Is a school more likely to permanently exclude an ethnic minority female, or be led by an ethnic minority female?

The answer will only surprise you if you have been listening to activists.

In the most recent school workforce census, 1121 headteachers were identified as women from ethnic minorities. In the most recent annual exclusion figures, there were 434 ethnic minority girls permanently excluded. If you got the question wrong, I recommend examining your priors.

A journalist copying a press release

Agenda Alliance does two things I can’t stand: they misuse statistics and write the titles of their posts in capital letters

There is an activist organisation called Agenda Alliance¹. I’ve noticed them since I’ve been keeping an eye on news about school exclusions. At least three times now, Agenda Alliance has put in a Freedom of Information request into the DfE about the gender and ethnicity of excluded and suspended pupils. They have then cherry-picked the data for disparities between groups. They use these figures, sometimes with some false statements, to create a story about how ethnic minority girls are at risk of being excluded or suspended. They then release this to the media. This is then publicised in the media, because journalists happily regurgitate a press release from activists, even when they haven’t seen the data it is based on.

Here is what they said in 2021: NEW DATA SHOWS BLACK AND MINORITISED GIRLS MORE THAN TWICE AS LIKELY TO BE EXCLUDED

Here is what they said in 2022: SCHOOL EXCLUSIONS: 4 WAYS GIRLS IN EDUCATION ARE BEING LET DOWN and SERIOUS CONCERNS ABOUT RACIAL DISPARITY AMONG GIRLS ‘KICKED OUT’ OF SCHOOL

I have been waiting to see what they would say in 2023 when the figures for the 2021/22 school year became available, but they were quiet. The DfE may have been slow to answer the FOI request; perhaps because they were so busy dealing with all the Subject Access Requests from Edutwitter people who thought they were being spied on. However, Agenda Alliance has now commented on 2021/22:

NEW FIGURES SHOW SCHOOL EXCLUSIONS FOR BLACK CARIBBEAN GIRLS ARE RISING AGAIN

Fortunately, this year, I also made a Freedom of Information request for exclusion data divided by ethnicity and gender. I also added Free School Meals (FSM) data, which is used to measure disadvantage, to the mix. So I know what Agenda Alliance are telling you and what they are not telling you.

First, let me tell you what exclusion data in general shows, and what it has shown for years, and you don’t need to make a FOI request to confirm this.

1. Boys are far more likely to be excluded or suspended than girls.

2. FSM pupils are far more likely to face exclusion or suspension than non-FSM pupils. Other indicators of disadvantage show that the worst off are more likely to be excluded or suspended. Unfortunately, none of the measures of disadvantage are very precise.

3. White British pupils face a higher risk of exclusion or suspension than their ethnic minority peers.

I mention this because Agenda Alliance ignores the fact that points 1 and 3 mean there are relatively few ethnic minority girls excluded each year. The 434 ethnic minority girls who were permanently excluded constitute just 7% of permanent exclusions, despite ethnic minority girls forming 17% of the state school population. Despite point 2, they ignore the fact that where ethnic minority groups do have a higher exclusion or suspension rate than white British pupils, they tend to be very disadvantaged groups. This is important because there is a strong possibility that poverty (or class) might be the main factor causing the disparities between ethnic groups.

So what did Agenda Alliance claim this year?

Agenda Alliance has discovered that growing numbers of Black Caribbean girls were kicked out of school during 2021/22.

In the first year without a lockdown, the rise is not surprising. However, what they don’t mention is that the number of permanently excluded black Caribbean girls has risen to 46. This is much higher than the previous year when it was 17, but it is out of tens of thousands of schools. As a comparison, 122 black Caribbean women in England are headteachers in state schools.

Data obtained from the Department of Education via Freedom of Information requests has found that in the 2021/22 academic year, girls from a Black Caribbean background were excluded at double the rate of white British girls.

Agenda Alliance has also found that girls from Traveller of Irish Heritage backgrounds, and Gypsy/Roma girls, are being disproportionately excluded and suspended from schools.

We are now looking at some of the smallest ethnic groups to be given a separate census category. As a result, the numbers are even smaller. There were 19 Gypsy/Roma girls permanently excluded in 2021/22. There were 6 girls from Traveller of Irish Heritage backgrounds permanently excluded (up from 1 in 2020/21).

Exclusions have particularly affected Gypsy/Roma girls, who have been consistently excluded at a considerably higher rate than white British girls over the past four years (2018 – 2022).

29 of them in 2018/19.

17 in 2019/20.

9 in 2020/21.

This news comes as exclusions generally have risen beyond pre-pandemic levels…

There were 6495 exclusions in 2021/22 compared with a pre-pandemic level of 7894 in 2018/19. It is possible that the phrase “exclusions generally” includes suspensions. If so, it’s misleading not to make that clear.

…and shortly after the government launched a crackdown on unauthorised absences from school.

Agenda Alliance’s data analysis demonstrates school discipline policies are disproportionately impacting girls from ethnic minority backgrounds, and sparks concerns new absenteeism measures may intensify the issue:

This is very misleading, or just an outright lie. When you don’t cherry-pick small highly disadvantaged groups, this is simply untrue.

There were 434 ethnic minority girls permanently excluded out of 1413727. This is 0.031%.

