Diversity at Durham? No sign of it!

[Dunlurking]

AIBU to think Durham University only want British students who are white? Have been browsing through my (mixed race) year 12 ds' pile of prospectuses. I am gobsmacked. The Durham University undergraduate prospectus has 22 little "meet the student" profiles. All with a photo showing a white student. There is one with a non English name (possibly) but no photo.

Also look at this youtube clip here Same. And all very public school; the clip starts with rowing. Now that will really attract the ethnic inner city kids from state schools!

Maybe I'm being naive but WHY would any state school educated non white teenager believe Durham would be interested in them.? Is that the point? I CANNOT BELIEVE the university gets away with this. Don't they have to prove they are encouraging equality/diversity? They get our taxes!

I didn't say it was anything to do with ethnicity.

It does get a bit much when prospectuses show unrepresentative people just for the sake of it. The NE is 97% white. Blonde white relative of ours from Yorkshire comp. with 16 very good GCSEs etc, organist and good A levels, got a choral scholarship there and loved Durham. I would not even call him middle class - typical working class comp but clever boy. Don't assume working class children don't love and sing classical music and get As and A*s. Plenty of non white chidlren down here in London engage in activities like rowing and choral singing too by the way. University gives you the chance to undertake hobbies you could not. I am from a NE school which did not even have a choir and one of the nice things about university was i could sing in choirs, travel abroad even with the choir.

Mind you brochures do matter. A Saudi client showed me their corporate brochure of all their 300 staff featured - 100% male of course and what was that recent example - someone cut out Angela Merkel from a picture or doctored it to remove her as leaders "have to be male"!

It may well be the fact that there are other promotional materials and soundtracks etc which show a more diverse Durham. However, it should also be recognised that many potential applicants,considering lots of universities may only look at the website or prospectus, as part of sifting through a great many. The basic, core publicity materials need to appeal to a wide range of people.

If the materials don't make Durham look attractive to a wide range of people, I doubt there is a deliberate intention to put those off from backgrounds not reflected in the prospectus (ie ethnic minorities, those from backgrounds less privileged economically or educationally). However,given the wide range of evidence out there, about what an uphill struggle it is to get those from such backgrounds into top universities, and the resources now put into trying to widen access, it seems daft for universities to undermine all that work, with a prospectus which perpetrates stereotypes which stop people applying,rather than helping to challenge them.

Perhaps we just need to see the issue through the eyes of a bright, but wary 16 year old boy, based in inner city London, at a mediocre comp, who has little access to expertise or experience about Durham. If the experience and people represented in the prospectus look so far removed from his own experience of life, it will take more courage and determination to apply,than most (often extremely able children) will be able to muster. Help is needed, not hindrance.

And I agree,the prospectus shouldn't 'lie' and make it look like 50% of people are from ethnic minorities, but making clear there are SOME minorities and some engagement in 'normal' activity, which might be experienced anywhere by young adults, is a helpful thing.
To have a university prospectus looking like one for a top boarding school (think pictures of Chapel, fencing, horse riding, masters in gowns etc etc) without a few pictures of students drinking in a bar, playing football or just chatting to friends,really isn't encouraging social diversity, never mind ethnic diversity.

yes, although bright white working class boys from Yorkshire and places like Hull are many fewer opportunities than inner London second generation immigrants at thriving inner London comps so there it would not be wrong to seek to appeal to the former not the latter.

It's an interesting issue in private schools. Some children of immigrants have parents who want to buy an English education. if the school and its prospectus becomes mostly non white the appeal diminishes. Difficult balance to achieve.

Littleham I think your point was that your DD at a state comp was discouraged by her teacher and my response was to guess that that was because of Durham's reputation for demanding multiple A*s at GCSE. Lots of teachers suck their teeth when Durham is mentioned but that's to do with that reputation, not to do with Durham discouraging state educated kids, or non white kids, because it doesn't.

Chocolate Wombat these other materials are all on the official website! Take a look at the college ones for a start. It's simply that the OP is making sweeping generalisations from one video which has no-one talking so it's possible to infer things which aren't there. The college videos emphasize inclusivity and show a range of students. I completely agree with Jilly: it makes absolute sense to focus particular efforts on kids from the NE. If Durham and Newcastle don't, who will? We really need to be careful not to be too London-centric - there's a whole rest of the country out there.

Molio, I'm not sure you fully get the issues surrounding getting those who are under-represented at universities like Durham in.

