Equality and Diversity free essay sample

Identify the current legislation and codes of practice relevant to the promotion of equality and valuing of diversity. There are several current pieces of legislation relating to equality and diversity, including †¢ UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (see†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦) †¢ Every Child Matters †¢ Children’s Act 1989 †¢ Children’s Act 2004 †¢ Human Rights Act 1998 The most recent act is the Equality Act 2010. Previous to this, equality legislation in this country was somewhat fragmented. The purpose of the new act was to harmonise and strengthen all previous equality legislation (eg The Equal Pay Act 1970, Sex Discrimination Act 1975, Race Relations Act 1976, Disability Discrimination Act 1995). It sought to promote equality, by clarifying the definitions of direct and indirect discrimination, victimisation and harassment. It identified nine groups of people to be protected from discrimination, referred to as ‘protected characteristics’. These are: †¢ Age †¢ Disability (both physical and mental) †¢ Gender reassignment †¢ Marriage and civil partnership Pregnancy and maternity (pregnant women, women on maternity leave, and breast feeding women) †¢ Race (not just colour, but also nationality, ethnic or national origin) †¢ Religion and belief (including those with lack of belief ie Atheists) †¢ Sex †¢ Sexual orientation It states that there is a public duty to eliminate harassment (â€Å"unwanted conduct which has the purpose or effect of violating someone’s dignity, or which is hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive†), discrimination and victimisation â€Å"treating someone unfavourably because they have taken or ight take action under the Equality Act, or supporting someone else to do this†). By taking any of families or, friends or even my own beliefs in to school is unfair on the children I am here to support. They could be made to feel that if because of their background or who they are meaner they cannot aspire to be what they want to be so will not reach to achieve their full potential. As with another example my father-in-law is sexist and believes that a womans place is in the home cooking, cleaning and looking after the children and if I was to take that to school with me I could treat the girls differently dismissing their work and only encouraging the boys, giving the girls the false idea of they are not good enough. For example: Both men and women teachers have low expectations of girls intellectual skills since it is thought that girls are inherently less intelligent than boys (www. Right-to-education. Org)The support I give the children should be fair and equal in order for every child to feel safe, an equal part of society and that they are worthwhile. Each child should feel that their opinions count and that they have a voice that should be heard, they should not feel excluded or feel that they can exclude any other person because their race, religion, background, sex as this can affect their self-esteem, their confidence and will in turn effect their learning s proved by Jane Elliot in the brown eyed-blue eyed experiment (The Eye of The Storm) in 1968 where the children wearing the collar (to show they were the lesser pupils) took longer than they did the day before when they werent wearing the collars in a card pack reading practice. The children had low expectations of themselves and their body language changed (they looked shrunken into themselves). To challenge discriminatory behavior there are many different methods that could be used for different types of discrimination for example if I heard a child Ewing racist, calling each other names such as pack I would go to them straight away and say: Excuse me children I heard what you Just said why are you calling each other names ¦ We dont use language like that at school how do you think that has made Ron tell. At do you think would rig NT thing to say to him. Let is my responsibility and I am legally obliged as a T. A to challenge any kind of discriminatory behavior. If there were problems in the playground at lunchtime when the boys were excluding the girls from football at lunchtime I could make changes to the laggardly so I would have an assembly to explain to the children why they would be having a week plan for the use of the football area and it would be as follows: Monday: Girls only netball. Tuesday:Boys only football. Wednesday: Mixed netball. Thursday: Mixed football. Friday: Something completely different, a team building game to get them working together. After this I would find from them what has worked well and what hasnt. Elf children in year were sending offensive emails I would use the computer to suite to get them to research the consequences of their actions which they will then present to the class or in assembly. This would give them an insight into how such behavior can affect the victims, they would also be made to apologies to the person or people they were harassing. I In conclusion by not administrating we give every child the same opportunities and support them equally, every child has the same right to an education no matter their background, race, religion, sex or disability. Children will have confidence in who they are and will be more productive in the classroom. I I Excellent and thoughtful answer. This also covers 4. 2. 5 Just add this at the top of the page. SJ 4. 3. 13