There were 1339 white British girls permanently excluded out of 2618826. This is 0.051%.

Suspensions follow a similar pattern.

The number of suspensions for ethnic minority girls equals 3.06% of the population of ethnic minority girls.

The number of suspensions for white British girls equals 5.66% of the population of white British girls.

Some cherry-picked statistics

Exclusions during 2021/2022

• White British girls were excluded at a rate of  0.06

• Black Caribbean girls were excluded at double the rate of white British girls, at 0.12.

• Mixed white and Black Caribbean girls were excluded at more than double the rate of white British girls at  0.14

• Travellers of Irish Heritage girls were excluded at three times the rate of white British girls at  0.18

• Gypsy/Roma girls were excluded at just under three times the rate of white British girls at 0.15.

These figures all appear to have been rounded up, even though some of them should have been rounded down (which would explain why their figure for white British girls is higher than mine). But that does not affect the argument.

1800 girls were excluded in 2021-22, up considerably from the year before.

It’s 1818 without the rounding. And while it is up on the lockdown years, it’s still marginally lower than 2018/19 and still extremely low given there are over 4 million girls in England’s state schools.

Suspensions during 2021/2022 tell a similar bleak story

• White British girls were suspended at a rate of  5.66

• Travellers of Irish Heritage girls were suspended at double the rate of white British girls at 11.49

• Gypsy/Roma girls were suspended at over three times the rate of white British girls at 18.86

• Mixed white and Black Caribbean girls were suspended at just under double the rate of white British girls at  9.73

These figures are accurate, however, both of those sections are completely unrepresentative of the population of ethnic minority girls. There are 122773 girls in these four ethnic groups. They are less than 9% of the ethnic minority girls in England’s schools. Nothing can be inferred from these figures about the other 91%.

All these figures rely on comparison with white British girls to appear dramatic. These disparities do matter when considering the small numbers they affect. However, there are much larger groups with a risk of exclusion or suspension comparable to these numbers. There are 2.7 million white British boys, and they have an exclusion rate of 0.12 and a suspension rate of 10.06. There are half a million white British girls on FSM, with an exclusion rate of 0.15 and a suspension rate of 15.05. Additionally, there are half a million white British boys on FSM who have an exclusion rate of 0.33 and a suspension rate of 23.92. There are also over six hundred thousand Year 9 pupils and for pupils in that year group the exclusion rate is 0.25 and the suspension rate is 19.64. Being male; being on FSM, or being that difficult age are the risks that shape the exclusion figures. That’s not to say that other disparities mean nothing. However, the risk of exclusion for girls from the small ethnic minority groups highlighted by Agenda Alliance only seems large when compared with white British girls.

Suspensions are a particular concern for government in its bid to improve school attendance. Being suspended is a key driver of absenteeism and girls - especially those in poverty (eligible for free school meals) - have been found to be most at risk of staying away from school.

A source for the assertion that being suspended is a key driver of absenteeism would have been helpful. I have no doubt there’s a correlation, but I have seen no evidence of causation.

The bit where the activists tell teachers what to do

Agenda Alliance demands:

• Schools must adopt improved behavioural policies, addressing how gender and racial stereotypes (such as ‘adultification’) are disproportionately impacting girls.

As pointed out earlier, girls and ethnic minorities are disproportionately less likely to be excluded or suspended. “Adultification” is a theory that black children are discriminated against because they are judged to be older. So it’s worth pointing out that the exclusion rate for black girls is 0.043% and the suspension rate is 4.08%. These are lower than for white British girls.

• All specialist staff working with children who have been or are at risk of exclusion must be trained to deliver culturally-, gender-, age-, and trauma- responsive support.

All these factors, except possibly trauma, are relevant to exclusions and suspensions, if not in the ways implied by Agenda Alliance. But focusing on identity, rather than effectiveness, is unlikely to result in better support for poorly behaved pupils.

• Any responses to high rates of absenteeism must avoid unnecessarily punitive approaches, and instead work to address the root causes of girls’ absence from school. They should be co-produced with young women and the specialist organisations that support them.

Except in cases of truancy, children are not punished for being absent. Local Authorities and schools bend over backwards to support absent pupils.

Pundits getting things wrong

The subsequent content in Agenda Alliance’s story is mainly a series of quotations providing commentary. These are not worth repeating in full. However, I will point out that more than once these quotations imply that it is black girls who are at a higher risk of permanent exclusion and suspension than white British girls. As pointed out before, they are not. This is misleading because some readers may not realise that most black girls are not black Caribbean. The only figures for black pupils used by Agenda Alliance were for black Caribbean girls, not for all black girls.

There is one point I haven’t discussed, what drives those disparities that do exist? Why do girls in four small ethnic groups have a higher exclusion rate than white British girls? I will look at this in more detail in a paid post, but (without giving anything away) in my previous writing on racial disparities in exclusions, I found that disadvantage was the key factor. You can read that here:

Blog post series: Why do some ethnic groups have higher exclusion rates?

Part 1 - Part 2

I will use the comments on this post to link to any news organisations reporting Agenda Alliance’s claims misleadingly or inaccurately. Please feel free to add examples.

1. I say “activist organisation”, but they are a charity. Political groups engaged in overt campaigning around single issues are often registered as charities. I do sometimes wonder why that is the case.