Exploring the Factors that Impact Ethnic Minority Students’ Attainment at a British University

The attainment gap between Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) and Widening Participation students in general and white students has continued to be of interest amongst researchers in their quest for a coherent social justice-based policy and practice in the UK higher education system. This study uses an exploratory and qualitative approach to investigate the lived experience of students and staff with respect to the attainment gap by focusing on the context of post 1992 Universities and the academic, cultural and social aspects of the predicament as units of analysis. This approach offers a departure from the mainly deficit approach which predominantly results in interventions that presuppose fixing or aligning the students to existing lowly prioritised structures of support. The evidence found support an approach that prioritises strategic and deeper pedagogic reforms and support systems that recognise the cultural capital of the BAME students as they are. The analysis also gave us the opportunity to conclude that if the stakes are high enough for higher education institutions, their strategic planning processes and operational systems would naturally pick up and develop effective social justice policies.