The Theatre of Otherness: Why Culture Days Reinforce the Very Divisions They Claim to Heal

Last week, a twelve-year-old girl arrived at school wearing a Union Jack dress and bowler hat for Culture Day. The school asked her to leave. The school has since apologised unreservedly, and I want to be clear: this critique is not about shaming individual educators or institutions trying to navigate complex terrain in polarised times.

But in the space between incident and apology, something predictable occurred: Britain First hashtags proliferated, tabloid outrage mobilised, and a child became the unwitting symbol of a debate that should never have been hers to carry. What concerns me most is not the specifics of one school's response, but how we've arrived at a place where well-intentioned initiatives end up doubling down on creating more division.

The girl's response: "We have got culture and I want to be able to celebrate it" was defiant and pointed. She was right, of course. But her rightness reveals something more troubling about how schools understand culture, belonging, and the work of building equity-focused communities.

The Fundamental Question: What Is Culture Anyway?

To me at least, culture isn't a costume you put on or a flag you wave (although I do wave the Danish flag quite a lot). It's not exotic artefacts to be displayed for a day. Culture is lived experience: it's the way we speak, the stories we tell, the rhythms of daily life, the values we absorb, the music that moves us, the food that comforts us, the humour we share.

Yet Culture Days treat culture as something performative, something you can wear to school and take off at home. They assume some people "have culture" (the exotic other) while others are just "normal." This reveals a profound misunderstanding of how culture works.

I am Black British, born in Britain, but I live in Denmark, where people here think I exemplify British culture. If my son were invited to a culture day at his Danish school, they would assume he should bring in a Union Jack, or scones, or ‘a nice cup of tea’. But in Britain, a white girl with a Union Jack gets sent home for similar interpretations. Culture, it seems, is not fixed or inherent; it's about where you are, how you're perceived, and what feels true to your lived experience.

The Double Bind of Cultural Othering

Culture Days create a particularly harmful double bind. By establishing "culture" as synonymous with "other" (non-British), they simultaneously other global majority and non-white British children AND run the risk of making white British children feel irrelevant and excluded. In trying to be inclusive, they reinforce the very norm they claim to challenge - that whiteness is the invisible baseline from which all other cultures deviate.

This could be described as a kind of ‘theatre of otherness’: a performance where some children must represent something exotic, foreign, other, whilst others are rendered cultureless because they represent the assumed norm. Everyone ends up feeling frustrated and divided.

Consider the impossible positions these events create. For children of colour, they demand performance of some imagined version of heritage that may bear no resemblance to lived experience. As a West Indian who spent my childhood wondering what I was supposed to bring to such events (a bag of callaloo? a tin of ackee?), I recognise the reductive embarrassment of these occasions. I have never spent time in the West Indies, yet Culture Day logic would have me perform West Indian-ness as though it were a costume.

For mixed-heritage children like my son, these events pose an impossible choice: which part of yourself will you perform today? For white British children, they suggest: you don't have culture - you simply are. Culture, in this case, is what other people perform for you.

The Plural Present We're Missing

It seems to me this approach fundamentally misunderstands what British culture is in 2025. The children in our schools are not visitors to British culture but active participants in its ongoing creation. British culture is already plural (it always was). It has been shaped by empire, migration, trade winds, and resistance. It is Wonderwall sung to Desi beats in cricket stands. It is the food on our tables, the words we use, the music we love.

But Culture Days don't invite us to explore this living reality. They invite us to flatten complex identities into costumes, to treat culture as a museum exhibit rather than a lived experience. What they miss, I think, is that British culture in 2025 is the culture created by all the children in that school: it's already diverse, already shaped by everyone who calls this place home.

Supporting Schools in Complex Times

The educators involved in this incident (like so many others) are trying to build inclusive communities in challenging circumstances. They deserve our support, not our condemnation. The social media commentary has been, at times, horrific, and that helps no one.

This is why I'm extending an offer of free consultancy to the school and trust involved (I can’t find them on social media, so if anyone has a contact, please let me know.) Being vilified in the media is not a place anyone should have to navigate alone, and the work of building truly inclusive schools requires deep thinking and sustained support.

The broader question, for me, isn't about this particular incident: it's about how we've arrived at a place where well-intentioned initiatives so easily become flashpoints for division. I think schools are being asked to do equity work without adequate guidance, without the kind of nuanced frameworks that might help them avoid these pitfalls and politicians weighing in to pass comment on who was in the right or wrong after the fact is just unhelpful.

Beyond Performance: Toward Positionality Work

If we are serious about inclusion, we’ve got to move beyond the performative approach of Culture Days towards something more truthful and nuanced. Instead of asking children to "dress up as" a culture, we might engage them in positionality work: exploring where they stand, how they got there, what trade winds brought their families to this place.

This might involve asking much more interesting questions: How has my family arrived here? What stories, traditions, and journeys have shaped the food on my table, the words I use, the music I love? How am I part of British culture? How is British culture part of me?

This is work that honours the complexity of contemporary British life rather than reducing it to meaningless granularity. It recognises that every child has culture: not as something exotic to be displayed, but as the lived reality of how they move through the world.

Equity Work Gone Rogue

As someone who works in diversity, equity, and inclusion, I find myself troubled by our persistent tendency to other the very people we claim to want to include. We say we want to understand each other better, yet we design events that reinforce exactly the divisions we claim to be dismantling.

When these initiatives backfire, they don't just embarrass schools, they create perfect ammunition for far-right mobilisation. The girl becomes a symbol. The school becomes a target. The actual work of building inclusive communities gets lost in the noise of tabloid outrage.

So, for those ready to do a bit of work along the lines I have been describing, I am hosting a webinar on 27th August 2025 at 9:00 AM London time. We will explore why Culture Days often backfire, how to design alternatives that honour lived experience, and practical ways to engage students and families in positionality work: work that explores the complex journeys that create who we are.

Register for Beyond Culture Days: Positionality, Trade Winds, and Belonging here.

27th August 2025, 9:00 AM London time | For School Leaders, Pastoral Teams, and Education Professionals

This work forms part of my broader practice of re-enchanting equity and inclusion in educational settings. If you are interested in moving beyond performative gestures toward something a little deeper, I would love to chat.