BELONGING AND MATTERING IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Professor Jacqueline Stevenson j.stevenson@leedsmet.ac.uk @ProfJStevenson

BME attainment gap• Degree attainment gap = difference in 1st or 2:1

classification awarded to different groups of students. • 2012/13 degree outcomes:

• 73.2% of White British students received 1st or 2:1 • 57.1% of  UK-domiciled  BME students

• 64.4% of Indian students; 63.9% of Chinese students; 54.2% of Pakistani students; 43.8% of Black Other students

• Has remained nearly static over the last ten years. • Why does it matter?

• Black graduates, are x3 more likely to be unemployed within six months of graduation than White; 80%+ applications for very graduate job; ¾ of large graduate employers now demand applicants have a minimum of a 2:1.

Causes? (Singh, 2011)• Externally: social deprivation, previous family educational experiences of

HE, type of institution; home or campus-based; gender, disability

• Internally: racism; time in paid employment; problems of segregation; low teacher expectations; lack of role models; staff expectations/ prejudiced attitudes associated with linguistic competence; students’ expectations; discriminatory practices in TLA and student support; undervaluing/under-challenging BME students; belonging (or not)

• But....being from a minority ethnic community is still statistically significant in explaining final attainment

• My interests:• Contribution of the curriculum and forms of pedagogy• Whiteness of the academy; my position in the institution and as part

of both the cause and 'the' solution• Belonging and mattering

3

Belonging• Belonging is a multifaceted concept.

• Relates to feelings of connectedness, attachment to other people, places, or modes of being

• More than need for simple social contact: active processes of social contact and interaction; develops shared understandings of who ‘we’ are (Judith Butler); we need to ‘matter’

• Arises from everyday practices and events within specific social milieu.

• At the heart of any negotiation or competition that ensues between [such] groups is the question of who has the right to make claims over how ‘we’ do things – that is, who ‘really’ belongs (May, 2013, p. 98)

Everyday belonging 1• We only know we don't belong when we don't belong• ‘One of the ways in which a sense of belonging can

emerge is if we can go about our everyday lives without having to pay much attention to how we do it. Conversely a disruption in our everyday environment can make us feel uprooted’ (May, 2013, p. 89)

• Every day belongingness• For many of these students:• Everyday world structured by power relations• Everyday world as problematic• Tensions between the ordinary and the extra-ordinary in the every

day world

Everyday belonging 2• Everyday world structured by power relations

• There's no point going and asking because they just look at you like you are dumb and tell you to go away and sort it out by yourself (female, British Pakistani)

• You should know the answers but you don't. But you daren't ask (female, British Black African)

• Everyday world as problematic• So like every time I walk on campus I get stopped by security

because I am wearing a headscarf but my friends don't because they are not (female, British Pakistani)

• So like you want to speak up in lectures but because I am Black and a big man and all that you know that you can seem a bit intimidating so you don't (male, British Black African)

Everyday belonging 3• Belonging is not merely a state of mind but is bound up

with being able to act in a socially significant manner that is recognised by others (May, 2013, p. 142)

• Tensions between the ordinary and the extra-ordinary• The only time it’s [racism] really been talked about a lot is all the

stuff about Shilpa Shetty and Big Brother . I was glad then that people were talking about racism… [here] it’s just never talked about. It’s like everyone thinks that if it isn’t talked about then it isn’t happening (male, British Pakistani).

• I am not a bomber; I just have a rucksack (male, British Indian).• Just because I wear a headscarf it doesn't mean I am an

oppressed woman. I am able to make my own choices, chose how to life my life but I am looked at with pity (female, British Black African)

Importance • Contested belongings• Drawing boundaries• Multiple belongings and hybrid cultures• Inequitable student experience• Fundamental in how privilege produced and reproduced• BUT......

Agency and Strategising• BME students are not passive• Avoidance can be agentic; resistance and resilience• Highly strategic in terms of working round and through

exigencies (see Stevenson, 2012*)

• Students bring to, and draw on, forms of community cultural wealth - the assets that many students acquire from ... "a sense of community history, memory and cultural intuition" (Yosso 2005:79) (aspirational, linguistic, familial, social, navigational, and resistance)

Stevenson, J. (2012) An exploration of the link between Minority Ethnic and White students’ degree attainment and views of their future ‘Possible Selves’, Higher Education Studies, 2 (4), pp. 103-113.

Yosso, T.J. (2005). Whose culture has capital? Race, Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), pp. 69–91.

Ways forward?• I speak three languages, I am a single parent, a former

refugee, learnt English from scratch, went to FE college, trained to be a nursery assistant, worked since I could.... (female, British Black African)....

• Yosso's framework should be used to develop approaches to supporting students

• Start with what students bring to the classroom not what they don't

• Ask reflective questions of our practice• Angela Locke

http://web.csulb.edu/divisions/aa/personnel/fcpd/workshops/documents/Wrk1EditedYossoCulturalWealthSummary.pdf

• Aspirational capital • How are we supporting the maintenance and growth of students’ aspirations? • What assumptions do we have about our students’ aspirations?

• Linguistic• How are we supporting the language and communication strengths of our students? • To what degree do courses utilise inclusive pedagogical practices?

• Familial capital• How do we recognise and help students draw on wisdom, values and stories from

their home communities? • How do we create environments that honour and invite families to participate?

• Social capital• How do we help students stay connected to the communities and individuals

instrumental in their previous educational success? • How do we engage with likely individuals and community-based organisations about

admissions and selection processes and the types of supports successful students need?

• Navigational capital • How do we help students navigate our institutions? Interactions with

teachers/faculty? Interactions with student-support staff? Their peers? • How willing are we to acknowledge that our institutions, both their structures and

cultures, have a history of, and may still in many ways be unsupportive and/or hostile to our students and their communities?

• Resistance capital • How do we support students who are committed to engaging in and serving their

home communities (however they define these)? • What opportunities do we provide students in and outside of the classroom to

prepare them for participation in a diverse democracy?