Lesson video

Hi, I'm Mr Amott, and welcome to lesson five of six in the scheme of work called, are people treated equally in UK society? Today's lesson is all about how far have we made progress on equality in the UK? All you need for today's lesson is a pen, a paper, and somewhere quiet work.

There's also a worksheet attached to today's lesson, which is really, really important.

There's lots of video clips that are attached to some of the tasks.

The lesson today, we're going to look at some areas around sexual orientation and discrimination.

This is quite sensitive subject, so it might be a good idea to talk to a trusted adult before you started today's lesson, or have a trusted adult nearby.

So I'm just going to give you a moment or two just to pause the video and get all of that ready and then we'll make a start.

So what we're going to look at in this lesson is we're going to look at what types of inequality exists in UK society? We're going to look at two case studies, one about disability, and one about sexual orientation.

As I just mentioned, the case about sexual orientation is an incredibly sensitive topic area, and it involves somebody being incredibly discriminated against because of their sexual orientation, and then that person eventually took their own life.

As I've just mentioned, it'll give very good idea to talk to a trusted adult before we go any further in state's lesson or have a trusted adult near by, okay? We're also going to look at how far have we made progress towards equality in the UK? So let's make a start.

So is discrimination still happening? That's the first thing that we're going to look at.

So first task is, what types of inequality are you aware of in the UK? So what I'd like you to do is complete a mind map.

So pause this video, complete the mind map about all the different types of inequality that you are aware of.

Excellent.

So hopefully you've had a really good go at doing that task.

So these are the answers I got.

So types of inequality can be based around disability, ageism, racism, and sexism.

You might even have some more like xenophobia, so inequality and treat people differently from the country they've come from and things like that.

Those are just a few examples there, just to get you thinking about today's lesson.

So that leads us straight into the next patch.

I have two things I want you to take notes on is two ways in which the UK has become fairer and two ways there is still inequality in the UK.

Brilliant.

So hopefully you've gone and watched the video and you've got the similar notes too what I've got here.

So feedback is for the first question.

There's more people in work, there's better education, and there's more people engaging in politics.

Okay? Also, the challenges for disabled people are increasing.

For example, disabled children not able to access mainstream school, disabled people more late and live in poverty.

Some ethnic minority groups are falling behind in living standards and health.

For example, half of British Pakistani, British Bangladeshi, and British black African children live in poverty.

Okay, so some really interesting and quite shocking statistics there.

Okay, so the first one we're going to look for, we're going to look at now our next case study is disability discrimination.

Okay, so disabled people are significantly more likely to experience unfair treatment at work than non-disabled people.

In 2008, 19% of disabled people experienced unfair treatment to work, compared to 13% of non-disabled people.

Around a third of disabled people experienced difficulties related to their impairment in accessing public, commercial, and leisure goods and services.

And that leads into another task with Adi talking about what happened with him.

How did Adi use the law to protect his rights? I've got a condition called Retinitis Pigmentosa.

So as I get older, the cells on my retina, in my eye, slowly stop working, which means I slowly stopped seeing.

I could see perfectly well till I was about 12 years old.

And then from the age of 12 to 19, I lost about 95% of my vision.

And so it would be quite difficult when we'd be out with our dad, you know, we'd be walking and I wouldn't see the stairs and I'd be halfway down the stairs, you know, bouncing on my heels, and my dad would be like, oh, son there's steps here, yes.

Being blind has had a big impact on my life.

There was an incident when I was at university where I applied for a job on the campus, it was a call centre job, and I did this telephone interview and it went really well, they liked me over the phone, they liked reading my CV, and when I turned up for the face-to-face interview, there was this silence.

And the first thing the interviewer said was if I had known you were blind, you wouldn't have come this far.

And I was absolutely shocked and I couldn't understand what his problem was.

In those situations it's important to have the Disability Discrimination Act, and I used it with that person at university, and there was some action taken against that organisation.

I knew that people couldn't justify putting up barriers because we had the Disability Discrimination Act.

So as I think more and more over time, people became aware of the importance of not discriminating against people with disabilities.

And I think a major reason for that was there was something we could point them to.

I talked to people, you know, if someone says you can't do this, I say, why not? And we have a conversation, and I feel a lot of the times people aren't being mean, they just don't understand how someone blind can do what they can do.

