NUS officer class stands apart in its lack of diversity

Source: Getty

Minority report: BME students constitute 11 per cent of union roles

Students’ unions are still dominated by middle-class white men – with women and minority group members relegated to more junior sabbatical posts, a study suggests.

While women are strongly represented within the student movement at a national level – seven of the past 15 National Union of Student presidents have been female – they are far less likely to attain senior roles at branch level, researchers at the University of Surrey have found.

In interviews with nearly 50 students’ union officers from 10 UK universities selected to offer a nationally representative sample, the researchers heard that men would generally run for the union presidency while women would pursue sabbatical positions around student welfare.

In one interview for the study, “Diversity and difference within the leadership of UK student unions”, a union president said that in elections students generally preferred women in welfare roles.

The researchers also heard from a welfare officer who said that the sexism encouraged by a laddish culture held women back: “I’ve found that…some of the male students wouldn’t take a female candidate [for union president] seriously.”

The study, which also included interviews with 42 university managers, appears to confirm findings published by the NUS in 2010 that 47 per cent of union officer roles were held by women, although just 28 per cent of presidents were female.

The work was due to be presented at the British Sociological Association’s annual conference in Glasgow, being held on 15-17 April, ahead of the NUS’ annual conference next week (21-23 April) in Liverpool, where at least 50 per cent of all delegations must be women, in line with a motion approved last year.

A poor showing

The paper also says that students from poorer families struggle to get involved in union politics because many must work, which leaves them less time to network and establish friendship groups that form the basis of most election bids.

Part-time work was a significant barrier, said one students’ union president, because it meant that he “couldn’t get involved with societies and [attend] big meetings” in the week. “That’s where the kind of class thing is a barrier…you’re just at a disadvantage against people who didn’t have to work during their studies,” he said.

Poorer students who lived at home were less likely to join student politics than those who lived and socialised in halls or close to campus, the study says.

Black and ethnic minority students are under-represented in union roles, constituting 11 per cent of officers compared with 17 per cent of students, the study says.

Despite the overall “narrowness” of union leadership teams, one minority group is well represented. Gay students make up about 11 per cent of sabbatical officers as opposed to 6 per cent of students, it adds.

Rachel Brooks, professor of sociology at Surrey and one of the report’s authors, said that it was vital for unions to reflect the wider student body because they played an increasingly key role in shaping university policy.

“They do have a fair bit of power – senior [university] managers listen very seriously to what they think about the student experience,” Professor Brooks said. “Student union leaderships are often a vehicle that leads to other positions of influence, such as becoming an MP, so it is important these opportunities are available to all students,” she added.

jack.grove@tesglobal.com