The value of difference

As retired member of the National Education Union, I receive their member magazine, Educate, regularly. The March/April 2023 issue contains coverage of the union's recent and, as I write, ongoing strike action in schools in England. It also has a feature article exploring the charity Lifting Limits. The head of education at the charity is a member of the National Education Union, and is cited in their magazine feature.

There is an aspect of the work of Lifting Limits in schools that emerges from the feature that is quite commendable. This is their work around recognising and challenging roles that are often stereotypically described as being "for boys" or "for girls". This can relate to the sports in which children are expected to participate, to the examples of scientists who feature in the curriculum, to subject choices at A-level and to career choices as they leave school. In all of these areas, and more, there is no reason why children should not be equally encouraged in their choices independently of their sex as male or female. 

However, I do think there is a danger in assuming that role stereotypes based on sex are always going to be harmful. There will be boys and girls whose aspirations match to such stereotypes, and who are quite comfortable with those aspirations. Asking them to question their aspirations, on the grounds that they are stereotypical, is not going to do them any favours. A number of the examples of practice described in the feature in Educate usefully include the contributions of women as well as men; but this is only of value if it offers boys and girls more freedom around their aspirations and is not used to create an ideological opposition to aspirations that follow stereotypes. It should act as an enabler to all aspirations, both those that go against a stereotype and those that go along with it.

The feature refers to another aspect of Lifting Limits work. Citing an example from one primary school:

The school is also teaching children about the use of pronouns and the fact that not everyone identifies as the gender registered at their birth. One year 3 child has a parent who is transgender. "For Fathers' Day they wanted to draw a dress on their card, and they put the transgender flag inside it. It has been easily accepted by all of their peers".

Lifting Limits is keen to break the habit in some schools of labelling children by gender and highlight the things children have in common with one another instead.

"Having school structures and routines that highlight gender is saying, girls and boys are different,", says Kirsty [head of education at Lifiting Limits], adding that this can encourage unhealthy relationships between children.

Certainly it is unhealthy to have a school environment that deliberately plays boys off against girls. But avoiding that is not the same as adopting a reluctance to speak of a difference between boys and girls. This  contrasts sharply with what Pope Francis had to say about gender in a recent interview, where he emphasised the value of such difference: Pope Francis: I dream of a more pastoral, a more open Church:

Pope Francis then stated that he is not writing a new encyclical. In response to a question about whether he has been asked to write a document on the subject of gender, the Pope replied in the negative. On this topic, he reiterated that he “always makes a distinction between pastoral work with people of different sexual orientation” on the one hand, “and gender ideology. They are two different things," he said. "Gender ideology, at this time, is one of the most dangerous ideological colonisations. It goes beyond the sexual sphere. Why is it dangerous? Because it dilutes differences, and the richness of men and women and of all humanity is the tension of differences. It is growing through the tension of differences. The gender question dilutes differences and makes the world equal, all level, all the same. And this goes against the human vocation.”

Politics, ideology and sex education

Teacher unions in England are reported as being concerned that a review of Sex and Relationships Education in schools, recently requested by Rishi Sunak, is politically motivated.

This stance is itself hardly politically neutral. The teacher unions long standing support for the Sex Education Forum is ideologically motivated, and represents support for what Pope Francis would term "the ideological colonisation of the family". It is the outcome of the influence of that organisation on education policy that may now be challenged by the review.

One Conservative MP articulated the concerns that have led to the review in terms that might reflect genuine concerns of parents over what is being taught in schools:

Posing a question to Sunak during prime minister’s questions, [MP Miriam] Cates said: “Graphic lessons on oral sex, how to choke your partner safely, and 72 genders. This is what passes for relationships and sex education in British schools.

“Across the country, children are being subjected to lessons that are age-inappropriate, extreme, sexualising and inaccurate, often using resources from unregulated organisations that are actively campaigning to undermine parents.

“This is not a victory for equality – it is a catastrophe for childhood.”

It is to be hoped that genuine parental concerns are not going to be overshadowed in the public debate by a conservative ideology - it is sometimes very difficult to separate a Conservative MP's appeals to a particular political/ideological electoral constituency from a genuine concern about the issue itself (though I do not make this remark of Miriam Cates, quoted above). 

The idea that teaching about 72 genders is in any way genuinely education in sex and relationships defies simple common sense....

Different narratives: ThisEgg and John Fisher School

The news coverage of the conflict in the Ukraine alerts us to the way in which the same events can be the subject of widely different narratives, depending on the source of the information used in the coverage.

But this happens in other situations, too. One is the Family Sex Show, recently cancelled. Care's report is here: Family sex show "cancelled" following backlash. It links to reports on the BBC news website (The Family Sex show cancelled amid threats and abuse at staff) and at the Guardian (Sex education theatre show for children cancelled after 'violent threats'). As Care point out, the emphasis in the wider media reporting, and in particular in the choice of headlines, follows the statement from the producers of the show with respect to threats and abuse. There is little acknowledgement that the show has been cancelled following significant concern about its explicit content for a target audience of children aged 5+.

In the light of more recent events there is a subtlety in the purpose of the Family Sex Show, as stated in publicity for the show itself:

Using real life bodies, personal stories, songs and movement, The Family Sex Show puts the good stuff at the forefront of conversation and imagines a future where there is no shame; but a celebration of difference, equality and liberation.

The idea of a "future where there is no shame" hides a subtle intent. This week Neil Parish MP has resigned after watching pornography in the Houses of Parliament and, commenting on the same, Lord Bethell of Romford has referred to a complete lack of any moral sense that he saw when suggesting to a fellow tube traveller that it was not appropriate to be watching pornography in easy view of others. The idea that young people should be encouraged to have a future where there is no shame hides that subtle intent of undermining any moral sense. 

Likewise, there are two very different narratives surrounding strike action being taken by teachers at the John Fisher School in Purley. For the union, and much of the media coverage, this is a story of discrimination against an LGBT+ children's author - the strike action is directed against a "discriminatory working environment" and aims to reinstate dismissed Foundation Governors and the cancelled visit by the author. But, as the responsible Catholic Diocese points out in its most recent statement, the question has always been one relating to the content of the books being promoted and does not reflect any discrimination against the author or others. The Southwark Diocesan statement cites what might be termed "highlights" as far as inappropriate content goes; having spent the last few days reading the book cited, there is a sustained sexualised content with additional scenes that give rise for concern. The content is questionable for promotion in any school, where there are likely to be pupils of the Christian faith even when the school does not have a religious designation, let alone a Catholic school.

As a bit of an aside, the union taking industrial action at John Fisher School seem to have missed the disparaging view of the school work force that is shown at some points in the book. They seem to have missed (on page 2 of the book!) a female teacher shouting "Get the hell down, you skinny little runt!" at a pupil and this paragraph in chapter 14:

Mrs Peters was the surly woman who guarded reception (and the photocopier access) like it was Fort Knox and, like most people who worked in schools, she utterly despised kids.

It is worth noting that the snap OFSTED inspection has spoken highly of the school's care for its pupils.

UPDATE: This morning (2nd May), Mona Siddiqi delivered the "Thought for the Day" slot on BBC Radio 4's Today programme. It will have occurred at about 1:45 into the programme, and will in due course be accessible on the programme website: Radio 4 Today Programme. In the context of the Islamic feast of Eid and the end of the month of Ramadan, she spoke about the significance of the idea of shame, in its unhelpful sense (that in which one person actively "shames" another) and in its valuable sense (in which a person's own sense of shame acts as a prompt of conscience). She recognised how this reflection was significant for standards in public life.

