Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in Higher Education in the UK

This chapter focuses on inclusion in the United Kingdom higher education (HE) context, and sometimes more specifically in the English HE context. Framed by the Equality Act 2010 and the widening participation agenda, the United Kingdom HE sector makes repeated reference to the concepts of equality, diversity, and inclusion. When enrolling for university, students are asked to self-declare their ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation; and in relation to disability may also be assessed as to their eligibility for additional funding. This data is utilised (along with other data) to report on students’ year-on-year continuation, degree classification and graduate salary. In response to patterns in this data, universities are required by the independent regulator (the Office for Students) to submit Access Participation Plans, which set out how each higher education provider will improve equality of opportunity in their institution. Synthesising the publicly available data with key literature, this chapter addresses the ecologies of equality in higher education and draws attention to some of the most prevalent themes pertinent to the United Kingdom and sometimes more specifically the English HE sector. Whilst most other chapters in this book provide an analysis of their country’s JoinMe2 survey data gathered specifically for this Erasmus funded research, the United Kingdom did not participate in these surveys. Instead, this chapter poses questions pertinent to the equality and inclusion of students in the United Kingdom HE context and sometimes more specifically the English HE context.