The Swann Report (1985)

Between 1975 and the Swann Report (1985), it is suggested that an ethnic minority ‘deficit model’ was instigated by the Callaghan government when it set up a Committee of Inquiry looking into the Education of Children from Ethnic Minority Groups in 1979. This assumed that learners from ethnic minorities needed additional help to achieve the same levels of achievement as their English peers. Mrs Thatcher continued the enquiries, replacing the chair, Anthony Rampton, with Lord Swann. However, the findings did not support Callaghan and Thatcher’s assumptions, but they did demonstrate racism in schools. The Swann Report therefore advocated an inclusive, anti-racist ‘Education for All’. It was considered quite a controversial report, because although many teachers in England felt it was a genuine endeavour to move towards anti-racism, it did include inadequacies (Acton, 1986) such as ‘continuing to use confused racist categories to classify ethnic groups’ (Acton and Dalphinis, 2000: 241).