Working with Students to Decolonise the Study of Crime

Abstract

Recent years have seen a fluctuation in the awarding gap between white and non-white students across higher education in the UK, with the most recent numbers indicating a widening of the gap. Such statistics have ignited efforts across universities to identify possible explanations and solutions to the existing awarding gap. With research pointing to the important role of students’ sense of belonging in the positive university experiences of students from minority ethnicities, initiatives have focused on increasing this sense of belonging through curriculum design and delivery. Namely, institutions are moving towards decolonising, or liberating, existing curricula to facilitate an inclusive educational culture. Leaning on success stories from previous projects, this paper presents a case study of working with students to decolonise the curriculum of crime science at University College London. The paper presents the customisation of the UCL Inclusive Curriculum Health Check, a review of the curriculum of BSc Crime and Security Science, and a heatmap and descriptive results of the indicators of an inclusive curriculum. The outcome of the study illustrates the importance of working with students to dismantle colonial narratives in existing curriculum design, and the added value of customising existing frameworks to fit discipline needs. The results and outcome of the project are discussed in relation to the prior literature, and considerations of future directions and limitations of the study are offered.

1. Introduction

Recent years have seen an increased focus on the disparity of degree outcomes between white students and those of minority ethnicities, known previously by the term “attainment gap” (Singh et al., 2023). Replacing “attainment gap”, the newly coined term “awarding gap” sets out to address the existing difference between white students and those of Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnicities (BAME) who receive a first or upper second class degree (overall mark of <60% and <70% in the UK higher education system) (Advance HE, 2023). The shift in terminology came with the acknowledgement that whilst “attainment gap” suggested that academic success was purely a responsibility of students, “awarding gap” puts emphasis on changing the system that awards students. The most recent report on United Kingdom higher education highlights that, even though the gap shrunk by 3.4% from 2018/2019 to 2019/2020, the average gap in first class degrees has since widened to 10.7% between white and black students (Advance HE, 2023). Such trends in the gap between white and BAME students has been observed across different disciplines, such as chemistry (N. Williams, 2022) and medicine (Claridge et al., 2018). In an effort to minimise and ideally close the gap, the Office for Students (OfS) in England has set out focus on the different institutional inequalities that may contribute to such disparities. As a result, academic institutions across the UK have initiated projects of decolonising, or liberating, their curricula, and therefore creating a more inclusive learning environment for all students (Chakrabarti et al., 2021; Gishen & Lokugamage, 2019; Wong et al., 2021). However, such work is still in its infancy and has yet not been applied in crime science studies.

As noted by previous authors, in order for decolonisation to be effectful in a higher education context, it is crucial to address the material delivered in courses and programmes (Blount-Hill et al., 2022; Moosavi, 2019; Stockdale & Sweeney, 2022). This paper recognises the concept of “decolonisation” as the process of challenging and dismantling systems that stem from colonial narratives, where decolonisation in an educational context refers to the process of critically assessing and dismantling the existing colonial narratives in the educational system (Runswick et al., 2022). Therefore, whilst “decolonisation” refers to a process, an inclusive curriculum refers to the final product of the named process. The practice of decolonisation and creation of an inclusive curriculum has proven essential for health disciplines, as it informs inclusive healthcare practices (Narasimhan & Chandanabhumma, 2021). In the study of crime, decolonisation and inclusive curricula could inform future criminal justice practice, resulting in fairer practices towards the most vulnerable in the system (such as the BAME community) (Blount-Hill et al., 2022; Stockdale & Sweeney, 2022).

The current paper aims to present the result of a case study from an ongoing project at the Department of Security and Crime Science, University College London (UCL), to decolonise the study of crime and create an inclusive crime science curriculum by working together with students. The first element of the project was to conduct a case study where an existing inclusive curriculum framework was customised, through a narrative review of the empirical literature, to the study of crime science. The project primarily draws on lessons from Kingston University’s inclusive curriculum framework, and UCL School of Medicine’s inclusive curriculum project.

