Key words: equality and diversity, drama education, vocational, police, oral histories

Andrew Pilkington
Professor of Sociology
University of Northampton
Park Campus, Northampton
NN2 7AL
UK

Tel 01604 892745
Email andy.pilkington@northampton.ac.uk

Biography

Andrew Pilkington is Professor of Sociology at the University of Northampton. He is currently associate director of the Centre for Children and Youth and director of the Equality and Diversity Research Group. He has written extensively in the field of sociology and is regularly invited to give presentations of his work across the world. He has taught sociology in schools and universities and is co-author of successive editions of the popular textbook, Sociology in Focus (Pearson, 2009).

Professor Pilkington’s research has particularly focused on issues relating to race and ethnicity, and he has published widely in this area. He also has a particular interest in exploring different pedagogies in addressing equality and diversity issues, especially in relation to the police. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a member of the editorial board of Enhancing Learning in the Social Sciences (ELiSS) and Ethnicity and Race in a Changing World.

There has been renewed pressure on schools, colleges and universities (and other public organisations) since the turn of the century to ensure that members of staff receive equality and diversity training. The pressure to address equality and diversity issues (and its previous incarnation, equal opportunity issues) has waxed and waned over the years (Pilkington, 2003). What has prompted organisations to pay more attention to equality and diversity issues of late is a series of legislative measures beginning with the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000.

Although we should not exaggerate the priority given to equality and diversity by either the state or public bodies, there is little doubt that in the past decade renewed emphasis has been given to issues relating to equality and diversity (Pilkington, 2004). The result has been additional funding to support new initiatives in equality and diversity training. I have taken up this opportunity and, with a colleague who specialises in drama, turned to drama to try to engage participants (Taylor, 2003). The project that forms the subject of this paper thus constitutes a development of our earlier work using drama and film as pedagogies to address social issues (Ackroyd and Pilkington, 2000; Pilkington and Ackroyd, 2006).

Applied drama as a pedagogic tool

Our assumption is that staff and students who attend equality and diversity sessions, be they staff development workshops, lectures or seminars, arrive at best with predictable notions of what to expect and at worst with seething resentment that they will be subject to a PC (‘politically correct’) discourse. We wished to disrupt such expectations and to use humour to create drama that would give room for open discussion and permission for participants to make mistakes. In an earlier project, we devised a dvd for use in university equality and diversity training workshops, and used our experience of designing and delivering these workshops as a springboard to reflect on the question of ‘political correctness’ (Ackroyd and Pilkington, 2007). In this project, we again devised a dvd, but this time for use in vocational programmes, particularly police training (Pilkington, 2009).

Vocational programmes can be partly distinguished from non-vocational undergraduate programmes by the fact that their intended learning outcomes are more likely to accentuate the acquisition of appropriate professional skills and competencies. While both kinds of programme recognise the importance of developing knowledge and understanding, vocational programmes typically give higher priority to learning outcomes that are not exclusively cognitive. Equality and diversity is thus an increasingly important strand in many vocational programmes because it is recognised that a professional needs to treat people equitably and respect difference.

It is imperative in this context that issues relating to equality and diversity really do engage the students. My experience of teaching such issues on a police probationer programme suggests that while conventional pedagogies are effective in developing knowledge and understanding of relevant legislation and pertinent policies and procedures, they are less effective in engaging the students at a level where they recognise the centrality of these issues, and the importance of reflecting on them, for their professional practice.

Aware of the limitations of conventional pedagogies, this project sought to engage participants both cognitively and emotionally through the use of applied drama. The project, which was funded by the Centre for Sociology, Anthropology, Politics (C-SAP), entailed a range of central activities between 2007 and 2009:

• The collection and transcription of police life stories from officers who fitted one of the equality strands
• The development of a script that was both informed by and contained the testimony of police officers
• The production of a dvd that could be used in police training
• The development of a set of accompanying workshop activities for use in probationer police training
• The delivery of a series of workshops with police probationers
• Evaluation of the film and workshop pack
• Dissemination of the outcomes of the project

The dvd was informed by ethnodrama (Ackroyd and O’Toole, 2010) and entailed dramatic constructions of police stories where key equality and diversity issues were (we hoped) brought to life and their pertinence to the police revealed. The fictional context was an equality and diversity training day for newly qualified police officers. During the day, these participants heard testimonies, based on real oral histories, from police officers from a range of minority groups. This meant that ‘real’ police officers in the equality and diversity workshop watched fictional police officers in an equality and diversity workshop who watched monologues of ‘real’ police officers’ stories.

