SNJ in Conversation: Why we need to talk about race and SEND

As parents of children with additional needs, we experience many difficult situations and feelings that give us a great deal of shared understanding. It's what makes us a community. But within the SEND community, there are people from many cultures, colours, countries, and walks of life. And that means we can never assume all our experiences are the same.

With this in mind, today's SNJ in Conversation tackles the often overlooked (or ignored) issues around race, racism, intersectionality and disproportionality within the SEND world. Joining me to discuss these difficult but vital issues are SNJ's associate editor, Marguerite Haye, who is a former headteacher, and now head of SEND at Sunshine Support, and Venessa Bobb, founder of A2ndvoice, a small voluntary group run by parents and carers of autistic children and adults, and branch officer of the National Autistic Society (NAS) Lambeth Autism Group.

Intersectionality: Coined in 1989 by Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw to describe how race, class, gender, and other individual characteristics “intersect” with one another and overlap.

Disproportionality: When a minority group's numbers in special education are statistically higher than they should be, they are considered disproportionate.

Why we need to talk about Race and SEND

Links referred to in the episode

Here are links to all the references mentioned during this conversation:

YouTube | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Amazon Music | Anchor

Further articles

Don’t miss a thing!

Don’t miss any posts from SNJ - simply add your email address below. You must click the link in the confirmation email you’ll receive to activate your free subscription.

Want more? Be an SNJ Patron!

SNJ is a non-profit company and everyone who writes here does so voluntarily. We need your support to help us with costs by donating once or as a regular patron. Regular donors get an exclusive SEND update newsletter as thanks! Find out more here

Renata Blower
Follow me

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

s2Member®
Close