Understanding Pedagogic Discrimination: Strategies for improving performance of BME students in HE

1. Understanding Pedagogic Discrimination: Strategies for improving performance of BME students in HE Eddie Blass, Kathy Weston and Mick Broadbent

2. Context • The ‘idea’ of the university • White male upper class history • Shift to multicultural, international student body • Government target of 50% participation • Pressure to recruit overseas students for financial reasons • How has the provision changed in response?

3. Case Study Context • Post-92 University • Approaching 50% non-white student population • Mirrors national picture of differential attainment rates by ethnicity • Typical in commitment to enhancing Teaching and Learning (ie CELT centre, enhancement awards, etc) • International student induction and accelerated skills unit • Mentoring schemes for any students who buy-in

4. Methodology • Student focus groups specific to ethnicity • Staff focus groups • One-to-one interviews with high performing students within low performing categories • Analysis of teaching and learning methodologies • Seminar observations • Questionnaire (forthcoming)

5. Baseline Position • Students will segregate themselves if we do not do something actively to encourage behaviour otherwise. • Loss of opportunity to extend base of knowledge • Loss of opportunity to improve language schools • Exclusive behaviour in the classroom • Differential grade outcomes • BUT safe and secure position for students to take

6. Response of Academics • Four options: • Deny the situation and ignore it • Acknowledge the situation and accentuating it through classroom action • Acknowledge the situation and continue to ignore it, often due to lack of strategies to address the situation • Acknowledge the situation and seek out strategies to address the situation

7. Example 1 • Lecturer finds the names of students from BME groups difficult to pronounce and hence avoids addressing those students by name in the class. • Intention is not to embarrass themselves or the students. • Implication is students are more excluded in the classroom.

8. Example 2 • Groupwork assignments are set with random allocation of group members. • Intention is to integrate between groups of differing ethnicity. • Implication is that some students feel they are carrying others and resentment between ethnic groups increases.

9. Example 3 • Lecturers select case study examples to illustrate theory from current newspaper or Western textbooks. • Intention is to bring the theory to life. • Implication is that organisations operating in non-Western cultures are excluded and non-Western students are disadvantaged at contributing to the discussion.

10. Student Response • Students are very positive about their experiences of teaching and learning in HE. • Students appear unaware of any indirect discriminatory practice. • There is no evidence of direct discrimination. • Students attribute underperformance to each other based on gender and specific ethnic groups, eg home Asian Males and overseas Chinese.

11. Academics Response • Large amount of guilt experienced for not being able to redress the situation, particularly amongst women. • Some anger expressed at admissions procedures when English language clearly is not ‘good enough’. • Some evidence of staff stereotyping students to explain their levels of motivation and participation in seminars.

12. Academic Responses • Academics do not know how to support international students and some express ambivalence as to whether or not they should. • Tailored support offered for disability but not for other sources of disadvantage. • Acknowledgement of cultural unawareness and reliance on stereotypes. • Insecurity surrounding the issues and hence a ‘whispering’ culture

13. Suggestions for ways forward • Development of international case studies to situate the learning in a variety of ethnic contexts. • Greater use of peer assisted learning strategies to embed social relationships across ethnic groups. • Development of inclusive seminar teaching strategies amongst academics. • Greater use of technology to mediate language use. Are sessions podcastable? • Development of materials to support overseas students in the UK model of assessment, including samples and model answers to demonstrate differences between assessment questions. • Staff development to overcome stereotypes.

14. On-going activity • Still consider this to be pilot work • Seeking funding for extension • Questionnaire being developed to test wider experiences • Possible extension to alumni

15. Any Questions THANK YOU FOR LISTENING