To give a sense of what the dvd involved, I reproduce below an extract from the script where some newly qualified police officers are responding to one of the testimonies, in this case from a gay officer about his experience of facing horrific homophobia from other officers. I should emphasise here that the extract is a fictional construction. It is not a verbatim record of a real training session, but a made-up version of a training session, albeit one that was designed to be believable and ring true. What is at issue is how this fictional construction (and the ‘real’ testimonies explored further below) can be used in a real training setting. The dvd itself is also available through C-SAP and ELiSS, and readers are invited to comment on the arguments given after the extract.

Extract 1: Challenging harassment

BARRY: Well, I must admit that that was an eye opener – there are some things you just don’t realise, don’t think about – don’t think would happen these days.

ADAM: Unless someone points them out on a day like this.

DAVE: I still say that there are only two kinds of copper, the ones who do their job well and the ones who don’t. When I’m in there, all I’ll want to know is, is this person good at their job and will he be watching my back when I need him to?

ZAK: And that’s not a dig about being gay ...?

DAVE: It wouldn’t even be funny – I could do much better if I wanted to. But I won’t …

EVE: And that wasn’t an assumption about your fictional future colleague being male.

DAVE: I give up. I absolutely give right up – what I’m trying to say is, man, woman, black, white, straight, gay – just give me a good copper.

Eve still eyes him quizzically; he approaches her and squats down on his haunches.

Eve, I am sorry if I looked like I was assuming any colleague of mine might be a bloke.

As he squats he rests his hand on her thigh, pats it.

I may be many things, but I do not mean to cause offence.

Close-up on a squeeze of her thigh.

I can honestly say, Eve, from what I have seen today, that I could not wish for, no bloke – or woman, could wish for a better colleague than you.

She throws a ‘this is weird’ look to the others. Dave guides her face back to looking at him with a hand on her cheek.

I mean that, Eve. You’re going to be a good copper – and I for one would be proud to come across you in the line of duty any time. Ok?

EVE: (pulling her face a way from him) Ok. Maybe we should get back to the questions?

Dave gives her thigh a last pat and rub, stands again.

DAVE: Good. (looks around to see some downcast faces) Blimey, look at us – we’re only on the training and it seems like hard work. Who knows, maybe actually doing the job will be a breeze when we don’t have to think about stuff like this everyday. The thing is, I’m a doer, not a thinker. I just want to get out there and get the job done. And that’s not a crime, is it? (not much response from the others) And I tell you what – I’m looking forward to the social life too, that kind of camaraderie, you don’t get that in every job. Maybe in the forces – but it’s special, knowing that you’ve got a bunch of people who are loyal to you and who’ll be loyal to; my dad said that was something money couldn’t buy. (still little response from the others) I know we’re all different people – but that’s what today is all about isn’t it, showing that the service needs all kinds, from all walks. But when we’re there in our uniforms, then we’ll be sort of the same, we’ll stick together – like some special club or something.
                                               
A lull.

TRAINER: (stepping up to their table) It doesn’t look like you’ve got much down on paper in this group …

ZAK: Not on paper as such, but some interesting things are coming out.

ADAM: Some quite challenging ideas are knocking around – big stuff.

TRAINER: Well if you could split into two for the next section, that would be great. Just hive yourself off into a two and a three. Great.

They do so. Adam follows Dave and Barry to a table a few feet away, but we are aware that Adam still watches Zak and Eve.

ZAK: Well, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say, what about the things we don’t know? This guy might be disliked for all sorts of reasons, he might be a twat, might be bent, no pun intended, but all he can see is, they hate me because I’m gay. What we need is a testimony from a colleague I reckon …

He trails off and realises that Eve isn’t actually paying attention to him.

You all right?

EVE: Can I ask you a question Zak?

ZAK: Fire away …

EVE: What was all that about – just then – what was that? Dave and his hands all over me and all of us just sitting there.

ZAK: Not ‘all over’ exactly.

EVE: You saw it!

ZAK: Blokes like that don’t mean any harm.

EVE: No?

ZAK: He’s just tactile.

EVE: Not with you he’s not.

ZAK: He’s a jack the lad and a flirt – don’t take it personally.

EVE: It was my leg he was personally groping.

