Identity-based harm: Building understanding & capacity
Identity-based harm: Building understanding & capacity
Identity-based harm: Building understanding & capacity

 

Leila Holmyard

 


By Leila Holmyard, CIS Affiliated Consultant for Safeguarding and Child Protection

 

 

Historically, international schools have used words like discrimination or harassment to describe identity-based harm or specific terms such as racism or homophobia. In 2022, identity-based harm was proposed by Alysa Pererras and Dr Emily Meadows as an encompassing term for abuse and harm that targets people’s identities.

While identity-based harm can affect anyone, some members of our international school community are especially vulnerable, such as those who are part of a historically marginalised group.

The following definition of identity-based harm can be adapted for your school’s context.

A CIS graphic promoting the Child Protection Deep Dive Workshop in 2024 on Peer on Peer Abuse

The term identity-based harm describes harmful or abusive behaviours targeted at people's personal identities, such as ethnicity, gender identity, physical and mental health, neurodiversity, race, religion and sexual orientation. Identity-based harm can manifest in many forms, including, but not limited to, microaggressions, hate speech, online harassment, peer-on-peer abuse, physical violence, and social exclusion.

 

This 2022 blog on identity-based harm fits within a wider movement in the international school community to promote equity and inclusion. It also connects deeply to the International Taskforce on Child Protection and CIS’ commitment to safeguarding and child protection—this intersection is illustrated by the Venn diagram below.

A black and white graphic of a Venn diagram showing the intersection of child protection and identity-based harm

Dr Katie Rigg, CIS Director of Higher Education Services and Student Well-being, and I both conducted research related to this point of intersection and found that international school students reported a high prevalence of identity-based harm (Rigg, 2023; Holmyard, 2023).

Students in Katie’s study shared experiences of discrimination and harassment based on nationality, ethnicity and language. The students identified hierarchies of nationalities creating unequal power dynamics and harm towards students with perceived ‘low power’ nationalities.

They also reported conflicts between students based on geopolitical tensions, as well as the use of languages not spoken by teachers to verbally abuse students.

In my research, students from three international schools described various forms of identity-based harm, with some example quotes below from middle and high school students:

‘Uh, like people at school say [Arabic phrase] as a joke. Just in general. They kick a football or something and say it as a joke, which is not funny.’

‘I've seen some people make fun of others’ languages, they try to, like, talk, they make fun of their, like, they over exaggerate how it is, just to make it, like, as a joke and it's not funny because it's, like, where they're from, their culture, their language.;

‘I have seen examples of students posting things online and saying things online that could be deemed as very anti-Semitic or very racist.’

‘A couple of weeks ago, one of my friends got called, like, a homophobic slur’

‘[A video of a student] was kind of racist, like, in my opinion, because, like, I don't know, the [person] was Black, and they put, like, [racist editing of video] or something.’

Our research supports other studies which have found that the mere presence of diversity in an international school does not automatically create a culture of equality and international mindedness (Fedorowicz, 2022).

Katie’s work indicates that increasing awareness of sensitive topics may reduce harm by helping students to better identify and report it, and adults more confident to recognise and tackle it.

 

A photo of a girl leaning against a locker with peers behind her

 

We also both found examples of where students speaking up to challenge identity-based harm resulted in a reduction of harmful behaviour, as illustrated by this quote from one high school student in my study:

‘Any sort of, like, homophobia, transphobia is just not really tolerated [by students] in our grade, at all. If you're gonna be like that, then shut up.’

This speaks to the value of student advocacy in interrupting harmful peer dynamics and setting norms.

However, other students in my study expressed concern that this approach could simply stop the harm happening overtly but would not change mindsets, as the high school student shares here:

‘I think it's pretty undoubtable that quite a large part of the student body do hold misogynistic, and maybe racist ideas. But I think that they don't want to express that within the school openly because they feel that they may be judged or singled out for those, for those ideas. But I think that they do still exist within the student body, even though they may not always come into this school.’

This student felt that a way of reducing identity-based harm could be to leverage diversity in the community and engage students in more meaningful dialogue on contentious or divisive issues.

They felt that suppressing diverse perspectives (such as conservative viewpoints) was more harmful in the long term because it stopped people from engaging in critical thinking.

In today’s challenging global environment, it seems schools must both set clear boundaries for expected conduct and also provide opportunities for discourse and dialogue on complex topics.

International schools may approach this in a variety of ways, including through the curriculum. For example, using the Learning for Justice standards, and engaging with restorative practices.

From a safeguarding perspective, there are some actions schools can take within their child protection policies and procedures to begin to address identity-based harm.

These include:

Identity-based harm is a complex and multi-faceted topic. To explore it further, CIS has invited community members to share their perspectives on identity-based harm in international school communities and ideas for how we might reduce its prevalence.

We’ll share what we learn, and we look forward to reading and learning together. If you work in a CIS member school and would like to share your school’s practices in this area, please contact danfurness@cois.org

 

 

Related content:

Identity-based harm: Building understanding & capacity
  • Child protection
  • Diversity (I-DEA)
  • Student well-being
Identity-based harm: Building understanding & capacity