Identity Papers - The role of archives in teaching Diversity and Citizenship

24 April 2007

Speech by David Lammy MP, Minister for Culture
Archives Awareness Conference

The Prime Minister spoke last month about the renaissance of British culture. In that context I want to be absolutely clear that the archives of this country matter enormously and are very much part of British culture and my Department’s work to improve the cultural life of the nation.

Any Government that neglects archives does so at its peril. Archival documents are the foundations of our collective understanding of who we are. And any thorough examination or exploration of our identity, our history and our future would flounder without archives.

Politically speaking, it is absolutely clear that where the last century the battle was about the role of the state and the power of the market, now in the early 21st century the focus has moved to issues such as race and faith, environmental climate challenges, social cohesion and the community. At the heart of the public policy agenda is culture and identity and, without doubt, archives are at the centre of this and have never been more important.

Some archives are well known - The National Archives being the first one that most people think of. But there are other regional institutions as well - London Metropolitan Archives; the Norfolk Record Office; the Tyne and Wear Archives which I visited a few months ago - that have all been recognised as holding collections of national significance for resources for communities.

And of course, I don’t forget the smaller, or more specialised archives that may be largely unknown to the majority of the wider public.

For me, learning is at the heart of what archives are all about, and that stands as important be it for informal adult learning or for supporting school curriculum study.

Archives contain fascinating primary sources with the potential to engage and hold the attention of students because they’re real and they’re personal. They lift the curriculum and study and also inspire the imagination.

So I am clear that all 2,200 UK record holding institutions are part of our uniquely rich cultural heritage and have a role to play in promoting learning and understanding through access – be that direct access to the individual, via partnership with an educational institution or the media, or reaching a global audience online.

And today is very much about how archive services can work with schools to provide and develop those learning materials, building on best practice to date and moving on into the future.

To enable this, we need to develop the case for archives, so that many more Local Education Authorities recognise that in their Local Authority archive service they have a rich vein of untapped resources for teachers and other educators.

This has to be about local action. It’s important that we connect discussions of social cohesion to make it an integral part of local archive services. But at the national level, with helpful prompting from the National Council on Archives, we need to keep on the case of the Department for Education and Skills. We need to encourage DfES to recognise the case that’s being made to them for investment in educational programmes right across culture.

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This is why the profile raising activity of the Archives Awareness Campaign is really important, as it helps to showcase archives to non-archivists who need to be persuaded and build a wider base of support.

And, of course, my Department, the MLA and the National Council on Archives will also work with the Department for Communities and Local Government to encourage them in that and the role that culture can play in fostering community cohesion.

In relation to archives and education DCMS, working in partnership with the sector, has made progress on the education front in the last few years.

We jointlyfund, with the Department for Education and Skills, the Strategic Commissioning Education Programme that enabled the MLA to develop a range of regional initiatives to support archives, including the development of e-learning resources and teacher placements.

Archives are also central to the development of the three funded Cultural Hubs in Telford, in Durham and in Bournemouth & Poole. These are new models of providing a universal cultural offer to young people. In each of the three Hubs, the archives sector has played a key role, which had previously been unrecognised by the Local Education Authorities.

These Cultural Hubs are developing and testing a model for effective partnership working between cultural and education sectors based on a broad - archive inclusive – understanding of culture.

This cultural offer includes an expectation that by the time they leave school, every young person would be able to say that they studied archival documents to help them understand the story of their community and country.

Evaluation to date suggests that some school partners within the three Hubs have been pleasantly surprised by the stimulating, good quality resources developed by archives to support work within their schools.

For example, in Telford, a DVD with sound clips and images of documents was distributed to schools. Parents were enthusiastic about the learning experience offered to their children. And teachers also identified for themselves the need for continuing professional development in using archives as a teaching resource.

The evidence from these Cultural Hubs, and lots of other examples up and down the country which MLA colleagues will talk about later, points to the archives sector being at an important crossroads in terms of whether it can play a greater future role in the classroom.

So I was very pleased to see that Sir Keith Ajegbo’s Curriculum Review Group on Diversity and Citizenship was paying a real compliment to the rising profile of the archives sector, and a certain TV programme, by calling for a ‘Who do you think you are,’ approach within schools as a way to excite and maintain interest in issues around identity, diversity and citizenship.

I believe that archives and the rest of the cultural sector can and do offer resources to teachers that are imaginative and relevant to children’s lives in terms of teaching of citizenship topics, such as diversity; discrimination; Asian and Black history; social and moral responsibility; and promoting political literacy.

I’ve seen this in Newcastle where archives tell the social history of the city. I’ve seen this in Yorkshire in it’s mining history which tells the story about how this country was built on the back of the working classes. This is all brought alive by archival history.

I appreciate that if we are to build on the work of the last few years, then we will need to reinforce the archival conservation infrastructure that underpins all our aspirations to see greater use of archival materials within the Curriculum.

