How did the work impact me? Reflections of the researchers and facilitators of BME success projects

Abstract

Programme leaders and members of programme teams attended inclusive teaching workshops focused on race equality. After the workshops, programme leaders were interviewed to discuss how they were going to implement inclusive practice enhancements. The core team who facilitated the workshops and conducted the interviews reflected on their experiences of leading change associated with reducing the BME attainment gap. Considering a critical incident which they’d experienced during the workshop or during the interviews, they each wrote personal narratives to explore emotions which the incident had stimulated as well as consideration of how they’d responded at the time and what they could have done differently. The four narratives were considered to identify key themes. Two common themes identified were the stimulation of negative emotions (e.g. anger) and the inability to challenge comments and stereotyping assumptions at the time of the incident. Considering the results in light of literature associated with staff development, the use of personal narrative and leading diversity related change, in addition to autoethnographical thoughts associated with the authors’ own experiences of race, racism and privilege, five recommendations for colleagues involved in race-related staff development were identified.