I thought many of the resources could be effective agents of change in different ways. The one that stood out initially for improvement would be the schemes initiated by Advance HE. I think the aims are worthy, but their vague instructions as to how Universities achieve ‘big structural top down changes’ (Telegraph, 2022) may only serve as a small incentive. Add to that, current modes of training which ‘can be potentially damaging’ (Telegraph, 2022) due to their outdated ideas, and the schemes are in danger of appearing as window dressing, rather than structures for tackling real change. That is not to say that schemes incentivising Universities are not a good idea or that the distance achieved from government with quasi-autonomous organisations isn’t useful to more proactive teams, but the quality of the award is critical, the way that it engages and may influence, as well as the level of commitment by the University. Clearly, Cambridge is not engaged in Critical Race Theory and Policy (CRT) when they thrust up a non white alumnus to espouse a questionable internal survey which declares that ‘evidence does not exist that the University of Cambridge is institutionally racist’ (Telegraph, 2022), which we know, by its very existence, to be incorrect (Bradbury, 2020).
They should read Alice Bradbury’s paper which suggests a CRT framework for policy analysis, systematically building and then synthesising relevant CRT discourses to design a framework which unflinchingly begins with the big questions we must understand in order to make policy fairer. The power of the framework is in its directness, using CRT to interrogate the very foundations of the system (Bradbury, 2020). Good policy is crucial (imagine if there was no such thing as minimum wage etc) intermittently critiquing policy is more so as its limitations are a result of the time in which it was conceived; all things must evolve. Academics like Bradbury require the collective weight of others with good research such as this, in order to influence increasingly conservative governments.
Sadiq’s lecture is similarly structured, if hyper condensed and simplified for non academic audiences. He too identifies and contextualises problems before attempting to offer some practical solutions. Sadiq as a prominent non white authority occupies a position he longed to see growing up, the contemporary re-writing of visibility being one of the lasting messages of the talk. He is the gentle educator, never accusatory but through some revelatory phrases is willing to teach ‘I have never been offended by a question, but have been [offended] when someone has assumed what my needs are’ (Sadiq, 2023). The resource is accessible, easy to digest both in language and choice of media, appearing a useful tool of wide ranging appeal.
Where Bradbury and Sadiq are polite, Garret allows anger to leak out of the research in the form of students testimony’s; ‘you motherfuckers conquered half the world how?’ (Garrett, 2024). This raises interesting questions as to how messages resonate with different audiences. Initially I think my positionality as a white male became default defensive at certain remarks in the text until those reactionary feelings had time to dissipate. Why shouldn’t anger be expressed? It is after all a powerful agent of change.
I think the most emotive resource was the privilege walk carried out by school children. I’m glad this is not practiced anymore given the clearly damaging effects on its participants and hope that they had the benefit of some skilled practitioners to help them debrief. It is unequivocally useful though, in its transmission of raw emotion and next empathy, when some newly crushing information can be seen immediately to bear down on a child’s small shoulders. Stories like this are a call to arms, the engine of which is fired by anger and sadness to make things right.
References
- 4, C., 2020. The School That Tried to End Racism. [Online]Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1I3wJ7pJUjg [Accessed Wednesday June 2024].
- Bradbury, A., 2020. A critical race theory framework for education policy analysis: The case of bilingual learners and assessment policy in England. Race Ethnicity and Education, 23(2), pp. 241-247.
- Garrett, R., 2024. Racism shapes careers: career trajectories and imagined futures of racialised minority PhDs in UK higher education. Globalisation, Societies and Education. Globalisation, Societies and Education, pp. 1-15.
- Sadiq, A., 2023. Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. Learning how to get it right. TEDx. [Online]Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR4wz1b54hw [Accessed Wednesday June 2024].
- Telegraph, T., 2022. Revealed: The charity turning UK universities woke.. [Online]Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRM6vOPTjuU [Accessed Wednesday June 2024].
The way you have disseminated and applied the resources to one another is insightful and fascinating. You are very skilled in stepping back and seeing the wider perspective, which I find very useful to read and reflect on.
Your critique of the Telegraph film was of particulate interest to me, because where I was perhaps quite distracted by the presentation of the issues, which I fundamentally disagreed with, you were able to also consider the points actually being made, and make a more measured analysis.
This doesn’t stop you from recognising your own emotional responses, an awareness which I think is very valuable. This is something I would like to reflect on in relation to my own practice, and the way in which I engage with resources, articles, views etc that I disagree with.