• How elite UK universities reproduce racial inequality: An insider study exploring black students' sense of belonging at HE.

My qualitative research investigates the factors that impact black students' sense of belonging in primarily white elite institutions. Existing research reflects on diversity, access to safe spaces and racism as the main issues impacting belonging for black students. However, my study discovers that institutional responses to racism and the perception of adequate racial support and diversity have had just as consequential an impact on belonging as specific racist incidents for some participants. Similarly, the setting of Durham University highlights different aggravating factors specific to the Northeast like the hypervisibility of black people, the difficulties accessing black hair care, beauty and food supplies, and racism from some local residents in the aftermath of the ‘race riots’ this summer. For this study, I conducted one-to-one semi-structured interviews with 10 participants that averaged 1.5 hours each. The purposeful and representative sample has participants who joined the university across the academic years 2020/21-2023/24, and includes students from a range of departmental, social class, gender and international backgrounds to highlight the nuances in black students' experiences. The variety of academic starting points can measure the effectiveness of different approaches the university had made during that time to support black students more. This helps inform the recommendations for the HE sector, which were determined by the participants themselves, empowering black student voices in the production of knowledge. These findings have been thematically analysed and coded, enriched by the insider approach to data collection as it is investigated by a black student at the same university.