FACE Race: Racism and Basic Data

FACE RACE Teaching Resource: This companion page is one of many included in the Handbook. Download here.

Equality and Human Rights Commission reports that despite extensive EDI strategy, students and staff still experience multiple overt and covert racist behaviours on a regular basis.

Just 6 per cent of Black school leavers attended a Russell Group university, compared with 12 per cent of mixed and Asian school leavers and 11 per cent of white school leavers

• Black Caribbean and Mixed white/Black Caribbean children have rates of permanent exclusion approximately three times that of the pupil population as a whole

• Black workers with degrees earn 23.1 per cent less on average than white workers

• Black people who leave school with A-levels typically get paid 14.3 per cent less than their white peers. Equality Human Rights Commission (2023)

Further…

• 24% of students from an ethnic minority background said they had experienced racial harassment; 1 in 20 students said racism had made them leave their studies

• More than a quarter of staff said they had experienced racist name-calling, insults and jokes; 3 in 20 said racial harassment caused them to leave their jobs

• Racial harassment can have a serious impact on an individual’s mental health and wellbeing

• The sector does not really understand the issue and staff lack confidence in dealing with race issues

• Most staff and students who have experienced racial harassment do not report it

• Many universities seriously underestimate the prevalence of racial harassment and are over-confident in their complaint handling processes. Advance HE Tackling racism