Empowering minoritised students through scholarship: A staff-student collaborative approach to understanding the experience of Black distance learning students

Jim Lusted, Shannon Martin and Ola Fadoju (with additional input from OU students Denise Hamilton-Mace and Ola Omotosho), The Open University

Email: jim.lusted@open.ac.uk; shannon.martin@open.ac.uk; ola.fadoju@open.ac.uk      

Session recording

Presentation

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Abstract

This presentation will discuss an ongoing body of scholarship that has sought to empower and centralise racially minoritised students through an investigation into the experiences of black distance learning students.

A staff-student collaborative approach has been adopted across three separate projects - two completed and one currently in progress - whereby several student-researchers have been recruited and paid a consultancy fee to join staff colleagues in forming the project team. All student-researchers involved to date have black heritage and bring current lived experience of the issues facing black students in higher education settings.

The presentation will present a summary of the key findings from phase one of the scholarship that undertook peer-to-peer focus groups (student only spaces) with black students to explore their distance learning experiences specifically in relation to three key areas; their relationships with tutors, relationships with other students and their perceptions of the module materials they have encountered. Phase 2 of the project is then summarised, focusing particularly on the process followed to produce a student-led design of a targeted peer support network for black students, which is being piloted this academic year.

Finally, the presentation offers some critical reflections on staff-student scholarship collaborations, particularly those that are framed by traditional white-black racialised hierarchies. Through these reflections, we explore the potential for such collaborations to offer opportunities to empower minoritised students while at the same time being inadvertently susceptible to student exploitation and the re-enforcement of such hierarchies.

Jim Lusted

Lecturer in Sport & Fitness, The Open University

Jim Lusted is a Lecturer in Sport & Fitness at The Open University and has undertaken several staff-student scholarship projects related to teaching and learning, particularly focused around the learning experiences of ethnic minority students. His academic research profile includes publications on issues related to social inequalities in sport settings. He has undertaken research projects with a number of organisations including The Football Association, Kick It Out, The Premier League and the England and Wales Cricket board related to equality and diversity in sport.

Shannon Martin

PhD Student, The Open University

Shannon Martin is a PhD student at The Open University. Her PhD utilises qualitative methods to look at how decolonisation is conceptualised as a key approach to address issues of racism and racial inequality in higher education, specifically focussing on The Open University. She has also undertaken research on a number of projects related to investigating the experiences of traditionally marginalised groups in higher education. She is particularly interested in issues relating to social inequalities in education.

Ola Fadoju

Staff Tutor, The Open University

Ola Fadoju is a Staff Tutor in Education and Childhood and an Associate Lecturer (AL) in Sport and Fitness at The Open University. Before joining the OU, Ola was a Further education curriculum manager at Southgate College, London. He has also worked in adult education as the Community Learning manager at Luton Adult Learning and the City of London Adult Education department. He has also worked in the social work sector as a youth worker at Seven Feathers youth club in West London. Ola is interested in the sociological aspects of sport, youth and education specifically in improving inequalities we continue to witness in these areas.