Reading lists ‘must better reflect diversity’

UNIVERSITY reading lists must be changed to represent the student population, a study has concluded.

Researchers at University College London said institutions must “decolonise” academic sources and authors to make them less “white, male and Eurocentric”.

They analysed 144 authors of papers in a postgraduate social science research methods module, and 146 in a reading list for an undergraduate genetics module at a British university.

Their findings, published in the Journal of Higher Education, concluded that there is “empirical support for diversification of reading lists”.

It comes amid growing calls from students and academics for university courses to be “decolonised”, with more black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) perspectives added.

Of the reading lists they examined, academics found that 7 per cent of social science authors were BAME, in contrast to the university’s student population which was 39 per cent BAME.

Some academics have said it is a “daft comparison” to set reading lists against the current student population’s demographic make-up.

Gill Evans, emeritus professor of medieval theology and intellectual history at Cambridge University, said: “There is an assumption now that universities need to go to where students are and meet them on their terms, rather than get them to discover something new.

“A university degree is about mastering a body of knowledge. You have to take it as it exists at the moment and present it to the students.”