Cultivating Racial Equity in Higher Education Through Community-Led Research and Action

• In Event: Advancing a Transnational Comparative Framework for Racial Equity in Higher Education

Abstract

This research paper delves into the potential of Community-Led Research and Action (CLRA) to cultivate racial equity in higher education. CLRA places individuals whose lived experiences are the central focus of the research at the helm of the entire research process—from conception through implementation and fruition. In the cases at hand, these individuals are racialized and ethnically minoritized students. As a result, they exercise full control over the research process and receive fair compensation for their valuable contributions. Accordingly, this research is inspired by and hopes to further our understanding of some of the main tenets of #ICARE4Justice, namely how radically humanizing research by racialised and ethnically minoritized students can be both part of radically humanizing pedagogies and of radically humanizing policy and institutional changes crucial to achieving racial equity in higher education. We thus set out to focus on further conceptualizing the following five radically humanizing principles of research, pedagogy and policy that were developed during the #ICARE4Justice summit in May 2023: Relationality, Reciprocity, Restoration, Responsivity and Reflexivity.

Within this paper, we scrutinize two specific student-led research projects that embraced the five principles through the CLRA approach at a Dutch institution for Higher Education. These projects were conducted independently of the curriculum, with the students employed as fellow researchers at our research center. Consequently, efforts were made to minimize power dynamics between students and teachers and researchers. A thorough examination of these projects allows us to explore the potential of such initiatives in cultivating racial equity while also addressing accompanying challenges and barriers, such as those posed by institutional bureaucracy that produce particular forms of racialization and other modes of minoritization. One project centered on the use of inclusive language in Higher Education, while the other examined how the responsibilization of students is intertwined with issues of exclusion and racism. Both topics are considered highly controversial within this particular institution, which underscores the need for dedicated efforts to address these issues effectively and ethically.

As research group leaders, we assumed the role of guiding the two student-led research projects from their inception to their successful completion. Both projects spanned an entire academic year (2022-2023), during which we facilitated more than 30 support sessions with the involved student researchers. Additionally, to address certain research gaps and corroborate findings, we conducted four in-depth interviews with the student researchers upon the conclusion of their projects. In this discussion, we aim to highlight three key findings that underscore the transformative potential of this approach in cultivating racial equity. This study emphasizes three key aspects. First, granting students autonomy in identifying research problems and guiding them to explore non-western epistemologies is crucial to align method and objectives. Second, guided support ensures protection of students' research space and facilitates translating findings into transformative policies and actions. Third, the concept of knowledge ‘cultivation’ (see also Shilliam, 2015) deepens understanding of how non-western epistemologies and a pedagogy of attention and care engender racial equity at an institutional level.

Authors

• Naomi van Stapele, Hague University of Applied Sciences

• Laurence Guérin, The Hague University of Applied Sciences