Information and digital literacy in education via the digital path

By Naomi L. A. Smith, Assistant Library Manager and part-time Library student at UCL (@LibrarygirlN). This blog post is based on an essay originally produced for INST0021 Managing Information Organisations module for the MA Library and Information Studies at UCL.

Although Black Lives Matter (BLM) is making more and more of us re-question our privilege and think about discrimination and Western power structures, this exploration needs to also extend to our workplaces. Librarians must recognise that rather than challenging systems of oppression, academic libraries have historically contributed to it by favouring white cisgender male authors at the expense of all others. Similarly, the membership figures of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) confirm there is under-representation of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME ) staff in the library and information science sector.

This blog was kindly contributed by Kalwant Bhopal, who is a Professor of Education and Social Justice, the Director of the Centre for Research in Race & Education (CRRE) and BAME Academic Lead, in the School of Education at the University of Birmingham.Her recent book, ‘White Privilege: the myth of a post-racial society’ was published by Policy Press. 

On Thursday, HEPI will be publishing its first major paper on decolonising curricula.

The protests against the murder of George Floyd by police in the USA have been widely noted as marking a significant ‘moment’ in the history of race relations, not just in the United States but across the globe. The problem of such ‘moments’ is that we have seen so many of them before. #BlackLivesMatter itself was a response to a previous ‘moment’, the killing of Trayvon Martin in Florida. In the UK, the racism of police officers to cover-up the murder of Stephen Lawrence was another such ‘moment’. 

This week:

• Teaching students about race comes with a host of challenges. I share strategies from a sociologist who’s taught such courses at three predominantly white institutions.
• I share findings from two recent surveys of students’ and professors’ experiences of emergency remote instruction.
• I pass along some perspective about colleges’ fall plans.

This week:

Teaching students about race comes with a host of challenges. I share strategies from a sociologist who’s taught such courses at three predominantly white institutions.
I share findings from two recent surveys of students’ and professors’ experiences of emergency remote instruction.
I pass along some perspective about colleges’ fall plans.

The BME Attainment Gap project was conducted as studies show that there has been a gap between the degree attainment of white and BME (Black and Minority Ethnic) undergraduates at SOAS, with a greater proportion of white students attaining either a 2:1 or first class degree. These gaps cannot be attributed to differences between students at entry at SOAS, thus suggesting factors within SOAS contributing to this finding. The gap is not attributable to a deficit in BME students: any intervention must target institutional factors and not BME students themselves.

The Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) has published a new report with original testimony and practical guidance for UK universities on decolonising higher education. The report establishes that the decolonisation of UK universities is vital for the improvement of course curricula, pedagogical practice, staff wellbeing and the student experience. 

Miseducation: decolonising curricula, culture and pedagogy in UK universities by Mia Liyanage is based on over 20 hours of interviews with leading figures in academia, student activism and higher education policy. The report’s recommendations include:

• Ensuring a better understanding of decolonisation and ending its conflation with equality, diversity and inclusion initiatives.
• Prioritising decolonisation in order to expand the curriculum and improve both teaching and course content.
• Increasing Government and university funding for BAME research and BAME-only scholarships.
• Tackling discrimination, hostility and unconscious bias against those working on decolonisation.
• Creating departmental roles to work specifically on issues relating to anti-racism and the decolonising of their department.
• Establishing channels for collaboration on these issues between students and faculty.

The deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and too many others are forcing the country to reconcile with the injustices that plague our systems. As educators, it’s our responsibility to educate students about systemic racism. It’s also our job to give students a place to talk about how it affects their lives.

In response to the murder of George Floyd, my nonprofit, Teaching Matters, organized three webinars for educators to discuss how to talk about racism in the classroom. As an Afro-Cuban education consultant, I wanted to address the varied concerns both white and non-white teachers held. In leading the webinars, I was joined by fellow education consultants at Teaching Matters.

IFLA has submitted a response to a call from the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism concerning the impact of new technologies, sharing experience and highlighting the need to respect the key library value of equal access to education. 

MIT grad student Joy Buolamwini was working with facial analysis software when she noticed a problem: the software didn't detect her face -- because the people who coded the algorithm hadn't taught it to identify a broad range of skin tones and facial structures. Now she's on a mission to fight bias in machine learning, a phenomenon she calls the "coded gaze." It's an eye-opening talk about the need for accountability in coding ... as algorithms take over more and more aspects of our lives.