Three thoughts on violence against women

 After recent events, it is important to recognise the sorrow and anguish of Sarah Everard's family and friends, and I join in offering my prayers and condolences to them.

The subsequent debate on violence against women has prompted three thoughts.

The concern being expressed by protestors and others about the safety of women on the streets of our towns and cities is primarily a concern about violence directed towards women by men. Whilst the fashion might be to describe this as "gender based violence" - with all that the ambivalence contained in the word "gender" implies - we are in reality, even when we use this language,  designating a violence directed against women because of their physiological sex. And likewise the men responsible for this violence are being designated, in reality, by their physiological sex.

I think I can be forgiven for thinking that, in recent years, the prime ethical principle governing sexual behaviours is that of consent. The #MeToo movement drew to public attention circumstances where men in powerful positions have taken advantage of their power to engage in unwelcome sexual behaviours with women. In educational circles, attention is given to enabling young people, both boys and girls, to properly understand the significance of consent. But, in terms of building barriers that will discourage men from abusing women, would it not also be helpful to have a recognition that some sexual behaviours are wrong even if the parties involved consent? It would then be crystal clear to all concerned that men in positions of power, or boys exerting peer pressure, should not be engaging sexually with the women and girls they encounter. 

The term "sex worker" has now become common place in referring to women who would previously have been described as "prostitutes". (Though men do also engage in such work, women do predominate). In effect, this change of terminology encourages a societal acceptance of a situation where a man pays women for sex. But, from the point of view of such a man, with an inevitably weakened sense of right and wrong, what is the difference between this paid-for sex on Friday night and an approach to a non-consenting woman in the street on Saturday night?  If the only difference we expect him to observe is that of consent, the difference is not a strong one.

So there are my three contributions to the discussion, for all they are worth: honesty about treating it as a question of physiological sex, being willing to consider the ethics of sexual behaviours to have an objective content other than just consent, and recognising that cultural accommodation of prostitution is not going to reduce risk to women.

The Holy See and the United Nations: the Holy See's reservations against the Sustainable Development Goals

 I have already noted (here) that, through its Permanent Observer status at the United Nations, the Holy See can have its documents with respect to the work of the UN circulated as official documents of the organisation, and that it is able to state "reservations" (in effect, objections) with regard to positions adopted by the UN, and to have those reservations circulated.

Some quarters are strident in their criticism of the Holy See for the support that it offers to the UN's sustainable development goals. It is, however, worth looking carefully at the reservations that the Holy See has recorded against those goals and 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Holy See's advocacy of the sustainable development goals is explicitly qualified by these reservations, and perhaps more is to be gained by widening knowledge of the reservations than by criticism of the Holy See on grounds that are actually answered by the reservations.

These reservations have been expressed consistently by the Holy See Mission to the UN. In an early form, these reservations were expressed as follows:

(1) With reference to “sexual and reproductive health”, so-called “reproductive rights,” “family planning” and other language on which the Holy See has registered reservations at Cairo and Beijing, we reiterate these reservations as set out more fully in the Report of the ICPD and in the Beijing Platform for Action. In particular, the ICPD rejects recourse to abortion for family planning, denies that it creates any new rights in this regard. 

(2) With respect to so-called “education” or “information” on “sexuality”, my Delegation reaffirms the “primary responsibility” and the “prior rights” of parents, including their right to religious freedom, when it comes to the education and upbringing of their children, as enshrined, inter alia, in the UDHR and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. 

(3) By “gender” my Delegation understands to mean “male or female” only, and to have no meaning other than the customary and general usage of the term.

 These reservations are expressed in a more developed form in a response to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Firstly, in reference to the language of "sexual and reproductive health" and rights that might derive from it:

Regarding the terms "sexual and reproductive health" and "reproductive rights", the Holy See considers these terms as applying to a holistic concept of health, which embrace, each in their own way, the person in the entirety of his or her personality, mind and body, and which foster the achievement of personal maturity in sexuality and in the mutual love and decision-making that characterize the conjugal-relationship between a man and a woman in accordance with moral norms. The Holy See does not consider abortion or access to abortion or abortifacients as a dimension of these terms.

With reference to the terms "contraception", "family planning", "sexual and reproductive health", "sexual and reproductive rights", “reproductive rights”, and any other terms regarding family-planning services and regulation of fertility concepts in the document, the Holy See reaffirms its well-known position concerning those family-planning methods which the Catholic Church considers morally acceptable and, on the other hand, family-planning services which do not respect the liberty of the spouses, human dignity and the human rights of those concerned.

 And a reservation which refers to the term "gender", and is welcome in providing a basis on which others can engage in a dialogue in wider society from a like position:

With reference to "gender", the Holy See understands the term to be grounded in the biological sexual identity that is male or female.

The last reservation is with regard to education:

With respect to "education" or "information" on "sexuality", the Holy See reiterates the "primary responsibility" and the "prior rights" of parents, including their right to religious freedom, when it comes to the education and upbringing of their children, as enshrined, inter alia, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In that sense, the Holy See wishes to underline the centrality of the family, “the natural and fundamental group unit of society,” as well as the role and rights and duties of parents to educate their children. 

Equalising "equality"?

 In introducing the recent Westminster Hall debate on LGBT conversion therapy, conversion therapy was defined by the member of parliament leading the debate in the following way:

First, we must ask ourselves what conversion therapy is and why it needs to be banned. According to a May 2020 report by the UN Office for Human Rights, and indeed according to a definition from the Government Equalities Office, so-called conversion therapy is an umbrella term used to describe interventions of a wide-ranging nature, all of which have in common the belief that a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity can and should be changed. These so-called therapies can manifest in many forms, from pseudo-psychological treatments and aversion therapies to practices that are religiously based, such as purification or fasting. At the most extreme, there has been evidence that this practice can also involve physical and sexual violence, including so-called corrective rape.

 What is interesting in this definition is that it refers to "orientation" and "identity"; it leaves out any reference to the question of how behaviours that follow from orientation and identity might be considered. Is it a definition that assumes that an orientation and identity are of necessity only experienced in intimate sexual activities that align with that orientation and identity, and that an orientation or identity only exist when they are experienced in such sexual activities? 

The question matters, and it matters because it touches on the right of communities such as the Catholic Church to propose their teaching on marriage and human sexuality (cf Article 18 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, cf Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights). That teaching is that the sexual act is ordered only between the male and female person, engaged in a married relationship, and in a manner open to the gift of new life. It is a teaching about a sexual behaviour; it is a teaching that has both a moral character based in human reason and a theological character in terms of the analogy of the wedded relationship of man and woman to the relationship of Christ and the Church.

Circumstances can clearly be envisaged where the way and situation in which the proposal of this teaching takes place might constitute an abuse of the freedom of the individual to whom it is proposed; but, equally, and probably more commonly in mainstream churches, circumstances can also be envisaged where it is proposed in a respectful and considered way that is totally fair to the freedom of the individual. And leaving aside the cases of individuals, the Catholic Church will propose this teaching generally to wider society as a whole.

But would this proposal of a teaching that is focussed on sexual behaviours fall foul of legislation banning conversion therapies that is framed exclusively in terms of "orientation" and "identity", and mistakenly assumes a congruence of "orientation" and "identity" with corresponding intimate sexual behaviours? Would the proposal of such a teaching be seen in law as a form of conversion therapy?

