Why diversify my reading list? – Diversity Mark Toolkit

Research, both nationally and at the University of Kent, shows that reading lists that consider the diversity of the student body improve engagement and help to develop key graduate attributes. A minor change to your course materials could make a major change to the way a students, or a group of students, responds to the course.

Our own work at University of Kent on the Diversity Mark project has highlighted the importance of diversifying reading lists to help create a sense of belonging and increase cultural competencies. Academics and students involved in the project from SECL and SSPSR elaborate on specific outcomes of the project in the vidoes below:

Recommended resources:

We have also compiled some resources that makes the case for diversify reading lists to increase a sense of belonging and improve cultural competencies in students.

Arday, J. and Mirza, H. S. (2018) Dismantling race in higher education : racism, whiteness and decolonising the academy. Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.

*Podcast series elaborating on this book and issues discussed within.

Bhambra, G. K., Nişancıoğlu, K. and Gebrial, D. (2018) Decolonising the university. London: Pluto Press.

Christa Craven (2021) Teaching Antiracist Citational Politics as a Project of Transformation: Lessons from the Cite Black Women Movement for White Feminist Anthropologists. Feminist Anthropology Volume2, Issue1 pages 120 – 129. Retrieved from https://doi-org.chain.kent.ac.uk/10.1002/fea2.12036

Office for Students (2020) Official Statistic: key performance measurement 4. Retrieved from https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/about/measures-of-our-success/participation-performance-measures/gap-in-degree-outcomes-1sts-or-21s-between-white-students-and-black-students/

Schucan Bird, K. and Pitman, L. (2020) How diverse is your reading list? Exploring issues of representation and decolonisation in the UK. Higher Education 79, 903–920. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-019-00446-9

Thomas, Dave S.P., and Suhraiya Jivraj, eds. Towards Decolonising the University: A Kaleidosope for Empowered Action. (Oxford: Counterpress, 2020).

Universities UK and National Union of Students (2019) Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Student Attainment and UK Universities #Closingthegap. Retrieved from https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/policy-and-analysis/reports/Pages/bame-student-attainment-uk-universities-closing-the-gap.aspx

Initiatives and resources in other higher education institutions:

Anglia Ruskin University – Podcast interview of VC by BAME ambassadors on ‘the role of higher education in fighting racism

Cambridge University Decolonising critical librarianship blog

De Montfort University decolonising reading list (curated newspaper and journal articles)

LSE: Blog entitled Decolonise LSE collective

SOAS: Blog entitled Decolonise SOAS

UAL: Interrogating spaces podcasts on belonging in Higher Education

UCL: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/teaching-learning/sites/teaching-learning/files/bame_awarding_gap_toolkit_2020.pdf

Kingston https://www.kingston.ac.uk/aboutkingstonuniversity/equality-diversity-and-inclusion/our-inclusive-curriculum/inclusive-curriculum-framework/

University of Essex: blogpost series on decolonizing curriculum

University of Nottingham: open access EDI resource bank that includes reports, best practice and other useful documents for work in this area.

University of Sussex: Decolonising and Diversifying Librarianship and HE reading lists

Useful networks, blogs and mailing lists to follow:

Coalition for Diversity and Inclusion in Scholarly Communications – C4DISC

JISC mail list on decolonising libraries – LISdecolonise

JISC mail list Higher Education Race Action Group – HERAG

WONKHE on diversity in HE