Race, education and social mobility: We all need to dream the same dream and want the same thing

Introduction

This special issue has emerged out of the continuing concern for discriminatory tensions situated within the context of race, education, and social mobility. The institutionally racist structures which undermine the egalitarian promise for education as a tool for social mobility, continue to be generationally and politically problematic. Higher education (HE) in particular, remains an infectious site for deeply entrenched social inequality that has become interwoven within the structural fabric of the Academy. In 1963, the Robbins Report on the future of HE argued for the immediate expansion and democratisation of the university system in the UK as essential to the development of ‘a learning society’. The gravitas of such a proclamation hinged on the idealistic, utopian view of what HE should resemble without acknowledgement of the intersectional challenges that continually undermine aspects of inclusion while simultaneously marginalising minority groups, who still consistently remain on the periphery of the academy. In attempting to challenge and dismantle inequitable structures which have their roots firmly embedded within divisive rhetoric; custodians of the Academy must continue to question the purpose of the university, who it serves within our society; and whether it mirrors the multi-cultural hybridity reflected within modern society.

Higher education within the United Kingdom (UK); in particular its traditional and elite institutions, continually remain the province of the middle and upper middle classes, while its ‘lower’ and newer echelons have become a reservoir for poorer, working class and ‘non-traditional’ students – most notably UK’s increasingly aspirational, Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) ¹ populations (Alexander & Arday, 2015). The papers in this special issue have emanated from an on-going commitment by anti-racist scholar-activists to challenge and dismantle racial discrimination in all its subtle and insidious manifestations. The interchangeable face of racial inequality requires a variance of conceptual, transnational and theoretical approaches that utilise interdisciplinary and practice-based interventions and discussions. As generational, temporary custodians of the academy, there must be a collective imperative to build university institutions that are reflective of our diverse, multi-cultural society (Law, 2017). Our attempts to engage in such endeavour require a relinquishing of power and privilege; a redistribution of social, cultural and economic capital; and a decentring of ‘Whiteness’ as the normative orthodoxy (Leonardo, 2002; Tate & Bagguley, 2017).

For education to fulfil its promise as an instrument for social mobility, reflections and continuous forensic evaluations must ensue – rejecting complacency in favour of collective responsibility. As an instrument of division, racism continues to thrive on reinvention through symbolically discriminatory acts which often illuminate the marginal gains of equality change processes and strategies (Arday & Mirza, 2018; Law, 2017). Conversely, but perhaps unsurprisingly they also highlight the abject failure of educational institutions, society and parliamentarians to bring this issue from the political margins to the centre in fully committing towards tackling and dismantling structural racism (Ahmed, 2012; Arday, 2019). Whether in terms of admissions, attainment, employment, the student experience or indeed staffing, universities and the education system more generally still have some considerable ground to traverse with regards to ensuring equality and better outcomes for ethnic minorities in the UK (Alexander & Arday, 2015; Arday, 2019). Such endeavours become even more pertinent because of the lofty ideals often espoused by universities which continue to prove contradictory as the sector continues to remain a site for deeply entrenched racial discrimination, victimisation and marginalisation (Peters, 2015). Evidence (AdvanceHE, 2018; HESA, 2019; Leading Routes, 2019) continues to point towards the lack of impetus and urgency from universities to actively engage in more penetrative racial equality and diversification interventions. This has resulted in the sector occupying the rather embarrassing position of doing much worse that other institutions within British society when it comes to addressing race equality (Arday, 2020; Lammy, 2015). Despite this shortcoming, emerging discourses and commentaries by anti-racist scholar-activists continue to proffer suggestions which advance: better outreach, more transparent data concerning racial and ethnic disparity within the education sector, support regarding career progression pathways, challenging the monopoly on knowledge canons and the types of gatekeepers who traditionally occupy this space, and finally, making more use of positive action (Arday, 2018, 2019; Leading Routes, 2019; Peters, 2015).

