Perth children learned from St Johnstone footballers about tackling racism, following revelations of an escalation of the problem in local schools.
Nearly 60 pupils from North Muirton and Tulloch primary schools participated in a ‘Show Racism the Red Card’ workshop at McDiarmid Park.
Last week it emerged the number of racist incidents reported in Perth and Kinross Council had doubled in the last four years.
Anti-racism campaigners claimed children were learning bigoted behaviour from their own families and social media.
As part of the session, the P7s learned how to recognise racism such as stereotyping and gatekeeping – actively controlling a space to exclude a specific group of people.
They discussed othering – when someone treats one person like an other – how to respond to racism when they see it happening, how to safely challenge it and to report it.
The children then took part in a Q&A session with St Johnstone defender Alex Mitchell, goalkeeper Ross Sinclair, and Niamh Irvine, a defender from the women’s team.
Alex told them of his experience last season when a teammate was racially abused by away fans during a match.
He explained how they reported it to the referee who took the appropriate steps to deal with the incident.
Alex told the youngsters that racism is never acceptable in any form and advised they should report it immediately if they hear it, like he did.
Perth councillor Peter Barrett was also involved. He said: “We were really impressed with the learning that had taken place and the quality of the questions put to us.”
Workshops taking place across the country
Show Racism the Red Card has led sessions across Scotland, with more than one million youngsters having participated.
The workshop aims to give pupils a foundational understanding of some of the core concepts of anti-racism and how to effectively intervene and report incidents of hate.
Chris Priestley, charity acting manager, said: “It’s really important to normalise anti-racism education in schools.
“We encounter a lot of people in Scotland who never spoke about racism in school – our hope is that will change over time.
“Racism is a learned behaviour formed through misinformation and it has been proved that high equality education can really work against those forces.”
A spokesman for St Johnstone FC said: “We were delighted to help host Show Racism the Red Card event at McDiarmid Park, in conjunction with Saints in the Community.
“The event went brilliantly and we were delighted to see how engaged and enthusiastic the children in attendance were with our panel.
“We believe the education of younger generations on such societal issues is vital to ensuring we strive toward a more inclusive society.”