2. Sense of Belonging and Inclusive Curriculum

Frequent in the discussions and suggestions of factors that contribute to academic retention and performance is the concept of a “sense of belonging”. A sense of belonging in a higher education context refers to the psychological connections and identification with the university community as experienced by students (Pedler et al., 2022). Studies looking at sense of belonging and academic performance have found that a high sense of belonging positively correlates with students’ academic success, retention, overall wellbeing (Taylor et al., 2021), motivation and graduation rates (Tian et al., 2021), and engagement in social and academic activities (Ahn & Davis, 2023). However, when students experience low or no sense of belonging in their university environment, they may feel more emotional distress, isolation, alienation, and disengagement from the university environment (Tian et al., 2021). Such negative emotions can, as a result, have a negative impact on students’ academic performance (Tian et al., 2021).

To counter the potential negative impacts of a lack of a sense of belonging, studies have looked at the effects that inclusive teaching and inclusive curricula have on students’ outcomes (Crawford, 2017). Such studies have illustrated the positive impact of a curriculum that is inclusive and diverse in its material. For example, a recent study shows the positive impact of interaction with diverse material and diverse peers on Latino students’ sense of belonging, whilst students who experienced any form of discrimination or racial biases reported less of a sense of belonging (Hussain & Jones, 2019). In a South African higher education context, authors have explored the implications of integrating critical discussions about social justice issues within the classroom, recognising the importance of reflective practices that enhance awareness of societal norms and power dynamics in multicultural contexts (T. Williams et al., 2021). The authors concluded that such practices foster dialogue among students from varied backgrounds and align with broader social justice frameworks, promoting ethical discussions relevant to contemporary educational practices.

Thus, initiatives across higher education institutions have focused on “decolonising” the curriculum, through liberation from a focus on Western and Eurocentric perspectives. Indeed, Taylor et al. (2021) found that the reading lists across the School of Life Sciences at the University of Sussex consisted mainly of works written by white men, and that there was a large difference between the number of male and female authors in their reading lists. The paper further highlights that the majority of authors in the reading lists were white (83.4% versus 7.4% BAME), and the authors argue that such evidence demonstrates the work that is required in training academics in inclusive teaching methods and pastoral care for BAME students.

The initiatives to decolonise and design inclusive curricula has reached the study of crime, where scholars have highlighted the Western-centric narrative of criminology and challenging the traditional perspective of crime problems (Blount-Hill et al., 2022; Moosavi, 2019; Stockdale & Sweeney, 2022). Such discourse emphasises that the criminological education must diversify to reflect a more global understanding of crime and justice (e.g., Blount-Hill et al., 2022; Moosavi, 2019; Stockdale & Sweeney, 2022). In a review of criminology curricula at a UK university, Stockdale and Sweeney (2022) highlight the dominance of while male voices in the criminology literature, marginalising contributions from the BAME community and from women. Their pivotal paper calls for change in studies of crime, through internal reviews of existing and new criminology curricula, to ensure inclusive and diverse higher education practice. In an exploration of the experience of those who are “othered”, Blount-Hill et al. (2022) argue for the necessity of integrating discussions around identity, race, and cultural perspectives into the criminology curriculum, which facilitates the development of a more inclusive and decolonized educational environment. Together, examples of such studies underscore the importance of decolonising the study of crime in order to achieve an inclusive curriculum.

University-led projects have shown that the implementation of an inclusive curriculum can improve the inclusive university milieu, thus resulting in a smaller awarding gap. One such example is the Kingston University Inclusive Curriculum Framework (ICF), as developed and implemented by McDuff et al. (2020). Rooted in a body of literature that emphasises the importance of equitable education and the need to address awarding gaps among diverse student populations, central to this framework is the recognition that an inclusive curriculum proactively aims to engage all students meaningfully and accessibly (Hughes et al., 2019). Indeed, with the implementation of the framework, McDuff and colleagues achieved a reduction in the awarding gap at Kingston University, from 29% to 13% over a six-year period, through a combination of workshops, peer mentoring, training schemes, and partnerships with students. Furthermore, the authors of the framework illustrate the innovative approach of curriculum co-creation, wherein students contribute their unique perspectives to develop an inclusive education that caters to varying backgrounds and abilities, reinforcing the ethos of the ICF (Hughes et al., 2019). This collaborative model mirrors efforts at other institutions, such as UCL, which have drawn significant insights from Kingston’s ICF in order to implement similar strategies for closing attainment gap (Duhs et al., 2019). By establishing inclusive pedagogical practices, Kingston University’s initiative seeks to transform educational experiences and foster an environment where diversity is recognised as a strength, thereby promoting social equity. The comprehensive application of such frameworks is essential for cultivating an educational landscape that is inclusive and equitable for all learners.

