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

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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.

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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?

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‘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?