Drivers of change: Using the ‘three Cs framework’ to tackle ethnicity awarding gaps

Since its inception in 2021, the University of Southampton’s Awarding Gap Project has united students with lived experience of inequity, providing them the space to co-design and co-deliver activities based on their unique insights.

This initiative has proved to be invaluable in its initial steps toward addressing the awarding gap between UK-domiciled full-time Black and white students. The gap has been both prevalent and persistent.

Through collaborative exploration with students on the project panel, the project identified culture, community, and curricula (‘the three Cs’) as primary areas of focus. As the project enters its third year, I wanted to discuss the reality of utilising ‘the three Cs’ from a practitioner’s perspective: the successes and the challenges.

In 2023, TASO commissioned a report conducted by the University of Staffordshire, which highlighted ‘the three Cs’ (culture, community and curricula), among other themes as categories for approaches to sustaining change.

I initially formulated the three Cs at the beginning of 2022 as a tool to similarly analyse internal and external data on ethnicity degree awarding gaps thematically. However, I didn’t anticipate how these three themes would become central in informing not only my, but also my wider team’s, approach over the past year and a half. 

We adapted the three Cs framework over the last year and began implementing activities within each strand. This shift has taken us beyond an evaluative framework, into a multi-dimensional approach that targets key areas impacting the equity and quality of the student experience for our Black students.

Culture 

The culture element of the project relates to the university’s overall ethos  and its influence on the broader institution. These activities consider how we foster a more inclusive environment throughout the institution, promoting an environment that is equally diverse and unified in its overarching values and beliefs. Within this strand, we delve into the notion of ‘culturally accessible’ services and how we can ensure that our services are fit for all. 

Curricula

This element focuses on reviewing the efficacy of both individual and collected systems which shape the experience and outcomes of students. Activities concerning learning, teaching and assessment practices not only examine the content being taught, but how it is taught, who is doing the teaching and the design of the assessment. Although our initial concern was with the content of the curricula especially pertaining to Eurocentrism, this strand has evolved to more widely encompass how content is delivered and by whom. 

Community 

The community element has come to form the project’s core and is where we have seen the most success. It centres on nurturing our students’ sense of belonging to their respective student groups and the broader university community. 

Activity around this component has involved working with existing Black student communities to accommodate space and resources for them to grow independently while fostering collaborative opportunities. The guiding principle here has been to build trust and enhance engagement with student communities. It has enabled us to create authentic and meaningful connections with staff and peers.

The biggest challenge encountered with this framework has been the development of activity across all three elements, while ensuring they operate optimally together. At different junctures, one strand will require more attention than another. It is important to note that the framework is still in its developmental phase, and as a result:

• We are still learning how to best utilise the framework as an institution-wide tool.
• We are developing an evaluation tool that can demonstrate how work across the three strands leads to a reduction of the awarding gap.
• We don’t have commonality across the sector around how we define culture, curricula and community.

Conversely, the three Cs have enabled my team and me to approach ethnicity degree awarding gaps dynamically. What I value most about this framework is that it encourages us as practitioners to be evaluative, exploring how interventions can fit within one or more strands. My hope is that we can continue to have open conversations with colleagues across the sector to continue to develop and evaluate the framework while sharing best practice in the process.

Chido Chipato is Student Success and Inclusion Coordinator at the University of Southampton