Racial disparities in student outcomes in British higher education: examining Mindsets and bias

ABSTRACT

Students from Black Minority Ethnic (BME) groups continue to experience disadvantages compared to White students in UK Higher Education (Pilkington, A. 2013. "The Interacting Dynamics of Institutional Racism in Higher Education." Race Ethnicity and Education 16 (2): 225–245.). Evidence highlights that an attainment gap exists between BME students and their White counterparts (Office for National Statistics. 2019. A Guide for the Collection and Classification of Ethnic Group, National Identity and Religion Data in the UK. Accessed May 25, 2019. www.ons.gov.uk; NUS. 2011. Race for Equality: A Report on the Experiences of Black Students in Further and Higher Education. London: National Union of Students. Accessed January 18, 2015. http://www.nus.org.uk/PageFiles/12350/NUS_Race_for_Equality_web.pdf), with BME students increasingly reporting negative experiences (Bunce, L., N. King, S. Saran, and N. Talib. 2019. "Experiences of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) Students in Higher Education: Applying Self-determination Theory to Understand the BME Attainment Gap." Studies in Higher Education 1–14.). The findings from a sample of 943 first-year undergraduate students and 210 staff members highlighted no significant differences between White and BME students’ Growth Mindsets and stereotypical thoughts despite the common discourse of minority students being considered lacking in skills, motivation, or aspirations (Burke, R. L. 2015. Successful Strategies and Techniques Used by High School Teachers, School Counselors, and School Leaders to Encourage African American Males to Enroll in College (Doctoral dissertation, Capella University); Douglas, B., C. W. Lewis, A. Douglas, M. E. Scott, and D. Garrison-Wade. 2008. “The Impact of White Teachers on the Academic Achievement of Black Students: An Exploratory Qualitative Analysis.” Educational Foundations 22: 47–62; Dotterer, A. M., S. M. McHale, and A. C. Crouter. 2009. “Sociocultural Factors and School Engagement Among African American Youth: The Roles of Racial Discrimination, Racial Socialization, and Ethnic Identity.” Applied Development Science 13 (2): 61–73; Gillies, V. and Y. Robinson. 2012. "‘Including’ While Excluding: Race, Class and Behaviour Support Units." Race Ethnicity and Education 15 (2): 157–174; Johnson, E. 2007. “Schooling, Blackness and National Identity in Esmeraldas.” Ecuador. Race Ethnicity and Education 10 (1): 47–70). The findings are discussed with a need to create an awareness that the achievement gap is a symptom of widespread racial inequities and the potential of using growth Mindsets as an anti-racist tool to address the racial disparity.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education
• attainment gap
• BME
• differential outcomes
• systematic racism
• unconscious bias
• growth Mindsets

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Correction

Acknowledgements

Many thanks must be given to the Principal Investigator for the project Professor Sherria Hoskins for her work on the initial development of the Growth Mindset intervention on which the project is based. The author is grateful to all of the participants who took part in this research as well as the contribution and involvement of the wider Changing Mindsets project and research team.

Disclosure statement

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

Correction Statement

This article was originally published with errors, which have now been corrected in the online version. Please see Correction http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2020.1807138

Additional information

Funding

This work was part of the Changing Mindsets project which was funded through the Office for Students (OfS) (previously HEFCE) catalyst 'Addressing Barriers to Student Success programme' fund.