Forum: Black awarding gaps & decolonisation

Live illustration of the event created throughout the day by James the Scribe

The Black awarding gap and decolonisation at Cambridge: an open forum about the data, student experiences and ways forward

Thursday 9 March 2023

Background to the event

Cambridge is one of the world’s leading higher education institutions, yet Black British students are statistically less likely to be awarded a First or Good Honours degree compared to their White peers. This is known as an 'awarding gap'. Institutional analysis of admissions data has shown that this disparity cannot be explained by factors such as previous education, socio-economic background or other intersecting variables. The last four years have seen larger numbers of Black student admissions as well as considerable investment in research on the reasons for these troubling statistics.

We hosted a one-day forum open to all Cambridge staff and students as an opportunity to explore the impact of awarding gaps on Black undergraduate students. It was a chance to reflect upon and critically engage with strategies and practices to address inequitable educational experiences at Cambridge, including the range of decolonisation initiatives already underway across the University. Creating a space to gather our views, ideas and questions helped us to understand how the University could move forward in a mutually beneficial way.

The programme was co-designed by a team of student and staff researchers and involved spoken-word performances, panels, workshops co-facilitated by students, live illustration by James the Scribe, and more.

Dr Paul Ian Campbell speaking at the Black awarding gaps and decolonisation forum 2023

The keynote speaker for the event was Dr Paul Ian Campbell (above), who presented on the topic: “My family’s always like, make sure you pray that the person marking your work isn’t racist”: Identifying and measurably reducing racial inequities in HE assessment practice.

The event was launched by Pro-Vice-Chancellor Professor Bhaskar Vira. We closed with a roundtable discussion chaired by Professor Jason Arday, who was in his first week as the new Professor in Sociology of Education.