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Mapping Exclusion in Undergraduate Psychology: Towards a Common Architecture of The Minority Student Experience Sue Smith, Anna Jessen, Ian Hodges, Sanjay Jobanputra, Carol Pearson & Corriene Reed University of Westminster Department of Psychology 309 Regent Street London W1B 2UW Galway June 2006 BACKGROUND 1: Research suggests that minority students in Higher Education experience a wide range of challenges and barriers which include: general discrimination a sense of detachment from ethnocentric & heterocentric curricula difficulties of expression in classroom interactions with majority students feelings of fear, alienation/ isolation (Berrill, 1992; D’Augelli, 1989; D’Augelli, 1992; Defour & Hirch, 1990; Hurtado, 1992; Waldo, 1998) Background 2: Skelton (1999) argued that the Dearing Report and the Government’s Green Paper, the learning age (DfES, 1998) on Higher Education including issues of inclusivity merely focus on ‘inclusive access’ but neglect ‘inclusive experience’ which would require both structural and cultural changes Along similar lines Vaughn (1990) suggests that diversity needs to start at the administrative & faculty level before recruiting minority students, stressing that it is crucial to create a supporting climate or minority students before they enter their studies Background 3: Hodges & Pearson and Smith & Pearson, (2003, 2005) found that lesbian and gay students experience ‘institutional homophobia' evidenced through: their expectations of psychology the curriculum content described as homophobic & heterocentric the teaching/learning and social/personal environment resulting in feelings of inhibition, exclusion & separation Background 4: Jobanputra (2003, 2005) has shown that many black and minority ethnic students will have gone through processes which have a negative impact on their personal & social identity these include: marginalization alienation racism There is a sense that these students are not getting the same quality of education as their white counterparts METHOD 1: Aim: To investigate possible common architecture of the minority student experience in Higher Education Psychology Design: The study utilised a qualitative approach informed by grounded theory principles (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Confidentiality was guaranteed & maintained throughout the study for all participants, as well as in relation to the universities at which they had studied Method 2: Participants: A total of 30 lesbian/bisexual females, 26 gay/bisexual males, & 26 African/Caribbean and Asian psychology undergraduate students took part in the study Procedure: The interview protocol was based upon the authors’ previous research and was adapted for use over the three minority student groups. A semi-structured framework was adopted for questioning. Interviews were either face to face or by telephone. Results 1: Common Architecture 1. Marginalisation in the form of discrimination, homophobia and oppression of identities anything other than the white male heterosexual norm results from entrenched western cultural and psychological ideas of normativity 2. Despite this, there was an overall loyalty to psychology as a discipline and high expectations of what it could offer in terms of career and personal development 3. Students occupied several contrasting juxtapositions in their appraisal of psychology, e.g. disillusionment vs. cautious optimism Results 2: Common Architecture • Coping strategies were developed to counteract a lack of inclusion in the curriculum, in the teaching and learning environment and in the social milieu • The scant relevance of the curriculum to the lives of minority groups is problematic, not least because there is a lack of voice and representation • Separation between university and domestic lives was evident • Almost without exception, there was an overall initial expectation that a liberal and progressive environment would pervade a university setting Results 3: Differences 1. The sense of ‘otherness’ is experienced differently and possibly more significantly by black students 2. Gay men are more affected by social exclusion and mere toleration than lesbians 3. Lesbians identified more areas of psychology’s inappropriateness to their lives, embracing the notions of empiricism, androcentrism and sexism Results 4: Differences 4. Bisexual identity and lifestyle is the most excluded and underresearched and therefore the least understood 5. The impact and intersection of multiple minority identity positionings is only cursorily engaged with by psychology and is thus the most invisible Results 5: Ideas for Progress Curriculum Content: 1. Fostering of critical student engagement with issues from level 1 incorporated into curriculum development 2. Less emphasis on pure biology and highlighting role of biological determinism in social positionings 3. More material to reflect minority lived experiences across a broad range of topics not specifically linked to identity and sexuality e.g. attraction, relationships, lifespan development, the family, health and illness, personality, motivation Results 5: Ideas for Progress Teaching: 1. Discouragement of pedagogy & pedagogic attitudes in teaching styles 2. Seminars specifically linked to lectures to open up opportunities for smaller scale discussion of issues 3. Psychologists should be encouraged to candidly explore their own values and beliefs concerning culture, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and sexual identity to enable a reflexive approach to learning and teaching practices Results 6: Ideas for Progress Teaching: 4. Recognition of coping strategies adopted by students to combat marginalisation and exclusion, e.g. disengagement and contradiction 5. More attention should be given to appropriate and reflective pastoral support for minority student groups 6. A need for more representative role models, especially black staff CONCLUSIONS: Psychology as a discipline, and Higher Education in general should: A. Acknowledge the detrimental exclusionary impact ‘institutional homophobia’ & ‘institutional racism’ has on minority students in Higher Education today B. Develop policies which will encompass the diversity of its student population into its social, teaching and learning practices C. Implement strategies that will enable a more inclusive experience for minority students “it just always feels very…very sort of detached I guess…going to the lectures and learning and then my culture and my life is very separate” “Universities are just one of those environments where no one are really bothered….Well in the sense that no one’s really offended by it and then you know “well it’s your life, if that’s how you live it go on” “I had this incredibly romantic idea of academia being you know just wonderfully liberal and I would never hear anything that would be remotely negative towards sexuality’ “It (heterosexism) goes straight over my head because that’s how it is generally in the world and I’m in a minority” Contact details: [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]