ZAK: I guess, but …

EVE: I don’t think there is a ‘but’ here Zak, or there shouldn’t be. Would he do that to a ranking officer?

ZAK: Of course not, I mean, maybe, probably – I don’t know! I think, possibly that, today, all this stuff has got us all being a bit – hypersensitive to things that, in normal life, on another day, we’d let go.

EVE: I’m being too sensitive?

ZAK: I didn’t actually say that – not exactly – you know I didn’t! Jesus, you should think about being a lawyer instead

EVE: Maybe.

ZAK: Let it go, for today. Don’t worry about Dave and his lechy ways.

This extract has been used in my sessions with police probationers to explore a series of questions: what should Eve, the female who was harassed, have done? If you had been Eve, what would you have done? What about the other fictional characters? What should they have done? How do you feel about the response of one of the characters that Eve was being hypersensitive and should let it go?

Artistry and instrumentality as complementary

The production of the dvd entailed interdisciplinary collaboration between staff working in social sciences and the humanities. This raises a fundamental question: is there a tension between the concerns of artists involved in the design of the dvd and the concerns of social scientists commissioning the dvd? While artists are obviously concerned with manipulating their media to generate particular meanings and effects, and in that sense are instrumental, they are not necessarily interested in equality and diversity issues, let alone committed to training the police. Is there a tension then between what we shall call artistry and instrumentality? We approached this question by interviewing key participants: the producer who received the funding for the project, the scriptwriter, the director and one of the actors. We discovered a surprising lack of tension. All had had previous experience of working in applied drama and felt comfortable working within these constraints. The scriptwriter, director and actor identified aspects of their respective crafts where they were determined to exhibit proficiency, but they did not reveal frustration with the genre within which they were practising their craft.

The vast majority of those who watched the dvd and participated in the accompanying workshop considered the scene, from which the extract above is drawn, to be engaging and one that prompted genuine debate and reflection. From an artistic point of view, it worked well. The situation was believable and the scene well crafted, with all the players concerned ensuring that it rang true. And the script’s refrain – he/we didn’t mean any harm – was taken up quite subtly in a later scene, when Eve this time dismissed in the same terms Adam’s concern about the disrespect shown to his (religious) identity. From an instrumental view, the scene also worked well because it provided a plausible scenario to which participants could relate. The scene thus not only exhibited artistry but also served the purposes for which the dvd had been commissioned, notably to provide scenarios to engage participants in exploring issues relating to equality and diversity and challenging assumptions that hadn’t been considered before.

Artistry and instrumentality in tension: the testimonies

The overall effectiveness of the dvd was in our view dependent on the quality of the testimonies. While, as we have seen earlier in the extract with sexual harassment, some equality and diversity issues arise between the fictional characters, the testimonies of black, female and gay police officers were envisaged as being crucial in grabbing the attention of the workshop participants and giving them a jolt. While much of the script is deliberately amusing, we were keen for the participants to be shocked by the ‘reality’ of the experiences of these police officers, officers like themselves, but ones who recount experiences of being subject to racism, sexism and homophobia.

The one issue where there was discordance between those involved in the design of the dvd concerned the individual testimonies. These testimonies had been envisaged by us to be absolutely central to the project. In fact, the project began with a series of researched oral histories being conducted with police officers from minority groups to ensure veracity, and the testimonies incorporated in the dvd were based on these. Those who conducted the interviews with the police officers from minority groups had found the oral histories to be very moving and indeed had been shocked by what they heard. It was anticipated that these testimonies would therefore have a massive emotional charge and grab the attention of workshop participants. While in the fictional context, the script indicated that they did engage the workshop participants, none of those involved in the design of the dvd thought that they worked effectively. We might go so far as to say that they did not really commit to them.

