Basic interactive presentation

BAME Student Experience

at University of Aberdeen

A Short Overview, by Isabelle and LaJane

Start

Index

Background

(1) Methodology

(2) Methodology

Interviews

Findings

Curriculum

Mental Burden

Hypervisibility

Conclusions

01

Background

How the project came to be

The project was the idea of Johan and Vanessa Mabonso Nzolo, the Student Union President

It looked to gain an insight to the racialised experience on campus through the perspectives of racialised student

Funded by the University and organised by AUSA, but is independently conducted

Race Equality Charter Survey Results

02

Methodology

(1) Methodology

• Qualitative research methods
• Semi-structured interviews
• Interviewed 18, kept data for 17 participants
• Conducted a focus group, however due to time and space we are not keeping it in the report at the moment, may reconsider this

(2) Methodology

Followed a similar format to ethnographic interviewing

• Reflexivity

• Aligns well with Feminist Decolonial Method
• Equal relationship between interviewer and interviewee

"[Interviewing is] better understood as a process in which interviewer and interviewee are both invovled in developing understanding." Davies, Pg. 108

03

Findings

Mental Burden

Undue responsibility placed on racialised students in circumventing their own discriminiation.

Overcompensating

Self-Filtering and Withdrawl

Mental Burden

Yeah [laughs]. But, okay, yeah, I remember. But I don't really like voice out my opinion. Cause like I feel like that would just end up escalating the whole thing and I'm kind of like, a peaceful person and not looking for any problem, just keep it to myself.

[About a student who fell asleep in class] And I'm not mad because he fell asleep in class, but mad because I was like, I worked so hard to make sure that these people take you seriously you're just sleeping?

It really annoys me sometimes because when I'm in class and I'm trying to express myself, [...] I don't want to look aggressive. It's always that I don't want to look too aggressive, so I find myself being silent sometimes or just not fully being able to express my opinion because it will be taken badly regardless.

Hypervisibility

We consider hypervisibility as a form of Othering, whereby a racialised person feels that their ethnicity and/or race is made salient in unnecessary or inappropriate situations.

White spaces: Overwhelmingly white public seetings, which racialised students perceieved to be 'off limits' for people like them. However, as a condition of existance and survival, racailised students still need to navigate white spaces

University Life

Dating

Jobs

Hypervisibility

[About GoAbroad] No, I don't think so. No. I don't think so. I just think they tell me to...I literally don't know how they would respond to my worries or my concerns if I do get in a place where I'm being racially abused. I don't think there is that kind of support. I don’t, I don't think so.

“Oh, you know, all the black girls, they never talk to me. But you're the only black girl that’ll talk to me.” Blah blah blah. I was just there like...I didn't look at you and think, oh, you're a white boy. Let me talk to you. I just looked at you and like, OK, let's talk.

It would be really nice to be successful professionally which hasn’t even started yet, without my race being a factor or a thinking point [...]is it only because it looks good for the firm that they have my face and my name on there because my name is an ethnic name? And also, if I am unsuccessful, I'm also thinking it is because they saw my name and have some perception about me. It's those everyday things that are so draining. .

Curriculum

Curriculum is not limited to resources or lecture materials, but includes what is explored and experienced in the classroom discussions as well.

Diversity of Students and Staff

Discomfort (Mental Burden)

Race and Colonialism

Curriculum | Topics of Race and Colonialism

To be honest I feel like it's kind of forced. Like, yeah, I see what they're trying to do, but I feel like they're doing it just so that it looks like-- Yeah, it's not actually substantial.

Do you ever in your courses speak about race or anything like that? No. Like, my course is very logical. It's very much like, this is what the act says. Take from what you get.

There's no mandatory course that talks about colonialism, or the that talks about racial inequality or social inequality, which is weird. There is a really big issue with that, to be honest. Yes, there is. I think this gender course also needs to be mandatory because there's a lot of interesting concepts and I'm kind of shocked that it's not mandatory. Because I feel like it needs to be taught.

Curriculum | Discomfort (Mental Burden)

I quite like the way lecturers approach it, but I feel like students around me find it a bit uncomfortable to discuss it, right? Especially when I'm present.

When we do lectures about race, I know they are not meant for me, I know what my experiences are and it's so targeted at the white students in the room, so you feel very uncomfortable, you feel hypervisible. Yeah, I feel the same, I feel very uncomfortable. It's like no one's looking at you, but everyone's looking at you. Especially because I was the only black guy in that small group as well.

Curriculum | Diversity of Staff and Students

It's all implicit and it's not really our white peers' fault. No one has done anything to make me feel that way. I don’t know what the solution is. Diversity in the teaching staff is probably the most obvious one. Lecturers especially.

When I do clinical skills sessions, I've never seen a black patient partner.

Did that make a difference, that [the lecturer] was African? Of course. [...] You know, sometimes you hear the same regurgitated monotone, like kind of script discourse, whereas with __, I feel like he brought a different light, and even his ideologies were different.

The Privilege of Comfort

“White students have in all likelihood experienced a high degree of comfort with me as a professor because I am also white. Unless I deliberately disrupt that comfort level, white students remain at an advantage in my classes.”

Reddy, 1998 , Pg. 63

Conclusions

Bibliography

Anderson, E., 2015. The white space. Sociology of race and ethnicity, 1(1), pp.10-21. Davies, C.A., 2012. Reflexive ethnography: A guide to researching selves and others. Routledge. Hampshire, K., Iqbal, N., Blell, M. and Simpson, B., 2014. The interview as narrative ethnography: Seeking and shaping connections in qualitative research. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 17(3), pp.215-231. Reddy, M.T. (1998). Invisibility/Hypervisibility: The Paradox of Normative Whiteness. Transformations: The Journal of Inclusive Scholarship and Pedagogy, [online] 9(2), pp.55–64.