Respect for all generated great interest from schools throughout the year. Schools welcomed the fact that a central resource base was being established for work in this area. There has been a general increase in the attention paid to equal opportunities. Several LEAs are starting to establish their own equal opportunities projects and to appoint coordinators for this area.

Schools and advisers stressed the importance of recognising the contexts in which they operate. For example, one LEA adviser (who had moved recently from one authority, where there was a high level of expertise in multiculturalism, to another authority, where such work was in its infancy) commented that examples of curriculum work that would be good practice in her former authority would not be achievable for some time in her current post because awareness, procedures and structures were not yet in place.

Several schools mentioned that they believed academic research could be useful for setting theoretical contexts but that it provides little practical advice.

Many of the activities focus on valuing diversity rather than challenging racism. This does not mean that the latter does not happen, rather that the context for it is usually an informal, verbal one. (For example, the teacher creates an atmosphere in which there is room for debate and encourages a supportive atmosphere for pupils to question views.) This context is rarely recorded in a formal lesson plan. Teachers mentioned that they need confidence in order to work this way and voiced a need for in-service training.

QCA was unable to obtain many activities from schools that have a low percentage of minority ethnic groups in the school population. There appears to be a belief that valuing cultural diversity and challenging racism were strategies to be employed only when there was a high incidence of pupils from minority ethnic groups. The fact is, every pupil has an ethnicity and should be prepared for life in a pluralist society. The Race Relations (Amendment) Act (2000) states that every school should have a policy around valuing diversity and challenging racism.