‘Race’ and ethnicity continue to be major factors influencing children’s and adults’ experiences of education at all levels and in a variety of respects. These include academic achievement, professional employment, social interactions, parental involvement, curriculum development, assessment issues and so on.

The ‘Race’, Ethnicity and Education Special Interest Group is concerned with these and other related issues. The terms ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ are acknowledged as problematic but are also commonly used and have recognition as relating to issues of colour and cultural racism with which the group will be concerned. There is a lot of support for this SIG as people feel that ‘race’ and ethnicity issues tend to get subsumed within more general papers concerning policy and pedagogy. We also intend to link up with the journal ‘Race’, Ethnicity and Education as well as BERJ. This will further raise the profile of the SIG and also BERA and it will provide further outlets for researchers’ academic papers.

An argument against a SIG on ‘race’ and ethnicity may be that it could lead to marginalisation. However, the counter position is that of permeation which is at least if not more problematic. We have seen in BERA and also in the school system that permeation can often lead to dissipation and render these issues invisible. Moreover, the American Education Research Association, although a much larger organisation of course, has successfully employed discrete Special Interest Groups on ‘race’ and ethnicity issues. Aims of the group:

• to provide a forum within BERA for researchers of ‘race’, ethnicity and education in which to share their research, exchange ideas and develop new ones
• to raise the profile of ‘race’, ethnicity and education issues within the British Educational Research Association and in the academy more generally through the annual conference and by hosting seminars and encouraging the publishing of research papers within BERJ and other journals
• to generate and develop the debate about ‘race’, ethnicity and education throughout the organisation as well as the educational community in general
• to support and facilitate the development and quality of research in relation to these issues.

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