The reason for this may have been because key players involved in the design of the dvd did not buy into our vision. The scriptwriter, whom we had worked with previously, was the one person who came closest to our vision. He recognised that the testimonies should arrest the audience’s attention and ‘stop them short’. He had not, however, seen the testimonies as his responsibility. He is a writer and these were already written. In his first draft, he left spaces for the testimonies, and in his second draft, he reproduced parts of the original transcripts in the blank spaces. He saw his primary responsibility as being the creation of a script that met the original brief, the depiction of an equality and diversity training day for newly qualified police officers that was entertaining, would amuse an audience and raise issues. The testimonies, which acted as a counterpoint to the fun, were crucial but they were not his creation. The other key players in the design of the dvd did not really buy into our vision at all. At the initial reading with the actors, the director, the film crew and the actors considered the testimonies ‘massively too long’, ‘too wordy’, ‘boring’ and ‘a major interruption’ to the main narrative. It was generally felt that they needed to be cut back. The producer, whose central concern was not artistry but instrumentality, only partially went along with these misgivings. He was less concerned with designing an amusing fictionalised training session than with creating a vehicle that would stimulate students to address equality and diversity issues in a context where they were probably participating on sufferance or for purely instrumental motives. While the testimonies were abbreviated, the interviews conducted with the director and one of the actors afterwards revealed a continuing disquiet with the length of the testimonies. While there is little evidence that those involved in the design of the dvd generally experienced a significant tension between artistry and instrumentality, there was clearly some discordance evident in their attitudes to the testimonies. And this discordance does point to a tension between artistry and instrumentality.

The social construction of testimonies

The testimonies point to some tension between artistry and instrumentality but they also raise a number of other interesting questions. What happens in the process of the journey of these testimonies from oral histories to their location in a dvd? Does it matter what happens? To whom does it matter? What is our primary responsibility? To those who told their stories to us? Or to the artists/trainers concerned with creating a dvd for use in a training workshop?

We cannot address all these questions here. It is interesting, however, to map the journey of the testimonies as they were transformed from researched oral histories to their place in the script of a dvd. Before the oral histories were recorded, the experiences of individuals had already been subject to processes of narrative construction and reconstruction; for experiences are always interpreted and in this sense constructed. The construction becomes more obvious, however, with the advent of oral histories.

The following stages can be distinguished:

• The narrative presented in a tape-recorded interview. The interview with a police officer was conducted by a researcher who is interested in the experiences of minority groups in the police. Here a range of factors comes into play and influences the narrative: the relation between the interviewer and interviewee, the location of the interview, the questions asked, the assumed purpose of the question, the power dynamics involved, etc.
• The transcription of the interview. The interview was transcribed, not always accurately, by somebody who was not present at the interview. The transcript inevitably abstracts from the interview non-verbal cues such as gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice, etc. It has been argued that around 60 per cent of communication is beyond the words. If this is so, in the course of the transcribing process, 60 per cent of the meaning could have been lost. While these may be put back later by an actor, the non-verbal cues employed then are by no means necessarily the same.
• The selection of transcripts for use in the dvd. The initial decision on which transcripts might be used in the dvd was made by a white producer, himself not a police officer but a sociologist. Eleven transcribed interviews were available to choose from. Factors influencing which transcripts to forward to the scriptwriter included judgments about the clarity of the narrative, whether it incorporated issues such as stop and search that might be addressed in the training, and whether it grabbed one’s attention and was perceived to be ‘dramatically exciting’. Selection of what was sent to the scriptwriter thus already assumed a sense of what might be aesthetically interesting as well as what might serve the purpose of training.
• The incorporation by the scriptwriter of verbatim script from selected transcripts. The scriptwriter selected three of the five that had been forwarded to him, and from these three, he selected the phrases that he thought would work artistically. He wanted to keep them ‘as raw as possible’, ie un-interfered with. The testimonies are now located in particular spaces in the script of the dvd and thus heard in the light of the conversation of fictional characters. The way he placed them in the script also affects the way they are now perceived.
• Changes to the verbatim script by the scriptwriter. The testimonies were changed by the scriptwriter in the light of the producer and consultant deciding that they weren’t as clear as they needed to be. A tendency to go off on tangents meant that the selected transcripts were too convoluted for the key points to be communicated. ‘Errs’ and repetitions of ‘real’ speech also didn’t seem right in the film script. 
• Read-through with the actors. The testimonies were considered far too long by most of those involved in the read-through of the script. Indeed, all except the producer and scriptwriter felt that they were somewhat tedious. At the reading, the testimonies originally conveyed orally by individuals in their own words were spoken by other people. If the director, cameraman/editor and actors had had their way, the testimonies would have been very seriously cut to snippets.
• Cuts to the testimonies made by the scriptwriter. The scriptwriter was asked to shorten the whole script, but particularly to cut the testimonies. He is now, therefore, cutting a hybrid of the original words and his own. The testimonies still remain longer than the director and actors would like. This is due to a number of reasons, including a reluctance to jettison what the producer and scriptwriter felt were real, moving stories central to the film, and a concern to incorporate issues that could be taken up later in the training.
• Actors perform the testimonies. Actors who could present the testimonies of police officers from minority groups were auditioned, and those selected read the scripted testimonies and performed them. It has to be said that we were disappointed with the outcome. There was very little that felt ‘real’ or ‘lived’ about most of the professional actors’ performances of these testimonies. Indeed, in some places, the words were not delivered as they were written. So, here again, is a new ‘text’.

