Notes on: Belluigi, D., Arday,
J. & O’Keeffe, J. (2024): The
routes to intellectual authority in a prior
colonial empire: continued racialised,
geopolitical inequalities in the academic staff
composition and employment conditions of UK
universities. Race Ethnicity and Education
DOI: 10.1080/13613324.2024.2398491
Dave Harris
This is about those who become professors. It also
explores 'dysconscious data literacy' which
permits racism and xenophobia. They also pursue
critical quantitative analysis about
sociodemographic composition and employment
conditions of academic staff in England, Northern
Ireland, Scotland and Wales. This shows how the
social determinants of race sex nationality and
religious belief have an impact on access to
employment and participation, especially in
Education, but how problems with categorisation
and reporting of official data obfuscates
transparency and accountability.
Universities are important as enshrining
intellectual authority and they do this through
credentialism and affiliation, which has
implications for access to employment. However, in
Western society they are still 'plagued by
injustice, including racism and geo-politics' (2).
We can see this by looking at historical points,
for example how Western science 'enabled the
atrocities of two world wars and the Holocaust' by
peddling a particular concept of race, although
the eventual UNESCO refutation still preserved a
difference between non-literate and more civilised
people. Intellectual authority was not seen as
equalised. Cornell West in the USA talked about
the difficulties of becoming a black intellectual
without gaining the benefit of traditional roads
through the Academy or literate subcultures, and
how Black thought did not fit the traditional
definitions of intellectual culture [so this is an
admission that there are racial differences after
all? — through the notion of white epistemology of
course]. Some black people were able to gain
intellectual authority, or seize it, however.
British education has also been described as a
site of intellectual production and struggle [by
Warmington 2014], and there is a connection
between academic and more general intellectual
authority and racial politics, between 'social,
ontological and epistemic injustice' (3).
Managerialism and neoliberalism also have an
effect, but neither formal bureaucratic logic nor
demonstrations of intellectual authority determine
the positions of full Professor.
There have been resolutions at the UN to combat
contemporary forms of racism and intolerance,
including concerns about staffing in the academic
profession in the UK and in South Africa. These
called for reliable statistical data. The UK
government expressed commitment, but the existing
dataset held by HESA is inadequate.
There is a history of weaponisation in educational
institutions and science in the service of
colonialism and enslavement and subsequent racial
segregation of access in the British Empire up
until the 1980s, and a subsequent 'pattern of
invasion and delay' (4), including a pattern in
the 'public social imaginary'. 'Institutional
racism was introduced into England's public
lexicon as late as 1999' [with a reference to
Macpherson — what a weaselly introduction to this
concept, not even a proper discussion of what
Macpherson said. Must be Arday]. Social regulation
operates through national equality legislation
which specifies protected characteristics.
Legislative powers are dispersed to local levels
as well as centralised. There are clearly gaps,
especially in Northern Ireland, and universities
have lagged behind, 'requiring insider – scholars
to raise concerns'.
There has been less attention to race in policy in
education in the past decade. Institutional racism
was excluded in the 2017 Race Disparity Audit and
denied in the Commission on Race and Ethnic
Disparities in 2020 [is this
Sewell? I wonder why? I also wonder how this
study defines it]. In parallel, the state
implemented 'increasingly restrictive conditions
for migration with an explicitly "hostile
environment" of immigration policy… And retraction
from the European Union… [And]… The social
policing of "British values" through
securitisation, religious and racial profiling'.
The racialised limits to the rights of citizenship
impacted most on those of Caribbean descent.
General rhetoric has been accompanied by pressure
on bodies 'within the higher education ecology'.
'Racial equality is perceived as a political
threat to the ontological security of those in
power'[some references for the earlier statements,
but not for these]. As an example, an academic
member of an external advisory group for EDI of
the UKRI engaged in public debate about Israel and
received social media attacks [motivated by this
hegemonic block? It wasn't Arday was it? Coe J
(2023) Wonkhe.
https://wonkhe.com/wonk-corner/ukri-takes-the-heat-out-of-the-ministers-missive/
-- details no longer available.]
