Online racism: Secondary

Overview

Audience

Secondary (ages 11 to 18)

Timing

60 minutes

Learning outcomes

Learners will be able to:

• identify how and why racism occurs online
• understand the role of the media and stereotypes in enabling online racism
• recognise the impact that online racism can have on individuals and communities
• evaluate the safety and effectiveness of strategies to challenge online racism
• know how and where to seek help and support if they or someone they know are the victim of online racism

Key vocabulary

Discrimination, protected characteristics, stereotypes, racism, racist, hate speech, hate crime, abuse, counter-narrative, xenophobia

Resources

Preparation

• Read through the ‘Educational practitioner learning resource’ on online racism to ensure you have a clear understanding of possible issues and questions that may emerge in the lesson. Ensure you are familiar with your school’s safeguarding procedures in the event of a disclosure.
• Print the activity cards on slides 7 to 10 – one set per learner/pair/group.

Curriculum links

The resource can support activities delivered as part of the Health and Well-being Area of Learning and Experience.

Key questions (to use as discussion starters or prompts)

• What is discrimination?
• What is racism?
• What are protected characteristics?
• What is a stereotype?
• How can racism occur online and what are the motivations behind it?
• What are the risks to someone targeted by online racism?
• How does online racism make those involved feel?
• How can you challenge racism positively and safely?
• How can you get help for you or someone else if you are worried about online racism?

Starter activity (10 mins)

Before you start the session you should ensure that the learners are aware that the session will be covering potentially sensitive and upsetting information. If they need any support at any time they can let you know and you’ll stop the session or they may be excused. You might also wish to remind learners of any counselling or pastoral/support options provided by the school.

Using the PowerPoint slides that accompany this lesson plan, start by asking learners ‘What is discrimination?’

Encourage learners to write down or give a definition. Discuss their responses and ask them what types of discrimination they are aware of. You may wish to record these suggestions to refer to later.

Show learners the definition of discrimination on slide 4:

Treating a person or particular group of people differently, especially in a worse way from the way in which you treat other people, for example because of their skin colour, sex, sexuality, etc.

Definition from ‘Cambridge Dictionary’

Explain that this lesson will be focusing on racism, and discrimination based on skin colour or race. However, many of the examples and strategies that will be explored in the lesson could also apply to other ‘protected characteristics’ – aspects of a person’s identity that are protected under law. Explain that some people view others through ‘stereotypes’ – focusing on a protected characteristic (such as skin colour or gender) and assuming that all people with that characteristic behave and feel the same way.

What is online racism?

Show learners the example on slide 5 and ask the following questions.

• Who was this message targeting?
• Who do you think sent it?
• Why do you think someone chose to say this online?
• How would it make the person reading it feel?
• What do you think might have happened next?

Continue the discussion by asking learners for ways that racism can occur online. Before discussing any specific examples, remind learners that some words used in racist incidents are highly offensive and should not be repeated when explaining what they have seen or experienced online.

The term bullying may come up frequently. Explain that, while bullying may occur as part of racist behaviour, online racism is not always the same as bullying. Hate speech and racist behaviour online will often target all members of a particular group rather than an individual or a small group.

Be aware that learners may also talk about their own personal experiences of online/offline racism (as a target, bystander or possibly even as a perpetrator). In the event of a disclosure, follow your school’s safeguarding procedures to log and report this incident, following up to ensure that the learner understands the support options available to them.

Activity 1: How hurtful can it be? (25 mins)

Explain to learners that they will be playing a game called ‘How hurtful can it be?’. They must imagine that a racist message has been shared. The message has 4 categories associated with it – a speaker (who sent the message), a context (the environment in which they said it), an audience (those who can see/hear the message) and a target (who the message is aimed at). Use slides 7 to 10 to show the sets of cards for the 4 categories.

Provide a full set of cards (all 4 categories) to small groups/pairs of learners. Explain that they must choose one card from each category to make the racist message the ‘most offensive’. This is open to interpretation – some learners may believe that spreading the message to the widest audience possible is the most offensive, while others may decide that the choice of context or speaker provides greater capacity for offence/harm.

Explain that there are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answers, but learners must be ready to explain their decisions. Give learners 10 minutes to select the cards and discuss within their groups.

