Young anti-racist voices of Scotland

We can use the young anti-racist voices of Scotland anthology to deepen our collective understanding of race equality and children’s rights.

Through these conversations, staff may identify a professional learning need and be interested in applying for Building Racial Literacy. This programme promotes anti-racism as a baseline professional value, empowering educators to identify and implement anti-racist behaviours and processes in their everyday practice.

Professional Standards

Across the education and community learning sectors, professional values place a strong focus on inclusion, social justice, and positive change.

• Community Learning and Development (CLD) Standards
  CLD practitioners are expected to be reflective and committed to social justice. Their work is collaborative, anti-discriminatory, and equality-focused, supporting individuals and communities to challenge discrimination and create positive change.
• Early learning and childcare - Standard for Childhood Practice (2015)
  This standard highlights the importance of valuing and demonstrating inclusion, diversity, social justice, anti‑discrimination, and the protection and care of children and young people.
• GTC Scotland Professional Standards
  These standards place the professional values of social justice, integrity, trust, respect, and professional commitment at their core.

Suggested professional learning uses

• Open a staff meeting with a piece from the anthology as a reflection prompt.
• Explore what effective antiracist practice looks like (using school examples from the anthology).
• Use the anthology as part of a Building Racial Literacy discussion or school equalities audit.

Resources for prompting discussion

Harvard Graduate School of Education have some simple routines that can be applied across age groups and used to engage with case studies and poetry:

• See/Think/Wonder and See Think Me We encourage young people to observe and interpret the experiences and perspectives of others
• Connect, Extend, Challenge helps young people connect new ideas to those they know and encourages them to reflect on how they have extended their thinking as a result
• Claim, Support, Question supports reasoning through evidence and helps students see reasoning as an ongoing process
• Values, Identities, Actions explores rich civic aspects of works of art

Reflective questions

These reflective questions are designed to deepen professional thinking, spark meaningful conversations, and inspire purposeful action across your learning community.

As an educator:

1. How does my own identity, background and upbringing influence the way I talk about race in the classroom? And how might that impact my relationships with learners, colleagues, and families?
2. What assumptions or biases might I bring into conversations about identity, and how might these shape my practice?
3. How comfortable am I facilitating dialogue about social inequity? What supports or professional learning would help me grow in confidence?
4. When have I witnessed microaggressions* in my setting? How did I respond, and what might I do differently now?
5. In what ways do I consciously create space for every learner to feel seen, heard and valued?

As a member of this community:

1. How do I build relationships with families and the wider community in ways that honour and reflect their diverse identities and experiences?
2. How am I actively contributing to a culture of belonging both within my setting and beyond the school gates (e.g., in local clubs, boards, or social circles)?
3. What messages about identity and diversity do learners and families implicitly receive from our school environment, and how do I help shape those messages?
4. When I hear discriminatory language in my local community, do I have the tools and courage to address it?
5. Who is missing from the room in my community organisations, and how can I help diversify these spaces?

The Young Antiracist Voices of Scotland anthology is designed to support meaningful, age-appropriate conversations around race, equality, identity, and children’s rights. It can be used flexibly across curriculum areas, year groups, and school settings.

Below are practical ideas for educators.

Approaches for safe, inclusive conversations or facilitating learning

To promote ethical, emotionally safe dialogue

• Avoid asking learners to share personal experiences of racism.

• Frame discussions around the themes in the anthology, not the personal lives of learners.

• Use anonymised content only—no identifying details.

• Encourage active listening and respectful disagreement.

• Connect discussions to pupils’ rights under the UNCRC, especially:
  • Article 12 (right to be heard)
  • Article 13 (freedom of expression)
  • Article 28 and 29 (inclusive education)

General lesson or discussion starters

Adapt appropriately for age and level:

• Choose a line or image from the anthology. What does it make you think about, and why? What message is the young person trying to communicate?
• How can we help create a school where everyone feels safe, valued, and included?
• Which actions matter most in antiracist work?
• Create a title for the piece you’ve just read - why that title?
• How does seeing (or not seeing) my identity reflected in my learning make me feel?
• What ideas or feelings came up for me as I explored this resource?
• Did anything challenge my thinking or help me understand someone else’s experience more deeply?
• Why is it important to learn about people with different backgrounds and perspectives?
• What tools or support do I need to feel confident speaking up when I see injustice?
• What actions can I take (big or small) to help make my school respectful and inclusive?
• What actions would I like adults to take to ensure everyone feels respected and included?

