Vikings were not all white, pupils to be told

Vikings were 'very diverse' and not all white, according to a guide to teaching schoolchildren.
Tutors placed in schools by The Brilliant Club, an educational charity, have been urged to ditch 'Eurocentric' ideas in favour of a 'decolonised narrative' that moves subjects away from a Western focus.
A guide produced by the charity suggests ditching the idea that the Vikings were a 'homogenous community of blonde Scandinavians'.
Instead, tutors are told to consider teaching that 'Vikings were not all white'.
The guidance, intended to make lessons more 'relatable' for pupils, adds that Vikings were 'a very diverse group of people' with 'diverse religious beliefs' and urges the tutors to consider that 'some Vikings became practising Muslims'.
This claim appears to rely on Islamic goods being found in the graves of some Vikings, who traded with the Islamic world.
The last large-scale study of Viking DNA, conducted by the University of Cambridge in 2020, suggested that diversity in Scandinavian genetics came from other parts of Europe and what is now Russia.
The Brilliant Club runs a scholarship programme that places PhD students in more than 800 schools to tutor underprivileged pupils and help them get to university. Schools can apply to receive tutoring, and PhD students can apply for paid placements in Brilliant Club schools.
It has created two 'decolonising your course' toolkits to help tutors with the courses they will deliver when working within schools. The guides present them with a preferred 'decolonised' approach narrative which is contrasted with a 'Eurocentric and colonised' version of history.
It states that there is an 'imperative to provide material to students that they can relate to and connect with … part of this should be presenting them with courses where they can see themselves represented positively'.
The guidance also stresses that making courses more relatable is not simply about 'adding token Black figures into courses'.
Guidance for arts courses suggests tutors should not only teach Romanticism by referencing the great Romantic poets – including Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley and Byron – but find writers who are not just 'upper-class white men'.
Tutors are also asked to consider the decolonised narrative of the spread of democracy across the world, which is defined as: 'Parliamentary democratic rule, a form of Western democracy, was exported and enforced on colonial subjects for the purpose of exploitation and domination.'
The guide makes several other suggestions for tutors, including being aware of the controversial nature of the term 'Anglo-Saxon'.
It states: 'This was not the term the people then used to refer to themselves' and adds that 'the term has 'a long history of being used in a racially charged manner'.
Alfred the Great was referred to as 'Rex Angul-Saxonum', the king of the Anglo-Saxons, in the 10th century.
The Brilliant Club has said that it is not a leading expert on decolonising, but encourages tutors to reflect on inclusive and thoughtful teaching practices.
Its guidance to tutors is in line with other 'decolonising' work, which seeks to move away from Western accounts of history and science, and away from artistic canons that are seen to privilege the creative work of Western figures.
William Shakespeare's birthplace is one of a number of sites to be 'decolonised', and the practice can also include addressing imperial history and ideas of national identity that are seen to be potentially controversial.
In 2024, the University of Nottingham removed the term 'Anglo-Saxon' from its leading course over fears that the ethnonym could play into 'nationalist narratives'.
In 2023, it emerged that Cambridge taught students that Anglo-Saxons did not exist as a distinct ethnic group, as part of efforts to undermine 'myths of nationalism'.
The terminology of 'early medieval England' is the preferred replacement for 'Anglo-Saxon' by academics concerned that the latter has become a phrase surrounding white identity used by racists, principally to describe those in the US descended from white early settlers.
Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Bloomberg

33 minutes ago

• Bloomberg

UK to Invest £275 Million to Train Skilled British Workers

The UK will invest £275 million ($371 million) to grow the country's skilled workforce as Prime Minister Keir Starmer seeks to accelerate economic growth and reduce reliance on foreign labor. The funding, announced on Sunday, will be used to overhaul technical training and apprenticeships, aiming to plug skills shortages in sectors like engineering and defence. It's part of a new industrial strategy that includes a 10-year plan for national renewal the government plans to outline this week.

Yahoo

36 minutes ago

• Yahoo

Starmer puts skills training at heart of industrial strategy plan

Sir Keir Starmer will set out his industrial strategy on Monday as he seeks to kickstart the stuttering economy and reduce the UK's reliance on foreign workers. The decade-long plan for 'national renewal' will include £275 million in skills investment to train Britons to do jobs in growth industries which might otherwise require imported labour. The strategy will include specific funding to train people for work in defence, engineering, digital and construction roles. Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said the strategy 'will help transform our skills system to end the overreliance on foreign labour and ensure British workers can secure good, well-paid jobs in the industries of tomorrow and drive growth and investment right across the country'. Monday's industrial strategy will be followed later in the week by a new trade plan intended to make the UK the best-connected country in the world to do business. The Prime Minister will launch the industrial strategy hoping it will help in his mission of delivering economic growth. The economy shrank by 0.3% in April, the biggest monthly contraction in gross domestic product for a year-and-a-half, as businesses felt the impact of global uncertainty caused by Donald Trump's tariffs and domestic pressure as a result of hikes to firms' national insurance contributions. Around one-in-seven young people are not in education or employment, and the number of people taking an apprenticeship has fallen by almost a fifth between 2016/17 and 2023/24. The Government hopes the growth sectors identified in the industrial strategy will create 1.1 million new jobs by 2035. The skills package includes capital investment from a £200 million fund which will support new facilities including 'technical excellence colleges' providing specialised training for local industries. The total funding is expected to train thousands more workers by 2029 including computer programmers, IT technicians, electrical and civil engineers. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said: 'Skills rightly run right through the heart of this industrial strategy because they are key to breaking the link between background and success for young people and delivering prosperity for our country.' Stephen Phipson, the boss of manufacturers' organisation Make UK, welcomed the skills announcement. 'We look forward to working with the Government to fix the skills gap in manufacturing, which has been the sector's Achilles' heel for decades,' he said. Other elements of the plan are expected to include measures to help cut energy costs for industries which have complained they are being forced to compete with rivals overseas who face lower bills. Meanwhile some £380 million will be spent on a range of projects intended to double private investment in the creative industries. Shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith welcomed the investment in skills but said 'the Government are stepping on the accelerator and the brake at the same time' by hiking national insurance for firms and introducing extra employment rights which could increase costs. 'This inherent contradiction cannot make for a feasible or serious strategy, and will hold the Government to account for it,' he said. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

Yahoo

2 hours ago

• Yahoo

European leaders worry they're too reliant on U.S. tech

European governments may be reconsidering their use of American technology and services, according to a new report in The New York Times. The flashpoint seems to come after President Donald Trump sanctioned Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, over the ICC's decision to issue arrest warrants for Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant. In response, Microsoft turned off Khan's email address. Casper Klynge, a former diplomat who has also worked for Microsoft, told the NYT that Microsoft's action became 'the smoking gun that many Europeans had been looking for,' pushing them to look at alternative options. (Some ICC workers have reportedly switched over to Swiss email service Proton, for example.) 'If the U.S. administration goes after certain organizations, countries or individuals, the fear is American companies are obligated to comply,' Klynge said. For its part, Microsoft said it has subsequently made policy changes to protect customers similar situations, and it noted that it did not shut down the email accounts of four ICC judges who Trump sanctioned earlier this month. In addition, just this week, CEO Satya Nadella announced new 'sovereign solutions' to protect European institutions.