Leaky Pipelines in Philosophy for BAME Students: Reasons and Remedies (REIEF project)

This is a project run by Lucy McDonald (lecturer) and Esther Ezegbe (PhD student) in the KCL philosophy department, partly funded by the King’s Race Equity & Inclusive Education Fund (REIEF).

1. Rationale There is a well-documented leaky pipeline in UK academia (HEPI 2022). In philosophy, the pipeline is anecdotally particularly stark, but there is limited published data to demonstrate this. Likely reasons for this pipeline include:

• the lack of BAME representation in undergraduate studies, both in the classroom and curriculum
• unclear career trajectories and earning potential for those pursuing postgraduate research
• experiences of racism and microaggressions during undergraduate degrees that deter students from continuing their education.
• ethnicity attainment gap In an informal 2020 survey in the philosophy department, 65% of UG BME students surveyed reported an interest in further study, but students reported significant concerns about financing, and about how such study would affect their career trajectories and long-term earning potential.

2. Our Project We will undertake a research project which will have two prongs:

2.a Data Collection (the ‘Reasons’ dimension) We will collect data on why Black, Asian and minority ethnic students in KCL philosophy do not progress to postgraduate study.
We will be circulating a questionnaire for undergraduates (currently going through ethics approval). This will be sent out in late February.
We will also be using Power BI and other sources of KCL statistics to provide statistics on the leaky pipeline in the philosophy department.

2.b Interventions (The ‘Remedies’ dimension) We will pilot and evaluate the following interventions
1) A mentoring scheme for second and third year undergraduate students and masters students who are BME home students and considering further study
2) An event on the career benefits of further study in philosophy, with invited BME speakers who have postgraduate degrees in philosophy

Outputs

We would like to produce two reports:
1) An KCL-internal report on our interventions, and how well they worked
2) A journal article summarising the data from our survey

We are seeking an intern who has experience with statistical analysis, who can analyse the data we will collect from our questionnaire of philosophy students at KCL and also find and analyse existing data on student demographics available from KCL, and generate some findings for us.

These will show, for example, how likely different demographic groups in philosophy are to continue in academia.
These findings will go into two reports we are writing; one intended to be an internal document at KCL and one which we will later send to a journal.

It would be a bonus if the student is also willing to help us write a literature review of data on BAME students in the UK (we would only ask them to help on this if the data analysis does not take the whole 13 weeks).

We intend that the student will draft the findings section of our report(s) and prepare some graphs. We will include them as a co-author on all outputs. The internship will provide valuable experience applying skills in data analysis to a real project, a possible opportunity for publication, and experience of working on diversity and inclusion projects in a university context.

The successful candidate must have experienced of quantitative and qualitative analysis, and working with questionnaires.
We would also like the candidate to be familiar with diversity and inclusion issues in UK academia.

1. Please send your CV and a brief cover letter outlining your interest and suitability to the project supervisor(s). Please contact the project supervisor(s) in advance of submitting the application with any questions.

2. If selected by the project supervisor

• LISS DTP students must then complete the LISS DTP Placement /Internship Application form. This ensures that there is approval of PhD supervisor, and the necessary information is obtained to extend funding (for DTP1 students) or confirm placement requirement fulfilled (for DTP2 students), and to fulfil ESRC reporting obligations. LISS DTP approval must be given before the RA internship can commence.
• Other ESRC-funded DTP students should follow the internship application processes from their home DTP.

Please note for LISS DTP students:

• Research Assistant Internships must not be undertaken with the student’s current supervisor and/or home department.
• DTP1 students (those whose funding commenced before Oct24): a maximum of 4 Research Assistant internships will be funded. These will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis. Once the 4 DTP1 places are filled, we will inform PIs that only DTP2 students are eligible for the Research Assistant internships. PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL DTP1 PLACES HAVE NOW BEEN FILLED.
• DTP2 students (those whose funding commenced from Oct24): are required to complete a 3-month placement, which is funded through their studentship. No limits to number that can be funded.
• Reports: at the conclusion of the internship, the student will be required to complete an internship report, which will include a question for the internship host to feedback on the internship.

Contact liss-dtp@kcl.ac.uk with any questions.