Interrogating Differential Outcomes in Degree Awarding: towards a post-race/decolonised) pedagogy. Part 1 Gurnam Singh and Glynis Cousin Wednesday, 16th November, 2016 University of Chester Law School, 67 Liverpool Road, Chester, CH2 1AW

Context for todays seminar Widening participation Expansion of HE The purpose of HE The reluctant unmasking of HE – differential degree attainment “Why is my professor not black?” Brexit Trump

Our responsibility “Education was, for Arendt, an expression of that care – “the point at which”, as she wrote in her 1954 essay on “The Crisis in Education”, “we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it”. Education provides us with a protected space within which to think against the grain of received opinion: a space to question and challenge, to imagine the world from different standpoints and perspectives, to reflect upon ourselves in relation to others and, in so doing, to understand what it means to “assume responsibility”.  Jon Nixon discusses Arendt, the role of universities, “worldly thinking,”

What does the university of Chester say? We recognise the dignity and worth of every individual. Therefore we value every member of the University; we endeavour to help each student and member of staff to discover his or her gifts and talents and grow to full potential; and we foster well-being for all. We recognise the vital role of education in the service of society. Therefore we encourage the acquisition of knowledge and the development of skills; and we acknowledge a responsibility to look for every opportunity to put that knowledge and those skills to good use throughout the community. We recognise the inherent value of the pursuit of truth and freedom of enquiry. Therefore we find joy in discovery; we take pleasure in invention; we celebrate human creativity; and we seek wisdom, embracing it wherever we find it, and strive to apply it to every aspect of life.

Making up people Asian or Asian British – Bangladeshi 31 Asian or Asian British – Indian Asian or Asian British – Pakistani 22 Black or Black British – African Black or Black British – Caribbean Chinese Irish Traveller Mixed – White & Asian Mixed – White & Black African 41 Mixed – White & Black Caribbean 39 Other Asian background Other Ethnic background Other Mixed background Other White background White – British White – Irish White – Scottish

Counting diversity The use of ‘empirical data’ to explain the causes and consequences of racial difference in income, educational attainment, intelligence, mobility pat- terns, family structures and residence perpetuates the myth that race is relevant in defining human differences and therefore conforms the stratifed racial order. (Stanfeld & Dennis (1993) p. 161)

Looking in the wrong place   All social strata are artificial, each acquires meaning by the quality of its interactions with the other. King 1992:499 The counterpoised abstractions of black and white, conservative and radical, Christianity/islam, black/white – have some basis in fact but more in fantasy…..these simplistic antinomies become the essential means by which humans…order and subjugate themselves and others King, 1991.499

How do we frame the issue: overcoming race thinking No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it (Einstein in My World View)   Racism constructs race BME and ethnicism

How do we hail students? I am battered down by tom, toms, cannibalism, intellectual deficiency, fetishism, racial defects (Fanon, 1992; 222)

The trouble with ‘the’ The right to be singular We are all the same, that is, human, in such a way that nobody is ever the same as anyone else who ever lived, lives, or will live ” (Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition 7–8).

Human condition commonalities singularities particularities