How Black Lives Matter and Covid reshaped university syllabuses – Times Higher Education

The number of university courses referencing topics such as diversity and social justice has risen significantly since the Black Lives Matter movement and the end ofthe Covid-19 pandemic, data suggests.

According to the Open Syllabus database, anonline open-source platform that catalogues and tracks trends inmore than 20million syllabuses across more than 120 countries, 5.9per cent of courses mentioned diversity in 2023 an uptick from 4.2per cent in 2018, and a record high for the period 2008-23 for which information isavailable. Of the major anglophone sectors in the database, the rate was highest in the US, at 7.6per cent.

While use of the term equality has largely hovered around the 0.5per cent mark globally, it is as high as 1.2per cent in the UK.

Meanwhile, references to inclusivity have shot up in recent years. In 2023, 0.9per cent of courses mentioned inclusion, which was almost double the rate of five years before. In Canada, it was even higher, at 1.7per cent.

Carrie Paechter, professor of childhood, youth and family life at Nottingham Trent University, said mentions of diversity would be higher because it was a good catch-all term, but was unsurprised to learn that references to inclusion were on the rise.

Particularly the more forward-thinking universities are really starting to think about inclusivity for neuroatypical students, or those from care backgrounds, or with hidden disabilities, students who are carersthings that we have started to think about that were rather ignored in the past, she said.

Joe Karaganis, Open Syllabus founder, said that there had been a clear rise in the appearance of the three key terms, particularly since 2019, and that their growth seemed to be correlated.

I think the change in 2018-19 is significant, he told Times Higher Education. Its the year when in the US, at least BLM and the [George] Floyd murder pushed these issues into the curriculum for classes dealing with race, social justice and adjacent topics.

The proportion of courses referencing social justice rose from 0.5per cent in 2019 to 0.9per cent last year, while racism was also cited more, as was racial justice.

Covid and Black Lives Matter probably combined to make us think more about some of those things in terms of social justice about Black Lives Matter, and equality, diversity and inclusion in terms of Covid because it was very much in our faces as staff in terms of who had access and who didnt, said Professor Paechter.

References to diversity were most frequent in sociology courses, with mentions in 16.1per cent of syllabuses, followed by history (15per cent), media (12.5per cent) and education (10per cent).

patrick.jack@timeshighereducation.com

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How Black Lives Matter and Covid reshaped university syllabuses - Times Higher Education