Please join us for this HERG seminar, taking place in WBW LG/11. Waterloo Bridge Wing, Franklin Wilkins BuildingStamford Street, SE1 9NH/

Abstract

Our paper draws on impactful findings from two regional and cross-cultural projects in the UK and US that explore university students’ perceptions and lived experiences of impostorism and their sense of institutional belonging. These phenomena are posited as credible contributors to harmful experiences for racialised student groups. The notion of ‘harm’ is theorised through a history of persistent achievement gaps between racially minoritised and White students in higher education. These disparities lie at the heart of sustained experiences of inequity and social injustice, which limit students’ career prospects and life chances long after degree completion. We call on higher education institutions to address longstanding patterns of underachievement among these students by developing bespoke interventions to tackle impostorism and support students' sense of belonging.

About the speakers:

Dr Amina Razak is a Research Associate at Newcastle University with a focus on student voice, co-creation, and participatory action research. Passionate about collaborating with seldom-heard groups, she works to amplify their voices and advance social justice. While leading a project with Engineering students on understanding how to narrow the degree awarding gap, she founded the Belonging in Engineering Network—a space for Black and other Global Majority students to strengthen their sense of belonging. She is a member of the Racial Justice in Education Action Team, Tyne and Wear Citizens UK and employs community organising methods in her research to empower underrepresented groups to recognise their power, voice, and agency to drive change. She also co-convenes the Student Voice in Higher Education working group for the Network for Evaluating and Researching University Participation Interventions (NERUPI).

 

Dr Deborah Husbands is a Chartered Psychologist and Reader (Associate Professor) in Race and Sociocultural Psychology at the University of Westminster. She is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. She is Co-Chair of the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee, a founding member and Co-Chair of the Black and Minority Ethnic Colleague Network, and the Lead for the Black History Year programme, all at the University of Westminster. Deborah's research focuses on the experiences of minoritised people using qualitative research methods and critical race theories, such as intersectionality, to understand constructions of identity in higher education and society. She has a keen interest in addressing retention, progression and awarding for marginalised students. Her latest research looks at the effect of the impostor phenomenon on academic performance, academic satisfaction and sense of belonging in under-represented student groups. She works collaboratively with colleagues, students and several universities on diverse projects to advance equity in higher education.

 

Dr Orkun Yetkili is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Westminster. He serves as the Research, Learning and Development Officer for the BME Network and is a member of the Centre for Psychological Sciences at Westminster. His research focuses broadly on social identity and intergroup relations. His publications in this field explore topics such as the social psychology of deviance, the impostor phenomenon, online misinformation, and prejudice.

 

Ratha Perumal is a Senior Lecturer at the University of East London and a PhD researcher at King’s. Her doctoral work examines factors that contribute to the formation and persistence of the degree award gap experienced by racially minoritised students in HE. Through working at a post-1992 university and a Russell Group institution, Ratha sees first-hand how higher education policy discourses can produce different implementation strategies in individual institutional contexts – with varied outcomes. Such insights, and others, inform her doctoral study and other research and scholarly activity.