Yes, teachers sometimes discourage students because of the high grades required, which those kids are unlikely to achieve. BUT they also discourage those who are pretty likely to get the required grades - and the reason is simply insufficient knowledge about what is required, or a sense that 'a place like that' doesn't suit 'our types of pupil' - ie limited aspiration and limited knowledge on the part of teachers. It isn't because Durham has told them to discourage applicants - far from it - Durham will be actively encouraging teachers to get their able kids to apply! But the message doesn't always get across and many teachers continue to lack sufficient aspiration of their children in disadvantaged areas.
It is very common regarding Oxbridge entry too, when many schools have absolutely no teachers who are Oxbridge educated,so the whole thing remains a bit of a mystery that they know little about and are not comfortable in engaging with. If a prospectus or individual part of a website presents the place in a way which a teacher or parent or pupil might consider to be outside their realm of experience, people WILL be put off applying. You need to appreciate how easily many very capable kids (and indeed teachers, who perhaps went to a far less prestigious university) are put off, because their experience in life so far, has been very limited. They need extra help to make it there, against those who have always had the expectation that a top education is their birthright. And that applies to people across the country, not just London or the North East.

There is no suggestion that Durham is intentionally trying to put people off applying . I'm sure they have a Dept dedicated to widening access. I'm sure they do go to local schools and promote both Higher Ed and their own institution. And I'm sure they go elsewhere in the country and are involved in nationwide cross-Uni schemes to widen access. And I'm sure they are disappointed each year by finding of the Sutton Trust about the numbers of really able candidates each year who apply to them, from disadvantaged groups,because the numbers remain low.

It may well be that the OP has only looked at one part of the website. I expect others will do the same too. It may well be that she is hyper sensitive to these kind of issues about ethnicity or cultural expectations. Other people will be too. These things need to be seen through the eyes of those who are perhaps from disadvantaged backgrounds, not through the eyes of the white middle class, who know all about looking at lots of different sources of information etc etc.

I guess the key point, is that there is more to be done. Efforts so far, have not resulted in enough very able kids from disadvantaged backgrounds accessing the top universities. I imagine we can agree on that. Whilst the OPs post might be a bit extreme in its criticism, we do need to consider the underlying issues of how institutions come across to disadvantaged groups - and rather than saying 'it is not Durham's fault' we need to say,that all universities can make further efforts in this field. They are the ones starting from a position of strength and they are the ones who need to really, really reach out, to the disadvantaged, because the disadvantaged cannot and will not come to them otherwise.....and much talent is lost. It is right for Durham to reach out to local groups. As a big, prestigious university they need to reach wider than that too....and I'm sure they already do. But more needs doing and it is never good to rest on ones laurels and think 'that website is good enough' or 'we have done enough'. There is more to be done.

I'm just looking at the current Pocket Prospectus guide to Durham University 2015 and the front cover shows three students all of whom appear to be from very differing ethnic backgrounds. And inside the booklet there are also a wide variety of students pictured.

When my DD went to one of the summer open days she met lots of different students and they were not all British or white. I really can't see how OP can possibly say that Durham only want British students who are white. It just seems a ridiculous statement to make. You only have to go onto the Student Room website and look under Durham applicants/offer holders to see the variety of students who are interested in going to Durham, not only from the UK but also from abroad.

If my DD does get the grades for Durham she has already said that she wants to give rowing a go - she doesn't view it as an exclusively public school sport but one that she's not had the opportunity to try and would very much like to.

Maybe instead of seeing real people photographed in university brochures/youtube clips we should instead use "stick people" and that way nobody will feel excluded.

I once met an Access Officer from a top university. She told me that many young people she met had barely heard of our smaller cities/towns like Durham, Bristol, Exeter, York, Warwick etc let alone known that they had top universities. The assumption was often that (Oxbridge apart) "the bigger the city, the better the university". Not a stupid assumption if you don't come from the chattering classes.

I agree. We forget that the majority of people don't know much about university, never mind top universities. There is a lot to be done, regardless of Durham's prospectus. Broadening access remains a very big issue.

Durham looks dull

And full of sloanes

sloanes - what is this?

God

Officially old.

They used to be called Yahs

I have no information on the ethnic balance at Durham, but agree that if they are serious about recruiting from a diverse base of students they need to make sure that their publicity material reflects this. Students need to see Durham as somewhere someone 'like them' would want to go.

