Critical Race Theory: Impact on Black Minority Ethnic Students within Higher Education

Book excerpt: "This book arrives at a timely moment. The resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement in the wake of widespread shock felt across the world over the murder of George Floyd at the hands of the police in the US has triggered a renewed concern with race equality and encouraged organisations, including universities, to reflect on what they are doing to address this issue. While we shall have to wait to see whether fine words are translated into effective actions, there is little doubt that universities are currently more willing to listen to BME voices." - Professor Andrew Pilkington, University of Northampton, UK. "Historically, CRT follows the notion that there is considerable White bias evident in education and society generally (Bimper, 2017). Studies carried out by Ladson Billings believe that there is clear marginalisation regarding students coming from a BME background and in particular, those students for whom English is not their first language (Carrera, 2019). The author further examined the start of the movement for CRT. CRT began when a small group of activists wanted to understand better race, racism and power (Allen, 2017). The first real CRT movement began by focusing their attention on issues relating to conventional civil rights and ethnic study discourses which existed. They began by really questioning the liberal order addressing equality theory, legal reasoning, rationalism and the fundamental principles of constitutional law in America (Dixon, James, & Frieson, 2018). Regardless of the fact that CRT originated from a movement within Law it did, however, move beyond that discipline. The author further established within her research that educators in the main link themselves to CRT quite holistically (Garcia & Velez, 2018). Educational theorists apply CRT quite loosely to HEIs under the guise of school discipline and hierarchy, tracking, controversies over curriculum and history, IQ and achievement testing. Educational theorists do consider and associate CRT and endeavour to use its core principles to change the social situations present in society today." Contents CHAPTER 1 - Introduction CHAPTER 2 - Critical Race Theory An Educational Construct CHAPTER 3 - Research Methodology CHAPTER 4 - Academic Attainment CHAPTER 5 - Black Minority Ethnic Experiences CHAPTER 6 - The Societal Curriculum CHAPTER 7 - Government Strategy CHAPTER 8 - Thematic Analysis CHAPTER 9 - Discussion and Theorising the Findings CHAPTER 10 - Conclusions and Recommendations