Brown haired white kids never in photos

[StevieChicks]

Just that really.
Seen the new school prospectus. Beautiful blond children everywhere, front cover and throughout, a few mixed race children, fewer black and Asian students (because racism) but without a doubt the least photographed children are kids like mine. Children with naturally brown, mousey or dark brown hair.
It's not the same as racism and I would not for a second think that this trivial matter is in any way similar to other discourses around representation. And maybe I have a chip on my shoulder from the eighties when I was never a Disney princess and had to be the evil witch. It doesn't feel like much has changed.
My son's hair is thick and dark brown/ black. He has very pale skin. I just don't see this as the desired aesthetic. The world still goes mad for blonde children.

It's usually kids/relatives of staff, nice kids and "chill" families (ie not the knobheads!) at our school who end up being on the marketing info.

What age are your kids OP. In many schools with a predominantly white British intake there is noticeably more blonde kids in the EYFS and infants than once you get into KS2. as many kids start of fair haired and darken significantly as they grow up - me, DH and DCs all have this hair colour. White blond as small children - mouse to mid brown by 7 years…

perhaps blonde is representing your schools kids?

Maybe they just chose nice photos without thinking too much about representation. If your children smile at the camera and do lots of activities (and if you have agreed to them using photos of your kids) then they are more likely to be in the school’s advertising, brochures and website pages.

I've said this lots of times throughout the thread. This is in an inner city primary. Very diverse. Lots of Syrian, Kurdish,Italian, Spanish, polish kids with similar hair are also excluded.

Mary and snow white both have dark brown hair, so not sure what your point is?

This is all in your head.

Come to think about it, my blonde child has made it into the school newsletter a few times but brown hair child hasn’t 🤔

I've just looked at the websites of 3 independent schools and two local state schools. Simply not the case on any of those.

I just checked my son's school prospectus and it seems to represent the school intake - mostly white (all hair colours), and then some darker skinned children. I don't see any hijabs, but I don't recall seeing any muslim girls around the school (I'm not there much).

Brown haired white kids never in photos

This statement is clearly a load of codswallop

I find it's always white very blond kids, very red haired kids, obviously Asian. Obviously Indian, obviously black.

Never ambiguous blend like mine. I guess that sort of aligns with what you've noticed.

Ooo. There's always a super ginger in there.

"racism" ! Get a grip. How have you made it into adulthood without completely melting down?

@Zebedee999 sorry but how is not featuring black or Asian children as predominantly as white children not racism when you live in an urban city centre with a huge global majority demographic?

My kid is ginger and he was on the school advert outside Sainsbury’s. Only noticed because I was queuing up in the pandemic.

lol. Just looked at DD's old school website. A good sprinkling of different ethnicities (as there should be because it's in a culturally diverse area), 1 redhead, and the rest are mouse/brown hair and fair skin. The closest thing to a blonde is a black girl with platinum hair braids.

My brunette daughter was once the poster girl (literally) for a local youth theatre. I was very proud.

I'm a graphic designer - I have done School prospectuses ALOT. You should consider this:

• not every parent gives permission for photos of their children to appear in publication
• photographers go into schools to take images maybe once or twice and they can only take shots of activities that they see on the day - they try not to take staged photos as they never look realistic
• photos have to be professionally taken to fit print requirements so photos are not quick snaps off camera phones
• Schools with marketing departments that produce high end prospectuses have corporate identities and style guidelines all of which have to be manipulated to fit supplied images to the design of the document, I try to create a balanced representation of what I am supplied with but it's not always possible
• Schools supply copy and they always want the highest achieving students and their art/sports/drama featured. Skin and hair colour isn't even considered at that point.

At not one point do I count hair/skin/eye colour - it's always what looks best, what fits the design, what puts the school in the best light. Schools tend to focus on what the thing says.

I'm white with dark hair and have never felt underrepresented. But I do also have two young children, one brown/mousy and the other white blond and I have been consistently surprised (and a bit 🙄) at the absolute fuss people make about the blond one, right from babyhood. It is really noticeable how much more attention, fawning over and comments he has got at every stage compared to his brother at the same age.

I've just looked at my old school's website. Four Asian girls, a black girl, one redhead and a blonde (I wouldn't have thought that reflects the demographic of the locality).

I think you're massively over-thinking it!

A brown haired white person is (I'm sorry to say) common as muck. And I say that as someone who comes from a whole long line of brown haired white people! I'd say they were up there as the least discriminated against group in history.

Our school is in a rather white area with few ethnically diverse families. You would not know this from the school website as the few children from ethnic minorities are always the ones included in the photos. They even keep up really old photos .

Will someone think of the poor gingers!

Erm every red head in the country is rolling their eyes so far back right now...

I’ve just looked at the websites for the schools my children went to and there’s plenty of dark haired pale girls and boys.
You are looking for a problem that isn’t there.

I'm a teacher. I just checked on our prospectus and there are loads of brown-haired white students, and on the website.