Abstract
I am pleased to commend to you another Issue of our journal, comprised of five excellent articles, drawing of research and practice in different countries. A common thread of the articles is their focus on reducing inequality or improving equity. This is consistent with two aims of this journal: first to be a forum for global scholarship, and second, to focus on broad equity themes and concerns.
In the first article, Yadav provides insights of an important issue often understood but rarely acknowledged. That is, our understanding our ‘equality’ and/or ‘equity’ will likely inform our work in this area. Drawing on the perspectives of undergraduate students studying Social Science and Engineering in India, Yadav not only found significant difference in their conceptualisation of equality depending but also that these differences were influenced by area of study and the location of the institution. These findings are important since in themselves and for their originality, but they also underline the fact that a pre-requisite to understanding individuals’ world views begin with an understanding of their context.
In the second article, Hall et al. discuss a student–staff partnership project to diversify and decolonise the Higher Education curriculum at the University of Brighton, UK. They trace the origins of the partnership scheme, and described the approach taken by participants involved across the University’s eight schools. That the scheme focuses on partnerships with students is important since a lot of the work in this area has hitherto been student led or staff led. This important departure from dominant practice makes it unique, underlining the fact that anti-racism work is not something ‘done to’, but rather ‘done with’ (Miller, 2020). The article spotlights the work and role of academic developers who support the scheme’s participants and other areas of the University as wider elements of its plans to address differential outcomes for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic students.
In the third article, Parsons challenges leaders and institutions to ‘seize’ the institutional momentum against racism that has arisen due to the murder of George Floyd. Reminding us that racism is part of the fabric of English society, Parsons urge leaders and institutions to move beyond symbolic acts such as ‘taking the knee, removing statues’ to working on curriculum to make this a major site for the development of understanding about, and the development of attitudes towards, people of other races. This is an important challenge and invitation that must also extend to teacher training and leadership preparation and development programmes in order to be successful. In other words, the pursuit of change must be met by appropriate scaffolding (skills, knowledge, attitudes) of those tasked with delivering change.
The fourth article by Thiele and Homer spotlight socio-economic inequalities in UK higher education, which have multiplied with the COVID-19 pandemic. The article shares the accounts of young people from low socio-economic status (SES) backgrounds, directly affected by the pandemic during their final year at school (Year 13), and who had all taken in part in outreach programmes that specifically aimed to improve access to such top universities in England. The juxtaposition between class and the pandemic is an important one, and the findings highlight barriers and challenges that could influence the demand for higher education, some which were amplified by the pandemic. These included individuals’ personal/home circumstances, finance, the schools they attended, and fit and belonging. The article also notes the important role played by outreach programmes in helping students to understand and navigate complex systems and processes, and in motivating them to remain focused on their choices, aspirations and trajectories.
In the fifth and final paper, Ricketts combines the historical with the contemporary, in a sense, highlighting ‘the more things change the more they remain the same’, and that Black Supplementary Schools (BSS) have an important role to place in aspirations, ambitions and trajectories for some Black students. Ricketts acknowledges that BSS have sought to reduce the failings of Black children in the mainstream education system by offering them additional learning spaces although there is limited research on their functionality and how they support children with Special Educational Needs (SEN), such as Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH). This gap is something worth highlighting since, like the outreach programmes mentioned in the previous article by Thiele and Homer, these interventions primarily run on the goodwill of parents and/or community interests. While these interventions are indeed part of the solution, they point to gaps in policy and funding for two crucial groups: poor students and minority ethnic students, many of whom are poor. This is an area for further critical thinking. Nevertheless, from the study, Ricketts found that working with a range of stakeholders (including educational psychologists) led to better and more thought-out interventions being developed and trialled.
The sixth paper, by Romanowski, Al Kkhatib and Sellami challenges us to consider the issue of ‘practice borrowing’. Highlighted as different to ‘policy borrowing’, the authors note practice borrowing is extensive in the Gulf Cooperation Council Region (GCC). Using Foucault’s notion of problematization as the theoretical framework, they provide an understanding of how best practices have emerged as a solution to educational change, how these practices are legitimized, and how the use of best practices has evolved into challenges for those relying on best practices to bring about educational change. The authors base their arguments on five central pillars: (1) educational transfer and profit-making, (2) a false universalism, (3) leapfrogging, (4) language and discourse, and (5) the fidelity of implementation. The paper is an important one, not least because of its content, but crucially because so many developing countries find it fashionable, or even desirable, to important policies and practices from ‘the West’ without regard to local/ contextual factors.
These articles are very important, each in its own right, and as whole. They do four things: encourage and challenge us to move beyond our comfort zone; break new ground in thinking and research; call us to thinking about intersectionality and outreach programmes and encourage us to not be performative in our anti-racism efforts, regardless of context and/or starting point. I commend these articles to you.