The Kingston University Inclusive Curriculum Framework has been applied in several disciplines; in the UCL environment, the School of Medicine built upon the framework and adopted new methods of teaching the appearance of medical conditions on patients of different ethnicities (Gishen & Lokugamage, 2019; Wong et al., 2021). The success of such customised efforts highlights that an inclusive curriculum framework can be customised to be fully implemented in specific subject areas. Within the study of crime, such efforts are still in their infancy. In a recent paper by Chaussée and colleagues (Chaussée et al., 2022), the authors highlight the need to include cultural sensitivity in the teaching of forensic science and improve diversity training in the field. The study reflects the importance of considering cultural and immigration factors to understand help-seeking behaviours amongst Latino domestic abuse victims. The authors argue that a diverse and inclusive curriculum within criminal justice subjects can improve law enforcement responses to victims of diverse backgrounds.

3. UCL Inclusive Curriculum Health Check

In line with the overall trends of the awarding gap across UK universities, analysis of UCL data has shown that there is a significant discrepancy in the rate of good degrees between white and BAME students (University College London, 2018). As a result, the UCL BAME Awarding Gap Project was initiated, which in turn followed the Kingston University Inclusive Curriculum Framework. The UCL BAME Awarding Gap Project developed the UCL Inclusive Curriculum Health Check (ICHC) in 2018; a toolkit designed for academics across the institution on how to diversify their teaching and curricula for a more inclusive learning environment. The toolkit was developed through focus groups and work with students, and identified five key areas for academics to consider when designing an inclusive curriculum: using a diverse range of resources, contextualising course materials, acknowledging the limitations of the diversity of the literature, avoiding stereotypes, and increasing one’s own pedagogical knowledge. Working with students to do this was crucial, and as outlined in the toolkit, increased the sense of inclusivity amongst the students who participated in the project. The actual toolkit consists of three main sections: content, teaching and supporting learning, and assessment. For each of these, there is a set of criteria which, following the assessment of a curriculum, can be marked as “Meets all the criteria”, “Meets some criteria”, or “No evidence”, with an option to leave comments for each criterion. The content section of the toolkit focuses on the content used in a curriculum, including reading lists, resources, lecture material, and activities. The toolkit has been designed for the entire institution of University College London, leaving it general in nature and applicable to all programmes. However, lessons learnt from the UCL School of Medicine highlight the benefits of customising the toolkit for specific subject areas. Thus, the current project set out to customise the UCL ICHC to the study of crime science, with direct input from individuals with experience of the curriculum, including a student.

4. Working with Students

Higher education institutions (HEIs) engage with students in numerous ways throughout their studies. This includes typical quality assurance mechanisms like the National Student Survey (National Student Survey [NSS], 2024), module feedback forms, the Student’s Union, and student representatives. This involvement in processes of quality and development aim to capture student voices and make positive change to the student experience, but there are challenges with trying to capture the student voice this way. How representative these measures are in relaying the opinions of the masses is debatable (Bols, 2017), while the lack of equity in the relationships may also be of concern (Mercer-Mapstone & Bovill, 2020). This project aims to capture the student voice through direct participation from a student who has undertaken the curriculum which is being reviewed.

The relationship between staff and students at universities is changing. Increasing fees for home and international students have led to arguments around “students as consumers”, with students paying for a marketized service from the university and their feedback and engagement being limited to end of module/degree feedback and surveys as a result (Lowe & Hakim, 2020). Such an approach places boundaries between staff and students, reinforces traditional power structures, and does not encourage students to work with staff and institutions towards meaningful change. Many institutions are increasingly moving towards a model of engaging with students as partners. This may involve students as quality reviewers and critics of modules or programmes, but crucially sees students as parts of a collaborative process where they can contribute “to curricular or pedagogical conceptualisation, decision making, implementation, investigation or analysis” (Cook-Sather et al., 2014). This study aimed to model this collaborative approach throughout.

