Understanding and responding to the ethnicity attainment gap

Tony O’Shea-PoonHead of Equality and Diversity23 June 2011

UK Undergraduates, modules at levels 2 and 3, % good pass

06/07 07/08 08/09 09/10

White 48.2 48.3 48.0 48.6

BME 27.6 28.9 29.3 31.1

Attainment gap 20.6 19.4 18.7 17.5 2

3

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

Asian Black Chinese&Other

Mixed White

2005/06

2006/07

2007/08

2008/09

2009/10

UK Undergraduates, modules at levels 2 and 3, % good pass

4

Topics• OU context

• Our strategic response

• 4 dilemmas (the 4 R’s)

• Current OU action plan

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OU Context

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Our vision of a fair and just society

• We are creating an inclusive university community and a society where people are treated with dignity and respect, where inequalities are challenged, and where we anticipate and respond positively to different needs and circumstances so that everyone can achieve their potential.

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Our strategic response• Leadership

• Understanding our performance

• Getting it recognised

• Sharing responsibility

• Reporting progress and performance

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Dilemma 1: Reinforcing negative expectations• Communicating explanations for the attainment gap may

reinforce negative expectations and beliefs amongst tutors and students, resulting in unintended consequences.

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Dilemma 2: Reductionism• Language development alone is insufficient:

• Prior attainment• Socio-economic circumstances• Conceptions of learning• Curriculum• Bias/stereotypes

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Dilemma 3: Racism• Traditional perspective

• Racism is an exceptional occurrence• Willingly enacted• Driven by race hatred

• Critical perspective• Racism is extensive and taken-for-granted• Enacted through ‘colour blind’ policy and rhetoric• Sustained by actions that are assumed to apply fairly

to all

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Racism and Black students• Under-estimate academic ability

• Over-estimate challenge and threat

• Discipline Black students more severely

• Disproportionately place Black students in lower ranked teaching groups

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NUS research• “Respondents regularly cited racial and cultural bias

among lecturers as a deterrent to their overall satisfaction and attainment”

• “Some students...believed that their teachers did not provide the same level of attention or encouragement they would to non-Black students...respondents pointed to a lack of support and constructive feedback...”

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OU Health & Social Care research• “My tutor...always marked me down...and it’s quite soul

destroying when you’ve put so much effort in...I couldn’t understand how I’d get such a bad mark in my essays and then in my exams I was getting merits...”

…Learning from successful Black students in Health and Social Care, June 2011

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Dilemma 4: Resources• Spending cuts

• Squeezed resources

• A defence for inaction?

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Why it matters…“A wealth of evidence shows that education is a key determinant of life chances. As well as being a right in itself, education is an enabling right, allowing individuals to develop the skills, capacity and confidence to secure other rights and economic opportunities.”

Equality and Human Rights Commission

How fair is Britain? The first Triennial Review