Mapping Exclusion in Undergraduate Psychology: Towards a Common Architecture of The Minority Student

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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
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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 DAugelli, 1989 DAugelli, 1992
  Defour Hirch, 1990 Hurtado, 1992 Waldo, 1998)

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Background 2
Skelton (1999) argued that the Dearing Report
and the Governments 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
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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

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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

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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
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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.
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Results 1 Common Architecture

• 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
• 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
• Students occupied several contrasting
  juxtapositions in their appraisal of psychology,
  e.g. disillusionment vs. cautious optimism

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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

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Results 3 Differences

• The sense of otherness is experienced
  differently and possibly more significantly by
  black students
• Gay men are more affected by social exclusion and
  mere toleration than lesbians
• Lesbians identified more areas of psychologys
  inappropriateness to their lives, embracing the
  notions of empiricism, androcentrism and sexism

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Results 4 Differences

• Bisexual identity and lifestyle is the most
  excluded and under-researched and therefore the
  least understood
• The impact and intersection of multiple minority
  identity positionings is only cursorily engaged
  with by psychology and is thus the most invisible
  

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Results 5 Ideas for Progress

• Curriculum Content
• Fostering of critical student engagement with
  issues from level 1 incorporated into curriculum
  development
• Less emphasis on pure biology and highlighting
  role of biological determinism in social
  positionings
• 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

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Results 5 Ideas for Progress

• Teaching
• Discouragement of pedagogy pedagogic attitudes
  in teaching styles
• Seminars specifically linked to lectures to open
  up opportunities for smaller scale discussion of
  issues
• 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

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Results 6 Ideas for Progress

• Teaching
• Recognition of coping strategies adopted by
  students to combat marginalisation and exclusion,
  e.g. disengagement and contradiction
• More attention should be given to appropriate and
  reflective pastoral support for minority student
  groups
• A need for more representative role models,
  especially black staff

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CONCLUSIONS

• Psychology as a discipline, and Higher Education
  in general should
• Acknowledge the detrimental exclusionary impact
  institutional homophobia institutional
  racism has on minority students in Higher
  Education today
• Develop policies which will encompass the
  diversity of its student population into its
  social, teaching and learning practices
• Implement strategies that will enable a more
  inclusive experience for minority students

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it just always feels veryvery sort of detached
I guessgoing 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 ones really offended by it and
then you know well its your life, if thats 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 thats how it is generally
in the world and Im in a minority Contact
details healingamith_at_ntlworld.com Hodgesi_at_wmin.a
c.uk Sanjayj_at_wmin.ac.uk pearsoc_at_wmin.ac.uk Reed_at_wm
in.ac.uk