So a lot of the time I'm educating people, opening their eyes, it's quite ironic, it's almost like they're blind to my blindness.

In situations where I've explained myself, I've explained how things can be done for someone who's blind.

However, if the other person, like the organisation, doesn't want to accept it, that's when the law is really important.

Some really interesting notes and some really interesting things about what Adi talked about.

And I found that really, really interesting.

So we're going to look at another case study now on discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

As I've already told you, the text and the content of this is incredibly sensitive.

So if you've not already done so, go and talk to a trusted adult or make sure a trusted adult is nearby before we go any further, because this case study, the person involved, ends up taking their own life.

So it might be an issue to talk to a trusted adult about before we go any further.

How has the law change to help society deal with the complex problem of discrimination? And that person that is coring case Alan Turing.

Alan Turing is and English computer scientist and mathematician, arguably pretty much a hero, seen as a hero in Britain because he's one of the first computer scientists, and a lot of the things he did about coding is still used today.

During the Second World War, he worked for the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, which was Britain's code breaking centre.

Okay? He played a pivotal role in cracking incepted coded messages that enabled the Allies to defeat and Nazis in many critical engagements.

It was estimated that his work shortened the war in Europe by more than two years and saved over 14 million lives.

So you look at what he achieved really, really impressive, a hero, heroic what he did.

There's not really any other word to say.

And the amount of lives he said, the amount of work and things that he did was, is fantastic.

So what happened to him after the Second World War is the bit that we're going to look at.

So Alan Turing was gay.

Okay, and in 1952, he was prosecuted for having a same sex relationship.

Because at that time it was still a criminal act.

He accepted the treatment of chemical castration as an alternative to prison.

And he died just before his 42nd birthday when took his own life.

Okay? He family campaigned to overturn his prosecution, but that took until 2013 for him to be pardoned, okay? And the pardon he was given is a pardon that he was given after his death, and they're quite rare.

But that took a long time to happen.

So how has law in the UK changed to try and remove this form of discrimination from society? And this is really important and we're going to use this in a task later.

So you might want to take some notes here or just make a note of the time so you can go back a little bit in a sec.

So, we're going to look, I'll go through all of these.

So there's the Sexual Offences Act, 1967, which decriminalised homosexual acts in private between two men if they're both over 20.

There's the Human Rights Act, 1998, which brought the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law, and this paved the way for the Gender Recognition Act, 2004, which included the right to private and family life for the first time and gave legal recognitions to trans people.

There the Marriage Act, which is legalised same sex marriage in 2013.

There was the Adoption Children Act in 2002, which removed the criteria of an application that's been made by a married couple and which allowed single people and homosexual people to apply.

There was the Civil Partnership Act in 2004, which allowed same-sex couples to obtain essentially the same rights and responsibilities as civil marriage.

For example, property, pension benefits, and the ability to get parental responsibility for a partners children.

There's Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994, which lowered the age of consent for gay men from 21 to 18, and in 2001 it was lowered 16.

Why is 16 significant? Let's give you a second to think about that.

Okay, 16 was significant because that is the same age as heterosexual acts.

So it made it completely equal and made it to same.

Okay, in 2013 Alan Turing was posthumously pardoned, this means he was pardoned after he died, okay? In 2017, a new law came into force.

It was referred to as the Allen Turing law, it's official name is the Policing and Criminal Crime, sorry about that, apologies about that, it's official name is the Policing and Crime Bill, It acts as an apology for all those convicted of consensual same sex relationships before homosexuality was decriminalised in England and Wales in 1967.

This means that men who weren't cleared of those offences have now been cleared.

And then, we've talked about this a lot, but then there's the Equality Act, 2010, which identified social orientation as a protected characteristic group.

So people are protected against that discrimination.

As I said at the start, you're going to use this in the next task, so it might be important to maybe make a note of these things now.

So what I would have liked you to is using the statements that we've just looked at, complete a living graph.

Show how far the law has changed to protect the rights of the LGBT community.

Okay, so need to think about are they positive changes? Are they negative changes? And use all those statements that we've just looked at and plot them along this craft.

So just to give you an example, I've added the Equality Act, 2010, towards the top of my living graph, as it was a very positive change.

That sexual orientation is now a protected characteristic.

