Last week the FLIE education enhancement workshops reached a milestone session as the third and final in the series on Inclusion Equity and Social Justice. It was taken as an opportunity to step back to review the context(s) of inclusivity in HE and at BU.

In our globalised, internationalised, and interlinked world, we regularly encounter colleagues and students who have spent their formative years or many years in other parts of the world and/or have had different life experiences. At the same time, while the discourse of inclusivity is pervasive for many people the context is missing. As with any specialist field the language of ‘inclusivity’ has its own technical vocabulary and concepts that are used fluently by experts in the field but can be a bit mysterious to everyone else. It begins to sound like jarring evangelism or worse leads to misunderstanding, mischief, and cynicism.

If you want to be informed the recorded presentation (just over 10 minutes) sets out various notions of inclusivity in context, covering:  regional context, the national HE context, the BAME attainment gap, and the BU context.

At BU the Black, Asian and Minority Ethic (BAME) student attainment gap closed slightly from 2017-18 to 2018-19 and then increased sharply contrary to movement in the sector as a whole. This is the context for us and the importance of the inclusive curriculum work at BU.

The BU digital pedagogies framework and the 2021 inclusivity health check includes proxy indicators of decolonisation and diversity in representation.  Aligned to this is the self and peer review/reflection template which puts a structure on questions like:

• How inclusive are the resources for your programme?
• How inclusive in the delivery of your programme?
• How inclusive is the feedback and assessment in your programme?

A pilot project in which student reviewers work with the template is underway. The template is a tool for reflection, framing the action and articulating areas of concern. The complexity of the field means that judgment is required and it is not just about what you do by how and why values and mindset that makes the difference.

Watch the video: Inclusion Equity and Social Justice: The context in 10 minutes

We hear from Dr Gelareh Roushan from BUBS about engaging international students to explore global business resources and critical questioning that values student asserts and participation. This showcases a focus on changing practice not changing who the learner is. Watch the video here.