Perhaps it is considerations such as this that are prompting considerable caution on the part of Kemi Badenoch, the Minister for Equalities, and the present government in the UK. As she said towards the end of the recent parliamentary debate:

The Government have been clear that we do not intend to stop those who wish to seek spiritual counselling as they explore their sexual orientation, but there will be cases when a line is crossed, where someone is actively seeking to change another’s sexual orientation—an innate aspect of their personal identity—via coercion under the guise of spiritual support. The Government will exercise great care when considering what does and does not constitute conversion therapy, and how to intervene. ....
We continue to work to ensure that the actions we take are proportionate and effective, and will set out our next steps soon. We have heard a range of views and voices, and it is imperative that we continue a constructive dialogue to ensure that we get our proposals right.

Sex Education and the European Convention on Human Rights: is Damian Hinds right?

According to the BBC report:

In an oral statement to the Commons on Thursday, Mr Hinds said: "We've previously committed to parents having a right to withdraw their children from the sex education part of RSE [relationships and sex education], but not from relationships education, in either primary or secondary school.

"A right for parents to withdraw their child up to 18 years of age is no longer compatible with English case law nor with the European Convention on Human Rights."

But is it true to suggest that the European Convention on Human Rights disallows withdrawal by parents of their children from sex education in the years immediately leading up to age 18?

The consultation document about which Damian Hinds was speaking can be found at the Department for Education website: here. It represents a draft of statutory guidance to which, if it is implemented, schools will have "have regard". The relevant sections can be found on page 12 and following.  My emphasis added in the extract below:

36. The role of parents in the development of their children’s understanding about relationships is vital. Parents are the first educators of their children. They have the most significant influence in enabling their children to grow and mature and to form healthy relationships.

And the relevant article of the Protocol to the European Convention on Human  Rights, which forms a full part of the Convention, with my emphasis added (cf Article 26 n.3 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights):

Article 2: right to education  

No person shall be denied the right to education. In the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.

Damian Hinds' consultation document at n.36 represents a clear and blatant derogation from the provision of the Convention to which it has reference.

This derogation is further followed by the suggestion of a good practice which expects headteachers to, in effect, make every effort to dissuade a parent from exercising a right to withdrawal. Given the likely power imbalance in the conversation between a head teacher and an individual parent, the use of the terminology of "discuss" or "discussion" may not accurately reflect the provision of the Convention that the State respect the right of parents with regard to the education of their children.

41. Parents have the right to request that their child be withdrawn from some or all of sex education delivered as part of statutory RSE. Before granting any such request it would be good practice for the head teacher to discuss the request with the parent and, as appropriate, with the child to ensure that their wishes are understood and to clarify the nature and purpose of the curriculum.

42. Good practice is also likely to include the head teacher discussing with the parent the benefits of receiving this important education and any detrimental effects that withdrawal might have on the child. This could include any social and emotional effects of being excluded, as well as the likelihood of the child hearing their peers’ version of what was said in the classes, rather than what was directly said by the teacher (although the detrimental effects may be mitigated if the parent proposes to deliver sex education to their child at home instead).  

43. Once those discussions have taken place, except in exceptional circumstances, the school should respect the parents’ request to withdraw the child, up to and until three terms before the child turns 16. After that point, if the child wishes to receive sex education rather than be withdrawn, the school should make arrangements to provide the child with sex education during one of those terms.

So is Damian Hinds telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth with regard to his proposals and the European Convention on Human Rights?

Inquiry into sexual violence in schools: my observations, and Pope Francis on the content of school sex education

The Women and Equalities Committee of the UK Parliament recently announced an inquiry into sexual harassment and violence in schools. At the time of the launch of the inquiry, much of the talk in the media coverage was about the need for enhanced sex education to address the issues raised, along with a renewal of the calls to make sex education a statutory requirement in the curriculum of all schools.

1. It is difficult, from the media coverage, to understand exactly the extent of the problem of sexual harassment and assault in schools, particularly incidents that are perpetrated by pupils on other pupils. Police data reported by the BBC after a Freedom of Information Request gave a headline figure of 4 000 alleged assaults and over 600 rape allegations in schools over a three year period, but suggested that only about one fifth of these incidents alleged an offence committed by a pupil. Maria Miller, the Women and Equalities minister was quoted by the BBC as saying that:

.... the evidence [the Women and  Equalities Committee] had heard exposed a "really concerning problem" of "widespread sexual harassment on a regular basis", particularly among young women.

The evidence compiled by the organisation Fixers, at the request of the Committee, in order to support the call for evidence by the Committee, indicated:

Some 18% [of young people in schools] reported being sexually harassed once or more than once and 34% did not feel safe walking to and from school. Some 12% stated they had been sexually assaulted.

Whilst recognising that sexual harassment experienced by young people represents a real issue to which schools should make an appropriate response, I am nevertheless put in mind of the way in which statistics with regard to bullying of LGBT pupils have been cited as justification for programmes that, in effect, give a preferential profile to that form of bullying in schools policy making when other triggers might well be behind many more instances of bullying in schools.  There will clearly be those who will use the data, with a political intent, to deliberately promote the notion of a particular type of statutory sex education curriculum in schools.

2. This report of comments by the General Secretary of the NAHT seems to me to have some potentially sinister implications:

Mr Hobby said: "We don't need you need to make PSHE statutory to make teachers do it, but to protect teachers when they do it, because otherwise they are vulnerable to accusations that they are pursuing a personal agenda.

"We've seen really difficult situations where parents who disagree with the philosophies that are being promoted are saying, 'You're doing this, you're brainwashing our children.'

"It's really helpful for professionals on the ground to be able to say, 'No, this is a duty, it's government regulation, and I am doing this as every school in the country is.'

"By not making statutory, the government is making teachers absorb the controversy when it really should be the government that's strong enough to absorb that."

Should the PSHE curriculum be used to promote "philosophies" that are not those that accord with the parents' wishes? And should the making of PSHE a statutory part of the curriculum be used to defend teachers in promoting such "philosophies"?  

3. It is interesting to read the Fixers report in full, so that you can make of it what it actually is rather than selectively using it to promote a particular notion of sex education. What is interesting to try and judge is whether, anywhere in the report, there is any consistent thread that there are sexual behaviours that can be considered morally wrong. I spotted a couple of points at which a hint of this occurred - but it seems to be something completely outside of the experience of the young people whose views were sought. A second interesting point is that a picture is portrayed in which the focus of concern is not "safe sex" and the like, but the personal and emotional consequences of the young people's sexual culture. It is almost as if the debate has moved on a step. I would also observe that the adoption of the language of "relationship", of "pleasure" from sex, of "consent" as if consent is the only moral determinant in the articulation of proposed actions by the young people already betrays an implicit acceptance of presuppositions that sit behind some of the problems identified by them.

4. In this context, Pope Francis' words on sex education in his recent Exhortation Amoris Laetitia are strikingly prescient (nn.280-286). I quote some parts of this section of the Exhortation below, but do read the whole section. Firstly, the paragraph in which Pope Francis discusses modesty - surely the principle that provides a response to the problem of the sharing of sexualised images highlighted by young people in the Fixers report and more generally:

A sexual education that fosters a healthy sense of modesty has immense value, however much some people nowadays consider modesty a relic of a bygone era. Modesty is a natural means whereby we defend our personal privacy and prevent ourselves from being turned into objects to be used. Without a sense of modesty, affection and sexuality can be reduced to an obsession with genitality and unhealthy behaviours that distort our capacity for love, and with forms of sexual violence that lead to inhuman treatment or cause hurt to others.

