all, many brilliant children, who are never excluded from school come from poor, not affluent, backgrounds. We have seen, therefore, throughout the literature review provided in this paper, that there are many examples of individual and institutional racism against children present in the UK, with much of this aimed at ethnic minority communities, and at Afro-Caribbean communities, in particular, such that access to services can be argued to be inequal in the UK. In this sense, therefore, the statement "Despite legislation the African Caribbean child is still disadvantaged within the current state provision" can be argued to be very apt for this particular (i.e., UK) situation. In the UK in particular, many researchers, media and government workers, attempt to cover up these findings, and the UK, in general, lives in a climate which denies, or perhaps worse, ignores the issue of discrimination against any ethnic minority, their communities or their children. Many articles and government statements could be found to argue that the opposite is true, that the statement "Despite legislation the African Caribbean child is still disadvantaged within the current state provision" is false, however, as we have seen, there are many valid cases that can be researched and documented, which show that the statement is true, and that this has a direct effect on the lives of ethnic minority (including Afro-Caribbean) children are discriminated against, in terms of their access to, and the provision of, services by the state. That Afro-Caribbean children are, as stated by official UK government figures, disproportionately excluded from schools, and that they are disproportionately afforded access to health services, is strong evidence that the current legislation regarding these issues is not working, and that discrimination, through racism, be this direct and indirect, is causing a disjunct between the provisions offered to this section of the community, when compared to other sectors of the community. That this discrimination is thought to perpetuate itself, through direct or indirect discrimination, as children travel from childhood to adulthood, suggests that it is imperative that the UK government do something about addressing issues of inequalities of provision, otherwise these inequalities will continue to be perpetuated from generation to generation. It is interesting, for example, when looking at the issue of racial discrimination in education in the UK, to recall that Rampton and Swann, in their 1981 report, mentioned such discrimination in education; times have obviously not changed much in the more than twenty years since that report was published, despite the Race Relations (Race Discrimination) Act coming in to effect in 1976, with many amendments since then. What can be done about this situation, which is distressing, to say the least, in view of the fact that the UK is supposed to be an 'advanced' democracy, and that it has ratified international treaties, which are designed specifically to protect the rights of children, regardless of their ethnic or racial background It seems that a recognition, amongst the people responsible for designing services and implementing these services, that this discrimination goes on, is important, at least as a basic first step (Webb, 2002). Children's advocates need not only to identify when children are being disadvantaged, but also to identify why and how these children are being disadvantaged, as without an understanding of how discrimination affects the life of these children, it is impossible to identify the appropriate focus for action in any particular case: only once this is done can children's advocates begin to more effectively combat discrimination against children and successfully implement the UN Convention (Webb, 2004). For example, a basic recognition that there is indirect, inherent, racial discrimination in education, and a recognition that the Curriculum as it stands in the UK at the moment, with its prescriptive manner, which does not allow time out for giving attention to 'academically weaker' children would go some way to helping to raise perceptions about the treatment of the educationally-vulnerable in the UK (Afro-Caribbean children included). This issue is extremely grave, in that a developed country, which has signed an international treaty designed to eradicate such inequalities within its territory, and which is supposedly an advanced democracy, which believes in its principles enough to go to war in the name of democracy, is demonstrably failing, in the twenty first century, to provide equality of access to provisions. This occurs, as we have seen, from individual, to local, to regional levels, and at a national level, with procedures and practices, not implemented correctly due to failures amongst government staff to understand and appreciate the topics at issue and the repercussions of their decisions to implement - or not - particular policies as they are handed down to them. To tackle a deep-rooted problem such as this is difficult, to say the least; it has been suggested that clearer procedural instructions need to be handed down from a governmental level, but that, first, a general recognition that discrimination is present and damaging needs to be acknowledged, at a national level. Only then, when this public recognition of discrimination against certain sectors of the community is achieved, can policy begin to be changed, and policy implementations that are less discriminatory by achieved. From this point on, following a recognition of the presence of discrimination and its effects, policies can be designed and implemented to eradicate individual and institutional discrimination, and to lead to a fairer, more equitable, standing for all members of the UK, from whichever ethnic or racial background the member comes. This paper has looked at the current state of the Afro-Caribbean child in the UK, in terms of state provision, and has discussed the statement "Despite legislation the African Caribbean child is still disadvantaged within the current state provision". First a general introduction to the topic was provided, including a discussion of why the topic is important, including definitions and examples of the relevant terminology. Next, a general literature review was provided, of the subject in relation to the statement under discussion. Evidence was provided for or against the statement, in relation to the issues being addressed. Finally, a Conclusions section was presented, which discussed the statement itself, and the issues discussed in relation to the statement as presented within this paper. The Conclusions section included a discussion of whether more research should be conducted in this area, and why, and also discussed which other areas are important and relevant with regards to this statement. Essentially, this paper found that the statement "Despite legislation the African Caribbean child is still disadvantaged within the current state provision" is valid for a UK context, through an analysis of relevant literature, and government statistics. The reasons behind the validity of the statement, and suggestions as to how the discrimination that is waged against Afro-Caribbean children in a UK context can be eliminated have been presented. It is shocking, to say the least, that an advanced democracy can still present discrimination at so many levels, especially against children, and especially as the UK has ratified an international Treaty that is aimed at protecting children's rights and at avoiding discrimination against children. The UK will need to work hard over the next few years and decades to ensure that policies are implemented to counter such discrimination, to lead the UK to a more equitable future, in which children of any ethnic or racial background have equal opportunities and equal access to state provisions. Suggestions as to how this can be entered in to practice, and the chronological ordering of these changes, have been discussed in the paper, in terms of first producing a ground shift in the attitudes of key workers to discrimination, and then ensuring that government-formed policies are handed down in such a form that they are easily understood and thus easily implemented. It is to be hoped, for the sake of the future of Afro-Caribbean communities in the UK, that the government introduces legislation to combat discrimination sooner rather than later, so that these children can look forward to a successful life, not a life in which discrimination is a fact of every day life, which is the case for many Afro-Caribbean children at this point in time. References Brook, G. (2000). Children's competence to consent; a framework for practice. Paediatric Nursing 12: 31-35. Cleland, J.G. et al. (1998). Maternal education and child survival in developing countries: the search for pathways of influence. Soc. Sci. Med. 27: 1357-1368. Department for Education and Skills (2002). Permanent exclusions from schools and exclusion appeals, England 2000/2001. Macpherson, W. (1999). The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry. Volume 1.46.25. Available from www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm42/4262/sli46.htm (accessed 22nd March 2006). ONS (2001). Permanent school exclusion by ethnic group: social focus in brief: Ethnicity 2001. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/ssdataset.aspvlnk=6220&more=Y (accessed 22nd March 2006). Roberts, I et al. (1994). Blaming children for child pedestrian injuries. Soc. Sci. Med. 38: 749-753. Walker, N.E. (2001). Fairness and reasonableness of the child's decision: a proposed standard for children's participation in medical decision-making. Behav. Sci. Law. 19: 611-636. Webb, E. (2002). Health services: who are the best advocates for children Arch. Dis. Child 87: 175-177. Webb, E. et al. (2002). Effectively protecting black and minority ethnic children from harm: overcoming barriers to the child protection process. Child Abuse Review 11: 394-410. Webb, E. (2004). Discrimination against children: developing a conceptual framework. Arch Dis Child 89: 804-808. Webb, E (2000). Health care for ethnic minorities. Current Pediatrics 10: 184-190. Read More