Journal of Academic Development and Education JADE Issue 11 Summer 2019 | Page 10

Highlight #2 Reflections on student diversity: the overlooked case of "the Chinese learner" Reflections on student diversity: the overlooked case of "the Chinese learner" I teach on the BSc Environment & Sustainability programme at Keele, which has a collaborative version linking with Nanjing Xiaozhuang University (NXU) in China. Students undertake 3 years’ study at NXU and then come to Keele for a final year alongside students on the standard programme. During their second and third years NXU students take bridging modules taught by Keele staff, in English, either via distance learning or in person in China. These students share specific challenges in the transition to learning here in the UK that, whilst representing a group characteristic needing recognition, also risk stereotyping “Chinese learners” as a homogenous group (Gu & Schweisfurth, 2006). Language barriers and being used to assessment only by exam can give a false impression from early interactions with staff of problematic engagement with learning and academic ability. These impressions risk seeding unconscious biases that may negatively affect both student experiences of interactions with staff and assessment outcomes. In the context of increasing internationalisation of higher education and connected diversity issues (see: Altbach & Knight, 2007; Andrade, 2006; Caruana & Ploner, 2011; Ennew & Fujia, 2009; Healey, 2008; Zhou et al., 2008), this raises important issues regarding student diversity. Importantly for me, there appeared in my early stages of teaching NXU students to be a gap between perceptions and achievement - with amongst the best dissertations I was marking being by NXU students. Author: A. Moolna DOI: doi.org/10.21252/ g7qn-n645 Contact: [email protected] The construct of “the Chinese learner” is widely used in the literature and presents an implicit deficit model stereotyping Chinese students as lacking critical reasoning skills and autonomy, being passive and reliant on the teacher as a transmitter of rote-learnt knowledge (Grimshaw, 2007). Deficit models explain the underperformance of minorities as being due to intrinsic characteristics of learners in those groups. Work towards equality and diversity has, however, recognised that attainment gaps are due principally to a environmental factors including barriers to learning and unconscious bias, as best developed for gender and race (Cotton et al., 2015). Inclusive education reforms have drawn parallels with the social model of disability central to ongoing work for equality for disabled students (Terzi, 2004). The Athena SWAN (Scientific Women's Academic Network) programme of the Equality Challenge Unit (ECU) is the most prominent UK sectoral equality initiative (followed internationally as best practice; Gibney, 2017). The ECU followed Athena SWAN with a Race Equality Charter, of which Keele University is a member, and discuss in Caruana & Ploner (2011) equality and diversity issues that come with 10