Students’ Perceptions of Racial Diversity and Inclusion in UK Universities

Building on previous studies of racial inequality in higher education, this paper reports the findings of an online survey (N = 407) exploring the extent to which UK university students recognised the existence of racism in wider society and perceived the need for greater racial diversity and inclusion on campus. Utilising the CoBRAS scale developed by Neville and colleagues together with a new Racially Inclusive Attitudes Scale (RIAS) designed by the lead author of this paper, we find that most students reject the notion that we live in a colour-blind society and feel that their university needs to do more to foster racial diversity and inclusion on campus. However, while the rejection of colour-blind narratives was equally strong across students from all ethnic groups, Black students were significantly more likely than students from other ethnic groups to perceive the need for their university to become more racially diverse and inclusive.