Working with students as partners, producers, critics, or co-creators allows for numerous benefits to be realised for multiple stakeholders. By including student perspectives, we increase their sense of belonging to and engagement with the curriculum and the institution (Lowe & Hakim, 2020). There can also be an increase in trust between staff and students, as well as enhanced student performance, wellbeing, engagement, and understanding of other perspectives (Cook-Sather et al., 2014; Mercer-Mapstone et al., 2017).

All of these are also desirable outcomes for the creation and implementation of a more inclusive and diverse curriculum, so the value of student partnerships in such curriculum review projects is obvious. UCL already has a model of student quality reviewers, where students can evaluate teaching practice, be part of Internal Quality Review processes, review new modules and programmes, and check the inclusivity of curricula (UCL SQR) Similar approaches are taken at many other UK and international HEIs, but the quality of the inclusive curriculum reviews conducted by such institutions varies, and it is vital that the reviewers have a diversity of lived experiences in order to truly make the learning environment more inclusive (The Open University, n.d.). Partnerships between staff and students should be ethical, inclusive, and power-sharing in order to achieve equitable and impactful changes to the curriculum (Matthews, 2017). The current project in the Department of Security and Crime Science aims to do just this.

5. Crime Science as a Subject of Study, and the Bachelor of Science (BSc) Crime and Security Science Programme

Crime science is an outcome-focussed field of study, aiming to prevent or reduce crime using scientific methods and multidisciplinary approaches in an ethical manner. Utilising theoretical approaches such as Situational Crime Prevention (Clarke, 1995) and Routine Activity Theory (Felson, 2010), crime science believes that a focus on “addressing near and tangible causes [of crime] rather than distant ones… and changing aspects of the immediate situation leads to measurable, and in most cases permanent, reductions in offending” (Smith & Tilley, 2013, p. 14). Changes to the environment to make offending more difficult and/or increase the risk of getting caught should lead to fewer offences in that environment. Crime science is focused on evidence-based solutions, as well as creating new and high-quality evidence to support novel solutions, with the understanding that context matters—nothing will work everywhere, for everything, all the time. The importance of evaluating initiatives, understanding the mechanisms by which initiatives may work (or not), and the moderating conditions under which they work is vital (Pawson & Tilley, 1997). Working with practitioners to prevent or reduce crime is of the utmost importance so that evidence-based policy is utilised widely when making decisions on what to do where and how, and when to act.

The UCL BSc Crime and Security Science programme was designed to create the next generation of those who can use the principles of crime science. The programme aims to equip young people with the ability to use the best available evidence to find creative solutions to crime and security problems nationally and internationally. The multidisciplinary element that forms the core of the programme allows students to develop qualitative and quantitative research skills, computational and data science capabilities, practical skills for the workplace, and theoretical foundations upon which to build. Taught by academics from a variety of scientific backgrounds, students are given the opportunity to develop a wide skill set while focusing on real-world problems from and with potential employers and stakeholders throughout the programme. Students on the BSc programme come from a wide variety of backgrounds, including differing nationalities and protected characteristics, with the UCL Access programme encouraging those from the UK who would not traditionally have considered or attended university to apply and join. According to the admissions statistics, the BSc programme has up to 40% of such students, enriching the cohort experience and giving students and academics the chance to share their experience in a reflective learning environment. Diversifying and decolonising the curriculum within the programme can help to give a realistic representation of the experiences and challenges faced by some of those who live with the outcomes of many of the contemporary crime and security problems our world faces.

6. Study Rationale and Objectives

6.1. Materials and Methods

The Crime Science Inclusive Curriculum Project set out to customise and apply the UCL ICHC in partnership with a student from the department. Similar to efforts in other disciplines (such as UCL School of Medicine), this study adopted a case study approach, focusing on reviewing the core modules (these are compulsory modules that all students of the programme have to complete) of the BSc Crime and Security Science programme. To achieve this, the authors applied for and received institutional funding from the Faculty of Engineering for an eight-week summer project which paid a student an hourly rate on a full-time basis (36.5 h per week). Since the project was limited in time, it needed to also be limited in scope, so we decided to focus the resources on the core modules in the curriculum rather than including all potential optional modules, with assistance from a student who had experienced or was currently experiencing the curriculum on that programme. Once funding was secured for the project, an internal advertisement was circulated to give all undergraduate students a chance to apply and have an informal interview for the internship. All students who sent their expression of interest were invited for an informal chat over Microsoft Teams, and the selection was based on academic merit (that is, the student’s overall engagement in their studies) as well as interest in the topic (the student’s motivation to work on the project over their summer holiday). During the eight weeks of the project, weekly meetings were held between the leads and the student to discuss weekly progress and any initiatives taken by the student. The selected student, the third co-author of the current paper, was not only included in every decision made throughout the project but actively drove the direction of the project from the outset.

