Which ethnic box do we tick on this form?

[SkatingWithBears]

Just a play scheme form we’re filling in, but friend and I often get this. Nationality is easy, we have British PassportS and are white. But ethnicity? ‘White British‘ Or tick ‘White Other‘ for these:

Family one kids: white, both parents born abroad and dual language. Do kids tick white British or White Other on forms for ethnicity?

Family two: kids also born here and White (except eldest born abroad). One parent born abroad, one born here to parents from country of origin. Tend to speak English together, only parents are bilingual.

Names and looks are not typical British, but they look white.

At what point do you stop ticking ‘white other’ and tick ‘white British’ on forms?

I’ve had it queried before years ago, I have an English accent, British passport and feel more British now than anything else culturally- but I speak another language and have a name that in it’s full form isn’t British sounding. Forms can vary between ‘nationality’ and ‘ethnicity‘ too in their wording. Primary school wanted me to tick ‘other’/ EAL as apparently it helped finding formulas. The country we all have heritage in doesn’t allow dual nationality.

@Fressia123

Sometimes it's important like people have said for health reasons. I'm other, but I make more a point of it when anyty related to the NHS. That's how I was able to become a bond marrow donor.

Well yes. But then "ethnicity" is really a proxy for "genetics" rather than an answer in it's own right. And genetics has absolutely stuff all to do with "the feels" and everything to do with genetics. Surprisingly.

No matter what my feels are, my genetics never change.

@DelphiniumBlue the EAL stream wasn’t support so much, it was that the group of children in it were deemed as more likely to be transitory. They felt it disrupted the tutor groups, so they caught them up together. We moved areas mid-year and we were caught up in this. It had a very negative impact on schooling in many way, partly simply there was a clash between this tutor group and others. He’d been schooled in English from year 1. Also they were in there instead of other lessons, and it seemed to be frankly a holding pen. He wasn’t a child regardless to benefit, we hold English university qualifications and operate in professional jobs, being out of lessons was detrimental and the ‘support’ I’ve witnessed in various schools seems to consist of completely unqualified staff sitting with kids for non-targeted work. Often doing extra hours from non-teaching roles, it hasn’t seemed to be valued as the qualified and respected role children need.

If you’re so conflicted about it I’d go ‘white other.’ If you’d said you strongly feel British my answer would have been different.

It's not about other people OP, it's about how YOU identify yourself. Holding a British passport means you're technically British, but do you feel British? My DH, for instance, is white, but was born OS and has only lived in the UK since becoming an adult. He is now a British citizen and passport holder, but he always ticks 'white other', because while he is technically British, his own personal identity is tied up in his birth nationality and his ancestry.

I may be miserable, but in some places I resented the funding coupled with othering...
I’m aware though we did (without being aware at the time) chose areas to live were there were high levels of existing tension

I choose depending on my mood - so sometimes I am British, sometimes Scottish and sometimes other, but usually it's just for monitoring purposes. I think it's really up to you. I can see why you are more worried if you have been discriminated against though.

This will be zero help, but I always struggle what to put as well. I'm white, was born in America, but my dad is black. So technically, I'm mixed race, but my skin is white. I'm British as my mum is and have a British passport, and have lived in England for the majority of my life (27 years). Sometimes I just tick white British. Others white other. Sometimes it's says mixed British so I tick that. So many of us have much more complicated ethnicity's but I don't really know what the answer is

[quote SkatingWithBears]@DelphiniumBlue the EAL stream wasn’t support so much, it was that the group of children in it were deemed as more likely to be transitory. They felt it disrupted the tutor groups, so they caught them up together. We moved areas mid-year and we were caught up in this. It had a very negative impact on schooling in many way, partly simply there was a clash between this tutor group and others. He’d been schooled in English from year 1. Also they were in there instead of other lessons, and it seemed to be frankly a holding pen. He wasn’t a child regardless to benefit, we hold English university qualifications and operate in professional jobs, being out of lessons was detrimental and the ‘support’ I’ve witnessed in various schools seems to consist of completely unqualified staff sitting with kids for non-targeted work. Often doing extra hours from non-teaching roles, it hasn’t seemed to be valued as the qualified and respected role children need.[/quote]
I'm really sorry to hear this. Having worked in schools for years, it really saddens me that some get it so wrong. However, I wonder if your idea of "catching up" equated to the schools idea of "support". I 'm hoping he wouldn't be included in an EAL group as part of a numbers game, in fact I very much doubt it, because schools struggle so fund support for children who need it , and I can't see any school giving this costly help to children who don't need it. They couldn't afford to.
I don't understand what you mean by this clause He wasn’t a child regardless to benefit and this Often doing extra hours from non-teaching roles, it hasn’t seemed to be valued as the qualified and respected role children need. Could you clarify?

