Revitalising race equality policy? Assessing the impact of the Race Equality Charter mark for British universities

ABSTRACT

The Race Equality Charter (REC) was introduced in 2014 as a national policy initiative that aims to support UK universities in developing cultural and systemic changes to promote race equality for Black and minority ethnic (BME) staff and students. Drawing on quantitative data, we locate the REC within a complex picture of undergraduate student diversity and significant attainment gaps between white students and Black and ethnic minority groups. Using qualitative interviews and observations to further explore the questions our quantitative analysis raises, we show that the REC is not perceived as a significant vehicle for progressing race equality work in award-holding institutions. Rather, it is mostly applied as an enhancement tool to help shape and sustain existing race equality initiatives that produce incremental change. This, we argue, suggests the REC’s intention to inspire race equality approaches that favour institutional strategic planning at the highest level, is yet to be realised.

KEYWORDS:

• Race equality policy
• student attainment
• higher education
• Race Equality Charter

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Britain’s national equality body established by the Equality Act 2006, it replaced the three existing equality organisations; the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) and the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC).

2. https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/8042 [accessed 09/10/20].

3. A ‘good degree’ refers to a 2:1 or 1^st class honours.

4. https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/about/measures-of-our-success/participation-performance-measures/gap-in-degree-outcomes-1sts-or-21s-between-white-students-and-black-students/. The OfS definition of ‘Black’ is based on the student’s self-declared ethnicity at time of registration. ‘Black’ as a broad ethnic category includes students who identify as Black Caribbean, Black African and Black Other.

5. UKRI ‘is by far the UK’s largest postgraduate funder’ (Williams et al, 2019: 3).

6. The ECU is a registered charity in the UK which works to promote the diversity and equality of staff and students in UK HE. In 2018 it merged into the newly formed Advance HE.

7. In the REC process, insitutions first register as members and then work towards award status (currently a Bronze award is the highest award available), with the expectation that this is renewed within three years.

8. Advance HE was formed in 2018, combining the Equality Challenge Unit, Leadership Foundation and Higher Education Academy. It has a remit to support EDI, leadership and effective governance, and teaching and learning across the sector.

9. Currently, this is the lowest available entry level award that precedes Silver and Gold. At present no university has achieved Silver or Gold.

10. We note the possibility that our presence as onlookers may have altered how conversations around the sensitive topic of race equality were handled.

11. HEFCE was responsible for distributing public money for research and teaching to colleges and universities until 2018 when it closed and became the newly formed OfS.

12. BME students are concentrated in ‘new’ post-1992 universities. Former polytechnics granted university status in 1992.

13. https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/data-and-analysis/differences-in-student-outcomes/ethnicity/[accessed 15.04.20].

14. A 2019 report analysing the effectiveness of Athena SWAN noted there were 164 members, holding 815 awards between them. See: https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/news-and-views/new-report-adds-athena-swan-review-evidence-base.

15. https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Lords/2019-02-04/HLWS1264/[accessed 07.04.20].

16. https://www.ecu.ac.uk/equality-charters/race-equality-charter/about-race-equality-charter/[accessed 7.7.20].

17. Thus excluding some medical qualifications.

18. Note that in Table 1 the number of REC bronze award holders is 13 which is lower than the current total of 17. This difference is due to the fact that the OfS dataset we use captures information up to academic year 18/19 and only includes English universities.

19. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are measurable values used by universities to monitor and evaluate progress on specific business imperatives.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council under Grant number ES/R009341/1.