In this post, I’d like to reflect on 2 things related to race and racism in my teaching practice: teaching international cohorts including Chinese students who learn English as an additional language, and inclusivity of teaching materials and lack of representation at UAL CCI.

The conversation at UAL around teaching Chinese students who learn English as an additional language is well-established. It is common practice at UAL to accept students (particularly at Masters level) who cannot communicate or learn in English, while maintaining that English is the language of instruction at UAL. The pursuit of traditional lecturing and submission methods actively disadvantages these students, who the university profits from substantially through sky-high international tuition fees. I know from my teaching experience that many of these students in question are capable of outstanding work surpassing course expectations, but majority of that happens through self-directed learning. How can racial justice be in place while the university profits from Asian students while maintaining a learning environment which systemically disadvantages them?

As Garrett (2023) points out, ‘whiteness’ is not just a racial category, but rather a cultural one as well. This impacts the students’ ownership of, comfort, and participation in university spaces. My friend recently graduated with a Masters degree from CCI (from which I also graduated and used to teach on) mentioned that in the face of limited exhibition spaces for the final showcase, majority of the slots were taken by Western / growing up in Western culture students despite majority of the year being Chinese. I can see several parallels between this and the text by Bradbury, which points out the racism in British primary schools assessment policy systematically underappreciating children who learn English as a second language, and lack of affirmation for their subject-relevant knowledge in other languages, as well as systemic disregard for the needs of those students (2020).

The ethics of accepting students who can’t efficiently learn in English into a university course taught in English with mostly traditional teaching methods while charging tuition fees is a topic for a separate post. But, if the university accepts them, we as the academic community are responsible for creating a welcoming and nurturing learning environment. I know many lecturers want to do that but struggle with the language barrier and lack of teaching materials which would help facilitate more meaningful interactions. There is firstly not enough representation amongst the teaching staff to bring in the cultural and experiential knowledge representative of our students; secondly, the majority-AL teaching staff already struggle with preparing teaching materials of sufficient quality while being underpaid according to their contracts. I addressed some of the possible solutions, such as more independent, project-based and open-ended learning, as well as some changes to the communication in the classroom, in the TPP case studies, but I believe we need a deep systemic and institutional change to successfully address this and many other racial justice issues at UAL and academia in general.

References

Bradbury, A. (2020). “A critical race theory framework for education policy analysis: The case of bilingual learners and assessment policy in England”. In : Race Ethnicity and Education, 23 (2), pp.241-260. 

Garrett, R. (2024). “Racism shapes careers: career trajectories and imagined futures of racialised minority PhDs in UK higher education”. In: Globalisation, Societies and Education, pp.1–15.