The project was completed in four primary stages (completed from June to August 2022), comprising methods including a narrative literature review and content analysis of key teaching materials. The content analysis was performed through analytical induction, with the student using the customised ICHC to populate a coding sheet indicating the presence or absence of categories, with examples extracted. The project was concluded with two deliverables: a heatmap of each module, illustrating compliance with the ICHC, and examples of activities and resources (such as seminar discussion topics and additional reading material) that could be added to modules across the BSc programme.

6.2. Stage 1: Review of Existing Literature

The first fortnight of the project was dedicated to understanding the existing literature and case studies of inclusive curricula and senses of belonging in academic institutions. Here, the leads of the project guided the student in the type of literature to look for through internet key word searches (e.g., “inclusive curriculum”, “awarding gap”, “inclusive pedagogy”). The student then completed a narrative review of the literature, focusing on different inclusive pedagogy practices and collating relevant information from the review. The student was encouraged to keep notes, with references, which could be used to strengthen their final deliverables. It is important to note that a systematic review of the literature was not attempted—this stage was used to familiarise the student with the conceptual frameworks around the topics of inclusive curricula, not to critically review the entire body of the literature in a systematic manner.

6.3. Stage 2: Review of UCL Inclusive Curriculum Health Check

On completion of the narrative literature review, the next phase included a review of the existing UCL ICHC. The intention in this stage was to compare the ICHC with the literature review and assess whether or not additional elements could be included in the toolkit in order for it to accommodate the study of crime science. To achieve this, the toolkit was cross-referenced with the main themes found from the narrative review, with the intention of adding notable themes which were missing from the current toolkit in order for it to accommodate the study of crime science. This step allowed for stage 3, where the customisation of the toolkit was completed.

6.4. Stage 3: Customisation of UCL Inclusive Curriculum Health Check

Once the ICHC had been compared and assessed against the general literature on inclusive curricula, the student took the initiative to add additional elements to the toolkit and customise the purpose of these for the teaching of crime science. As the intention of this project was to focus on diversifying and decolonising the curriculum of an undergraduate programme, this stage of the project focused on the “Content” section of the UCL ICHC.

6.5. Stage 4: Review of BSc Crime and Security Science Core Modules

In the final four weeks of the project, the student conducted a content analysis of teaching materials from all of the 17 core modules in the BSc Crime and Security Science programme. Each module generally includes 10 lectures and 10 tutorials (or seminars), as well as module-specific readings lists and assignments. This was completed in steps, where the student began by reviewing the contents of each lecture and tutorial session using the customised ICHC. Each session of each module was given a score for each ICHC criteria out of “Applied”, “Some Application”, “Not applied”, and “Not applicable”. Each scoring was given with comments to justify the assessment and suggestions on how the score could be improved. The scores were then translated into a heatmap to clearly illustrate where modules required further work to become inclusive. As a final step, the student reviewed the reading lists of each module and undertook internet searches with topically relevant key words to find appropriate additional inclusive and diverse resources, with comments on how these could be actively included in the module’s content.

7. Results

7.1. Customised Toolkit

Following the literature review and the review of the existing inclusive curriculum toolkit, one additional element was included in the customised “Content” section of the toolkit alongside the existing criteria. The existing criteria in the “Content” section cover opportunities to discuss different perspectives (C1); the inclusion of material that explores different types of data and tools (C2); reading lists with diverse authors (C3); the development of critical thinking and awareness of different perspectives (C4); and allowing students to understand the different socio-economic factors underlying outcomes (C5). The added criteria (C6) included the prompt to integrate “difficult and complex conversational topics involving cultural and diverse contexts in order to face real-world crime issues”. Although this last criterion may appear to overlap with the first criterion (C1), the difference is arguably necessary for the study of crime. This last criterion sets out to specifically include material that can prompt difficult and complex conversations, rather than leaving such initiative to occur naturally with any curriculum content. This puts the onus on teaching staff to begin, encourage, and facilitate these conversations and create an environment where they can flourish, instead of expecting young adults to do this alone in a space where power dynamics and personal experience could quash the desire or ability to have such opportunities.