Literacy and English

Purpose: Explore voice, perspective, description, personal narrative and persuasive writing.

Activities:

• Use a piece of learner writing from the anthology as a model text.

Ask pupils:

• Whose voice is this? What message are they trying to communicate?
• How does language influence impact?
• Invite learners to respond:
• by writing their own reflective piece
• by creating a poem or spoken word piece
• by analysing persuasive techniques

Why this works

• It centres peer voices, encourages empathy, and positions writing as a tool for social change.

Social Subjects / RME resource

Purpose: Support learning on equality, rights, identity and society.

Activities:

• Compare themes from the anthology with key equalities legislation, global citizenship frameworks, or UNCRC articles.

Facilitate small group discussions:

• What does racism look like?
• What does allyship mean?
• What changes would make our community more inclusive?

Use excerpts to explore diverse lived experiences and how young people challenge injustice.

Art and Design

Purpose: Explore visual storytelling and creative expression.

Activities:

• Examine artwork from the anthology (without identifying individual pupils).
• Discuss tone, colour, symbolism, and emotion.

• Invite pupils to create their own visual response to themes such as:
  • identity
  • belonging
  • community
  • fairness

Health and Wellbeing / PSE

Purpose: Build empathy, confidence and respectful relationships.

Activities:

• Use learner quotes as discussion starters in PSE.

• Present anonymised excerpts and ask:
  • How might the writer be feeling?
  • What support helps people feel safe and valued?
• Connect themes to:
  • friendships
  • safe spaces
  • bystander behaviour
  • mental wellbeing

Pupil Voice Groups

Purpose: Empower young people to lead antiracist action.

A valuable new resource that can support this work is the Youth Voice Toolkit.

It is designed to help practitioners guarantee that the ways in which they consult children and young people are meaningful and non-tokenistic. It also provides practical guidance on how to ensure children and young people fully understand what they are being consulted on and how to include the voices of their peers, creating a genuinely more representative approach.

Activities:

• Use the anthology to spark ideas for new pupil led projects.

• Invite groups to map the ideas in the anthology against your school’s equalities work.

• Facilitate a session where pupils identify:
  • What are we proud of?
  • What still needs work?
  • What actions could we take next?

Interdisciplinary Learning

Purpos: Bring together literacy, art, social studies and wellbeing.

Activities:

Mini IDL project (2–3 lessons)

1. Read/view: A selection of writing and artwork from the anthology.

2. Discuss: What messages are young people in Scotland communicating?

3. Create: A piece of writing and an accompanying artwork responding to similar themes.
4. Share: Display collaboratively as a class “mini anthology”.

Anti-racist Education for families provides information for parents and carers on what anti-racist education involves and why it’s important.

Addressing Racism and Racist Incidents in Schools (gov.scot) is guidance for schools on how to prevent, record, and respond to racism and racist incidents in education settings.

Advocacy for Race Equality in Schools Scotland (AdRESS) is an advocacy and advice service for supporting parents and carers whose child has experienced racist incidents or racially motivated bullying in school.

Talking to your Child about Racism is a parent guide for beginning conversations about racism, and continuing these conversations as your child grows up.

I Wish We Knew What to Say by Pragya Agarwal is a compassionate guide that helps adults talk to children openly and confidently about race and racism.

Thank you to the parents, educators. and schools who supported the young people featured here with their work and projects.​

Thank you to the alumni of the Building Racial Literacy programme who are making antiracist changes in their setting.​

Thank you to the Antiracism Mentors, who are leading change and supporting others.​

Thank you to Intercultural Youth Scotland for facilitating consultations with ethnic minority young people.​

Thank you to The Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights (CRER) for supporting antiracism in education across Scotland.​

Thank you to Malini Chakrabarty for our cover artwork.​

Thank you to the Scottish Association of Minority Ethnic Educators (SAMEE) for recognising, supporting, and spotlighting the educators leading antiracism.​