I shall finish by reproducing the monologue, which conveys the ‘reality’ of one police officer’s experience and does jolt workshop participants. The reproduction has gone through seven of the above stages but not of course the final one. Please see the accompanying dvd.

Extract 2: An Asian officer’s testimony

I guess it’s worth remembering that the things I’m talking about don’t go back that far – this is recent stuff. It started in training – there was me and a Muslim woman there. Well, we just couldn’t believe the hatred that we got, against anything we said. Often, after everyone had gone, she’d have a good cry and I’d have a tear too. (thinks and gives a little laugh) She’s in CID now …

In the second week of training, there were these lads, they had a mining background, Staffordshire I think, but training to be officers, and they came knocking at my door one night dressed as Ku Klux Klan. (as if responding to surprise) Yes, I know. White sheets, pillowcases, the whole lot. It was brought up in the classroom, an inspector to investigate it. She asked if I would give a statement and I said, ‘No, I don’t want to complain.’ But I said that these guys were ignorant, they needed some intervention to get them to understand. They just thought they were being funny. The thing that really got me was the inspector; she said to me, ‘I can’t understand why a pillowcase would upset you in this way …’

I kept my head down and tried to be good at my job, prove I was capable. And I was. My arrest rate was better than the whole shift put together. But there was always something, always some other test to go through – to prove your loyalty – test your integrity. I worked with one officer who punched a member of the public. I complained because of what he did and because he had a reputation for doing it, and of course it flew around the station – I had grassed on a colleague …

There was another Asian officer, who I went to and I spoke to. I remember speaking to him and saying, ‘Is there racism here?’ But his way of dealing with it was to be as bad as them. You know, drink on duty and unlawful detentions and arrests. He said you have to be loyal to each other, and he said: ‘Listen, you have a reputation to maintain – just keep your mouth shut and get on with in … that’s ‘policing’ …’

My way of coping, what I used to do, was get my crimes and get out and eat out – never meet up in the canteen, just go out, because when I was out there it was actually salvation from the station …

About 18 months in, I was walking through the police bar, going to a night class. There were loads of CID lads, about 12 officers, all drunk, drinking regular as clockwork, driving home; everyone turned a blind eye, no one did a thing about it. Anyway, the racial abuse started – ‘Fuck off back home to your own country.’ Nothing innovative, nothing new. I said, ‘Look, you guys are drunk – you’re out of order’, and I saw other officers there, having a laugh too – a real joke it was. I went to my class but that evening a CID officer got more and more drunk, sexually assaulted a PC, fondled her breasts, and there was this fight, tables broken, the lot.

I came in the next morning. The inspector calls me and says, ‘Head of complaints wants to see you’, and he said he knows what happened last night. I spoke to the inspector. I said, ‘You’re asking me to do the impossible here.’ I had the words of another officer in my head: never grass on a colleague mate, not if you want to survive. I tried everything to get out of it. I said I was technically off duty. I said, ‘Speak to the others there, they know what happened.’ No good. So I had to see the head of complaints, and he was very old school, very ‘we will get a result out of you’. A big table, him at one end, me at the other and I’m explaining that I’m not even two years in and I just want to get through my probation, and I’m saying, ‘I do not want to do this!’ But he said, ‘You are getting me wrong here. What I am saying to you is, I want a statement – I am giving you a lawful order, and if I don’t get that statement I will stick you on for neglect of duty.’ That would have been a fine – a grand and a half – neglect of duty. I said I needed time, needed to speak to my family. But they had the statement written out; there it was, waiting for me to sign. I filled in the relevant paperwork and went home that night to my wife. It was summer and we were having this barbeque outside, and who should turn up in his car but the guy who gave me the abuse – clearly had a sniff that his job was on the line – came to apologise, a bottle of wine even.