As you all know, the Government’s Spending Review is on-going, and it is too early to give any assessment on future resources but, we are in dialogue with the Treasury on these matters as we speak. And I have certainly been making the case to the Labour Party. I’ve been speaking to lawyers about the constitution settlement. This is about fair play and tolerance – we are at an important point in history and archives play a central role in this.

But archives - whether written heritage, or audio, or audiovisual heritage – we see as key at DCMS.

As I said to the Culture Select Committee, I was disappointed that, prior to my arrival in DCMS, the Department had not been able to find the funding to do more to implement the recommendations of the Archives Task Force Report, and particularly the Gateway concept.

But the National Advisory Service at The National Archives and the MLA are re-visiting the Task Force’s Recommendations to see what more could be achieved through close strategic working between the two of them.

And to be clear, I do happen to believe that archives are absolutely central to that ongoing discussion in relation to education, Britishness, the kind of communities we want to be, and multi-culturalism and identity.

I know that some people have argued that we should teach a single identity narrative about how we came to be who we are, based around a simple tale of Kings and Queens and Revolutions – ‘An Island Story’ if you like. But the compelling questions of our age cannot be answered via a single cultural narrative.

We have 'Island Stories' - interweaving, interlocking, constantly being updated. Stories that reflect the make-up and the history of those who live here now. Which concentrate on our shared heritage, not on an illusory image. That helps us to understand not who we were, but who we are and who we want to be.

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This year we have a prime example of the importance of that illumination of our shared heritage when we commemorate the Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade in the former British Empire. Archives, museums and libraries have responded to the call to take the opportunity to show how our heritage is shared – that it’s not a single story either about inhuman cruelty, or about a few enlightened social reformers.

Instead there is a complex, shared narrative about what happened, and why and what the consequences have been. That shared narrative is just as important to white people, to Muslims, to Sikhs – to people of all ages and backgrounds - as it is to those of us who trace our families back to the Caribbean and Africa.

And there is a great hunger to explore that shared history. We saw that with the lottery backed Veterans commemoration of the 60th Anniversary of the Second World War, where educational projects and events gave opportunities for young people to gain an understanding and appreciation of the lasting impact of the War in the UK and worldwide.

And the challenge for all of us in the cultural sector is to ask ourselves whether we really are passing on the tools to help young people get to grips with the tricky issues of identity and belonging and, I think that if you are a young person today – growing up in Manchester, Bristol, or Oldham, you cannot call yourself a rounded citizen, ready to participate, if you do not know the recent history of our country and why soldiers died for this country in the Second World War.

So I am confident that archives have an important role to play in terms of identity, and the quality of citizenship provision in schools. And we shall see, I hope, more politicians of all colours both nationally and locally, championing that cause of archives in future - as the huge growth in exploring family and community history grows and deepens.

We are putting in place the foundations for a bolder future for archives - that recognises that there will be increasing demand from both educational and leisure perspectives.

Archives have already received £37 million in lottery funding. The Acceptance in Lieu scheme is also a major source of acquisitions funding for the sector.

The Big Lottery Fund has supported lifelong learning through digitisation in terms of cultural enrichment, and citizenship in a modern state.

We also have the British Library, the BBC and the National Archives who are all at the forefront of digitising their activities. And the British Film Institute has a range of online initiatives to increase access to its archive of 2.5 million records on the BFI film and TV database.

I have also seen for myself the ambitious plans to upgrade facilities to make them fit for purpose for the 21st Century in places like Liverpool, Newcastle and Hull. And only last week I was in Manchester, where they want to draw together their dispersed archival resources and create an Archives Centre for Greater Manchester.

There are also important on-going initiatives. Such as the Connecting Histories project, led by Birmingham City Archives, that is collecting and making available records of the diverse communities in Birmingham. And there are many more examples that I am sure other speakers will touch upon.

We also of course have the national ‘Taking Part’ Survey that is providing robust participation data - to convince my colleagues in the Treasury, and help us to understand the real barriers to engagement with archives and the rest of culture.

And in talking about the future, I must not forget the most important part of the infrastructure – the archivists among us. Professional development and a coherent skills and workforce strategy must be at the top of our priorities for the sector. MLA is funding two Clore Fellowships to better equip the sector in terms of future leadership, as well as backing the professionalism of the sector through the Sector Skills Council ‘Lifelong Learning UK’ Sector Skills Council.

I sincerely hope that with continued investment, increased partnership working between museums and libraries, and sustained advocacy, by 2012, we have archives that can provide teachable document-based materials for all kinds of lesson plans, not just history.

And that by 2012, we have teachers who are confident in promoting the use of primary sources in the classroom to sharpen their students' critical thinking skills across and beyond the curriculum.

The challenge for archives, as for any public service, is to demonstrate their relevance to society and the public. I believe archives are as relevant today as they have ever been. In part because they teach us about our history and our identity. In doing so, they can help us avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. Individuals and communities across the country need to understand their multiple identities, to combat ignorance and prejudice, and to foster tolerance and understanding. Archives are not just about our past, they are also about our present and our future.

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