Discrimination is an aspect of our life that more or less all of us face at some point in time. But when it comes to the field of education, the issue takes a serious turn. Discrimination in schools or other educational institutions can be in the form of alienation, bullying, or similar kinds of unfair treatment of students who are probably different from the majority.
How to Recognize Discrimination in Education?
To resort to solutions for such serious issues, you should first know how to recognize discrimination in the education field. There are 3 factors involved here, firstly the person/institution involved in the bullying activities, secondly the type of discrimination, and lastly its nature.
State and Types of Discrimination in Education
Students in educational institutions can face various kinds of discrimination based on race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, economic conditions, disability, and religion. Now let us discuss some of these types:
Direct Discrimination: This kind of discrimination occurs when one person is treated differently from another person based on some aspect..
Indirect Discrimination: This might happen if any educational institution applies a kind of criteria or practice that is to be compulsorily followed by all pupils. Due to this, a section of students might face discrimination. For example, if a school makes a rule for all the students to wear a cap, it might be difficult for the Punjabi students to remove their turban and wear the cap.
Discrimination based on Disability: In most schools, students with disabilities are treated unfairly, be it by teachers or even by students.
Harassment: Every now and then we hear someone or the other getting bullied or harassed in their schools and colleges. This can be either in the form of abusive comments, physical gestures, or jokes and pranks.
Nowadays, discrimination and prejudice have become such a grave issue that we need to think of ways to counter them. If anyone wants to get an overview of it, various research papers deal with this topic extensively. You can read some of them here at https://gradesfixer.com/free-essay-examples/discrimination-and-prejudice/ . The titles and the summaries are enough to give you a brief idea about the entire topic. There are several essays discussing discrimination and how you can be free of it. We find examples of many such issues in modern educational institutions based on caste, race, gender, or religion in these papers.
Both the above-mentioned topics are quite intimately related. A person's prejudice is a belief that may lead to discrimination. This is the result of their inborn prejudice. These prejudices are one of many factors of discrimination. Thus we need a thorough knowledge about the above-mentioned issues to get a clear idea about the topic.
How to Deal with Discrimination in Education?
Several measures make you aware of how to stop discrimination at schools. Although it is difficult to deal with such challenging behaviours every day all around us, you have to know ways to tackle them cleverly. Let us discuss some of the ways to reduce discrimination in the educational field:
Hiring Professional teachers: In the educational sector, the two most important elements are, students and teachers. So when we are talking about how to deal with discrimination at schools the first and foremost thing that we need is to have teachers who can professionally tackle any unforeseen circumstances that might crop up. Teachers must be compassionate enough to deal with issues of race and sexuality thoughtfully.
Increasing Self Awareness: This is one of the most essential requirements for an individual to tackle discriminatory issues. It is the teachers who can help the students to imbibe it within themselves. They can teach them to become sympathetic towards anyone who belongs to the lower rungs of the community or someone who doesn't fit in the prescribed standards of society.
Influence of peers: When students reach adolescence it is the peer groups that have a profound influence on them. If the student has a proper friend circle they can bring certain positive changes in the life of the student. Either in the form of good grades or certain good habits.
Involve the students: If we are thinking about how to reduce discrimination from the grassroots level, the first thing a teacher needs to do is create a proper bonding with students of all sections of society. So it's very essential on the part of the school to get them involved in various co-curricular activities to develop their friendship.
Final Word
Unfortunately, however, hard we try to reduce discrimination, it is still very much present in all sectors of our society. But it can slowly be reduced if from the very beginning the children are given proper education both at the schools as well as from their homes, as the home is the first place where a child learns. Only then can this problem be entirely resolved from the grassroots level. This is such a problem that won’t be solved overnight but if we try and incorporate the above-mentioned ways in our lives we can overcome it.
