The Understanding Colourism Among Young People in the UK Research Team are delighted to invite you to a new online Colourism and Racism in Education seminar series at King’s College London. The Colourism and Racism in Schools Seminar Series explores how skin shade and racialisation shape experiences in schools in the UK and internationally. Through academic papers and insightful discussions, we aim to contribute to better understandings of both the challenges minoritised ethnic students and staff face and the work required to create more inclusive, fair, and supportive learning environments for all.

Understanding Colourism in UK Schools and Colleges

Colourism is prejudice that penalises people the darker their skin is and the further their features are from those associated with whiteness. This presentation gives an overview of how colourism affects young people in UK schools and colleges.

Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data from the UKRI-funded Understanding Colourism Among Young People in the UK research project, we explore how prevalent colourism is in schools and colleges and the different ways in which colourism is manifested at these educational institutions in the UK, with a particular focus on colourist humour, colourism and beauty judgements and colourism and school discipline.

Informed by quantitative data from 715 respondents, we argue that school or college was the place that young people aged 13-19 identified most frequently as a site of colourism. Turning to our qualitative data, interviews and focus groups with students aged 13-18 at schools and colleges in Bristol and London, we highlight how humour served to perpetuate colourism, particularly targeting those with dark skin. We argue that while colourist humour is often presented as harmless, it reproduces racist and colourist tropes that can dehumanise and harm those targeted and bystanders. We examine the negative impact of colourist beauty ideals on Black girls and young women with dark skin, some of whom were voted ugliest in their year due to their skin shade, and we consider the effects of dark skin being associated with harsher discipline at school.

Meet the speakers

Dr Aisha Phoenix is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow and Social Justice Lecturer at King’s College London. Her project, Understanding Colourism Among Young People in the UK, is a large-scale study of young people's perceptions and experiences of colourism. While her primary research area is colourism, she has also conducted research on Muslim young people in education, perceptions of Islam, and racism, including anti-Muslim racism. Her PhD research focused on how Palestinian university students living in the West Bank narrated their lives under occupation. In her work, she critically engages with issues of belonging, marginalisation and social justice.

Dr Nadia Craddock is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Appearance Research, UWE Bristol. Her work focuses on body image and mental health, with a particular emphasis on sociocultural influences (including prejudice such as colourism) and on the experiences of under-represented groups.

Committed to creating real-world impact, Dr Craddock collaborates with industry, community, and international partners to develop and scale evidence-based body image interventions, primarily for children and adolescents. She regularly speaks at public events and produced the Centre for Appearance Research’s podcast – Appearance Matters: The Podcast! – for 10 years.

Jamila Thompson recently joined the UKRI-funded Understanding Colourism Among Young People in the UK research project as a research assistant. She is an ESRC Sociology doctoral candidate at Birkbeck, University of London, who also has secondary school teaching experience, having worked as a head of Sociology and Ethnic Minority Achievement coordinator. As Head of Youth Advocacy at BLAM UK, Jamila co-writing the Curriculum Research report, Eradicating Anti-Blackness in the UK Education System: Achieving Curriculum and Policy Reform through Litigation investigating racial discrimination within education as a human rights issue. Jamila is also a Peer Researcher Alumni with Race on the Agenda (ROTA) conducting research into Black girls’ experiences of race, racism and misogynoir in schools. Her findings are included in the 2024 RCRP report.

Want to join the mailing list? 

Please email Jamila Thompson at jamila.thompson@kcl.ac.uk to be added to the mailing list for information about the seminar series and the project.