Not entirely relevant but I just remembered, when DD was born they wanted to give her the TB vaccine which isn't standard but wouldn't say why. I eventually guessed and asked if it was because DH was brown. The midwife admitted it was but I declined as we haven't travelled to India and don't have contact with anyone from India apart from the general population so we are not higher risk of catching TB.

When I was pregnant with DS I just amended my green notes to say it wasn't required.

DS looked white but had a Mongolian blue spot and looked very bruised. I was very paranoid and kept telling all midwives, HVs, GPs, baby massage group that DH was Indian so that didn't think I was causing the bruising. I was very careful to always tick mixed white/Asian for any monitoring forms just in case.

@DelphiniumBlue the tutor group was the only one led by a non-teacher, he had the title learning mentor and the pm session was a few TAs. Every other one in the school had a teacher, and specialist teachers for their lessons which they moved to other rooms to do. This tutor group stayed in the same room with the same staff, except for PE. I’ll admit I should’ve realised sooner, I was working crazy hours and just didn’t imagine anything like it could happen. He was shy and new and just kept his head down in a school that was huge compared to his previous ones. I only realised a few weeks in when he was in a ‘fight’ and it all came out the tensions with the other pupils (the fight sounded like he was jumped in a changing room, but he fought back the other 3 and had the same punishment).

I meant he couldn’t benefit from the EAL support as it wasn’t suitable for a child who spoke English as their primary language.

The other support staff I’ve met haven’t been teachers but have expanded roles like midday assistant or kitchen work. It may be better elsewhere, but for example I’ve seen things like a makaton using classmate be assigned an adult they can’t communicate with who has been not previously classroom based. It’s obviously linked to pay grades. The tutor group he was in was if anything a money saving measure, not using a teacher for 20/30 kids in a separate tutor group of mixed ages and no extra staff. They mainly spoke a common language (at least my son developed good skills in a language he’d been weak in before and was a third language to him).

I appreciate it was a bad school, we changed after six months and had an excellent experience. I think as the lowest performing school locally they took a lot of recent arrivals or those waiting for places elsewhere (like us!). It was explained to me as a way of managing children new to the country who were likely to return home (though I’m surprised, I know very very few people who don’t stay). They simply looked at his name, when he arrived and totally missed the years of English schooling in primary.

To explain it better. Imagine a 9 form entry school. Then an extra tutor group, taking any child between year 7 and 9 who was EAL. This group stayed in the same room in a larger classroom near the offices, bar PE. Officially children were integrated lesson by lesson as they were assessed as being able. In practice the children had little opportunity to do formal work as what was set was worksheet based and often of an inappropriate level. They communicated in a common language, at a basic level for most, or by speaking their own languages with some shared understanding. English had little dominance so the staff were rather disconnected from interactions in the room, which involved some bullying and a lot of clashes with other form groups. Particularly there were racism issues my child was exposed to which made the form disliked by many and was very embarrassing to be associated with.

I am in a similar situation, moved here 10y ago from France, so DH and I are definitely 'white - other' but less clear for our DC who were born here.

My position is that as long as they are living with us they are also 'white - other' as our home life is very much French (language, food, friends etc).

Once they move out I imagine they would check the 'white - British' box as they won't be living in a French household anymore and the fact that they went to school and made their friends here means they would feel more British than French.

Makes sense @PleasePassTheCoffeeThanks

SkatingWithBears, your son's experience sounds awful, and I do hope it's not typical of his experience of school.
I have to say, the fact that he was put into that group seems based on assumption ( a racist one) and I hope you were able to point that out to the school and that steps were taken to ensure it didn't happen again to anyone else. You shouldn't have to fight with a school to get proper provision for your child, and I would expect a Learning Mentor ( who is normally trained) to be able to pick up that a child has been put in an inappropriate group, and to advocate for the pupil in terms of arranging for a transfer out of that class.
Hopefully your son has been able to put this behind him, but I'm sure it will have an impact on him.

I guess it doesn’t matter really. I tick white British even though one of my parents is from a European country. I was born here, have British nationality so it seemed like the more appropriate option although I guess white other wouldn’t be inaccurate for me.

Im mixed race and tick white British because its the top one 😂😂😂

They probably look at my tanned skin thinking wtf. Dont care.

I put white British for me
My DH never knows what to tick but normally white other. DH out any other as there never has a middle Eastern related box....
And for kids I put other mixed ethnic group

@DelphiniumBlue he’s now a young man who went on to do very well in schooling, it wasn’t typical and I’ve learnt when to leave a place! It was just a bad place to move to (I’ve learnt a bit more about places with a lot of st George flags out...).

@MumsyMumIAmNot I’m learning something from your approach!

I think I’ll settle on ‘other’, it feels more anonymous...

I always go for mixed other as it is really anonymous!
My DDs school form didn't have British .. it had white English; white welsh; white irish; white Scottish...
Well DH is Scottish and I'm English but mixed race. So... what should DD be? they are super white though so they'll probably choose white British when they're older - given that choice!