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The Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) has noted that a higher percentage of black and minority ethnic (BME) students fail or take longer to complete their social work degrees, compared with the white majority student population. In response to this and related evidence, a national study was carried out in 2013 to explore this phenomenon and ways to support BME students in social work education in Scotland. BME students from five Scottish universities were interviewed, along with lecturers from six Scottish Universities, and practice educators from around Scotland. The background to the study is discussed and a review of the literature on race, whiteness, diversity and a strengths-based perspective is provided. The methodology of the study is explained, followed by a presentation of some of the key findings covering the themes of cultural difference, discrimination and valuing student strengths. To prepare social work students to practice in a culturally diverse and culturally aware workforce the paper argues for framing of social work education within a strengths-based perspective, of valuing diversity and other knowledges and for this approach to be embedded within a critique of both race and whiteness. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a close reading of the reports of racial oppression that appeared in issues of two periodicals, Anti-Caste and its successor Fraternity, between 1888 and 1895. Edited in Street, Somerset, these periodicals created an extensive political geographical imagination by mapping international cases of racial prejudice. Although critical of the British empire, neither Anti-Caste nor Fraternity demanded the destruction of the British empire. In a tactic similar to that used by early Pan-Africanists, the papers' narratives desired an end to the expansion of the British empire and an increase in the respect for and conditions of those who were ruled 'under the British Flag'. However, Anti-Caste's focus upon racial inequality across the United States as well as the British empire enabled it to create a distinctive critique of racial prejudice across the English-speaking world. Its criticism of the imperial project combined with support for human brotherhood allowed the paper to develop a framework for debates on racial prejudice that drew together criticisms of labour laws in India, the removal of people from their lands in Southern Africa, the racial segregation of public transport in the United States and the restriction of Chinese labour in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]