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Enabling equitable cultures: Race and ethnicity

This page contains a collection of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) resources with relevance to race and ethnicity. These resources were collated as part of the project, Enabling equitable cultures of knowledge and practice in physical geography and environmental sciences, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

This page is dynamic, if you know of other relevant resources or wish to submit your own case study, we’d like to hear from you at rhed@rgs.org

The Society does not accept responsibility for the content of the external sites. Inclusion on this list does not equate to an endorsement of any content or organisation. Please contact the external site for questions regarding individual resources.

Contextual data

In 2019/20, 89.9% and 87.4% of UK domiciled geography students were White (natural sciences and social sciences respectively), compared with 74.4% across all subjects. A high-level breakdown of the remaining students can be seen in the graph below.

UK domiciled students by subject area and ethnic group (Data source: AdvanceHE)

The Society, along with the wider geographical community, has known for a long time that geography attracts a disproportionately low number of young people from disadvantaged and Black and ethnic minority backgrounds to study the subject. The Society therefore commissioned a significant piece of independent research using the Department for Education’s National Pupil Database and linked HESA data (information on students at university) to answer our questions. Given the source of the schools data, the results are for England only for the period from 2009/10 to 2017/18. We hope similar analyses will be undertaken in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The approach we took and key results are presented in the summary report and supplementary data which can all be downloaded below.

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Case studies

The Equator Project

Equator was a six-month project, funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council and supported by the RGS-IBG, that developed three evidence-based interventions targeting barriers to ethnic minority participation and retention in geography, Earth and environmental science postgraduate research. It developed a number of resources to share transferable insights and recommendations.

Tackling racism and racial harassment: directory of initiatives at UK universities

Universities UK

Six months after Universities UK published guidance on tackling racial harassment, we want to use this directory of case studies to share some of the activities and initiatives adopted by UUK members to combat racism and racial harassment. We hope this will help others by suggesting approaches, highlighting possibilities, and sharing ideas and resources.

Recommendations for improving racial equality, diversity, and inclusion in the Department of Earth Sciences

University of Oxford (UK)

This report intends to highlight areas where the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford might make changes or improvements to its existing structures and procedures to improve the recruitment and retention of Black, Asian, and minority ethnic students and staff.

Black Geographers (2021) Black Faces White Spaces
British Academy of Management (2021) Equality, Diversity, Inclusion, and Respect in Business and Management Higher Education Institutions. Access the report.
British International Studies Association (2021) Career trajectories in UK departments of Politics and International Relations. Access the resource.
British Science Association (2020) APPG Diversity and Inclusion in STEM, Inquiry in Equity in STEM Education: Final Report. Access the report.
British Sociological Association (2020) Race and Ethnicity in British Sociology. Access the report.
Centre for Longitudinal Studies (2020) Race inequality in the workforce. Access the report.
Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (2021) Dynamics of Diversity series. Access here.
Equality and Human Rights Commission (2019) Tackling racial harassment: Universities challenged. Access the report.
Equality Change Unit (2016) ASSET 2016: experiences of gender equality in STEMM academia and their intersections with ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability and age, Summary report. [Commissioned by the Royal Society, Royal Academy of Engineering, Royal Society of Biology and The Academy of Medical Sciences]
ESRC Research Centre on Micro-Social Change (2022) Identity, behaviour and wellbeing. Access here.
Institution of Environmental Sciences (forthcoming) A plan for systemic change to improve diversity in the sector. Access here.
Nandi, A. and Luthra, R. (2016) Who experiences ethnic and racial harassment?
National Union of Students (2011) Race for Equality: a report on the experiences of Black students in further and higher education. Access the report.
National Union of Students (2015) Race Matters. Access the report.
NERC (2021) Advancing equity, diversity and inclusivity in the environmental sciences. Collaborative Inclusivity Roundtable Series: Summary report. Access the report.
Puvanendran, K. (2021) Becoming anti-racist: the principles guiding Wellcome's journey. Wellcome Trust [Introduction to anti-racist toolkit]. Access here.
RGS-IBG (2021) “I didn’t have any teachers that looked like me” Sharing the experiences of Black, Asian, and minority ethnic geography teachers. Access here.
Royal Historical Society (2020) Race, Ethnicity and Equality in UK History. RHS Roadmap for Change Update II. Access the report.
Students Organizing for Sustainability (2018) Race, inclusivity and environmental sustainability. Access the report.
UKRI (2020) Knowledge is Power
UKRI (2020) Black Lives Matter: Usable Pasts and International Futures. Access the article.
Universities UK (2019) Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic student attainment at UK universities: closing the gap. Access here.
Universities UK (2020) Tackling racial harassment in higher education. Access here.
Universities UK (2021) Changing the culture in higher education: UUK's response to EHRC inquiry on racial harassment in higher education. Access the report.
University of Southampton (2022) Black Student Experiences in the Faculty of Environmental & Life Sciences. Access here.