7.2. Heatmap

Following the amendment and customisation of the “Content” section of the toolkit, the curricula content of all the core modules of the BSc Crime and Security Science programme were reviewed and assessed using the toolkit. Each module was reviewed in terms of its reading lists, online content, lecture content, and seminar structure and content. In total, 17 modules were reviewed: 8in Year 1, 5 in Year 2, and 4 in Year 3. This comprised a total of 382 lecture and seminar sessions (160 in Year 1, 100 in Year 2, and 62 in Year 3).

To illustrate the results of the assessment, the student created a heatmap of each module, where colour coding was used to indicate the application of each criterion within each lecture and seminar session of the module (see Figure 1 for an example). The decision to name the illustration a “heatmap” was based on the colours chosen: green = criteria applied; yellow = some application; red = not applied; and grey = not applicable. Adding to this, the student provided comments and suggestions on the assessment of each session in each module to assist and encourage future changes in the curricula.

In Year 1, a total of 160 sessions across eight modules were thoroughly reviewed. One of these modules is of a purely practical nature (programming) and therefore received grey (not applicable) for all sessions. The total assessment of the remaining seven modules is compiled in Figure 2. Modules which did particularly well include Crime and Society (a typical criminology introduction module), and the Terrorism module (which has many international examples and elements). As per the graph, it appears that C3 (inclusive reading lists) is left with plenty of room for improvement across all seven modules.

A similar pattern was revealed in the Year 2 core modules (see Figure 3), where 60 (out of 100) sessions did not meet the criteria for inclusive reading lists (C3). Adding to this, modules in Year 2 also require further work on implementing room for discussions on perspectives from within and outside the UK (C1). There were also weaknesses across C2, C4, and C5 compared to the Year 1 modules. Weaker modules include Systems and Problem Solving (a theoretically heavy module with plenty of technical content), Situational Crime Prevention (with a predominance of Western examples), and Introduction to Research (again dominated by theory).

In contrast, the core modules of Year 3, seen in Figure 4, had a better application of the criteria than Year 2, though still weaker than Year 1, with some room for improvement across all criteria. One module that did particularly well was Cybercrime (lending itself to international examples). Across all three years, the component with the greatest proportion of green (“applied”) criteria was C6, which is the addition that the student suggested for the ICHC, to include difficult and complex conversational topics involving cultural and diverse contexts in order to face real-world crime issues.

The overall observed pattern (Figure 5) indicates that C6 (“Include difficult and complex conversational topics involving cultural and diverse contexts in order to face real-world crime issues”) had that highest application rate across all modules in Year 1 (43.6%), Year 2 (37%), and Year 3 (58%). In contrast, C3 (“Have reading lists and resources that contain a diverse range of authors including those from different ethnicities, from outside the UK and from non-academic sources where relevant”) fared the worst across all three years (22.9%, 10%, and 32.3%, respectively). However, the overall results show that all six criteria require further development and integration across all modules in the BSc Crime and Security Science programme.

8. Inclusive Curriculum Workshop

The final deliverable of this project was the provision of a 90 min long Inclusive Curriculum Workshop for all teaching staff within the department (this includes lecturers, teaching fellows, and postgraduate teaching assistants). The workshop integrated the highlights from the reviewed literature, a description of the added criteria to the ICHC tool, and a demonstration of how to use the heatmap as guidance for curriculum development. Applying an interactive approach, the workshop was designed to allow for groups discussions among staff and self-reflection on one’s sense of belonging. The workshop was delivered by the summer internship student and the first author of this paper. This provided the student the space to be included in the discussion and training of inclusive curricula in crime science and ensured that the student was given the time and space to present her work to the academics. The decision to introduce the customised ICHC tools via a staff workshop came from examples in the literature, where the full integration of inclusive curricula design was facilitated through activities such as training (for example, the work of the UCL School of Medicine). The authors have decided to present the impact of the workshop and the customised ICHC once a full assessment has been completed on the future steps of this ongoing project.