Comparing to the Italian translation, which reflects the French in this paragraph, and conveys slightly different nuances, including a stronger sense of objectivity in the way in which modesty protects the interiority of the person:

.....È una difesa naturale della persona che protegge la propria interiorità ed evita di trasformarsi in un puro oggetto. Senza il pudore, possiamo ridurre l’affetto e la sessualità a ossessioni che ci concentrano solo sulla genitalità, su morbosità che deformano la nostra capacità di amare e su diverse forme di violenza sessuale che ci portano ad essere trattati in modo inumano o a danneggiare gli altri.  [... It is a natural defence of the person that protects ones personal interior being and avoids ones becoming a pure object. Without modesty, we can reduce affection and sexuality to obsessions that concentrate only on genitality, on unhealthy behaviours that distort our capacity to love and on different forms of sexual violence that lead us to be treated in an inhuman way or to harm others].

And a second quotation:

Frequently, sex education deals primarily with "protection" through the practice of "safe sex". Such expressions convey a negative attitude towards the natural procreative finality of sexuality, as if an eventual child were an enemy to be protected against. This way of thinking promotes narcissism and aggressivity in place of acceptance. It is always irresponsible to invite adolescents to toy with their bodies and their desires, as if they possessed the maturity, values, mutual commitment and goals proper to marriage. They end up being blithely encouraged to use other persons as an means of fulfilling their needs or limitations. The important thing is to teach them sensitivity to different expressions of love, mutual concern and care, loving respect and deeply meaningful communication. All of these prepare them for an integral and generous gift of self that will be expressed, following a public commitment, in the gift of their bodies. Sexual union in marriage will thus appear as a sign of an all-inclusive commitment, enriched by everything that has preceded it.

And a third:

....Beyond the understandable difficulties which individuals may experience, the young need to be helped to accept their own body as it was created, for “thinking that we enjoy absolute power over our own bodies turns, often subtly, into thinking that we enjoy absolute power over creation… An appreciation of our body as male or female is also necessary for our own self-awareness in an encounter with others different from ourselves. In this way we can joyfully accept the specific gifts of another man or woman, the work of God the Creator, and find mutual enrichment”. Only by losing the fear of being different, can we be freed of self-centredness and self-absorption. Sex education should help young people to accept their own bodies and to avoid the pretension “to cancel out sexual difference because one no longer knows how to deal with it".

 Again the French and Italian convey a nuance at a key point that the English does not quite capture:...."pouvoir se reconnaître soi-même dans la rencontre avec celui qui est different" ...."poter riconoscere se stessi nell’incontro con l’altro diverso da sé" ...... to be able to know oneself in the encounter with the one/the other who is different than ourself. The difference being referred to is clearly that between the male sex and the female sex.

Coming out

For the first time in a number of years I attended my union's annual conference over the Easter holiday. One of the motions debated at Conference, proposed on behalf of the Executive Committee, was the following:

Tackling workplace homophobia, biphobia and transphobia

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

THAT Conference notes a recent YouGov survey revealing that 2.4 million people have witnessed verbal homophobic bullying at work over the past five years and that a further 800,000 people of working age have witnessed physical homophobic bullying at work. Further polling shows that over a quarter of LGBT people are not at all open to colleagues about their sexual orientation.

Conference applauds the establishment of a union-wide network for LGBT members and those who are supportive of LGBT issues, and the keynote speech given by our general secretary at the Stonewall Education Conference. Conference notes the good work being done by ATL to eradicate homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying in the classroom and applauds the Stonewall campaign 'Lots to do' to eradicate homophobic bullying in the workplace.

Conference calls upon the Executive Committee to continue to work with Stonewall, Schools Out, the Forum for Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Equality in Post-School Education and other organisations:

(i) to raise awareness of homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying in the workplace

(ii) to issue guidance on tackling homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying and harassment in the workplace

(iii) to update ATL's guidance on homophobic bullying and its model LGBT equality policy.

The prepared text of my speech opposing the motion is below. The speech as delivered differed in some respects from the prepared text due to the time limit (the aside in italics, for example, was omitted, and the two notes have been inserted for the benefit of readers of this blog). I was the only person to speak against this motion.

“Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family …” 

These are the opening words of the Preamble to the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document that I would commend to the Equality and Diversity Committee in the drafting of future Conference motions. 

I want to draw out an implication of those words “equal”/”universal” and “inalienable”.
The rights articulated in the UN Declaration belong to each and every human person, precisely because of their dignity and worth as a human person – or, in the opening words of the preamble – precisely because of their being a “member of the human family”. 

The rights are equal or universal – that is, they apply to each and every member of the human family without distinction, and without any regard to one characteristic or another that a member of the human family might manifest. 

They are inalienable – that is, they are not to be removed or taken away from any member of the human family on any grounds whatsoever. 

From the principle expressed by these words derives a principle of non-discrimination that applies to the life of peoples, the life of societies and the life of nations. 

And what I want to suggest, Conference, is that the embracing of a vigorous principle of non-discrimination is sufficient to underpin any work that ATL might want to do with regard to workplace bullying in general, and the particular examples of workplace bullying that are the subject of this motion. [Note: cf here the position expressed by Rocco Buttiglione]

My own commitment to that principle of non-discrimination is total and unequivocal. I would argue to the hilt that LGBT communities in countries such as the Russian Federation and Uganda are entitled to the same protections from violence and intimidation as their fellow citizens, protections that should be provided by a rule of law in those countries. I condemn the absence of those protections without qualification. 

However, I am going to vote against this motion today for two reasons. 

Firstly, I do not believe the motion adequately identifies a principle of non-discrimination such as that I have just outlined, and which I believe should be the basis for ATL’s work on equalities. It therefore gives the Executive Committee a blank canvass to continue to align ATL with whatever stance the different organisations named in the motion choose to follow. 

This, and the fact that Conference is being asked for its approval after ATL are already firmly seated at the top tables of those organisations, is not good news for an organisation that prides itself on member led policy making. 

Breaking “the gender binary of male and female” and including the terms “’undecided’ and ‘other’ for those who do not relate to the …essentialist categories of lesbian, gay, bisexual and heterosexual”.  This is the proposal advocated in the Chair’s update in the most recent newsletter of the Forum for sexual orientation and gender identity equality in post-school education.  

 It is not a question of equality; it’s a question of insisting that we all sign up to a particular ideology which gives no objective content to notions of sex and gender.  It is not a question of an equal and inalienable right deriving from the dignity of a human person, but a kind of dictatorship of thought [Note: cf Pope Francis' words preaching at one of his morning Masses] as far as sex and gender are concerned. 

And the reverse intolerance that this involves is shown very clearly by Stonewall’s “Bigot of the Year” award. 

This award was described by a New Statesman column as “offensive and out of date”. That same column describes the intolerance shown towards one of Stonewall’s  award winners, Ruth Davidson,  in 2012. Ms Davidson was booed at the awards ceremony that year for suggesting that Stonewall should drop the “Bigot of the Year” award. 

And as an aside. 

Do not try telling me that the policy expressed in this motion represents “member led” policy. It’s first sentence is, bar a rearrangement of the word order to suit a conference motion, verbatim from a Stonewall press release. 

The figures need to be put into context, too, appalling as any bullying is. The YouGov data (from Nov/Dec 2011 – hardly recent)  is that just 6% of people witnessed verbal homophobic bullying in the workplace, and just 2% physical homophobic bullying, over a 5 year period. It would be interesting to compare these figures to corresponding figures for other forms of workplace bullying, so that we can judge whether or not the attention given to homophobic bullying is proportionate to the genuine needs of ATL members in the workplace. 

