MyLearning Diversity and Inclusion information

MyLearning is committed to the equality of all Peoples and we strive to reflect this both in the way we present our content and through the diversity of the stories we tell.  We seek to represent Peoples of all diversity, both in the present day and through the historical record, as far as we are able. We acknowledge that we have gaps in our content, and we are actively working to address these, both internally and with our external contributors.

This is an ongoing process, and in the case of increasing diversity, is often a slow one as the stories of people other than White men are often more difficult to find or are sometimes missing from the historical record altogether.  You can read more about how our content strategy is designed to improve the inclusivity and diversity of our resources in this blogpost.

Terminology on MyLearning

Language is constantly shifting and we are working hard to ensure we are using appropriate terminology in all our resources. This is especially important in content that includes themes of colonialism, racism and marginalised people.  The sections below lay out our current policy regarding the language we use and approaches towards inclusivity, equality and representation on MyLearning. 

MyLearning gender policy

MyLearning is committed to gender equality, including non-binary and trans identities.

As part of this, we seek to redress the traditional ‘male by default’ approach that is commonly applied in both a historical and present-day context. This approach presents information that is solely about men, without making it explicit in the title or content, but rather it is assumed. A good example of this is sports teams and sporting competitions. ‘The World Cup’ is a football competition comprised solely of men’s teams, although this is not explicitly stated. ‘The Women’s World Cup’ however makes it explicit in the title that the competition is for female players. We believe that this approach promotes a sense of ‘other’ when talking about women and women’s history. It is therefore the policy of MyLearning that all such gendered content will be clearly labelled where appropriate, e.g. The Men’s World Cup / The Women’s World Cup, or The World Cup (Men’s) / The World Cup (Women’s).

If you have or are developing content that you think may come under this policy, and you require any clarification, please do contact us to discuss it.

Why we capitalize Black, Brown and White when talking about people

When talking about people where the colour of their skin is significant to the story being told, we have chosen to capitalize the colour name (Black, Brown or White for example). This is for two reasons. Firstly, we wish to highlight the fact that the idea of splitting humans into different races is a cultural construct, created to artificially divide people into different groups. Secondly, we capitalise to draw attention to the fact that while not all people who share the same skin colour share all the same experiences, there are some histories or social or cultural experiences that are shared by a large proportion of that group. There’s an article here which explores the arguments for capitalisation in more detail.

A note on updating resources on MyLearning

We have a lot of content on MyLearning and it can take time to both locate resources that need to be updated and for the necessary changes to be made. If you notice something that needs updating, please do contact us to let us know, providing details of the resource name and chapter(s) if relevant. We also welcome constructive feedback on the use of language and terminology in our resources.

Background to MyLearning

The MyLearning website was a Renaissance Yorkshire Hub initiative. In 2003 research carried out by MLA Yorkshire showed that access to online resources would encourage more schools to visit museums. Teachers requested resources that they could use both as stand-alone teaching aids and in conjunction with visits.