Selected readings

Ahmet, A. (2020) Who is worthy of a place on these walls? Postgraduate students, UK universities, and institutional racism. Area, 52, pp. 678-686
Ajegbo, K. (2011) ‘Diversity, citizenship and cohesion’. Teaching Geography, 36, 2, pp. 46–8
Ali, H.N., Sheffield, S.L., Bauer, J.E. et al. (2021) An actionable anti-racism plan for geoscience organizations. Nature Communications 12, p. 3794. Access the article.
Bledsoe, A., and Wright, W. J. (2019) The pluralities of black geographies. Antipode, 51, pp. 419–437. Access the article.
Bonnett, A. (1997). Geography, ‘race’ and Whiteness: Invisible traditions and current challenges. Area, 29, 193–199. Access the article.
Byron, M. (2020) Acknowledging, confronting, and transforming extra‐curricular spaces in geography. Area, 52, pp. 695-700
Delaney, D. (2002). The space that race makes. The Professional Geographer, 54,6–14
Dengler L. (2020) The whiteness problem in earth sciences. Time Standard, 21 June 2020
Desai, K. and Sanya, B.N. (2016) Towards decolonial praxis: Reconfiguring the human and the curriculum. Gender and Education, 28, pp. 710–724
Desai, V. (2017) Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) student and staff in contemporary British Geography. Area, 49(3), pp. 320-323
Dowey, N. et al. (2021) A UK perspective on tackling the geoscience racial diversity crisis in the Global North. Nature Geoscience, 14, pp. 256-259
Dutt K. (2019) Promoting racial diversity in geoscience through transparency. Eos100. Access the article.
Dutt K. (2020) Race and racism in the geosciences. Nature Geoscience, 13, pp. 2–3
Dwyer, C. and Bressey, C. (eds.) (2008) New geographies of race and racism. Ashgate: Aldershot
Johnson, A. (2020) Throwing our bodies against the white background of academia. Area, 52, pp. 89-96
Milner, C. (2020) Classroom strategies for tackling the whiteness of geography. Teaching Geography, 45(3), pp.105-107
Noxolo, P. (2020) Introduction: Towards a Black British Geography? Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. Access the article.
Puttick, S. and Murrey, A. (2020) Confronting the deafening silence on race in geography education in England: learning from anti-racist, decolonial and Black geographies. Geography, 105(3), pp. 126-134
Rose, G. (1990) ‘Resources for teaching gender and geography’. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 14, 2, pp. 157–62
Saldanha, A. (2011) ‘The concept of race’. Geography, 96, 1, pp. 27–33
Singleton, A. (2012) The geodemographics of access and participation in Geography. The Geographical Journal, 178, pp. 216-229
Tolia-Kelly, D.P. (2017) A day in the life of a Geographer: ‘lone’, black, female. Area, 49, pp. 324-338
White, L. and Bell, R. (2019) Why diversity matters to AGU. Eos100 [1 December 2019]. Access the article.
White, W. and Draycott, C. (2020) Why the whiteness of archaeology is a problem. Sapiens

Other resources

Enabling equitable cultures: Decolonisation

A collection of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) resources with relevance to decolonisation in HE geography.

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Supervising Black geography PhD researchers in the UK

This report by Victoria Ogoegbunam Okoye summarises research on the supervision of Black Geography PhD students in UK universities.

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Scholarship opportunities for BME candidates

A list of UK geography scholarship opportunities for Black and minority ethnic candidates

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Black Geographies in the Society’s Journals

This virtual issue looks to recognise the contributions of black scholars (and scholars of colour more broadly) through highlighting a collection of papers.

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