As I vote against this motion I make two very clear statements. 

I make a statement that I do not subscribe to the ideology of sex and gender represented by the range of organisations named in the motion and to which this motion indicates ATL’s alignment. I do not believe that this alignment is necessary in order for ATL to maintain a robust policy of non-discrimination with regard to LGBT persons. 

I make a total and unequivocal commitment to the principle of non-discrimination, based on the universal and inalienable nature of the rights that belong to each and every member of the family, rights that belong without regard to one characteristic or another that any such member of the human family might manifest.

 A member of Conference suggested to me afterwards that people saying the kind of things I said in my speech were now in a rather similar position to a gay person ten or twenty years ago.  It is not just a case of "how times have changed", but of just how rapidly they have changed. My own afterthought was to think of my speech as analogous to an LGBT person "coming out" ..... but in the opposite sense.

As I post this, Abbey Roads has a post that is worth reading alongside mine: Something about SSA.

Institutionalising heterophobia?

A recent news story about school Sex and Relationships Education policies from the British Humanist Association, reported by the BBC News website under the headline Schools accused of anti-gay language in sex education, turns out to be pretty much a complete non-story. In many of the cases it would appear the schools involved have either not properly reviewed their policies over recent years, or, in doing so, have simply failed to remove now redundant wording. The BBC headline is somewhat misleading when compared to the BHA's own coverage: BHA identifies 45 schools that continue to have section 28-like policies and UK and Welsh Governments launch investigations into schools with section 28-style policies. The substance of the BHA research can be found in a spreadsheat that can be opened from the links at the bottom of both of the above webpages.

As I have already suggested, most of the cited examples look like nothing more than careless reviewing and/or poor drafting of policies. But a number of the examples of wording cited and criticised by the BHA contain an excruciating irony in the way in which they refer to Section 28. The assertion that "Section 28 does not apply to schools" and therefore "does not prevent the objective discussion of homosexuality in schools" appears several times (eg rows 22, 23 and 27 of the BHA spreadsheet). At the time of the parliamentary debates about the repeal of Section 28, I recall receiving responses to correspondence from my then MP which included briefing material worded in pretty much an identical manner (based, I think, on then current Department for Education guidance)... though, of course, it was still vital for the work of schools that Section 28 be repealed.... work out that contradiction if you can!

Whilst clearly any policy wording that refers to Section 28 and the situation that prevailed before its repeal is now redundant and needs to be removed, there does remain another question arising out of the indications that the relevant Government departments are going to investigate schools that have been highlighted as still having "Section 28 like" wording in their policies. How far will those schools come under pressure to include an explicitly pro-homosexual wording in their policies?

It seems to me that the policy provisions need to balance two distinct considerations.

The provisions of Article 16 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads as follows:

(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

At the time of the promulgation of this declaration, the term "marriage" would have been understood in no other way than as a union of a man and woman and the term "family" would have been understood as referring in the first instance to the unit of husband, wife and children occurring within marriage (though making allowance for other circumstances such as child bearing outside of marriage or adoptive families).  It would be a quite dishonest interpretation of the UN Declaration to interpret it in any other way. So, if the obligation of states who have signed up to the UN Declaration under paragraph 3 of this article is to be fulfilled, a government intervention with regard to school SRE policies cannot overrule a policy which expresses an appropriate preference in favour of heterosexual marriage. [The provisions of Article 12 of the Council of Europe's Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms essentially expresses the right contained in paragraph 1 of Article 16 of the UN Declaration, qualifying it " according to the national laws governing the exercise of this right".]

The second consideration is that expressed in Article 2 of the UN Declaration with regard to the equality of treatment of all people regardless of "other status":

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

and also expressed in the "principle of non-discrimination" of Protocol 12 of the Council of Europe Convention:

1 The enjoyment of any right set forth by law shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status.

2 No one shall be discriminated against by any public authority on any ground such as those mentioned in paragraph 1.

The formulation of these two considerations in terms of the UN Declaration and the Council of Europe Convention seems to me quite compatible with the provisions of the Equality Act - see for example the briefing material on that subject at the website of the Catholic Education Service.  It seems to me that:

It is quite possible for a Governing Body to formulate a Sex and Relationships Education policy that

1..... in its defining of curriculum content, gives an appropriate preference to heterosexual marriage - in its relationship to the bringing to life and caring for children, in its representing the proper intentionality of the male/female physical bodily complentarity, in recognition of the wording of the UN Declaration that "the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society" and in recognition that it remains society's majority experience or reference

2 ..... at one and the same time includes a treatment of non-married family situations and same-sex partnerships in a manner that is accurate and just.

3. ..... in the light of points 1 and 2 contains an appropriate pluralism embracing different points of view, including that in favour of heterosexual marriage and that in favour of same-sex pertnerships, and not imposing a single pro-homosexual perspective

4. ..... that develops an attitude, both on the part of teachers and pupils, that, while not being indifferent to the question of moral right and wrong in this area, is nevertheless non-judgemental and welcoming to those of different life experiences.

[A school whose culture is one in which pupils readily push and shove each other about, in which pupils react in a verbally violent way to any slight, in which pupils regularly have their possessions interfered with by other pupils - that is, a school whose culture includes all the everyday features of bullying and harrassment - will have considerable difficulty in implementing such a policy.  This is not a question about one particular prompt towards bullying of others, but a question about the whole culture of a school environment. The inter-relation of the SRE policy with the work that a school does on bullying seems crucial to enabling different life experiences to be respected.]

If the investigations by Government officials were to challenge a Sex and Relationships Education policy formulated in the terms suggested at points 1-4 above, would it not represent an institutionalisation by the state of heterophobia, under the guise of opposing homophobia?

"Rebranded" sexism? Did the NUT quote Pope Paul VI?

One of the headlines of the teachers union conferences over the Easter period has been an expression of concern at the sexualisation of women and girls: Teachers attack "rebranded" sexism (and see the first sentence, or strapline, "Teachers are warning that young people are being damaged by an over-sexualised culture"). When a closer look is taken at the motions actually proposed for debate, the headline and strapline are not entirely as they appear. The following is part of the motion as proposed at the NUT conference. It is motion 48, and the full motion, along with the amendments put forward, can be found in the final agenda document at this page on the NUT website.

Conference believes that despite the formal, legal, equality that women have won, sexism and inequality are still a huge factor in shaping women’s lives today, and those of the students we teach.  

As educators, teachers are in an ideal position to challenge sexism and gender stereotyping, helping girls and young women to feel confident and secure both academically and socially.  

Conference is deeply concerned about  

1. Attacks on the rights women have fought for, including maternity leave, and the right to make their own choice about abortion; and  

2. The rise of what has become commonly known as ‘raunch culture’ where the old sexism of the past has been rebranded by big business. In particular, the gains of the last 40 years in terms of women’s sexual liberation are being turned back on women and girls in commodified form. Playboy bunnies adorn children’s pencil cases, pole dancing is sold as an ‘empowering’ form of exercise, and the ‘beauty pageants’ of old have become a staple of student union life. The objectification of women’s bodies is playing an ever more horrifying role in society and is having a disastrous effect upon the self-image of girls and young women.

One can readily see an agenda in favour of abortion, the redefining of gender in purely sociological terms and in affirmation of "sexual liberation". Some of the proposed amendments made reference to the role of bisexual women.

