BAME Student Success ProjectBAME Student Success Project
The proportion of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) students studying within HE has increased (14.9% in 2003/04 to 22.7% in 2016/17). However, the proportion of BAME students who achieve a good degree (i.e. first class honours or upper second class honours) is lower (66.0%) than the proportion of white students attaining good degrees (79.6%). An attainment gap of 13.6% (ECU, 2018).
Broecke and Nicholls’ (2007) watershed report demonstrated that even after controlling for the main factors one might expect to impact attainment, such as prior entry qualifications, type of prior institution, parental attributes and language, there remains a statistically significant gap in attainment between white and BAME students. The degree differential is evident across the sector.
Within our University, the performance of BAME students reflects the national trend and we are determined to reduce this gap. The difference in degree attainment has been evident over a number of years and has been reported by the Student Performance and Monitoring Group (SPMG).
The Student Educational Experience Committee is ensuring the implementation of an action plan to reduce the attainment gap but everyone has a role to play in reducing the gap. The following resources will hopefully provide insight into the issues and some ideas and tips on how to enhance your own practice.
References
- Berry, J. and Loke, G. (2011). HEA/ECU BME summit report.
- Equality Challenge Unit (2018). Equality in higher education, Statistical report. Equality Challenge Unit. Available from: https://www.ecu.ac.uk/guidance-resources/using-data-and-evidence/statistics-report/
- Broecke, S. and Nicholls, T. (2007) Ethnicity and Degree Attainment. Department of Education and Skills Research Report No RW92. Available from: https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/standard/publicationDetail/Page1/RW92
Presentation about National and UH BAME student attainment (4328.8kb)
I have put together this presentation to provide information for staff about the BAME attainment gap. The presentation includes National and UH data as well as information on the University's project to reduce the attainment gap.
3 steps to improve your practice (176.8kb)
Here are three steps you can take to reduce attainment gaps
Compassion focused pedagogy - facilitating inclusive group work
This document provides a brief introduction to compassion focused pedagogy as an approach to facilitating and assessing inclusive group work. The Gilbert's innovative work which was recognised by the Times Higher Award (2018) has been shown to reduce attainment gaps between white and BAME students
OfS Value Added project and Leadership Foundation funding
The University successfully bid for OfS funding as part of a collaborative project to use a value-added metric and an inclusive curriculum framework to address the black and minority ethnic attainment gap. The project involves seven Institutions and will focus on the use of the Value Added (VA) metric and an inclusive curriculum framework (and our own inclusive teaching toolkit) to stimulate change at programme/discipline level within the University. Kingston University are the lead institution.
Alongside the HEFCE bid, we were successful in a bid to the Leadership Foundation to support programme leaders in their implementation of inclusive teaching practices identified as part of the HEFCE project. Details of both projects are available below
Inclusive Curriculum Checklist (297.3kb)
Please use this checklist to review your module Canvas sites to ensure inclusive and accessible materials and that you are structuring your online materials effectively to guide learning
Diversifying and decolonising the curriculum UH resources (150.2kb)
As part of an LTIC award project Dr Chris Lloyd with his colleague Dr Adam Crymble and Masters student Emma Azid – have been exploring what it means to diversify and decolonise the curriculum. This effort has particular focus on the Humanities (and Literary Studies) in particular, but the following resources will hopefully be useful for everyone in different teaching settings. They deal with frequently asked questions and organise useful resources by the time needed to consult them, and by media type.
Decolonising the Curriculum resources
Connections to resources for decolonising and diversifying the curriculum
Leadership Foundation project report (315.7kb)
This is the report for the Leadership Foundation funded project entitled ‘Academic leadership at the programme level to address the BME attainment gap’. The report provides details of our discussion with programme leaders and led to the development of the 11 case studies of good practice.
Case Studies -Inclusive Practice within Programmes (756.1kb)
These 11 case studies have been developed as part of the Leadership Foundation Bid. Following attendance at an inclusive practice workshop programme leaders were interviewed to identify actions to enhance inclusivity within their programme with the aim of reducing the BME attainment gap. the case studies are drawn from different Schools within the University and also include undergraduate and postgraduate programmes
Ten Top Tips for supporting BME student success (256.0kb)
We have drawn up a list of top ten tips to support BME student success. These largely relate to learning, teaching and assessment activities but tips associated with inclusive verbal and body language plus acting to stop dicriminatory language or behaviour obviously applies both within and beyond the classroom
SEEC working group (1323.9kb)
Here is the 2017-18 annual report from the SEEC BAME Student Success Working group
Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic student attainment at UK universities: #closingthegap
A report setting out five steps universities can take to help close the attainment gap which exists between students of different ethnicities at UK universities.
Useful Resources (13985.9kb)
The following resources may be of interest.
Implicit Association Tests (IATs) are used within Psychology to help people understand their thoughts and behaviours. You may like to consider and test your own racial or cultural biases by working through an IAT. This web site presents a method that demonstrates the conscious-unconscious divergences much more convincingly than has been possible with previous methods.
There are lots of tests on the site including tests to consider age and disability biases as well as race. There is useful background information and you may like to work through one or two of the tests to help you identify any unconscious/implicit biases that you weren't aware of.
News article about difficulties in employment
This is a link to an article on the BBC news site indicating difficulties faced by BME females when job seeking
Blog article by Janine Bradbury, a Black, female postgraduate student
Absent From The Academy on Vimeo
A film by Nathan E Richards exploring the absence of Black Professors in UK higher education institutions. With contributions from: Paul Gilroy, Selwyn Cudjoe,…
Why is my curriculum white? - YouTube
In the NUS Black Students Campaign National Students Survey, it was found that, '42 per cent did not believe their curriculum reflected issues of diversity, this video by students at UCL discusses the reasons for this, the potential impact and what can be done about it.
Is Lecturing Culturally Biased? | Edutopia
Studies suggest that replacing the lecture-hall model with an active learning model can help close the achievement gap between students of different cultural backgrounds.
Why isn't my professor black? UCL panel discussion - YouTube
There are just 85 black professors out of 18,510 in the UK and the number has barely changed in eight years. The percent of black professors (0.4%) shows a striking disparity with the proportion of black students, which has increased steadily each year and now stands at 6%.
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