Competing inequalities: gender versus race in higher education institutions in the UK

ABSTRACT

This article explores findings from two projects that explore the impacts and institutional experiences of the Athena SWAN (ASC) and Race Equality (REC) Charter Marks in UK universities. The article offers an important, timely and original insight into the ways that these two charter marks are shaping and influencing practice in universities. We argue that in higher education policymaking, there has been a privileging of gender over race in terms of addressing inequalities in higher education. Whilst acknowledging the persistence of inequalities in both groups, the data from our projects highlight a significant risk that gender and race inequalities become conflated in current equalities work. We argue that as a consequence of a logic of efficiency that drives Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to combine gender and race equalities work, and the privileging within this combination of gender, HEIs can publicly work towards equality and inclusion in general terms, without having to confront uncomfortable and deeply embedded practices that perpetuate White privilege in the academy.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• race
• higher education/university
• equality/inequality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths and Medicine.

2. The Equality Challenge Unit is a charity that works to further issues of equality and diversity for staff and students in the UK. In April 2018, the Equality Challenge Unit was amalgamated with the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education and the Higher Education Academy into one new organisation, AdvanceHE (see https://www.ecu.ac.uk/about-us/).

3. The General Data Protection Regulation is a European Union regulation based on providing data protection and privacy for individuals on how and where their personal data are held and used.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the British Academy/Leverhulme grant; University and College Union.