Luckily, there is critical scholarship, including
Pilkington, taking on discourses of individualism
and 'responsibilitisation' which produce
performative statements which appear to commit to
diversity. There was initial research in 1995 on
the elimination of racialised minorities in the
academic professions, and 'vast' scholarship ever
since, including the broken pipeline from the
doctorate [oh, mentioning Arday]. Inequalities
include women. There are also a lack of employment
gains, and studies of 'bullying, discrimination,
racism and exclusion, religion and able-ism [the
last one citing Lewis
and Arday]. Studies after Brexit have
stressed academic immobility and the growth of
'visa police' among university staff (5). There is
no positive protection for national origin.
This is a response to a call from BERA to study
the state of the discipline of Education. After
scoping educational research, BERA found only one
study about academics of colour, none about
disability, none about LGBTQ+, and few about
female staff. There was a HESA dataset which
included sex race age nationality and disability,
but this had considerable limitations —
dysconscious data literacy.
They referred back to pieces by Gillborn, Warmington and
Demack (2018), to look at ways of thinking
distorted by 'frames of reference and taken for
granted norms'(6). Applications include racism
within education including Education. Racism is
difficult to measure and often obscured. It is
common to insist that critical data justice is
addressed [in various international programmes of
action] but this was not present in the datasets
examined in this study [which, it seems, they had
to purchase — it seems to be two HESA datasets]
A table compares the categories used in HESA
datasets with their own preferred ones, based
apparently on earlier work by Belluigi [why not
use Strand's? --maybe because they include
Scotland and Northern Ireland?] Their
categories include things like Black Caribbean,
Black African, other black background, Indian
Pakistani and Bangladeshi, Chinese, other Asian,
mixed and other — all with descent added except
other black which prefers 'background'. No
traveller, Irish or gypsy]. They follow the
earlier critics by looking at not just access to
employment but to participation once employed to
reveal subsequent minoritisation and exclusion.
This will uncover 'the proportions within
inequality'. They also 'pointed out incomplete
gaps and uncertainties about such numbers' (7)
arguing that such gaps are also crucial elements
of the historical record, revealing something
about the exercise of power into archiving —
missing data about some other protected
characteristics, including race and disability are
probably not innocent. They certainly produce
inconsistencies and 'data injustice'. They
strengthen dominant narratives. The category of
women limits 'explorations of sex and not gender'.
They also 'could not explore intersections with
class… Such data is not reported to HESA'.
They can draw on work like Crenshaw's
to address group boundaries and look at
intersecting systems of oppression. One focus
would be the language of ethnicity and how this
would obscure racialization and misrepresent
heterogeneity and changes over time. One example
would be the use of the category BAME [Arday uses
this all the time in his earlier work]. HESA
initially distinguished white only from other than
white. The blanket category 'mixed' is clearly
problematic [does their category mean mixed race,
for example?].
[They have not discussed the main problem
identified by Omi
and Winant — that the categories are self
assigned and therefore extremely variable].
For some bizarre reason, they seem to prefer even
more general categories — majority and minority
world, apparently originally based on 'structural
analyses of separation and segregation in power in
the UK, USA and South Africa' (8) [quite different
historical forms of separation and segregation
there, of course]. HESA follows EU regulations in
asking for one primary nationality, UK, EU and
non-UK/EU. It does not ask for nationality
changes, self identification or national
background, including country where doctorates
were awarded. They want to explore geopolitical
inequality by using country income categories from
the World Bank. This will lead to terms of
'minority/majority world' and help them see
'representational injustice' [presumably a kind of
international measure of economic background.
Nothing on measures of differences of national
background though, nor of differences within
different national backgrounds — all groups of
countries are called high income or low
income: the former include the UK, the
latter non-UK/EU, 'the majority world', 'global
south'].