The agenda of sexual liberation for women does not directly indicate a commodification of women themselves as sexual objects; seen in its wider context, that liberation has aspects such as justice in the workplace that are not of themselves sexual in nature. However, insofar as that liberation does have aspects that are immediately sexual in nature - and one cannot but see in the reference to "sexual liberation" in the NUT motion a reference to this sexual aspect - the freedom to engage in sexual activity does nevertheless indicate something about the nature of sexual activity on the part of women. They have a freedom to engage in sexual activity, without immediately apparent consequence, and that freedom is seen as the essence of the sexual dimension of their liberation.

There is a reflection of this in the way in which our culture sees men as agents in a freedom of sexual activity, be that with respect to women or with respect to other men.

But for both men and women, though in a much more prominent way for women, this availability to sexual activity that is expressed in our culture of its nature prompts an objectification of the person on the part of others with regard to sexual activity.

The question that has not been explicitly asked in the course of coverage of the teachers union debates is: what is the purpose of sexual activity? What are its ethically just motivations and what is the end towards which it is oriented?

If it is seen as pleasure pure and simple, then we all become sex objects for the other, with women preferentially the subjects of this objectification. There is an unrecognised contradiction in the NUT motion in that it appears to affirm the "sexual liberation" of women whilst condemning the bodily manifestation of the sexual objectification of persons that follows from it.

What does the Catholic mind set bring to this debate? In reverse temporal order, one might think of the purification of eros to become agape of which Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI wrote in Deus Caritas Est.  Love as the pleasure of sexual activity is to be absorbed into the higher love of gift of oneself to and for the other. On a more philosophical plane, one might think of the phenomenological articulation of the idea of integration of the bodily dimensions to the spiritual dimensions of the person indicated in The Acting Person of the future Pope John Paul II. And one might also return to Pope Paul VI who, in Humanae Vitae, indicated the principle of the unity between the ordering towards children and the motivation of affective love in the sexual act - and at the same time gave a prophetic warning of the consequences if that were not observed:

Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.

Or, as the NUT motion put it, in what might almost be a paraphrase of the words of Paul VI:

The objectification of women’s bodies is playing an ever more horrifying role in society and is having a disastrous effect upon the self-image of girls and young women.

Choice?

tigerish waters has posted on Choice?, a post which prompts the following thoughts.

1. When "no choice" really is a choice.

I had reason at a point during the last academic year to enquire of colleagues responsible for PSHE about the evidence that made it vital to teach Year 8 pupils (12-13 years) about "safe sex" in response to the rates of teenage pregnancies in our local authority area. (This claim was made in their e-mailed apology to colleagues about the appearance of condoms around the school, as they were being used in PSHE lessons, asking that we could return any that appeared in our lessons ... It sounds as if our Year 8 were taking the whole thing very seriously - not!). The reply I received was interesting. The staff in the school referred me to the relevant local authority advisory teacher, and to the "minimum expectations" promoted by the local authority for schools, which included this topic in their expectations for Year 8.

Were the PSHE staff really willing to take responsibility for what they taught in the school? Or where they just treating the situation as one of having no choice except that of following local authority curriculum guidance?

I think this is one of those all-too-common situations where people do really have a choice of how to act - but others behave as if they don't, and they therefore do not recognise that they have. It is a situation where a betrayal of the idea of conscience takes place without anyone noticing.

2. Choice or freedom?

tigerish waters gives an example of a friend of hers who made a choice for abortion, and the advice that she received from an enclosed nun to indicate that this was not a matter open to choice. Now, clearly, just as a matter of freedom, the friend was able to choose to undergo an abortion and she could have chosen not to do so. The law in the UK, and the willingness of medical practitioners to carry out the relevant procedures, makes that freedom one that can be readily exercised. The enclosed nun, in saying that this is not a matter for choice, is indicating that the choosing of an abortion is never going to be a morally just choice.

In both the case of abortion, and the case of the PSHE teachers mentioned above, perhaps the key question is one of the circumscribing of the freedom that should properly belong to the person involved. What in every day experience would be expressed as "having no choice" is actually a failure to recognise the freedom proper to the person (on the part of the person themselves) and an attempt, undertaken more or less consciously, to suppress that freedom on the part of others (the local authority in the case of  our PSHE teachers).

3. The first principle of natural law: that good should be done and evil avoided

tigerish waters suggests that an ethical methodology based on a concept of choices (or of "ethical dilemmas") is not a correct methodology. If we argue the case for the freedom of the person in the face of their deciding upon a course of action, then we are insisting that the person is able to choose how they act. But where the "ethical dilemmas" approach might suggest that one choice is as equally legitimate as another - that it is a matter of choice in the wrong sense of the word - insisting on the freedom of the person goes hand in hand with the idea that there is a morally just course of action that can be followed and that other courses of action are not morally just.

It can be expressed as the first principle of natural law, but it could also be argued as being part of the common heritage of the human race: in our chosen courses of action, what is good is what should be done and what is evil is what should be avoided. It is perhaps ironic that both those who in practice deny their own freedom - we have to follow "guidance" - and those who advocate an ethics of "choices" fail to live up to this first principle of natural law.

Is the whole question of "choices" therefore, at heart, a question of recognising the existence of good and evil, and of recognising the first principle of natural law though one might not frame it in such language? And does it not manifest too often in the ordinary lives of many individuals an indifference before good and evil? And, in a small number of cases, in a deliberate choice for evil?

4. An afterthought

Does our society not believe that it is good that should be done and evil avoided?


In the context of inter-religious dialogue, it is not unusual to identify the "golden rule" (treat your neighbour as you would want to be treated yourself) as representing a commonality across all religions. This commonality can also reach to those of no religious faith.

Perhaps we should recognise the first principle of natural law as representing a similar commonality across religions, seek to give this a prominence in inter-religious dialogue.

I agree with Rita

I am inclined to agree with what Rita says here. I would perhaps further develop her thought that our Catholic schools are not Catholic in the true sense from the point of view of their educational practice. If Catholic education aims to promote a "synthesis of culture and faith" then all the different areas of the curriculum should be drawn into and presented from the point of view of a Catholic synthesis. This does not mean dogma is taught as science; it does mean that the science lesson relates to the Catholic vision of science. It does not mean Catholic doctrine is taught without any critical analysis or debate with other cultures or with scientific knowledge - that encounter and element of debate is of the essence of building a synthesis of culture and faith and therefore of Catholic schooling seen as an educational enterprise. In the context of sex education, it means that biology needs to be taught in synthesis with the philosophy of the human action, with ethics and with teaching about marriage as covenant and sacrament. In the language of John Paul II, the action of the person integrates the levels of the body with those of the spirit and of eternal life; in the language of Pope Benedict XVI, eros is purified to become agape. My experience suggests that, rather than a synthetic, cross-curricular vision that this requires, most Catholic schools teach their science lessons in this corner and their religious education in the opposite corner, and ne-er the two shall meet. However orthodox the teaching in religious education, it ain't goin' to work if it ain't applied in the science lesson, if the two pull in opposite directions. To put it another way: Catholic schools generally do not have science teachers who are sufficiently qualified and formed in the art of religious education, and vice versa, to effectively deliver sex education in an orthodox and pastorally effective manner.

The text of the letter quoted in this post is of interest, too, though I am not sure the gloss given to it is completely fair.

I feel sorry for Ed Balls and, in his shadow, Vernon Coaker. They seem to have said one thing to one constituency and a different thing to another constituency.  And then sprung it on the unsuspecting public via an amendment tabled at Commons Third Reading - how cheeky was that!