Five decades after the Robbins Report, this special issue attempts to capture the urgency of racial inequality within education and the critical discourses concerning the wider debates around the future of the Academy globally but particularly within the UK. If British HE is to move beyond its 20th century bunker of anachronistic elitism and social hierarchies of privilege and modernise to truly reflect the ideals associated with egalitarianism, then it must embrace a new era of democratisation and diversity that will ultimately define its success in the relatively new global dawn of the twenty-first century (Arday & Mirza, 2018; Heleta, 2016). The over-riding messages which transpire throughout this special issue are unfiltered and clear-despite the massification and marketization of HE, in which universities are reconstituted as international ‘big businesses’ (Collini, 2017), the ‘masters tools’ of race equality and diversity polices have not ‘dismantled the masters’ house’ (Mirza, 2018; Warikoo, 2016). Behind the false veneer of inclusion and social mobility, universities continue to maintain the mantle of upholding ideals associated with a ‘post-race’ mantra. The Academy in many ways remains in a vegetative and comatose state, sadly bearing all the symptoms of continuing to sleepwalk towards the kaleidoscopic utopia of ‘colour-blindness’ (Arday, 2019).

Attempting to stay abreast of the fluctuating face of racism requires a sustained consensus in order to develop a maximal and transformative approach to institutional change, rather than an optional and obligatory completion of legal obligations where anti-discrimination frameworks exist (Heleta, 2016; Tate & Bagguley, 2017). Heralded as a substantive jewel in the crown of global HE: the UK’s progress in the field of anti-racism in HE institutions remains questionable and continues to be dissipated across the sector within a proliferation of policy statements on equity, diversity and marginalisation. This has coincided with the continual victimisation of ethnic minority staff and students and consequently access and progression remains problematic (Arday, 2018: Bhopal, 2014; Law, 2017). As Tate and Bagguley (2017) assert these approaches have been inadequate and do little to reflect the necessary institutional effort required to establish real and lasting anti-racist endeavour in the Academy, particularly within the UK.

Importantly, this issue seeks to locate the dimensions of racial inequality within the context of diversity, education and social mobility through critical theoretical discourses such as critical race theory (CRT), post-structuralism and decolonization, with an emphasis on social justice as a key category and stimulus for analysis. The authors explore a myriad of themes ranging from the symbolic, lived experiences of BAME staff and students in education in relation to access, inequality, progression, marginalization and outcomes, and critiques of existing pedagogical practices. Other contexts explore the impact of policy-makers and senior stakeholders who continue to influence and shape the direction of race equality and social mobility within education and society more broadly. Importantly, this issue stands on the shoulders of previous generations of anti-racist scholar-activists whose struggle to dismantle the status quo provides other emancipatory possibilities whilst furthering futural hopes of sustaining a racially, non-discriminatory HE system. Thus, the mantle taken up by these exceptionally talented contributors in this issue attempts to build upon this ever-burgeoning area in a varied, spirited and thought-provoking way.

The opening gambit within this special issue begins with a compelling exploration of the ‘self’ by April-Louise Pennant. In her paper titled: ‘My Journey into the ‘Heart of Whiteness’ whilst remaining my authentic (Black) self’, Pennant powerfully and candidly utilises the auto-ethnography to explain her educational journey whilst simultaneously unpacking and considering the centrality of whiteness within the education system. The paper adopts an innovative and novel life-histories methodological approach to illustrate the ways in which other Black British women graduates have grappled with the whiteness of the education system.

Following Pennant, Jane Chi Hyun Park and Sara Tomkins provide an engaging conceptual analysis regarding the teaching of whiteness. In their paper titled: Teaching Whiteness: A Dialogue on Embodied and Affective Approaches they adeptly provide a critical reflection of their embodied and affective experiences teaching as women from different racial and cultural backgrounds (Korean-American and Anglo-Australian). Park and Tomkins draw upon feminist pedagogies to illuminate the strategic ways in which they reside within their own intersectional identities in pedagogical spaces. With a focus on differing approaches to discussing whiteness and white privilege, their paper provides a point of departure for considering representations of race and gender in relation to pedagogical decisions and approaches which are inextricably linked to developing students’ capacities for engaging with racial difference and racism in critically conscious ways that extend beyond the classroom.

Izram Chaudry draws on the conceptualisation of the racial micro-aggression to elucidate the experiences of Muslim students within HE. In his paper titled: I felt like I was being watched: The hypervisibility of Muslim students in HE, Chaudry embarked on a case study to illustrate the ways in which Islamophobia operates within a university environment and its impact upon the everyday experiences of British Muslim students (BMS). The findings indicated that BMS experienced varying iterations of Islamophobic micro-aggressions relating to aspects of their appearance. This pivotal interjection regarding the dismantling of Islamophobia by Chaudry provides a seminal moment with regards to how universities can better address issues of overt and covert racism towards British Muslim university students.

