[email protected] Minding the Gap: disparities in degree attainment in HE 22/1/ 2008 IOS Experience of Black Students in HE Disparities in degree Attainment

[email protected] Minding the Gap: disparities in degree attainment in HE 22/1/ 2008 IOS

Experience of Black Students in HE

Disparities in degree Attainment

Carlton HowsonDe Montfort University

Youth and Community Division


Research Methods Key Decisions

• Qualitative research paradigm• External facilitation• Process/outcomes, ends/means• Students dialogue groups• Biography • Case studies


Themes for Attention

• ‘Invited space’• Recognition of ‘power in struggle’• Recognition of issues for participating

students in absorbing dominant ideology• Issues for researcher and facilitator –

balancing roles• Tension in ‘unknown’ undocumented’

‘known’


Arising Issues

• Emergence of need to negotiate• Risk of ‘domestication’• Recognition of shifting boundaries• Need to sustain notion safe space


Underlying Principles

• Freirian principles of dialogue• Purpose of process is

transformative• Technologies of participatory

development• Issues concerning critical research

practices


What is our experience of education?

• 3 groups reflected on their experience of education: primary, secondary, tertiary, HE

• 2 Themes emerged:– A continuation of discrimination that

had pervaded a whole educational career

– Differences identified by students who had experienced educational institutions elsewhere


Discriminatory themes at all levels

• Individual

• Scio –Cultural

• Structural


How does it feel when we look at all experiences in one

place• Sense of lots of issues not clear where

to start• Sense of carrying a lot of baggage,

sometimes a lifetimes’ worth• Upset at how systematic it is and how

hard it has been to survive within it• Ready to challenge• More determined to succeed and to

challenge for positive change


What have these experiences meant for us? What are our

• Strengths?• Vulnerabilities?• Recognition of some Tension?


What are the Opportunities to Bring about Change?

• P.I.N Triangles (Position, Interest, Needs)

• University• White students• Black Students


Three themes that emerge from discussion

• Learning Contracts• Mentoring systems• Radical Curriculum


The “silent ones”

• I am prepared to initiate some change in the university and its approach towards students, because I am in touch with the "silent-ones", who speak to me about how they truly feel but do not have enough confidence in the initiatives that are being created. I feel if we all work together, things will improve for all the students.


Narratives

• When I told another student what grade I got they said they did not think that I was capable of getting that grade

• Is that how they think about us• From a very young age we are taught to

memorise.. We are discouraged from having our own opinions …now they constantly pick on us for plagiarism


Narratives

• I asked my tutor how I could improve my grade he told me that my aspirations were too high, he said that 60% is a good mark and I should be happy… I was shocked, it really put me off

• My tutor told me that I was just unlucky, it’s just bad luck


Narratives

• I noticed that when we are discussing issues that have anything to do with Black people the White students don’t contribute, when I challenge this, they just reply we are learning from you.

• Yet in the work situation they are the ones with the best jobs telling us what to do.


Narratives

• We really need this group I feel so empowered

• We have to be strong we need unity

• No one expects me to succeed but I am determined, it does not matter how long it takes I will succeed


How can I rise?

Documents

[email protected] Minding the Gap: disparities in degree attainment in HE 22/1/ 2008 IOS Experience of Black Students in HE Disparities in degree Attainment