Ethnicity, Education and Employment: Permeating Widening Participation How Higher Education Institutions can bring ch

1. Ethnicity, Education and Employment: Permeating �Widening Participation� How Higher Education Institutions can bring changes Maki Kimura Continuum, UEL

2. Outline of the Paper Project Background Method Used Challenges Faced Findings Emerging Issues

3. Project Background Funded by European Social Fund Partnership Project (UEL, Bradford, Brunel, EdgeHill, LeedsMet) Aim of the Project To explore students� (both ME and non ME students) experiences in Higher Education from the point of entry to graduation. WP, Employability and Ethnicity all in one!

4. Methods Used Semi-structured Interviews (students, graduates, senior management, non-senior management and employers) Focus groups (students) Questionnaires (students) Institutional data and policy document analysis Participant observation

5. Challenges Faced Who are the target group? Only ME students? Different institutions have a different level of resources Obtaining institutional data (on ethnicity) Recruiting students for interviews! Asking questions around ethnicity

6. Findings: Widening Participation (1) Institutions express their �commitment� to WP, Graduate Employability and Equality and Diversity through various policy documents. Senior managers feel that in general the awareness of WP is high in their institutions. However, many concerns are raised by S/M around the idea of �success� of WP Meeting the Government target is achieved through dropping the entry level or has resulted in lowering retention rates. Many initiatives are funded externally.

7. Findings: Widening Participation (2) Some non S/M staff members also share the critical views towards WP policy and practices as: With numbers of initiatives running at one time, it is difficult to obtain a clear direction or an overview of what is happening in institutions. WP has not linked with other policy initiatives, such as Learning and Teaching or Employability Strategy. Students (particularly non traditional students) are not provided appropriate support. Many students come to HE to increase their career prospects. (But also for personal development) In general, the experience of HE are quite positive, but students think that university can give them more support through; Provision of study skills Flexible and cultural sensitive timetabling More personalised support

8. Findings: Employability (1) S/M accept the new role of HE to provide a better career opportunity to their learners. However, some S/M feel that their view is not always shared with their non S/M (academic) staff. Actually, many non S/M staff members raised a question on HEIs� role in actively enhancing graduate employability, but they also think that students do hot have realistic career plans. Such divided views are partly caused by the ambiguity of the term, and the different ideas over the ways to embed the Employability agenda in the curriculum.

9. Findings: Employability (2) Students also have mixed opinions on whether employability should be embedded in the curriculum. Some think that their programme should be more practical and industry oriented. Others object to the idea that (generic) employability module takes over their time to learn their subject knowledge. Despite the contested notion of �employability� work placement is considered by S/M, non S/M and students as a vital measure to enhance students employment opportunities. However, how to remove obstacles for certain groups to participate in work placement still remains.

10. Findings: Equality and Diversity (1) S/M in the institution which have a large proportion of students from ME backgrounds believe that their institutional culture is very diverse and see such diversity as their institutional strength. Although cultural sensitive timetabling, inclusive curriculum a variety of activities which do not involve alcohol are regarded important, many S/M are also concern about singling out a certain ME group and developing WP initiatives. Such initiatives any cause disadvantage for other groups. Targeting particular groups often misses the points. The category of ME students is too broad to be a useful category for planning. The social class, gender or age factor often interact with ethnic factors.

11. Findings: Equality and Diversity (2) Many students agree that ethnicity is not a decisive factor of their experience of HE, but other factors, such as family, gender and age also interact with ethnic factors. Only few students expressed their experience of being discriminated against or harassed on the basis of their ethnicity, but more students had experience of barriers or being stereotyped. Still, a few students think that their needs such as catering or the provision of social activities for diverse community are not met. Also, even though there are diverse communities on campus, �racial� segregation is happening, which is also raised by some academic members of staff.

12. Emerging Matters The centralisation of services and initiatives and the improvement of communication between services The Provision of more individualised support (Key skills etc) through personal tutor system, and monitor its effectives The development of inclusive curriculum and timetable The provision of staff development to support for diverse students needs and to provide effective tutoring Increasing the opportunity for work placement and removing the barrier for certain groups to access to placement Providing role models � more ME staff ! Changing the way to measure �success� !