Race, SEND and intersectionality: Jason Selormey
Some of the most honest and moving conversations at nasen LIVE 2026 took place in Jason Selormey's session on race, SEND and intersectionality. Grounded in his own research, a literature review, semi-structured interviews with colleagues in his own setting, and careful thematic analysis, it asked questions our sector does not always find easy, and did so with real generosity and care.
At its heart was a truth that shapes everything else: children do not experience need in isolation. Their lives are shaped by overlapping factors, including race, poverty and the education level of parents and carers, and Jason drew a clear line between under-resourced, lower socioeconomic areas and higher levels of need, where the children who need support can have the least access to it. He was thoughtful, too, about identification itself. Some areas are relatively clear-cut, such as dyslexia and dyscalculia. But with social, emotional and mental health needs, so much depends on who defines a behaviour as challenging, and on what challenging is even taken to mean. That ambiguity, he suggested, is where bias can quietly shape who does, and does not, get identified.
Several of his themes spoke directly to school culture. Representation matters, he argued, not only for belonging, but because staff and learners need to see themselves in their leaders and teachers, and because a leadership team with a range of lived experiences can see the blind spots others miss when shaping policy. That linked SEND to equity, diversity and inclusion as a systemic responsibility, something woven through an organisation rather than owned by one person or one silo. Staff in his research wanted more training on inclusion, anti-racism and cultural awareness, but not at their own expense. If colleagues share their own expertise, he said, they should be recognised and fairly compensated, so that people feel valued. And when people feel valued, they can bring their whole selves to work, including the ability to share their culture, which for colleagues from the global majority is not always straightforward.
He was clear that behaviour is communication, and best understood through an intersectional lens. Learners are never separate from the world around them, and he reflected candidly on how online spaces are shaping more misogynistic, transphobic and racist behaviour in settings, something schools have to notice and respond to. He was equally clear that being part of the SEND community does not exempt anyone from racism. Black and brown children he has worked with describe experiencing it inside education, and inside the SEND community too. His research on referrals surfaced further complexity, including evidence that learners who struggle with the majority language can be more likely to be seen through a social, emotional and mental health lens, and that the legacy of history shapes how much some families feel able to trust education professionals.
If the research was powerful, the questions and contributions from the floor were, if anything, more so. A delegate described a child running over, overjoyed, because there was finally a teacher in the classroom who looked like her, a moment that said more about belonging than any policy could. Another shared how a young person spoke for the first time about the racism behind her anxiety, only because she was talking to someone with shared experience, and is now thriving at university. Connection, quite simply, changes outcomes.
Jason's answers were as practical as they were principled. Asked how to improve representation in the workforce, he was clear: go where communities are, into the spaces where people already gather, and be openly honest about your values, so that people who have never seen teachers who look like them can begin to imagine themselves in the role. Asked how to make it safe for people to share lived experience, his answer was psychological safety, led from the top, because organisations take on the personality of their leaders. Leaders who can say we got this wrong, and who are willing to publish honestly where they are not yet good enough, make it safe for everyone else to be honest too. And asked about Black History Month, he encouraged schools to treat cultural knowledge as something to explore consistently through the year, not only in October.
He was careful with the research on perception and expectation, noting studies that explore how black Caribbean pupils in particular can be perceived in schools, and the way historical legacies continue to shape both trust and expectation. He also reflected on learners who are new to English, and on refugee learners, and how rarely we pause to ask what actually brought a child to this country, and how that experience might still be affecting them now. Celebrating inclusion is one thing, he suggested. Being willing to have the harder conversation about a child's whole story is another.
On unconscious bias, an audience question he clearly welcomed, his answer was about the integrity of the training itself. Anti-racism work that genuinely examines how race is constructed, and the stereotypes bound up in it, can shift how people think in a way that surface-level training never will. And on how to move policymakers, his advice was to organise: to join the groups and conversations already doing this work, and to keep showing up, in community spaces and in the rooms where decisions are made, rather than only talking about change from a distance. Asked how we might encourage more people from the global majority into teaching, he reframed the question entirely. Not just who wants to be a teacher, but why wouldn't you, because you would be good at it, said to young people who may never have seen a teacher who looks like them.
His conclusions were firm and hopeful in equal measure. Anti-racist practice, through both training and policy, is vital, and best held across a whole school rather than left to one person. Trust must be built patiently with marginalised communities, with an understanding of the histories that shape how they engage. And staff must be supported, and never exploited, so that this work can be sustained. It was a brave and important session, and exactly the kind of conversation nasen LIVE exists to make room for.