With a thought-provoking exegesis of educational inequalities regarding the educational aspirations and future expectations of British girls and young women who identify as Muslim, Farzana Shain’s paper titled: Navigating the unequal education space in post-9/11 England: British Muslim girls talk about their educational aspirations and future expectations, considers the experiences of young women in their early 20s living in the North and South of England as the first generation to be considering their future options in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit referendum. Shain’s paper expertly reveals the structural and racialised disadvantage that will invariably prevent many Muslim women from converting educational success into labour market advantage.

In their contribution titled: The University went to ‘decolonise’ and all they brought back was lousy diversity double-speak! Critical race counter-stories from faculty of colour in ‘decolonial’ times, Nadena Doharty, Manuel Madriaga and Remi Joseph-Salisbury unpack and de-centre structural and institutional forms of whiteness within the UK HE. The authors provide a compelling disruption of whiteness which advocates a shifting of sands regarding the omnipresent stranglehold of whiteness on curricula, pedagogy, knowledge production, university policies, campus climate and the experiences of students and faculty of colour. Doharty, Madriaga and Joseph-Salisbury draw upon CRT through the vehicle of counter-storytelling and the introduction of composite characters. The rejection of universities as a race-neutral, meritocratic institution is masterfully and vehemently challenged and dismantled. The illustration of key themes within this paper that contour the experiences of faculty of colour within the UK HE, provide a seminal moment for reflection regarding the symbolic and residual impact of institutional racism, racial micro-aggressions, racial battle fatigue and steadfast fugitive resistance.

In their committed interdisciplinary exploration of decolonising the canon entitled: Attempting to Break the Chain: Reimaging Inclusive Pedagogy and Decolonising the Curriculum within the Academy, Jason Arday, Dina Zoe Belluigi and Dave Thomas explore the potential for anti-racist education as an instrument for cultural hybridity and inclusive pedagogy within HE. Through the implementation of a CRT theoretical framework, the authors claim that the continuous monopoly and proliferation of the dominant White, Eurocentric canon which comprises much of our existing curricula; continues to be consequential upon aspects of engagement, inclusivity and belonging particularly for students and staff of colour. Throughout this emancipatory interchange, the authors call for a radical re-imagining of the Academy and the Eurocentric knowledge that is situated within it in favour of a decolonised and inclusive canon that reflects our diverse, multi-cultural histories and indigenous communities.

Embracing an inclusive future: holding on for tomorrow

Within education we are collectively intertwined and bound by a commonality which hinges on the influential and awe-inspiring words of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Former apartheid revolutionary and South African President, Nelson Mandela, in which he states that ‘education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world’. The potency of such powerful words is dependent upon the Academy taking collective responsibility for creating a more equal, diverse, and socially mobile space.

In attempting to envisage this inclusive utopia, a reconceptualization of social justice is required in attempting to establish a collective and targeted focus towards social justice and racial equality in the Academy and the education sector more generally. The ever-changing nature of the inequitable racialised terrain remains problematic and as a result scholar-activists will need to remain mentally agile and vigilant. The massification of HE over the past 15 years has witnessed a revolution in the marketisation of the knowledge economy, culminating in the 2017 Higher Education and Research Act within the UK. Universities no longer resemble semi-autonomous institutions of scholarly pursuit. On the contrary, similarities are now comparable with the functions of a business enterprise, operating in a highly regulated but competitive commercial marketplace (Collini, 2017; Emejulu, 2017). The neo-liberal transformation of the Academy has huge implications for Black and minority ethnic students, academic and professional staff and service workers, given that they already reside on the periphery, while continuing to be systemically disadvantaged by exclusionary, racist institutional practices that remain at the sectors core (Mirza, 2018).