9. Discussion

Recent student statistics from Advance UK show discouraging evidence that the previously narrowed awarding gap has widened in the past year. Such data challenges academics to consider long-term and sustainable changes in the higher education milieu to reduce and eliminate the awarding gap between BAME and white students. The literature suggests that a focus on improving senses of belonging, for example, through engagement with a diverse range of material, has a positive impact on students’ wellbeing, retention, and academic success. Further, working with students to break the mould of traditional power structures can improve their sense of belonging, and therefore inclusivity. As such, it is no wonder that institutions (such as the University of Kingston and UCL School of Medicine) have focused on working with students to decolonise their curriculum. Following this model, the UCL Department of Security and Crime Science successfully worked with a student to review the Bachelor of Science in Crime and Security Science programme and to provide a customised inclusive curriculum toolkit. The academic authors of this paper found the experience of working with a student eye-opening and educational. It became especially apparent that where academics may have blind spots to the systems in place, perhaps due to their experience, the student did not. As a result, Criteria 6 was added, by the student, to the existing UCL Inclusive Curriculum Health Check, calling attention to our need to emphasise healthy and diverse class discussions. Further, the student’s ability to objectively review the reading lists of each module, and assess their diversity, stressed our need to work on the diversity and inclusivity of the programme library. Such findings align with existing efforts in criminology, where authors have emphasised the need for integrated diverse discussions in the classroom (e.g., T. Williams et al., 2021) and the need to review existing reading lists (e.g., Stockdale & Sweeney, 2022).

Looking closer at the assessment, the inclusivity of the BSc programme varied considerably between modules and years. While it was encouraging to see generally positive criteria in the first year, where foundational theories, concepts, and skills are taught, this dropped off markedly in the second year and only improved slightly in the third, with much room for progress. At first glance it would appear that those modules which are more skills-based (such as those requiring statistics, programming, and other research methods) and factual, rather than discussion-based, struggled to meet the “applied” criteria, but this was not uniform, with the second-year statistics module performing particularly well in C2, C4, C5, and C6. This may be due to the focus on comparative variables within the module, which allowed a variety of different contexts to be explored, alongside issues with collecting and using that data. Generally, but again not uniformly, those modules that were more discussion-based scored better than the skills-based modules, though there was significant room for improvement in the Introduction to Security and Crime Science module in Year 1, as well as Psychology and Crime, and Situational Crime Prevention in Year 2. This may be due to the Western-centric theories and examples that predominate in those (and many other) modules. The mixed results in Year 3 show the combination of theory and practice that students experience in their final year, alongside their dissertation.

Certain criteria from the ICHC were better met than others, between and across the three years of the programme. The criteria that fared worst across all three years of the programme was C3, which focuses on reading lists and resources from a diversity of authors. This is not an uncommon finding during curriculum reviews (Taylor et al., 2021). The creation of a library of inclusive materials would allow module convenors to utilise a wider range of examples, and this was a suggestion from the student, who emphasised the need for more diverse literature within the training session. The lack of diverse reading lists may indicate a general concern in the field of crime science; indeed, a recent review of authorship across peer-reviewed articles on organised crime demonstrated the dominance of white male authors in the field (Hosford et al., 2022). Thus, findings from our project highlight the impact that the lack of diversity among published authors may have in education; the lack of diversity in the literature can lead to a lack of diversity in higher education reading lists, and as a result decrease the sense of belonging of minority students.

C1, focussed on creating opportunities to discuss different perspectives within and outside the UK related to ethnic diversity, scores poorly in modules in Years 2 and 3. This shows that a greater diversity of materials is required in these modules to allow students to benefit from meaningful comparison within this important variable. Even when focussing on the UK, the diversity of ethnicities in the population, especially within London where UCL is based, is large and growing, providing opportunities to learn from the lived experiences of people from a variety of backgrounds. Big societal issues, such as trust in policing by ethnic minorities and differences in their treatment, with local and international comparisons, are prime candidates for greater inclusion within the curriculum.

