'We can’t say that this is something in the past’

Could you tell me about the work of the DECP on issues of equality, diversity, and inclusion?

I can't take any of the credit because we've been doing a lot of work under previous chairs. In 2006, the DECP produced a self-assessment framework for promoting racial equality in educational psychology services, and that is currently being updated. Following the murder of George Floyd, we set up an EDI working group which includes people from the DECP and people in other parts of the educational psychology world – principal educational psychologists, training providers, universities, as well as practising educational psychologists of different levels including trainees.

The DECP felt it was important to include groups with different perspectives including  BEEP (Black and Ethnic Minority Educational Psychology Network), TEPICC (Trainee EPs' Initiative for Cultural Change), Educational Psychologists' Race and Culture Forum (EPRCF) and our trade union the Association of Educational Psychologists (AEP).

These groups are all coming together and working on projects including an update of the self-assessment framework so each educational psychology service can do a self-audit looking at their policies, practices, monitoring and what's happening in their local area in terms of exclusions.

These audits will also look at cultural competence within EP services, and at employment – who are we recruiting, what sort of career progression is there for Black and ethnic minority psychologists. They are also going to be developing an anti-racist toolkit for schools and they want to get involved in the accreditation of educational psychology courses and the work of professional bodies like the Health and Care Professions Council.

I'm a tutor at the University College London Institute of Education and I'm supervising two trainees whose theses are going to be in this area – one has already done some work amongst trainee and early career ethnic minority psychologists, and he is now working on a project with people who are established in their careers. Another is looking at racism in schools with a view to gathering evidence for the anti-racist toolkit. 

Could you tell me about the misclassification of Black children as Educationally Subnormal?

Parts of psychology have a dark history – whether it's the inappropriate use of IQ tests and other psychometric tests, going back to people like Cyril Burt, as well as the involvement with the eugenics movement.

More recently there was a 1944 Education Act which was very well meaning – it gave all children the right to schooling and it made provision for the ones who, to use the language of the time had a 'disability of mind and body', to be educated in either special schools or to have special educational provision in a mainstream school. The process to determine if someone had a disability of the mind was through IQ tests and when you got a score between 50 and 75 or 80 you were classed as educationally subnormal (ESN), and those children would then be sent off to ESN schools. At that time they didn't have a proper curriculum at those schools, it was almost just containment or training for jobs like gardening. The aspirations for all of those children were very limited.

The main problem was that certain categories of people particularly, what they called in those days 'immigrants', were much more likely to be classified as ESN. The cultural and linguistic bias inherent in the psychometric assessments used to investigate IQ and to categorise these children and young people was not considered, leading to inappropriate labels and mis-categorisation of these children and young people.

The statistics show that they were four times more likely to be classified as ESN and they were sent to ESN schools and once they went there, they never came back. There wasn't any attempt to give these young people the support they needed so they could go back to mainstream school. The focus at the time was on categorisation and placement in special provision.

At a recent event at the House of Commons, and in the documentary on this topic released by the BBC, people who experienced this spoke about how they were miscategorized, limiting their opportunities, as they didn't have access to proper education, and they were never then considered for further or higher education.

They were offered jobs as porters or other manual jobs. Many of the people at the event described how they and their families had to endure financial hardship when later in life they re-entered the education system and accessed the educational opportunities that they had been denied, with many later going on to access a university education and enter the professions. 

People also spoke about the effect it had on their families and children – because they were living in poverty because of the kind of work they were doing, or whilst they worked part-time to enable them to access educational opportunities that they had been denied. This was often was passed onto the next generation. The long-term impacts of that were very moving to hear about – a number of them have come forward now and they want justice done.

What's really shocking is we can't say that this is something in the past. Now, although the categories and processes have changed, if you look at the exclusion rates for Black Caribbean pupils, according to the census, and the profile of people who go to PRUs and alternative provisions, you could argue that nothing much has changed. And people talk about a special school/alternative provision-to-prison pipeline – once you go down that route you never go back because no one makes the effort to put things right. You just stay there.

Historically, there were certain wrong assumptions about Caribbean people, that they came to the UK uneducated and came from colonies where there was no education. In fact, that wasn't true – they were classed as being subnormal just because of their accents or because they didn't speak the language. One of the examples is that on one psychometric test, there was a picture of a tap. In some parts of the Caribbean, you'd call it a pipe, but if you said the pipe that would be marked as wrong.

If you didn't have the same culture or language or experiences when you newly arrived in the UK you suffered bias when being tested. You might not know much about British culture so you may not have understood the questions or their social context, you may not have had the precise terminology required to secure a correct response, and sadly but no consideration was given to that.

Could you tell me more about the recent event at the House of Commons?

Leigh Day are human rights lawyers who have identified eight people who've come forward. We know there are many more but some people don't want to be identified or haven't come forward. They've tried very, very hard to reach out to the community to identify people. They are representing eight people to try and to get some sort of justice for them. 

They've come up with a 10-point plan which includes, for example, an acknowledgement of the harm done, to get some sort of financial compensation, and then looking forward the training of educators to understand things like unconscious bias and the importance of having a culturally appropriate curriculum and assessments, to understand the legacy of slavery and colonialism and racism.

It's important to hear the voices of children and families and to look at exclusion rates and attainment levels of Black Caribbean children – these children are excluded at much higher rates and their attainment levels tend to be lower than other groups. Leigh Day also really wants a public inquiry and possibly in the future a Race Equality Bill.

There is also a petition on the UK Parliament website which is calling for justice for those affected by being classed as ESN.

Is there a role for psychologists in addressing the challenging parts of psychology's history?

Definitely. Vivian Hill, Melernie Meheux (past Chairs of the DECP and co-chairs of the DECP EDI group) felt, as we listened to the narratives being shared in the House of Commons, that we had not only to apologise for past harms but ensure that the same mistakes are not made again. 

It's a continuing issue and we should all raise awareness in our practice as educational psychologists. We should really think about the sorts of assessments we're doing – whether they are culturally appropriate, we need to think about the language we use. We'd never use words like 'sub-normal' these days, but I think now we still have to be aware and sensitive to the ways we report on the findings from assessments and any potential biases.

Currently, we are updating some guidelines on assessment and that's definitely an issue that we're going to be considering as part of that. There are some guidelines (Educational Psychology Assessment in Scotland 2014) which were originally devised by the Scottish division, but now we've come together as four nations to produce something that would apply across the UK. Of course, there's different legislation in each of the four nations but the basic principles as psychologists about appropriate assessment apply across the UK. Modern psychology needs to learn the lessons of its history.

Find out more about the DECP and see Melernie Meheux in conversation with Waveney Bushell.

Photo (left to right): John Cadman, Educational Psychologist; Rachel Rebello, Trainee EP; Professor Vivan Hill, Director of EP training programme at UCL IOE, past Chair of DECP and co-chair of EDI group; Professor Christine Callender, academic, UCL IOE; Dr Melernie Meheux, UCL IOE tutor and past Chair of DECP and co-chair of EDI group; Dr Cynthia Pinto, UCL IOE tutor and current chair of DECP