This is not made up

This is a quick courtesy email to let you know that as part of their Sex & Relationships Education, Year 8  are having lessons this week on Contraception. This includes teaching about safe and responsible condom use, which is vital in the context of teenage pregnancy statistics in the Borough

The PDC dept will, of course, make every effort to ensure that all condoms remain in the PDC classroom. However you will appreciate that it is impossible to be sure of this with classes of around 32 students. I am aware that a condom made it to the playground today (!!) and I wanted to take this opportunity to apologise if any find their way into your lessons.

If you see any students with condoms outside of their PDC lessons we would be grateful for your support by either dealing with them appropriately or referring them to the nearest PDC teacher!

PDC translates as Personal Development Curriculum. Year 8 are ages 12-13 years. Text above is verbatim and complete, and dates from Tuesday of this week.

We don't want product placement - unless its for condoms

I have been encouraged recently to sign up to a campaign against the government's proposals to allow product placement in television programmes. The context has been that of food products, the concern being that unhealthy food products intended for children might well be the object of product placement. Signatories to this campaign so far include at least two teacher trade unions, including the one to which I belong. The "take action" page, at which you can sign up to show your opposition to product placement is here.

I quote from the letter which you can sign and send from this action page, and which the teacher unions have effectively signed:

I am particularly concerned that product placement breaches the principle that advertising should be clearly recognised as such, and distinguishable from editorial content. It is important that people know when they are being advertised to, and parents are able to recognise advertising and protect their children from it. With product placement, marketing goes on behind parents' backs.

I fear that teachers are in danger of applying a glaring double standard here. Sex education has increasingly, and, with recent developments will continue doing so, promoted condom use and distribution, along with  readiness of access to "sexual health services" (see below). The access to services is de facto confidential and therefore done without parental knowledge. If this is not product placement I don't know what is. It is clearly advertising of particular services, not distinguished from educational/editorial content, and done behind parents' backs. [As the BBC (but not schools) would say, "other services are available" - but they are not mentioned or included in lists of agencies.]

"Sexual health services" is an all inclusive euphemism. The agencies involved include referral for abortion and contraceptive services in their portfolio [if any agencies wish to deny this, comments welcome and they will be posted]. These services are not distinguished from such services as screening for and treatment of sexually transmitted infections, though they are of course very different in nature.

It is increasingly difficult in a state school not to feel that you are complicit in a "product placement" of contraceptive and abortion services.

My trade union to oppose Government proposals on sex education?

The General Secretary of my trade union has a little paragraph in The Times today - utterly illogical and rather muddled it is, to say the least. I rather suspect that the leaders of other teacher unions were a bit more savvy than she was, and did not let themselves get drawn in to commenting.

With one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in Europe, whatever we are doing at the moment we are not doing well. We have got to stop being Janus headed about this and grow up as we expect young people to grow up. We can't infantalise them and then expect them to behave responsibly.

So, I assume that my trade union is now going to advocate a change of strategy ... and not just "more of the same" sponsored by those with vested interests.

It is also interesting to note that The Times is reporting a Catholic Education Service spokeswoman as saying that they are "disappointed" with the removal of the total right of withdrawal- yesterday's spin by Ed Balls might well have been claiming a level of support from the CES that was not justified. There is some relief that the right of withdrawal will remain until age 15 - and, if the CES expressed some welcome of that in the context of removal of the absolute right of withdrawal, one has some understanding of what they were saying.

James Preece, alongside my General Secretary, does a rather better job of arguing for the parental role on this matter.

Child protection - necessary, but not an excuse for unwarranted state intervention

This last week has seen the news that another child known to social services in the London Borough of Haringay has suffered horrific abuse. One should not hide the horrific nature of the abuse itself, and that it is the man who has now been convicted of the offence involved who is primarily responsible for that abuse.

Much of the media comment, however, has centred on the fact that Haringay's social services have, once again, failed to protect a child who was on their "at risk" register, and towards whom therefore the local authority's social service teams had a particular responsibility of care.

Lord Laming conducted an inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbie in 2000, an inquiry which has led to a complete re-structure of local authority services - the Every Child Matters agenda. These are now structured to have a single Children's Services Department, which includes what were formerly separate Education departments and Children's social work departments (within the social services department of the authority). Local Safeguarding Committees now exist, on which are represented all those likely to have a part in the care of children - health services, education services, police, social workers. The whole intention is to achieve the sort of communication between different agencies that was not there for Victoria Climbie. Local authorities, through their Children's Services departments, now have a statutory responsibility to safeguard children in their areas from abuse.

According to the report on the Timesonline website:

Lord Laming, who conducted an inquiry in to the death of abuse victim Victoria Climbie, eight, in Haringey in 2000, said on Radio 4 it was ‘dispiriting’ that some child protection services were still not working.

There is another side to the new child protection environment. That is what happens when professional staff who work with children, and sometimes parents, face an allegation that turns out to be unfounded. Careers can be blighted, and the confidence of perfectly competent/safe staff and parents destroyed.

1. The structural changes undertaken after the Victoria Climbie inquiry (and I am not suggesting that changes were not necessary) appear to me to have an underlying flaw. The changes have brought into existence a system that applies to all children - including those who may not be on an "at risk" register - by virtue of the obligation placed on local authorities to safeguard children in their areas. But the structures are designed to respond to the situation of children who are at risk. The element of injustice towards those who face an allegation that turns out to be unfounded therefore seems to me to be in-built. This issue is becoming an increasing concern for teacher trade unions, and the associations of other professionals involved in the care of children.

2. An unfortunate effect of the present child protection environment is an erosion of trust. Certainly care has to be taken that the idea of trust is not used to avoid pursuing enquiries when there is a good reason to do so. On the other hand, what also needs to be avoided is the opposite - where suspicion becomes the presumption, not just in casework where it might be justifiable in appropriate circumstances, but in one's general attitude and policy. This element of suspicion is what can lead to unfounded allegations.

3. From the point of view of Catholic social teaching, it is parents who have the first responsibility to care for their children. The allocation of a statutory duty to safeguard all children to the local authority conflicts with this. The role of the local authority should come in to play when there is a need to support parents in fulfilling what is essentially the parents' responsibility; or in situations where the parents are unable to fulfil the responsibility at all, in which case the local authority can quite rightly step in to take on that responsibility completely by taking a child into care. Those more expert in children's social services might know more about this than I do, but my impression is that local authority social services are only really stepping in when they have a statutory duty to do so; they are not able to offer what might be called "non-statutory" support. In this context, I am rather wary of Lord Laming's observation, in the Timesonline report, that:

I believe that the state should become a responsible and effective parent to more children.

To be fair to Lord Laming, he does go on to recognise that this should not mean a swing to an opposite extreme of children being "snatched away" in ever increasing numbers, and he is referring to children identified as being at risk. But it is the relatively easy reference to the state as a parent that I find worrying. I would not like this latest incident, and Lord Laming's remarks, to give a justification to the state taking to itself greater parental responsibility for all children.

4. Running alongside this question of child protection are the questions of Sex and Relationships Education and societal/political attitudes towards marriage. I am not in principle opposed to the provision of Sex and Relationships Education in schools - in the context of Catholic social teaching, this is one aspect of the part that a school can play in collaborating with parents in the education of their children. However, when, in practice, that provision lacks any real choice of programme and resources and becomes a mechanism for imposing in schools one, single form of provision, primarily through the preferential funding and support of a small core of suppliers - then we have an imposition by the state. The state is in effect taking over a responsibility for this area of parenting. I would also want to argue that the duty to safeguard children would be very well served by the promotion and protection of marriage in wider society - and in Sex and Relationships Education in schools. This is not to say that no abuse of children occurs in families where the parents are married, or that I think a couple must stay together where there is domestic violence of one form or another. But the inherent increased stability of most married relationships should help the overall situation. But, of course, this is not on the public agenda. I have yet to see any recognition that these are issues relevant to that of child protection. The provision of contraceptive and abortion advice, and making as easy as possible access to those services, for young people under 16 seems to me a major question for child protection. If the proportion of pregnancies ending in abortion is higher for under-16's than for other age ranges, one is entitled to ask about the nature of the guidance being offered to those children, again a question for child protection.

