{"id":44015,"date":"2018-06-11T13:28:08","date_gmt":"2018-06-11T20:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/world.edu\/?p=44015"},"modified":"2018-06-11T13:28:08","modified_gmt":"2018-06-11T20:28:08","slug":"are-universities-such-as-oxford-biased-towards-class-or-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/are-universities-such-as-oxford-biased-towards-class-or-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Are universities such as Oxford biased towards class or race?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

A senior lecturer in\u00a0my department \u2013 a white, working-class woman \u2013 was telling me about her daughter who was applying to Ucas a few years ago. When\u00a0she suggested Oxbridge, her\u00a0daughter replied, \u201cIt\u2019s not for the likes of us, Mum.\u201d\u00a0Her mother was sad and disheartened that even as a university academic, her\u00a0child didn\u2019t feel that her family had accrued sufficient \u201ccultural capital\u201d to enter elite universities\u00a0such as Oxford.<\/p>\n

I recalled this the other week.<\/p>\n

Unlike David Lammy, I don\u2019t know whether Oxford is injudiciously selective<\/a> in its recruitment and admissions procedures nor, unlike Toby Young, am I convinced that it\u2019s doing enough to widen participation from all sections of\u00a0the community.<\/p>\n

Similarly, I have no idea if making way for a notional number of students from minority groups (white, working-class included) is tokenistic, nor do I know what recruitment figures bandied about by critics are acceptable in culturally and socially diverse 21st-century Britain.<\/p>\n

But I do know that something isn\u2019t quite right when our internationally renowned institutions don\u2019t reflect the world in which we live \u2013 both in terms of ideas and people.<\/p>\n

In regard to Oxford, for instance, eight out of 29 colleges have had fewer than three black or Asian students in the past three years. Even if you turn this figure on its head \u2013 meaning that at least 21 of its 29 colleges have had more than three black or Asian students \u2013 it doesn\u2019t quite alleviate our concerns about institutionalised discrimination. According to Oxford\u2019s own website, 3,200 places were offered to students in 2016. If, on average, 10 places are offered to black and Asian students in the 21 colleges with currently more than three students from these groups, that accounts for 210 places. I don\u2019t know if this is an acceptable figure or not.<\/p>\n

However, Lammy\u2019s argument about Oxford\u2019s prejudice against black and Asian students hints at the emotive and rather dated subject of race politics. Invariably, therefore, the construction of such a discourse is going to draw us into an ideological battlefield and repetition of arguments. For most commentators, the lines are clearly demarcated in the spirit of our education policy\u00a0that many people including my colleague, David Gillborn (professor of critical race studies at the University of Birmingham) have conceded is tacitly racist. To argue \u2013 as Oxford does \u2013 that insufficient numbers of black or Asian students apply, or\u00a0achieve the grades, is ostensibly racial stereotyping and not very helpful.<\/p>\n

Instead, I think that the question is about class and economics.<\/p>\n

Sociologists argue that although class prejudice filters into all sections of our community, it is more prevalent in institutions that are considered the bastions of privilege \u2013 law, the judiciary, the stock market, banking, the Civil Service, journalism and media. These are pillars that uphold standards and the structures of our society. They administer law and finance and disseminate information, while their intake is monitored by the custodians of power.<\/p>\n

Moreover, we assume that everyone succumbs to the allure of snobbery and history that Oxbridge exudes. But do all students from minority groups want to enter such institutions that have, for instance, historically perpetuated the racial oppression of millions of people, or that have ignored the plight of the white, working class or justified the mass looting of raw materials from other countries? For hundreds of years, places\u00a0such as Oxford have exercised exclusion, leaving minority groups disenfranchised from power, influence and privilege.<\/p>\n

Entrance to any university breeds a certain thinking about class and elitism \u2013 and none more so than Oxbridge.<\/p>\n

In fact, it could be argued that control over who enters education is crucial because it is in education that policy is tried and tested before it is publicly aired. But education, with roots that are entrenched in colonial history, is also the means of control of our people.<\/p>\n

During the British Raj, for example, it was Lord Thomas Macaulay in the mid-19th century who famously argued for a particular kind of education to manage India. He stated that through education, the British must create a class of interpreters between them and the millions they governed \u2013 a class of people Indian in blood and colour, but English in their tastes, opinions, morals, intellect and knowledge. And who were these teachers who would go out and deliver this project of cultural transformation? Public-school educated Oxbridge graduates who understood the importance of the role of the Empire\u00a0in feeding the motherland. And such Macaulay-esque tendencies were also evident in the period of the triangular slave trade, during which, of course, Britain benefited enormously.<\/p>\n

To some extent, this imperialism through education is still the ethos of schools such as Eton and Harrow and it\u2019s still the ethos of universities\u00a0such as Oxford. They are old-fashioned in terms of their membership and archaic physical structures, as if they are somehow a barometer of excellence or quality.<\/p>\n

So, I don\u2019t think that the topic is framed correctly. It\u2019s not about whether Oxford is racist in its recruitment and admissions strategies \u2013 for that\u2019s neither here nor there. The real question is why students from minority groups \u2013 especially black communities \u2013 don\u2019t feel that Oxford is for them. To me, both Lammy and Young are wrong. Essentially, Oxford hasn\u2019t got rid of its imperial past and its association with elitism. It\u2019s not so much a question of race, but class and economics. Is there any wonder that some people \u2013\u00a0such as my\u00a0colleague\u2019s daughter \u2013 don\u2019t feel that such universities are for them?<\/p>\n

Author Bio: <\/strong>Roshan Doug is a researcher in education at the University of Birmingham<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A senior lecturer in\u00a0my department \u2013 a white, working-class woman \u2013 was telling me about her daughter who was applying to Ucas a few years ago. When\u00a0she suggested Oxbridge, her\u00a0daughter replied, \u201cIt\u2019s not for the likes of us, Mum.\u201d\u00a0Her mother was sad and disheartened that even as a university academic, her\u00a0child didn\u2019t feel that her […]\n… learn more→<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":44016,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[13192],"coauthors":[11733],"class_list":["post-44015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-higher-education","tag-elite-universities"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAre universities such as Oxford biased towards class or race? - World leading higher education information and services<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/are-universities-such-as-oxford-biased-towards-class-or-race\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Are universities such as Oxford biased towards class or race? - World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A senior lecturer in\u00a0my department \u2013 a white, working-class woman \u2013 was telling me about her daughter who was applying to Ucas a few years ago. 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