My wife was fuming, but I let him in, we shared food – my wife was saying that he was doing it for all the wrong reasons, but I said I had to accept it and move on. There you go. So later that evening we were watching TV and there was something, something very stereotypical about Chinese people I think. And I lost it – just lost it – screaming, shouting, smashed up the house … my wife was terrified. And I realised that this was the repercussion, the result of what I was going through …

For me the learning, the understanding, came when the other officers present at the abuse were interviewed. Did anyone hear any abuse? Not one. One was looking the other way, one was playing pool, one was doing up their shoelaces. And then I knew, then the penny dropped – I could be an officer, but never an insider, always an outsider within. An Irish cop came to see us and he said, ‘Listen, you have to leave the station.’ He knew I was innocent, but had heard talk about someone planning to put cannabis in my locker – it didn’t surprise me. And then I only ever started confiding in other ethnic minority officers …

We are recruiting people who so easily get subsumed into culture. We really need to encourage people into the police service who have no intention of joining, who never saw it as a career, never wanted to have to have a warrant card and the power and everything else that goes with it, who may be able to make a difference.

I guess the difference I made was that whilst I was on duty, no black guy got a kicking at the back of a van. Is that significant or significant for me? I chose to be an up-stander, but then I paid a tremendous price to be an up-stander, but then you always have a choice. I became very hated. I lost opportunities in the organisation to go for certain departments etc because invariably they would get the call saying, ‘Not him, he’s is not safe.’ It was a choice I made though. You see, young officers see places where you get training in equality and diversity as some kind of ‘dream factory’.

It’s complex – I feel the old overt is almost the thing of the past, but there is a new covert and it’s equally sinister.

Conclusion

In this paper, I have presented a rationale for using ethnodrama and film to engage students who cannot be assumed to be enthusiastic about addressing equality and diversity issues. I have drawn upon a recent C-SAP-funded project, which entailed developing a film and accompanying activities for use in police training, to illustrate my case. The film was informed by ethnodrama and entailed dramatic constructions of police stories where key equality and diversity issues were brought to life and their pertinence to the police revealed.

The project entailed interdisciplinary collaboration. While this was generally productive, tensions between those concerned predominantly with aesthetic considerations and those concerned predominantly with encouraging reflection on fundamental equality and diversity issues did materialise in relation to the use of the testimonies of police officers from minority groups in the dvd. This is evident from our earlier discussion of the social construction of testimonies.

Despite some difficult birth pangs, what has been striking has been the enthusiasm with the final product, evident in student and practitioner feedback. While the use of a questionnaire to elicit feedback has its limitations, what is reassuring is that a comparison of the answers to four key questions asked both before and after the workshops with 106 students from six student cohorts are in the right direction. A higher proportion of students, for example, express agreement with the statement that equality and diversity issues are fundamental to the work of police officers after the workshop than beforehand. It is likely that the film was critical here since the students had already completed three half-day workshops on equality and diversity prior to the half-day workshop that I conducted. What is also reassuring is that both the formal evaluation and more informal feedback, including observation, indicated that the students generally were engaged with the issues explored in the film and accompanying activities. The full evaluation is not reproduced here. Suffice it to say that the evaluation has been carried out with six cohorts and the recognition of the importance of equality and diversity issues has been consistent across all cohorts, as has the feedback on engagement.

What I did not anticipate when I first embarked on the project was the centrality of a key concept in the social sciences, notably representation. We are sensitised as social scientists to recognise that ‘however realistic or compelling some media images seem, they never simply present the world direct. They are always a construction, a re-presentation, rather than a mirror, or a clear “window on the real”’ (Branston and Stafford, 2010: 106). This is obvious when we consider fictional representations as illustrated in the first extract explored earlier. It is much less obvious when we consider representations of life histories as illustrated in the second extract above. It is important, however, to acknowledge that these testimonies also do not present the world direct but are constructions and re-presentations. This does not mean that these representations bear no relation to reality. They are based on people’s experiences, and their power comes from the fact that they are not ‘made up’ like the fictional equality and diversity training session but comprise what real people have said.

The relation between representation and reality is complex but that does not mean that some representations are not more real than others. The testimonies in the film have been, as we have seen, constructed and reconstructed. They cannot therefore be envisaged as naively reflecting reality. However, they comprise real people’s real words and their force derives from the fact that we are able in the training setting to vouch for the fact that these are real people’s stories. White straight male police officers find it less easy in these circumstances to dismiss equality and diversity issues as irrelevant to their work when confronted with the testimonies of police officers who testify to experiences of racism, sexism and homophobia.

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