Decolonising the Agenda in UK Higher Education: A Comparative Study of British Minority Ethnic and International Students’ Perspectives at One UK University

Abstract

Initiatives to focus on issues of racial discrimination and the advancement of people of colour have put pressure on all areas of British society to confront their colonial legacy and racial inequalities. Within universities, the dominant Eurocentric curriculum forms the majority of the existing university curriculum, which has a significant impact on minority ethnic students. The decolonisation agenda can therefore be described as an attempt to diversify curriculum content, incorporate more perspectives of people of colour, foster a sense of belonging for people of colour, and provide an inclusive environment. However, it seemed that only one in five universities had truly attempted to address the legacy of harmful problematic colonialism. Thus, this research seeks to explore the state of and obstacles to advancing the decolonisation agenda in higher education, such as language challenges, sense of belonging, and engagement of students in the classroom, through a comparative study of these two groups, from the perspectives and experiences of British minority ethnic and international students. To explore this comparison, I used semi-structured interviews. The main findings of this research found that international students face greater challenges in finding a sense of belonging than British minority ethnic students. The study also revealed that the advancement of the decolonisation agenda at this university does provide a very comfortable sense of belonging and an inclusive environment for the majority of coloured students, but racial exclusion and a lack of voice can still be present on a small percentage of the campus. Overall, this research presents a new direction on the topic, deconstructing the term ethnic minority in the hope of gaining a more comprehensive and in-depth perspective to assess the progress of this agenda.