4. Legislation might impose an obligation on local authorities to safeguard all the children in their area. But is this a bit like to trying to say that the sky is green? [Well, for us physicists, there is a phenomenon called the "green flash", but let's leave that aside!] A local authority can try its best, and take actions to help safeguard children in general and respond to individual cases - but is that the obligation to safeguard all children a realisable obligation?

5. Finally! So far as I can see, failings in child protection come down to failings in the work of those involved. And the last week's events seem to suggest that this is the case now as much as it was before the changes following Lord Lamings inquiry into the Victoria Climbie case.

Real sources of anti-Catholic discrimination

Recent days have seen a plethora of coverage of attempts to remove what, if the coverage is to be believed, is the discriminaton that most hurts and offends Catholics in the UK. I refer to the private members bill, defeated on Friday in the House of Commons, and to Prime Minister Gordon Brown's discussions with the Queen, about changing the law to allow the monarch to marry a Roman Catholic. The BBC news report of these events is here.

The MP who proposed the private members bill, Dr Evan Harris, is in other respects not a friend of Catholic teaching. His own website reports his efforts to make access to abortion easier, his support for making assisted suicide easier (also here), and it also suggests an anti-religious intent to his private members bill.

But are ordinary Catholics really bothered by the thought that the King or Queen of England would have to forfeit their right to the crown if they were to marry a Roman Catholic?

Frankly, I don't think they can be bovvered. What ever.

It is a discrimination, if one wants to use the term, that affects fewer Catholics than one can count on the fingers of one hand. And, should the monarch's husband or wife be a Catholic, it would have the potential only to embarrass other Catholics if it were to lead to public compromises of Catholic teaching.

There are much more real instances of indirect discrimination against Catholics that do affect a significant number:

1. Can a Catholic, faithful to the teaching of the Church, get a job as a year head in a state school, where they will be expected to manage a sex education programme that promotes contraception and, at best, remains indifferent to abortion, where they will be complicit in the referral of girls from the school for abortion?

2. Can Catholics, faithful to the teaching of the Church, progress in the fields of obstetrics and gynaecology in the NHS?

3. How do Catholic GPs, nurses and midwives fare when, after child birth, it is expected that they will offer advice to their patients on methods of contraception?

4. How do Catholic nurses and doctors fare with regard to the care of patients living out the last days of their lives under regimes such as the Liverpool Care Pathway, which do not make adequate provision for nutrition and hydration?

These are real discriminations that affect ordinary Catholics in their every day lives. I wonder what Dr Evan Harris wants to do about these?

Not unrelated to this question is the article "Conscience coercion: from Sacred to Curious" by Elizabeth Lev over at ZENIT.

UPDATE: see the partial re-post and comments at Fr Ray's blog.

UK: compulsory sex education ages 5-16

The BBC News website report of today's announcement that Sex and Relationships Education is to be made compulsory in state schools from age 5 to age 16 can be found here. The reporting today suggests that, though a statutory programme of study will be prepared, schools with a religious character will be able to teach it in a way that accords with their faith beliefs. Parents' right to withdraw their children from the sex education provision looks as if it will remain, despite the statutory programme of study.

But, some questions remain:

1. How will the tension between a statutory programme of study (not yet determined or published) and talk of respecting each schools own ethos and parental context be resolved? This is particularly pertinent to schools with a religious character. Will the programme of study be sufficiently widely framed to allow such schools to teach it without contradicting the teaching of their faith?

2. Will non-statutory guidance that may well accompany the programme of study become the key determinant of what most schools actually do? And who will write such guidance? And will particular resources be supplied/promoted to schools in preference over others?

3. Will teachers who do not wish to teach the programme of study, or parts of the programme of study, out of conscientious objection have their conscientious objection respected?

4. How far will governors of schools actually exercise their responsibility for the curriculum in their schools, and resist a programme that does not accord with their ethos? Or will they just "toe the line" and follow "the guidance", which will not be statutory anyway?

5. And there is the problem of the word "relationships". Will schools that wish to do so be allowed to talk about marriage between one man and one woman as the appropriate context for sexual relationship? Or will the question of marriage be avoided?

At one time, I suspect that the world of education would have been horrified by the idea that central government should determine the curriculum of all state schools. The introduction of the National Curriculum in 1988, and the subsequent accomodation of teachers to that regime, seems to have broken down this taboo.

But it is quite a thought, isn't it. The Department for Children, Schools and Family is who will determine what is taught in state schools about sexuality.

A "journey of sexual discovery" and shame

I have read the Telegraph today instead of the Times, and two items caught my attention.

Under the headline "Channel 4 teen sex series in morning", the newspaper reports on a sex education series to be broadcast by Channel 4 in November. Searching the schedules of Channel 4 Learning, this is going to be a series of short 5-10 minute programmes intended for use in PSHE teaching programmes in schools. The show is entitled KNTV Sex, and I believe it has/is being produced for Channel 4 Learning by a company called Tern TV.

Two things struck me about the Telegraph report and the (limited) information I could see about the programmes in a web search. One is the un-real nature of the presentation -cartoon figures Kierky and Nietsche (drawn from an earlier Tern TV series on philosophy - get it?) set in a fictional "last remaining communist state" of Slabovia, comedy footage from television shows. It looks as if human sexuality will be treated as a bit of a joke, communicating a certain gap between the messages the programme series is trying to get over and consequences in the real lives of young people.

The second is the description of the series as a "journey of sexual discovery" (quotation marks in the Telegraph report, so, presuming the professionalism of the journalist concerned, taken verbatim from Channel 4 or Tern TV's own blurb/news release - though I couldn't find anything directly to check this out), and the statement that the series will discuss different ways of having sex, bisexuality and "coming out". In other words, an intention, not just to communicate information and then leave young people to make up their own minds, but to develop and form a particular immoral view of sexual activity. I use the word "immoral" advisedly - the reporting of the programme gives no indication that there is any right or wrong at stake ... And given the participation of THT and SEF in preparing the materials, we aren't surprised.

In the comment section of the paper, Liz Hunt has a short piece entitled "Have we no shame?" The photo accompanying the piece illustrates precisely what shame (in the good sense) is not: it is not humiliation, and definitely not public humiliation. Liz Hunt's context is not that of human sexuality, but rather of situations where celebrities have found themselves undertaking community service orders for offences. One of the chapters of Pope John Paul II's book Love and Responsibility that I have always found very striking is that entitled "The Metaphysics of Shame". There is a perfectly correct and healthy way in which we should be ashamed - as a judgement of conscience when we do something wrong - and have a preference that what we have done does not become public knowledge. The seal of the confessional has always occured to me as a way of respecting this legitimate character of shame after sin. On the other hand, shame does have a public character in the sense that what is seen by society as shameful and to be frowned upon acts as an incentive towards moral behaviour, towards behaviour that will not lead to an experience of shame. [Aside: imagine how smokers feel these days!]

Now, have Channel 4 and Tern TV and their collaborators lost their sense of shame?