Making a Difference? Conducting a study of the experience of BME staff in English Higher Education...
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Transcript of Making a Difference? Conducting a study of the experience of BME staff in English Higher Education...
Making a Difference? Conducting a study of the experience of BME staff in English Higher Education
20 April 2023
Valerie Hey and Máiréad Dunne
The Focus of the Study
Experience of BME staff relating to:
Data and monitoring
Management practices
Relationships and support frameworks
Leadership and development opportunities
20 April 2023
Design
20 April 2023
Research and development design
Survey all HEIs in England
Interviews with support framework coordinators plus a range of middle management staff in 10-12 HEIs
Fieldwork in 3 case study HEIs
Pilot initiatives in 3 case study
HEIs
Familiar Findings 1: Race – now you see us now you don’t!
Phase 1 Survey = official voices (56% respondents noted existence of racism)Ethnic monitoring data (EMD) examined workforce composition (95%); recruitment (90%) & promotions (70%)
Phase 2 Interviews with senior staff complicated the procedural compliance of Data and Monitoring requirements and noted ‘race’ was indeed a ‘sticky subject’ - most non-declaration in respect to category of ethnicity
Phase 3 Interviews and FG with BME staff whether manual, academic or professional, senior or junior, reported :
structured exclusion from knowledge, promotion and opportunities, whilst paradoxically,
experiencing intense micro-management & hyper-surveillance.
20 April 2023
Familiar Findings 2 Subsidiarity & The Numbers Game
The power held at the ‘local’ i.e. department or work unit level means that good
policies depend on the good will of the manager and all too often are ignored or
countermanded.Indigenous BME staff in contrast to international BME staff, often have few
peers to share inside information. This adds to the impression of managers
accruing even more discretionary power over rewards, workload and promotion.Problems occur in the establishment of BME support networks, which can fail
to attract active participants; and with the implementation of staff recruitment
and promotion policies, often undermined by informal relationships and
information exchange. The Burden of Representation.
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Doing a Double Take : The Messy Heart of Reason & Research
Conflicted theoretical/political
commitments, interests & positions
between & with/in ‘stakeholders’ Race Forum – action as deeds – race
singularity - ideological /identityECU Policy – action as words –
neutral (?)CHEER Critical Feminist
Deconstruction – Intersectionality
ideological /non-identity (!) CHERI – mainstream policy advice
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A Specific Power Geometry : A Contested Triangulation of ‘Truth’
Stakeholders Speakability – i.e. the
regulation of who can say
what (about) ‘race’ ?
Writability – who can write
what about ‘race’ ?
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‘Un/Speakability and the Affective 1: The Dynamics of The Race Forum
Race as the dominant explanation for experience & discrimination.Guarded debate but battle lines/tensions within - unions, professional
associations, activism – BME feminist Some resistance & scepticism about academic discourse – authenticity
frequently trumped it – righteous anger has its own legitimacy Research fatigue - Racism as so obvious reflected in a disregard for the
need for publicly verifiable evidence to support an anti-racist position.
Moreover, Disbelief in the possibility that research evidence might change anything
or that research could undo the institutionalised nature of racism?
20 April 2023
‘Un/Speakability and the Affective 2 Apprehension & Feminist Research/ers
Anticipation – excitement – energy Prospects of :
the public articulation of the silence(d)
the reporting of the emotional life of organisations
an intersectional sociology of HE to add the flesh of
experience to the bones of structureApprehensions about:
access, empathy and exchange
developing trust & confidence but
Nevertheless collected :
Profound stories of experience, neglect, contestation and
resignation 20 April 2023
Un/Speakability and the Affective Race 3 – Respondents
Respondents resistance to identification as BME : fear of becoming read as : dissident, trouble-maker, hyper-visibility already an issue – and burden of representation
Preference for discourse of merit – even as evidence of exclusion substantial
Recognition of intercutting differences – of age, gender and ethnicity, faith. BUT
Weariness and wariness of doing BME in context of diversity or equality issues (been here before!).
Editing Out : What Goes Missing In/action?
Writing research – different iterations – dominant and subordinate
textual versions – data becomes ‘badged & branded’ in policy
reasoning
The safety of a focus on policy architecture & structure away from race
as experience as a ‘sticky subject’
Sterile, sanitised and desiccated accounts – an absence of lived
experience of palpable inequities – preference for abstracted fact
Running a mile from painful, pernicious power of white supremacy 20 April 2023
Inadmissible: evidence; academics; theory and the politics of mis/recognition ?
Race as explanatory was homogenised for political reasons – other social realities and relations were deemed ‘offside’ even those named by BME respondents.
Whiteness in research team was assumed as undermining claim for the researchers’ authority or ability to secure and understand the data.
Cultural sociological explanations dismissed as useless – the experience of BME staff therefore not seen as KEY - ACTION NOT WORDS
Writing it up – desiccated & dull
What stakes in ‘race’ and ‘white privilege’ are held in such an ecology of researching differences?