"Prioritising the building, not the people in it”: The void of evidence in inclusive research, policy, and practice in UK higher education

The rhetoric of widening participation and inclusion has gathered significant traction in the broader equalities discourse of Higher Education (HE) in the United Kingdom over the course of the past few decades. In conjunction with this, a plethora of research in this space continues to suggest that minoritised and marginalised communities are increasingly subjected to instances of racism, classism, ageism, sexism and broader academic discrimination and malpractice. To develop a more sophisticated understanding of the inclusion agenda in UK HE, this chapter explores different definitions of inclusion and inclusive practice, as well as ascertaining several significant typologies in the way in which inclusion operates in HE. This chapter uses empirical data from interviews with working-class professional services and administrative staff, finding that the space is open to a multitude of different complexities, interpretations and challenges. It finds that inclusion can be defined as psychological, structural, grievance-oriented and values-based. It further asserts that the following typologies of inclusive practice operate in UK HE: those that are reactive, performative and those that are lacking in a substantive evidence base. Identifying a dearth of research in the field, it further suggests that the integration and reflection of different perspectives are necessary in order to create structural, purposeful inclusion agendas in university spaces, and as such move away from performative, reactive orientations.