Dr Nicola Rollock. Credit: Dr Nicola Rollock
Dr Nicola Rollock is Deputy Director of the Centre for Research in Race & Education at the University of Birmingham. She is Editor of the journal Whiteness and Education and lead author of the award-winning book The Colour of Class: the educational strategies of the Black middle classes (2015). Nicola was recently selected as winner of the 2016 PRECIOUS Award for Outstanding Woman in Professional Services for contributions to race equality. She is speaking on ‘Code Switching: How Black Women of Colour Survive in the World of Work’ as part of the Southbank’s WOW – Women of the World festival, on Friday 10th March 2017. Ahead of the festival, she spoke to openDemocracy 50.50 about race equality in the academy.
Ché Ramsden: In 2015, there was a brief moment of outcry – or perhaps awareness – when the Runnymede Trust released a report showing there were only 17 black women professors in the UK. I don’t think the data has changed much since then. Why is the academy so lacking in diversity?
