{"id":66100,"date":"2022-11-29T23:04:35","date_gmt":"2022-11-30T04:04:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=66100"},"modified":"2022-11-29T23:04:35","modified_gmt":"2022-11-30T04:04:35","slug":"discrimination-and-racism-at-university-an-alarming-finding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/discrimination-and-racism-at-university-an-alarming-finding\/","title":{"rendered":"Discrimination and racism at university: an alarming finding"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nAt the end of 2018, based on the observation of a low production of knowledge on discrimination in higher education and research, a team of researchers in social sciences initiated a vast victimization survey on this subject, entitled ACADISCRI, of which here we provide the first statistical results.<\/span><\/p>\n

The project aims to measure the experiences of unequal treatment in higher education and research establishments, and to analyze the variations, within establishments and between them, according to disciplines, levels of registration, services or grades, with regard to the main criteria of discrimination: sex, ethnicity, social category, disability, sexual orientation, trade union or political affiliation, etc.<\/span><\/p>\n

The survey questionnaire records a whole range of unequal treatment experienced, ranging from micro-aggressions (demeaning everyday gestures or remarks, often referred to as “humor” by their authors, but humiliating or degrading for those those who are the targets) to more violent forms such as insults, threats of physical violence and physical violence, through moral harassment, discriminatory situations identified as such by the people surveyed, and again harassment and assaults of a sexual nature…<\/span><\/p>\n

The questionnaire also makes it possible to collect information on the effects of these situations on the “victims”, on their conditions of study or work, on the context of the events, on their perpetrators and authors, as well as the witnesses, or on the reactions and possible remedies.\u00a0After a pilot survey carried out in the spring of 2020, then the adaptation of the survey tools and strategy accordingly, data collection has so far been carried out in five other establishments of various configurations and sizes.<\/span><\/p>\n

A singularity of the ACADISCRI project is to be based on a profit-sharing of the establishments – which have obligations, like any employer and training organization, in terms of non-discrimination, and a social responsibility related to the issues of the fight against sexual harassment or even of “resolute fight against racism and anti-Semitism”.\u00a0Institutions that commit benefit from a diagnosis at their level, based on weighted data representative of their population.\u00a0The results presented below relate to one of the first universities involved.<\/span><\/p>\n

A massive experience of discrimination<\/span><\/h2>\n

Data collection at this university yielded 1,733 complete questionnaires from students and 278 from staff, representing a response rate of 6.2% for the former and 10.1% for the latter.<\/span><\/p>\n

Within this establishment, the declared unequal treatment is massive, for the staff even more than for the students.\u00a0More than one employee in two (50.9%) and more than one student in six (17.7%) say they have experienced at least one form of unequal treatment since entering higher education.<\/span><\/p>\n

We can see in these differences in proportion between students and staff several explanatory paths: the first is linked to seniority in the establishment, since on this subject the questionnaire invites us to recall the whole career or study trajectory.\u00a0It is logical that the often longer duration of presence in the establishment (in particular between employees and students) exposes more to the risk of unequal treatment.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the survey data show that the vast majority of reported incidents took place recently.\u00a0For example, cases of sexual assault and threats and\/or physical assaults related to sexism took place for more than a third of the cases during the current academic year, then for almost 6 out of 10 cases in the previous five years.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another possible explanation may be linked to the degree of awareness acquired over the course of experience, leading people who have attended university longer to be more attentive to discrimination.\u00a0The fact remains that these rates indicate that the context of work and study at university is, for many, far from being serene and polite.<\/span><\/p>\n

The different grounds of discrimination<\/span><\/h2>\n

As the following tables show, the facts reported are primarily microaggressions.\u00a0More serious incidents are fortunately less frequent.\u00a0However, they are not negligible, such as the situations identified as discriminatory: 6.6% of members of the student community and 22% of staff report this.\u00a0Threats of physical violence or physical violence concern 2.7% of members of the student community and 7.8% of staff.<\/span><\/p>\n

Concerning the situations for which the people surveyed declared a discriminatory motive, the data suggest that the incidence of the motive varies according to the type of act.\u00a0For example, while micro-aggressions are more often linked to sexism (3.4% for members of the student community, 10.7% for staff), insults are more often reported because of union and political commitments ( 1.1% of members of the student community and 3.5% of staff), while moral harassment is more often linked to classism (1.5% of members of the student community and 4.9% of staff).<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally, for all the types of facts noted, the \u201cvictims\u201d do not always identify a specific discriminatory motive: this is the case, for example, for almost three quarters of personnel declaring situations of micro-aggression.\u00a0This difficulty may be linked to an uncertainty about the real motive, which social psychology qualifies as attributional ambiguity.\u00a0But it probably also reflects the fact that discrimination takes place in a degraded study or work environment, where aggression and feelings of injustice are relatively common.<\/span><\/p>\n

Racism experienced by staff<\/span><\/h2>\n

One of the innovations of the ACADISCRI survey is to deal simultaneously with the different criteria of discrimination recognized by law, whereas most of the surveys carried out by establishments currently generally focus on sexist and sexual violence alone.\u00a0In particular, it makes it possible to investigate the significance and diversity of the forms of expression of racism within the academic space.\u00a0In the same way, we favor here a focal point on the staff, usually little concerned by surveys mainly centered on student life.<\/span><\/p>\n

Given the small number of staff in a single institution, it is not possible here to refine the presentation of the \u201cracism\u201d reason, to distinguish, for example, experiences of anti-Semitism or Islamophobia.\u00a0They are therefore treated together, with racism itself.\u00a0In order to identify the most exposed profiles, several questions were asked to the people surveyed on their country of birth and nationality, on those of their parents, on their religious affiliation, and finally on the way of perceiving themselves and of being categorized or categorized by others into racializing categories (\u201cWhite\u201d or \u201cWhite\u201d, \u201cArab\u201d, \u201cBlack\u201d or \u201cBlack\u201d, etc.).\u00a0In this article we report on two synthetic variables constructed from these data:<\/span><\/p>\n