Direct And Indirect Discriminatory Behaviour

Discriminatory behaviour is biased and unfair treatment of a person or group of people based on inaccurate judgements about them due to age, gender, race, culture or disability, prejudice being an opinion formed prematurely or without consideration of relevant information. Whereas, prejudice is the ignorance about differences or similarities between people and a lack of understanding or tolerance of their individual needs and preferences. There is direct and indirect discrimination, direct discrimination is the treating of someone unfairly because of specific characteristic they have. Whereas indirect discrimination is imposing conditions that disadvantage people because of a specific characteristic their possess.
The more common discrimination that occurs from the moment we are born is stereotyping – which is a popular belief about specific types of individuals, standardised and simplified conceptions about people on the
bases of some prior assumption. For example: certain preconceived ideas about males and females. Girls play with pink dolls and boys play with cars, then later on in life males tend to go into more manual careers whilst females tend to go into the caring centred careers.
Discriminatory behaviour may take the form of:
• Name calling, racist, sexual orientation, ageist, religious and disability comments or jokes, verbal abuse, threats.
• Refusing to sit with/co-operate with another pupil because of their ethnic origins disability or sexual orientation.
• Physical or emotional bullying motivated by diversity.
• Physical assault against a person because of their colour, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability or religious views.
• Critical comments about an aspect of another person’s ethnicity, such as food, language, accent, dress and cultural pursuits.
• Damage caused to a person’s property because of their diversity.
• Drawing graffiti, wearing insignias or distributing literature against a particular group or individual.
• Incitement of others to behave in a discriminatory way.
• Attempts to recruit other pupils to racist organisations and groups which cause offence to others.
The recommended way to deal with an incident of any kind mentioned above is to act promptly, to challenge any directly observed discrimination and give a clear message that such behaviour is unacceptable.
The school’s behaviour management policy states the position the school takes on maintaining a fully inclusive learning environment, that respects diversity and equality. All members of staff are mindful of these policies in order to provide consistent action to deal with such incidents. The action that is taken needs to be in context to the severity of the discrimination and in the context of the school’s equality and diversity policy and strategy. Context, intent and the level of understanding of those involved can all influence how discrimination is dealt with. An incident needs to be acknowledged and discussed, otherwise children might learn that acts of discrimination are acceptable and become practised and accepted. The main aim of any strategy is to minimise harm to those involved, prevent a reoccurrence and reinforce equality
measures.