On the class front, Durham has a high proportion of students from the upper middle classes. Not only that but students are segregated by class by their college system with richer public school types nearee the centre of town and in the castle up by the cathedral and student from state schools further out on campus. I didn't go there (from a state comp) when I had the opportunity as I didn't like the public school feel when I went to visit.

cakeandcustard, how do you know that students are segregated by class by the college system at Durham? That is such a broad statement to make and I am intrigued as to the basis of your statement. Can you explain?

Wombat yes I have a very good grasp of the issues and am completely familiar with Durham access (also other access) initiatives but it's entirely unreasonable and not even helpful to expect each university, however small or far flung, to be a microcosm of the ethnic mix nationally. It's not how it works and would be thoroughly artificial. For less well off students in particular you need to look at the population mix of the hinterland. I do agree with the point about teachers sometimes hindering rather than helping through prejudice, or outdated or insufficient knowledge, but then of course others are great. Usually an able student can spot a dullard teacher a mile off and the best thing for them to do is to go to the website and look at it properly, ignoring the dodgy teacher. Most able students will have sufficient nous to explore websites properly themselves. The emphasis is on 'properly'. These days all the websites are falling over themselves to emphasize that they're seeking able students of whatever background. It's repeated over and over and over again. I'd think a student rather limited if they relied on one view of one ill informed teacher - that student would probably lack the right sort of spark. OP simply didn't do her homework, which is why I said the post was superficial at the outset.

cake what a lot of rubbish. It wasn't even true in my day, and that was a long time ago :) The new system entirely precludes that anyhow.

Sorry, Cake, my DS (Eton) was at Aidans, his cousin (Cheltenham Ladies College) was at van Milderts. Both something of a hike into the city.

ryansbeat I agree. The thing is OP didn't look through the website properly she just pounced at first glance. Her first glance. Some applicants might click on to one of the college videos first and say omg a northern accent, oh no, I can't go there I'm from the south. I mean, just how dim do people think realistic applicants are?

Its widely acknowledged in the city by ex students, I came back and did my MA a few years ago and it was openly acknowledged by my supervisor

But Molio, there ARE students with great potential who are easily put off, not because of a lack of intelligence, but through poor advice, or more importantly lack of exposure and knowledge about the processes and systems of university application. A 16 year old can be extremely clever and with great academic potential and yet have had a very limited life experience. I absolutely don't agree that the able student will look beyond the 'dullard teacher' and access websites for places they have never really heard of and thoroughly read through them.
I think you might be crediting all or the clever 'all' with access to knowledge and skills that is simply not available to all 16 year olds. This is why we need the access schemes. The OP probably did leap to conclusions - perhaps she is rather like some of those 16 year old students who need quite a lot of support to realise what is possible.
I work with privileged teenagers, who know all about the top universities because their parents and schools have always talked about them, they have never expected any less, and they have had huge input into how to get into them,and about their own potential and future. My cousin works in a school with very low university entry,and those who do go, aim for much lower prestige places. Every year he has students who grades good enough for Oxbridge, but who simply lack the self belief and courage to go to an environment which seems far removed from their upbringing, where many people are unemployed or in low paying manual jobs and who haven't moved more than 10 miles from where they were born. They have to be really encouraged to apply to go anywhere, never mind the top places.
Yes a very few maybe such self-starters that they have the self belief to research and get into top places. But very very many highly able students are missed and miss out every year, and it is such a waste. Steps are being taken but more needs to be done. You seem to think enough has been done already and failure to apply must be down to stupidity on the part of candidates.
So yes, the OP has probably over-reacted.....but as I said before, look at it from the point of view of someone who isn't 'part' of the establishment but outside it, and even if there is an over-reaction, we should be able to understand it and see that it reflects the need for more to be done.

And I wouldn't expect Durham or any individual Uni to reflect fully the national social and ethnic mix. But we are nowhere near that are we! There is room for great improvement and we still won't be reflecting national social and ethnic mix. The question is whether the current levels are acceptable or not.

It is perception versus reality. That is what all universities are struggling to overcome. It is important to form a perception from the information available and then visit to see if it is true. Not everyone has the confidence to do this though.

Generally you find some impressions come from prejudice (or reverse prejudice), some are indeed true and others are the product of your own insecurities.

I bet if you studied the prospectuses of every single university in the country you'd find that far more of them actually showed an over-representation of ethnic minority students in photos than an under-representation.