1. BELONGING FOR BME STUDENTS AT A PREDOMINATELY WHITE UNIVERSITY Neil Currant, Head of Academic Professional Development, University of Bedfordshire neil.currant@beds.ac.ukneil.currant@beds.ac.uk @ncurrant

2. Context – Predominately White Institution (PWI) Attainment: Proportion of 1 st & 2.1 degrees (home, f/t, UG students)

3. Three starting points 1. Current debate on inclusivity, engagement and belonging may ignore race and its implications 2. The importance of localised (institutional) contexts 3. The variety of student experiences

4. Belonging, retention & engagement Thomas (2012) argues that: Early belonging helps retention Strong sense of belonging is important …and it derives from engagement …nurtured through mainstream academic activities. From ‘What Works? Student Retention & Success programme’

5. Inclusivity “an inclusive approach…shift away from supporting specific student groups…towards equity being embedded …and treated as an ongoing process of quality enhancement” May, H. and Bridger, K. (2010)

6. NUS “Universities love to highlight their inclusivity and diversity …What we find however is that the content of those courses, the things we are being taught are not inclusive or diverse…It is one that places white, Eurocentric writers and thinkers above others without much concern.” Mariya Hussain. 11 th March 2015

7. Student Engagement Kuh et. al. (2005) identified five practices that create student engagement: Supportive campus environment Student- faculty interaction Active and collaborative learning Enriching educational experiences Academic challenge

8. Whose engagement? 1. Supportive campus environment ‘non-traditional’ students often report a hostile campus environment (e.g. Johnson et al 2007) For example, 16% of Black students in one survey had experienced racism at University (NUS 2012) “Even in my classes like linguistic diversity they (lecturers) shy away from race…it does feel like the teacher censors herself…these issues aren’t properly looked at.” student

9. 2. Student – staff interaction Risk of Unconscious Bias – staff & student body are a different demographic “when you raise your hand in class, when you talk you don't talk the way you write… because you actually write better than the way you speak… Sometimes they (lecturers) say to you I did not believe it is you that writes this.” international student

10. 3. Active & Collaborative Learning 4. Enriching Educational Experiences Tendency for students to form homophilic groups. “every time you sit with a group of white students, after break no-one wants to sit next to you so after break you find people have shifted… do you know what, I have tried my part and (makes clicking sound) no-one wants to sit next to me.” student

11. 5. Academic Challenge Evidence that staff have lower expectations of many BME students. (e.g. Stevenson 2012, NUS 2012) “…there is a box where every black student is placed… The black ones are all 2.2 students.” student

12. Point 1 Engagement and Belonging may be different based on race / ethnicity

13. Institutional contextual differences ‘Onlyness’ (Harper 2009) was an important factor; where some students were the only person from their ethnic group in their class. For BME students, their staff and peer interactions are more likely to be ‘cross- racial’ whereas as white students’ interactions are more likely to be with individuals who are also white.

14. Specific recommendations BME student advisor Targeted personal tutors

15. Point 2 What works may be highly contextualised to the institution and subject.

16. Varied strategies of Belonging 1. Post-racial 2. Academic 3. Advocacy From: In depth, open-ended interviews with twelve BME undergraduates about their experiences at university. The interviews were conducted by two BME postgraduate research students.

17. 1. Post racial - “It’s not like I’ve got to make sure I put it in there so people know I’m African or anything like that, it doesn’t matter…I don’t want it to be the first thing people see, or think, is that I am black, so I tend not to want to go towards them groups (African Caribbean society), that’s the reason why I didn’t go to X University ‘cos when you go there it’s quite a big black group, which is fine, I’m not saying you don’t want to hang out with your own people, but don’t make it out so that everyone needs to know that we’re black.” (Student 3)

18. 2. Academic “…people will judge you (for being black), people will look at you by what you do … get good grades, that is when you get the respect … the truth is you cannot measure yourself with a white person in this country, what a white person needs to do, you need to do double to be able to be recognised.” (Student 4)

19. 3. Advocacy “I think it does lead me to when I get given assignments, all I want to do is race because that’s what they’ve missed out…I think me being so clued up about race issues is a form of self-protection.” (Student 1)

20. Point 3 Even within a small sample of students their student experience was very different and how they addressed their own belonging was highly variable.

21. Summary Q: How do we address achievement given lack of inclusivity, varied institutional contexts and varied student experiences of engagement and belonging? A: Institutional research?

22. Thoughts?

23. References Harper, S.R. (2009) ‘Niggers no more: A critical race counter-narrative on black male student achievement at predominantly white colleges and universities.’ International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. 22 (6), pp. 697-712. Johnson, D. R. et. al. (2007) ‘Examining Sense of Belonging Among First- Year Undergraduates From Different Racial/Ethnic Groups’, Journal of College Student Development 48 (5), pp. 525-542 Kuh, G.D. et. al. (2005) Student Success in College: Creating Conditions that Matter, Jossey-Bass: San Francisco. May, H. and Bridger, K. (2010) Developing and embedding inclusive policy and practice in higher education. York: The Higher Education Academy. NUS (2012) ‘Race for Equality: A report on the experiences of Black students in further and higher education’, NUS: London Stevenson, J. (2012) Black and Minority Ethnic Student Degree Retention and Attainment, Higher Education Academy: York Thomas, L. (2012) Building student engagement and belonging in Higher Education at a time of change: final report from the What Works? Student Retention & Success programme, Paul Hamlyn Foundation: London.