Navigating the Award Gap of Ethnic Minority Students. In Creativity and Critique in Digital Learning and Teaching

In recent years, higher education institutions have been recognised as sites of reproduction of social, economic and health inequalities. The risk of perpetuating racial stratification in students has been identified as one of the means of reproducing inequalities. The award gap that minoritised ethnic students suffer from in both digital and face-to-face provision is an example of this. Exploring the existing interventions established to address the gap and their dynamics can help to understand what initiatives and mechanisms should be implemented in higher education institutions to start to avoid the above issues. This chapter presents a systematic literature review of the studies that evaluated interventions designed to reduce the ethnic minorities’ award gap in different higher education institutions. Findings point to the development of mechanisms such as the implementation of a safe space, the creation of collaboration, connection and socialisation, the formation of a sense of belonging and the transfer of agency towards students that lead to improvement of grades, completion and retention rates, and students’ well-being. However, these mechanisms come with costs and investments for institutions, particularly if the aim is to counter the systemic cultural reproduction of racial inequalities, develop effective EDIA policies and achieve a long-term sustainable change.