They wanted to interpret the quantitative through
the qualitative drawing on their own prior
qualitative research 'as three academic citizens
different racializations, origins, abilities and
genders' (9). They adopted the final principle
trying to use quantitative data as anti-oppressive
practice — they did presentations to those
assigned leadership in UK universities and
'scholarly Minority World communities' .
Results are summarised in diagrams. Basically,
across the UK universities 75%. are recorded as
white, 16.5% racialised minorities, 9% unknown.
Proportion of whites in Education are higher, 8%
there are racialised minorities 6.5% are unknown,
and this has 'gendered and contextual dimensions'
. The lowest percentage of unknown ethnicity was
in Wales which was also recorded as less
female staff than male staff [so what are the
implications?]. They carry on to revise the known
data.
The highest proportion of racialised minorities is
in England, but in each the discipline of
Education was shown as having a 'far lower
proportion of racially minoritised staff', lower
than the census population records. There is also
a 'far lower growth rate in employment of those
recorded as black in Education'. Although the
proportion of racialised minorities promoted
increased, the lowest proportion within that was
recorded as black. [Overall, quite a complex
picture then]
In terms of sex, female staff were 47%, and male
staff 53%, but it is difficult to compare this
because data is missing for race
[intersectionally?]. However, there seems to be a
higher proportion of males 59% than females 42%
among racial minorities. England had the highest
percentage of racialised ethnic minority staff and
also the highest proportion of female academics in
that group, and Northern Ireland had the lowest
proportions of both,. Wales had the highest
proportion of female to male staff among
racialised minorities, about the same as those
recorded as white [about 70% female in both
cases], although numbers were small.
Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, and
'"spiritual and other" religious beliefs are held
far more commonly among racial minorities, which
offers an 'interplay between race and gender and
Islamophobia' [as a possible intersection — any
evidence?]. Generally, there is a higher
composition of Christians in Education, raising
questions of pluralism. Education has a higher
proportion of racialised minorities with unknown
disability [still only 6%] (12).
[There is also a weird bit about nationality
picking up on their minority/majority stuff. It
seems that racialised minorities are also
predominantly from the UK if I have read this
correctly, although the numbers do not seem to add
up. Certainly in Education, the picture is
clearer, with a clear majority from the UK.]
In HE, there is a higher proportion of racialised
minorities on fixed term contracts, although
Education offers more secure employment generally
and for racial minorities than the university
sector generally, via the provision of contracts
for teaching and research. However there has been
a growth of teaching only contracts. This has
impacted on racial ethnic minorities by 14%,
compared to 7%. They are also over concentrated
within research only posts. They are less common
in leadership posts like full professor and senior
managers and they experience narrowed progression.
There is some increase in progression, but it is
less than the overall percentage. Again different
ethnic groups have different progression rates, in
Education, there are no full professors of
Bangladeshi descent, no female professors of Black
African descent and no male professors of Black
Caribbean descent. They are confident to state
that 'constructions of leadership are undergirded
by racism and patriarchy' (13) [one reference is
Arday 2018]. There has been an increase in white
recruitment within Education.
Again there are large proportions of missing data
making it hard to pin down reasons for attrition.
White data exists suggests that racialised
minorities cite end of contract, resignation, and
other reasons including dismissal and ill health.
However 17% did not provide a reason. Slightly
lower proportion of white people cited resignation
and fixed term contracts, and also mentioned
retirement voluntary redundancy. Studies including
Arday have argued that staff mental ill-health as
an adverse effect of racism and neoliberal
pressures in the UK might be responsible.
Back to the strange stuff about nationality and
global inequalities, even though most UK based
academics were 'predominantly from the UK',
especially in Education. The lowest proportion of
recruits were from non-EU/UK origins, and of
those, 1/4 seems to have suffered attrition. Of
course, migration from outside the EU is affected
by factors such as globalisation and general
immigration policies, ease of movement, and
restrictions of border and immigration control.
Some people have referred to a '"Brexodus"' of
younger staff, even though naturalisation
applications by EU and non-EU citizens have
increased after 2016.