As the editor of this special issue the inherent belief is held that the major theoretical and intellectual insights offered within this collection, reflect the true potential for an equitable and egalitarian education system by decentring whiteness and the strands of power, privilege and oppression that accompany this phenomena (Arday, 2019). The theoretically and empirically rich dialogues offered by the contributors allow for a momentary period of reflection and evaluation with regards to how we begin to reconfigure the ways in which the Academy can truly become a microcosm and reflection of a modern, multi-cultural society. Moreover, one could argue that the utilisation of critical race paradigms and philosophies underpinned by qualitative analyses help towards creating new conceptualizations of what the anti-racist university could resemble (Andrews, 2019; Heleta, 2016; Law, 2017). Within this special issue of Educational Philosophy and Theory: Exploring the Unequal Space: Race, Social Mobility and Education; the authors represent a body of activists and thinkers – constituting and envisioning new waves of evocative contemporary thought which reflect a commitment towards realigning our efforts towards dismantling the legacy of the deeply entrenched inequality within our universities, in attempting to confront and disrupt the myriad of sustained institutional racism and the problems that encompass this phenomena.

This special issue of Educational Philosophy and Theory does not valorise racism as an issue to be marketised or exploited but rather draws inspiration from the potential dismantling of racism in HE and the promise of a diverse and inclusive Academy for upcoming generations. Finally, this issue builds on the growing body of literature in this area in an attempt to challenge the zeitgeist and reflect the dawn of a colonially non-compliant political front in HE that has seen the emergence of a growing, global critical mass determined to challenge, disrupt and destabilize oppressive and symbolically violent legacies within our major institutions.

The interrogation and destabilisation of racism thrives upon praxis links being drawn through interdisciplinary paradigms within anti-racist frameworks which centre and provide voice to the lived experiences of people of colour within education and society. The critical analysis advanced by the authors in this issue confronts the institutionalised racist orthodoxy and decolonial assaults that have continuously undermined the notion of education being a tool for upward social mobility.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jason Arday

Dr. Jason Arday is an Assistant Professor in Sociology at Durham University in the Department of Sociology. He is a Visiting Research Fellow at The Ohio State University in the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, a Research Associate at Nelson Mandela University in the Centre for Critical Studies in Higher Education Transformation and a Trustee of the Runnymede Trust, the UK’s leading Race Equality Thinktank. Jason is also a Trustee of the British Sociological Association (BSA). He sits on the Centre for Labour and Social Studies (CLASS) National Advisory Panel and is a School Governor at Shaftesbury Park Primary School in London. Jason’s research focuses on Race, Education, Intersectionality and Social Justice. He sits on the following trade union equality committees; Trade Union Congress (TUC) Race Relations Committee; University and College Union (UCU) Black Members’ Standing Committee and the UK Council for Graduate Education (UKCGE) Working Group on BME Participation in Postgraduate Research. Jason is also part of the Universities UK Advisory Group on tackling racial harassment of students. He is a Graduate of the Operation Black Vote (OBV) MP Parliamentary Scheme, a scheme focused on unearthing the next generation of ethnic minority Parliamentarians. Jason is the author of the following titles: Considering Racialized Contexts in Education: Using Reflective Practice and Peer-Mentoring to support Black and Ethnic Minority educators (Routledge); Being Young, Black and Male: Challenging the dominant discourse (Palgrave); and Exploring Cool Britannia and Multi-Ethnic Britain: Uncorking the Champagne Supernova (Routledge). He is the Co-Editor of the highly acclaimed Dismantling Race in Higher Education: Racism, Whiteness and Decolonising the Academy (Palgrave) with Professor Heidi Mirza (Goldsmiths, University of London). Jason also serves on the Editorial Boards of Educational Philosophy and Theory and the British Sociological Association (BSA) journal Sociology, and is the Guest Editor of this special issue.

Notes

1 Commentators suggest the use of precise descriptions regarding the ethnic background when describing research findings (Bradby, 2003; McKenzie & Crowcroft, 1996). For the purposes of this Special Issue, the term Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic and the abbreviation BAME will be used to refer to people who are from ethnic backgrounds other than white British (including Black African, African Caribbean, Asian, Latin-American and other minority ethnic communities) with more precise descriptions used where appropriate. There is a recognition, however, that the term BAME is not universally accepted in spite of its use within the British vernacular. It is important to acknowledge that the term BAME, despite its widespread use, has severe limitations and usually follows non-specific quantifiers such as ‘most’ or ‘some’ (Glover & Evison, 2009). Typically, there has been an accepted use of the term BAME, which has been proliferated within public research and Government papers. Given the purpose of this issue, the term is applied purely as a descriptive term which has been used concurrently and interchangeably by authors with other terms utilised such as ‘academics or faculty of colour’ throughout the issue.