Bring the groups back together and ask learners to share their choices and explain their thinking. Ask other groups if they agree/disagree.

Explain to learners that, while it may have felt odd to be doing an activity where they were trying to cause more hatred or offence, the factors they identified can also be used to combat online racism and hate. If the message is changed from a negative one to a positive one, the same categories can be valuable in knowing how to create a strong ‘counter-narrative’ to racist views, provide public support to those being targeted, drown out or minimise the offensive messages, and positively change public perceptions.

Activity 2: Helping or hindering? (15 mins)

While it is important to challenge online hate speech such as racism, it is also important to protect yourself and others. Explain to learners that taking actions to tackle racism that end up putting themselves or other online users at risk is not effective or safe and can often make a situation worse.

With that in mind, explain to learners that you are going to display a number of ways that someone can respond when they see/experience online racism. For each one, they should consider a situation online where this response would be helpful (and safe) and an example where it could make things worse or put someone at risk. Encourage learners to consider each response from the perspective of someone witnessing online racism and also from someone experiencing online racism.

Use slides 12 to 24 to run through each response together as a whole group. Alternatively, you can print out the slide handout (by selecting ‘Handout’ in the print settings) for these slides to allow small groups to consider them, and record their ideas.

Ask learners for feedback on each response strategy. Which do they think are the best suited to multiple scenarios? What would their top three strategies be? Do their strategies differ depending on whether they are the target or a bystander?

Note that you may wish to highlight the term xenophobia in relation to an individual who continually displays, or makes, racist remarks about a group or groups with protected characteristics.

Optional extension discussion: Exposing racist behaviour online

Every day across the UK millions of social media users are creating posts, sharing videos and links. To help the social media platforms to be able to manage this much traffic, they use ‘algorithms’. Explain to learners that algorithms use computational thinking to of sort everyone’s posts in a way that means a user is more likely to see the most popular posts that are relevant to them. Algorithms are designed to pick up on posts that are interesting to lots of people and make that post more visible. This explains how a post that starts with just a couple of likes then, seemingly, all of a sudden has many. Through ensuring more people see it, interact with it, like it, comment on it or share it, the algorithm successfully promotes the content.

Similarly, if we see a post that we think is hateful, racist or discriminatory in other ways and we share it with our followers/friends (if only to show our disgust or disbelief at what we’re seeing), algorithms will pick that post up as ‘popular content’, particularly if our friends comment too (if only to express their disgust or disbelief). Social media algorithms don’t separate hateful or supportive comments, they only see ‘popular content’ and make it more visible to others. When we comment on someone else’s post, the algorithms pick it up as being popular and share it with a wider audience. In this scenario, we might be making racist comments or discrimination visible to a wider audience. It’s a more positive act for learners to report such posts and put up their ones that celebrate diversity and difference, making those feel a normal part of life.

Additionally sharing racist abuse may trigger people who have experienced it in the past and do more harm than good. Explain to learners that it’s worth thinking about how necessary it is to share racist abuse online, even if the intention is to raise awareness and tackle hate speech.

Plenary (10 mins)

Explain to learners that it is very hard to stop someone from mistreating others, particularly if someone is spreading online hate like racism or xenophobia. However, it is important to take positive action to help yourself or others in need.

Show learners the ‘Give Me Five!’ on slide 25, and ask them to think of 5 people (or organisations) they could turn to for help if they were worried about the way they or someone else was being treated online. Encourage learners to include helplines or other sources of help they are aware of that can provide expert support with racism or online issues.

The final slide includes details of organisations who can offer help and support to children experiencing issues online. You may also wish to add details of the key adults in your school who learners can turn to, for example the designated safeguarding person (DSP).

Opportunities to extend the learning

Raising awareness/running a campaign

Encourage learners to consider ways they could raise awareness among their peers and communities (online and offline) on safe strategies for challenging or responding to online racism.

Exploring other forms of online hate

This lesson can be used as a springboard to explore other forms of online hate against protected characteristics, such as gender (and gender identity), sexual orientation and disability. You can access follow-up sessions from the Victim Support training and engagement team that cover a wide range of topics.