“Race” and ethnicity in HE
Universities are hierarchically organised institutions, where undergraduates can progress to doctoral study, and then on to Early Career academic positions (often on fixed-term contracts), and from there (in stages) to Professor. In an ideal world, access to the higher echelons – to positions that come with influence and authority – would be equal to all, but in reality, there are disparities in how people from different “racial” and ethnic backgrounds progress through the hierarchical structures, from undergraduate student to senior faculty member.
These disparities are evident throughout the Higher Education system, starting from the point that a student applies to University: For example, a 2023 report identified that 78% of the universities analysed were less likely to make offers to Black students when they had the same entry profile as other applicants (Mba, Boudiaf and Lloyd-Bardsley, 2023). Further, an investigation by the Independent newspaper, using data from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS), found that Black university applicants were 21 times more likely than White university applicants to have their applications investigated for suspected false or missing information (Busby, 2018). These inequalities continue as students progress through their university studies, with Black, Asian, and mixed ethnicity students less likely than their White contemporaries to graduate with “good degrees” (1st or 2.1 classification: Office for Students, 2023). These observations demonstrate a need to interrogate the practices of those involved in the provision of Higher Education, and to conceptualise racism as a structural-level problem, embedded in everyday situations, processes, and behaviours.
Disparities in Higher Education on the bases of “race” and ethnicity are complex. Data shows that proportionally, White British people are proportionally less likely to attend university than Black people and people from other minoritised ethnic backgrounds. In fact, the group who seem to be most excluded from Higher Education are White people from economically marginalised backgrounds, and that young men among this group are the most under-represented at university. Therefore, it’s important that when these disparities are explored, we take an intersectional approach to understanding them. This means that we need to focus on the convergence between systems of “race”/ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status (and other individual attributes) to understand the obstacles that people face in accessing and participating fully in Higher Education (Crenshaw, 1991). Applying an intersectional lens can also help us to interrogate why Black women are particularly underrepresented among senior academic staff in universities.
Within the Psychology department at Royal Holloway, we are exploring ways that we can address disparities on the bases of “race” and ethnicity, and improve the landscape for students at our University, and beyond. One way we are doing this is by curriculum development, making sure that Black people and people from minoritised ethnic backgrounds are represented in the content we teach. This is part of a broader project to decolonise our curriculum, acknowledging the White eurocentrism from which much of contemporary psychological theory and research arises, and encouraging students to consider what we could learn from alternative, critical psychologies, including decolonial, feminist, post-structural, and queer psychologies. We have already developed a Level 6 (final year) undergraduate module on the Psychology of Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion, which uses inclusive approaches to learning and teaching (“pedagogies”) to teach key EDI issues, including on disparities in Higher Education. You can find out more about this module [here].
As teaching-focused academics, members of the THESIS team at Royal Holloway are at the forefront of developing these initiatives. We have established a lead in EDI-related pedagogic projects who will be exploring how we can push forward with curriculum development and the use of inclusive pedagogies, and ensure that Black students and students from minoritised ethnic backgrounds feel represented in the content we teach, included in the psychology community, able to contribute to the university community, and able to achieve to the best of their abilities.