So what I'd like you to do is just pause the video and try and plot all of those changes on here.

Fantastic, so hopefully you've had a good at doing that task, it's quite a tricky task, and hope you'd be able to use that task into the final task.

So the last task I want you to do is what change on your living graph do you feel is the most important? And I want you to explain why, okay? So why did you think that's most important? There's a bit of a challenge question here as well.

So do you think the LGBTQ+ community in the UK are now treated equally? What is your evidence? You might be able to use these hints, which is Human Rights, the pardon for Alan Turing, and law on same sex marriage.

And just to give you a little bit of a help on that one, how has the law helped reduce discrimination for LGBTQ people in the UK? Some sentence starters here for you, if you feel like you need it.

Some sentence starter could be, the law has helped society deal with the discrimination of.

In the past the law was.

Changes that have been made include.

This has resulted in, and the impact of these changes.

A bit of a hint there at the bottom for you, include Alan Turing in your answer and at least one law that shows changes that have been made to the law in the UK.

So again, if you need the sentence starter, just make a note of it.

Here are the two questions for you, so what I would like you to do is pause the video here and have a go answering those for me.

But there are the two questions and there are some scaffolding for you.

So just pause the video here now.

Great, so hopefully you've had a good go at completing that task.

So this is the feedback.

So, from my living graph, I would choose the equality act 2010.

This is because from this point onwards sexual orientation became a protected characteristic in the UK and LGBTQ+ people are now offered protection from discrimination.

Okay, the second one is, I feel the LGBTQ plus community are now treated more equally in the UK.

The laws have changed significantly over time to give LGBTQ+ people greater rights and protection.

For example, the Human Rights Act, 1998, paved the way for the Gender Recognition Act in 2004, which included the right to private and family life, and for the first time gave legal recognition to trans people.

This further led to same-sex couples obtaining essentially the same rights and responsibilities as a civil marriage with the Civil Partnership Act.

Hopefully you've had a good go at the task, it's quite tricky task.

Great that takes us to the end of today's lesson.

So what we've looked at today, right at the start we looked at what types of inequality exist in the UK today? We looked at some examples, hopefully you might be able to identify a few more.

We looked at two case studies, we looked at disability and we looked at sexual orientation.

We looked at how far have we made progress towards equality in the UK? So we've looked at lots of the laws trying to make sexual orientation equal in the UK.

That brings us to the end of our lesson.

So, obviously that writing tasks was really tricky, and I would really, really like to see some of your examples of that.

So if you would like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Twitter, tagging it @OakNational with the #LearnwithOak.

As always, thank you for all your hard work today, and I will see you in our final lesson next time.

I've got a condition called Retinitis Pigmentosa.

So as I get older, the cells on my retina, in my eye, slowly stop working, which means I slowly stop seeing.

I could see perfectly well till I was about 12 years old.

And then from the age of 12 to 19, I lost about 95% of my vision.

And it's quite difficult when we'd be out with our dad, you know, we'd be walking and I wouldn't see the stairs, and I'd be halfway down the stairs, you know, bouncing on my heels and my dad would be like, oh, son there's steps here, yes.

Being blind has had a big impact on my life.

There was an incident when I was at university where I applied for a job on the campus, it was a call centre job.

And I did this telephone interview and it went really well.

They liked me over the phone, they liked reading my CV.

And when I turned up for the face-to-face interview, there was this silence.

And the first thing the interviewer said was if I had known you were blind, you wouldn't have come this far.

And I was absolutely shocked and I couldn't understand what his problem was.

In those situations it's important to have the Disability Discrimination Act.

And I used it with that person at university, and there was some action taken against that organisation.

I knew that people coudln't justify putting up barriers because we had the Disability Discrimination Act.

So I think more and more over time, people became aware of the importance of not discriminating against people with disabilities.

And I think a major reason for that was there was something we could point them to.

I talked to people, you know, if someone says you can't do this, I say, why not? And we have a conversation, and I feel a lot of the times people aren't being mean, they just don't understand how someone blind can do what they can do.

So a lot of the time I'm educating people, opening their eyes, it's quite ironic, it's almost like they're blind to my blindness.

In situations where I've explained myself, I've explained how things can be done for someone who's blind.

However, if the other person, like that the organisation, doesn't want to accept it, that's when the law is really important.