This study aims to explore the experiences of women students with non-European background of inclusiveness of teaching practices in higher education (HE) in Sweden, and the potential relationship with sense of belonging and mattering. This may inform how the unique challenges and needs of this group can be better met, subsequently facilitating related positive outcomes. This was achieved by conducting qualitative individual interviews with six woman student participants with non-European backgrounds. Their experiences were reviewed and depicted aligned with Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis to gain insight to each authentic individual account separately. This was followed by both individual as well as collective analysis, using Thematic Analysis, to go beyond personal experience, to additionally explore overarching patterns, similarities, and differences across cases, placing them in the specific context and factors that were of interest. Collective themes emerged, and findings from this inductive approach were consistent with the application of Critical Race Feminism as a theoretical framework to evaluate and interpret the meaning of the results. Common themes and factors were identified that may affect the inclusiveness of teaching practices, as well as affect sense of belonging and mattering. The themes and subthemes were; relationships (classmates, HE- and private-life separation), cultural differences (social differences, teaching practices differences), belonging and mattering, discrimination (language, microaggressions, reaction and coping), and inclusive teaching practices. Positive experiences of inclusive teaching practices seemed to be positively related to sense of belonging mainly, while mattering seemed to be dependent on specific situational factors, or meaningful relationships. Experiences of implicit racial and gendered discrimination in form of microaggressions were prevalent, and may influence experiences and perceptions of teaching practices. Additionally, participants may have adopted passive reactions and coping mechanisms that ignore, trivialise, or normalise this, which may create barriers from achieving equality, diversity, and inclusion as it allows implicit discrimination to remain concealed. Thus, this may potentially give the impression to majority groups that there is no apparent need to improve and implement inclusive teaching practices further. While in reality, the findings indicated that more active and conscious efforts to design and implement inclusive teaching practices that are underpinned by student-centred and relational pedagogies with additional aspects of culturally responsive, transformational, and anti-racist feminist pedagogies, are necessary to improve experiences of inclusion, sense of belonging, and mattering, while mitigating implicit forms of discrimination. Implications of the findings include that they may inform design and implementation of effective inclusive teaching practices that address the unique challenges and needs of this group in the Swedish HE context, and ultimately reduce the negative effects of discrimination. It was concluded that while most participants described overall positive experiences of inclusive teaching practices in Swedish HE, there were simply more implicit and concealed forms of discrimination, emphasising the importance of the institutions and teachers to take responsibility and actively design and implement inclusive teaching practices that also address implicit discrimination, since they have mainly been concerned with explicit forms so far. This may help remove barriers from improving sense of belonging and mattering further.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:mau-69463 |
| Date | January 2024 |
| Creators | Papp, Jessika |
| Publisher | Malmö universitet, Centrum för akademiskt lärarskap (CAKL) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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