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Hallam Approach

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Here we present our Hallam Approach.

  1. Our Vision
  2. Institutional Level
  3. Departmental Level
  4. Individual Level
  5. Community Cultural Wealth Approaches 

Our Vision

Our vision is to be the world’s leading applied university, achieving outstanding outcomes for our students and our city, and showing the world what a university genuinely focused on transforming lives can achieve.

However, we also recognise that there is more work we can do to ensure that our students, particularly our BME students, have equitable outcomes. The Degree Awarding Gap is a longstanding problem in the sector and the university is working hard to ensure that we understand the nature of the problem and use appropriate methods to resolve it. Our approach to reducing the degree awarding gap.  Here we present our Student Race Equity corporate 5 year action plan (RECAP) (word) which reflects the university’s commitment. 

You can also see what’s happening within the university through:

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Institutional Level

Progress with the degree awarding gap is assessed against the institution’s Student Race Equity corporate 5 year action plan (RECAP)  (word), which was introduced in 2019. This has five key strands, mapped against those identified in the NUS/UUK #closingthegap report (2019) (PDF) which looked at Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Student Attainment at UK Universities. The report found that there were five significant steps needed for success in reducing attainment differentials:

  • strong leadership.
  • changing culture.
  • developing racially diverse and inclusive environments.
  • analysing data.
  • understanding what works.

The RECAP is articulated at College level and these College plans have been most recently aligned with the University’s submission for Advance HE’s Race Equality Charter (REC).  Read more about this on the Advance HE Membership Benefits overview page.  You can also find further guidance and resources on:

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Departmental Level

Sheffield Hallam University has been engaged in a number of action oriented research initiatives over the few years;

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Individual Level

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Community Cultural Wealth Approaches

Cultural capital as defined by Bourdieu in the 1970s was developed as a way to explain how power operates in society and how it is transferred between and maintained by class structures. Bourdieu indicated that cultural capital was the “familiarity with the dominant culture within a society”. Sharing similar forms of cultural capital with others creates a sense of collective identity [us], when the ‘dominant’ culture shares the same sense of collective identity then those in groups this can be a major source of inequality.

Much of the work that is currently done in HE is focused on capital fixing. In response to this, Tara Yosso and others have used critical race theory as a lens to offer a broader definition of capital which challenges our thinking, and our unconscious ways of privileging, traditional interpretations of cultural capital. Her model identifies six types of capital that can be used to frame or reflect on relationships and interactions with students, to act as an alternative to more commonly held deficit models.

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This page is managed by the Academic Development & Diversity Team and if you have any queries about the information and resources please contact the team.

Last updated: 2nd February 2023  NB