The debate in Higher Education (HE) in the UK is slowly starting to recognise that inequality in education is both the cause and consequence of societal elitism. As a result, there is an increasing debate about widening access to academia, and more and more newspaper are devoting attention to the few who made it through the close-circle system.聽
On the 17th of May 2019 the and working group organised a on economic pluralism, teaching and research. I was chairing the panel on 鈥淐hallenges and Opportunities for the Economics Curriculum Around Decolonisation, Gender and Diversity鈥� which included brilliant contributions from Dr Meera Sabaratnam (SOAS), Dr Lucia Pradella (King鈥檚 College), Dr Ingrid Kvangraven (University of York) and Ali Al-Jamri (Rethinking Economics, Diversity Campaign Manager). They addressed various political, historical and cultural聽 issues around neocolonialism, imperialism, racism, sexism and gender segregation in HE at large and in the economic discipline in particular. Considering the potential great complementarity of the topics, I thought it was relevant to bring in the class dimension in the discussion. I noticed that while the marginalization of women and people of color is rightly getting increasing attention, the class dimension is sometimes forgotten. Indeed, although class remains a crucial lens to untangle injustice and exclusion in the HE industry, it isn’t dealt with with as much urgency. Maybe also because it’s a bit less visible. Indeed, last week I was discussing this issue with another 鈥榓cademic migrant鈥� from Southern Europe, and he suggested: 鈥淧anels should ask 鈥渨hat do your parents do/did for a living?鈥� during job interviews.
To prepare my presentation, I approached a couple of 鈥榙ata intelligence鈥� offices in UK universities asking for facts about the class dimension of access to higher education in the UK. I was pointed to the , which is a new resource that enables us educators, but also students, to look at various key bits of data on the university sector as a whole, and on individual universities. A very useful resource indeed!聽
So here is what I found, and the results are pretty discouraging.聽Read More »
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