Within the training session, the student noted a few key concepts or questions that all module convenors could consider: Where could greater diversity be included? Does material focus within and outside the UK? Is there space for reflection and discussion of ethnicity and social and economic factors within the sessions? Are difficult topics and conversations being included? These are considerations that all academics could include, beyond the case study described and the study of crime and security, which would enrich their curricula and the student experience, especially in terms of feelings of belonging, alongside their readiness to go into a diverse world and have some understanding of the different contexts that they will come across and different experiences that people face.

Overall, this paper is a first step to addressing the gap of decolonising the field of crime science, here through inclusive curriculum design. The paper adds to the existing literature on the decolonisation of criminology (Blount-Hill et al., 2022; Moosavi, 2019; Stockdale & Sweeney, 2022); however, we provide a more detailed review of where decolonisation can occur in the theoretical and practical aspects of different types of modules in a multidisciplinary programme. As per the previous literature, our case study highlights the benefits of completing a review of existing curricula through a decolonisation lens and of challenging potential academic blind spots through the inclusive practice of working with students.

10. Limitations

This case study has a number of potential limitations, some of which would be addressed by the future steps below, but others of which must be acknowledged and taken into account. First, we would like to acknowledge that this paper did not set out to solve the awarding gap issue, and neither did the project achieve doing so. However, the initiative taken is one amongst many across UK higher education institutions to improve the inclusivity of university curricula in an effort to change the system that is responsible for the awarding gap. The content analysis of teaching materials in line with the adapted ICHC was performed by one student, rather than by multiple individuals, so there was no second coding or inter-rater reliability. While the results were discussed in detail with the academic leads of the project, this was not to the extent of checking all the individual teaching events which were given a rating. This leads to potential issues with bias and subjectivity of opinion from the student, who had already experienced two of the three years of teaching and may have pre-formed opinions about certain modules or lectures/seminars. Alternatively, the experience of the student was seen to be vital in understanding the way in which the material was taught, discussed, and understood by students, a key part of having a student take the lead in the project. The number of modules analysed was 17, out of a total of 70 in the department, and they were only across the BSc programme. This means that there are many more modules yet to be analysed, and the results across those could be markedly different. Future work aims to analyse more modules across postgraduate-level programmes too, but the results from this study should not be generalised to the department’s teaching offering as a whole or the field of crime science more widely.

11. Future Steps

This paper has shown a limited curriculum review case study which includes elements to build upon in the future. A second year of student placement funding has allowed these future steps to begin, with a focus on the creation of an inclusive crime science library that convenors can draw upon for examples of diversity in their modules. This library is designed to not only include academic readings but also a diversity of resource types, such as videos and podcasts. Examples of classroom activities coming from these resources are also being designed by the student, which can then be directly inserted into the teaching materials for the relevant modules. This should help manage any reticence by module convenors to include diverse materials due to a lack of time to find and incorporate them (while acknowledging that the materials still need to be consumed in order to be discussed).

This second placement still focuses on the BSc core modules, but it is hoped that future work can expand beyond these to optional modules in the programme, as well as the postgraduate modules in the department as a whole. Potential comparison with partner institutions with similar curricula could also allow us to incorporate their best practices while sharing our own. Such sharing is already being done at an institutional level, with faculty presentations on the topics of curriculum review and EDI being conducted, but further encouragement of adaptation with the sharing of best practices is planned. Work on diversifying curricula is happening across the institution, supported by faculty-level grants, but the size and decentralised nature of the institution means that promoting the sharing of findings can be difficult.

12. Conclusions

In conclusion, this study has shown that our cause study of an audit of the core curriculum of the BSc Crime and Security Science programme reflects much of the literature around decolonising the curriculum—there is a long way still to go. Utilising and customising a university-wide resource, the ICHC, has shown the value of individualising its criteria to the field of study in question. Working with a student who has experienced the curriculum in question was both eye opening and necessary to ensure a student-centric viewpoint of the process. The study has shown that there is a large variation between the incorporation of inclusive practice and materials amongst modules, highlighting the necessity of the follow-on project to develop a library of inclusive and diverse materials for module convenors to use. Encouraging the use of customised checklists within other departments and faculties is ongoing, and this case study can be used by others within the field and more widely. This study is one snapshot of how working with students to increase inclusive practices in higher education can be achieved, but more work on reducing the awarding gap, decolonising curricula, and incorporating truly inclusive materials and practices is needed.