Session 5: Applying your knowledge

Introduction

Throughout this course, you’ve explored how race and racism shape childhood and youth, through identity development, parenting, social groups, school systems, behaviour policies, peer relationships and adult interpretations. Now it’s time to bring it all together.

This session is about moving from understanding to action, while acknowledging that racially inclusive practice takes care, commitment and honesty. In this session you are invited to consider how to apply what you’ve learned in your own context. You’ll also explore a particularly complex area, how race intersects with special educational needs and disability (SEND), where multiple forms of bias can compound children’s experiences. You’ll examine how practitioners and caregivers can respond with confidence, care and commitment.

By the end of this session, you should be able to:

• reflect on how race and special educational needs and/or disability (SEND) intersect to shape the experiences of children and young people, and consider how these intersections are addressed, or overlooked, in everyday practice
• evaluate key interventions such as culturally responsive, trauma-informed practice, and cultural competence training, and explore how they can support anti-racist and inclusive approaches when working with children and young people
• apply your learning from across the course to real-life scenarios, using an intersectional lens to identify bias, reframe challenges, and take practical steps towards inclusive, equity-driven support in your own setting or context.