Turning to race, the highest proportions of
racialised minorities held non-UK/EU
nationalities, although those were lower in
Education [in HE] [another baffling table on page
16, referring to the old category BAME from what I
can see]. In terms of real numbers, 151,745
academics were UK nationals in 2020 and 2480 were
'black --1510 African descent, 810 Caribbeans, 160
other black. 'Underespresented' they say -- if you
consider primary nationality and this 'opposes
threats to race-conscious solidarities' (17).
[skin colour as basis for race solidarity?
Africanism? Nigerians will feel solidarity with
Jamaicans?]
They found higher proportions of racialised
minorities held non-EU/UK primary nationalities in
Education. By contrast, most UK based academic
staff held primary nationality from high income
countries, with an even higher proportion in
Education — 91%. There are slight differences with
lower middle income countries. Gender inequality
persists at senior levels in each income country
category, although still a difference with males.
With professors in education, 97% came with
primary nationality in high income countries.
So they feel they have 'constructed data portraits
to explore indications of inequalities in the
traditional routes to intellectual authority
through academia' (19). There is a rich
heterogeneity of identities here [indeed--enough
to challenge any simple Black identity or simple
White racism?], but this is concealed in the
current administrative data, 'more plurality of
religious beliefs and nationalities than their
White counterparts' and they are more
representative of the majority world. This could
be seen as bringing considerable capital 'to a
sector characterised and experienced as elitist,
colonial, predominantly white and Western'.
However racialised minorities are underrepresented
despite equality legislation [appeal to liberal
stuff?]. The pipeline to academic employment for
the local racialised population has not been
protected from white supremacy and patriarchy.
Racialised minorities have still encountered
structural disadvantage within traditional routes.
There has been consciousness raising of
inequalities, and more value placed on pluralistic
and global workforces. There are further
disadvantages, revealed by examining UK research
funding, where disadvantage has been particularly
acute for black primary investigators according to
UKRI and ethnic minority females. There are ethnic
minority pay groups in elite universities and a
gender pay gap here to especially for black and
Arab academics. Overall there is a 'cumulative
impact on the conditions for academic freedom and
flourishing': racialised minorities and women have
reported perceiving more threats than their
counterparts when exercising their academic
freedom in the UK' [interesting references page
19].
Education as a case reveals that staff composition
is more homogeneous in terms of race, nationality,
sex and religious belief, and conditions for
racially minoritised staff 'considerably less
favourable' (20). Black people were
underrepresented, female black people were barely
represented generally and 'excluded from
flourishing at full Professor level'. Growth was
not enough to address existing inequalities in
access, and things like teaching only contracts
were counter-productive. Small proportions of
those from the majority world and low income
countries leads to particular concerns for black
females who were African born and there needs to
be more prioritisation.
'While group identity, such as "race, sex, or
nationality" may not be the determining factor in
knowledge hegemonies (Krause 2016) the absence of
representation is itself an indictment of the
state coloniality of Education'. Perception of the
availability of employment in academia was a major
part of migrants' decisions to come to the UK, and
this sort of research might provide more informed
decision-making. [However] migration is costly for
the majority world, so questions should be raised
of any mutual benefit.
Overall, they have questioned the gap between
rhetoric and reality, of the principles espoused
by universities, especially representational
justice [very soggy and liberal]. The role of UK
universities in the Sustainable Development Agenda
leads to a crucial part for Education, but those
involved in the discipline overrepresented the
minority world, and those from the majority world
experience racialization and patriarchy, even
though there is a higher proportion of female
academics. Overall, we might be concerned 'the
discipline such as Education has such acute
racialised inequalities in the representation of
its local populations' [which is another point
altogether].
[There is a particular angle relating to Northern
Ireland, home of Beluigi. Apparently the
government there pursues a pretty minimalist
approach to maintaining equality between the
communities, weakening its moral authority
especially in the way it collects data. B's study
seems to include xenophobia there, and of course
the EU/non-EU dimension might have an extra
importance]
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