Higher education institutions have invested in a range of equity-focused targeted interventions, including decolonising the curriculum, Black Lives Matter recognitions, assessment reforms, inclusive curriculum toolkits, positive action in recruitment, and antiracism toolkits.
But the awarding gap persists.
The awarding gap refers to the disparity in degree classifications awarded to white and racially minoritised students: the difference between the number of white and racially minoritised students awarded First class and Upper Second class (2:1) honours. For example, the degree-awarding gap between Black and white students in 2022-23 stood at 21.6 per cent.
The Office for Students’ (OfS) mandate to eliminate awarding gaps by 2030 gives us less than four years to do so, which means radical change is required in this new cost-efficient era of more teaching with fewer resources. The issue is not just about what universities are doing, but also about the culture in which the equity-focused interventions are unfolding.
Calling out, and calling in
To do this the culture in higher education institutions needs to shift from one that is characterised by “calling-out” and fear of being publicly named and shamed, to a practice of “calling-in“, as an intentional invitation, a strategic orientation to a courageous accountability dialogue that is grounded in care, relationality, and the possibility for transformation.
When racialised inequities persist without institutional redress, ‘calling-out’ becomes a default response that is often informed by accumulated frustration, repeated trauma, institutional inertia, and a refusal to be silenced. Race functions as “sticky knowledge”, deeply entrenched social ideas and assumptions about perceived racial differences and hierarchies that shape how we think, act and relate, whilst informing our decisions, practices and processes.
So conversations about race require historical and contextual consciousness to build solidarity and alliance, moral courage and a collective willingness and openness to unlearning as a way of knowing that enables interrogation of assumptions, biases and institutional logics that reproduce inequalities. Without these conditions, a predominantly “call-out” culture, though anchored in legitimate ethical and moral urgency, can trigger defensiveness, shame, guilt and a quieter force of fear, silence or performative compliance with statements like “I am not racist“ functioning as a conversational endpoint rather than a crucial opening for reflection, reflexivity, relational responsibility and accountability.
A “call-out” culture, though crucial in some instances, can narrow the dialogic space that is needed for relational care and transformative learning.
Embracing discomfort
Meaningful dialogue may not necessarily feel comfortable. It can generate discomfort, a subtle friction that arises when embodied certainties encounter new possibilities as an insistent cadence of transformation pressing against the boundaries of familiarity.
And that discomfort must be embraced as a productive sign that (un)learning is in motion, asking us to pause, listen and consider what is being unsettled and why. A 2025 article by Molloy et al notes the importance of building the capabilities for “reconfiguration of knowing through reflective spaces and processes that support challenges to, and changes in, worldview”. The work is not to avoid discomfort, but to build institutional capacities that can hold it without defaulting to procedural minimalism that prioritises compliance over transformative change.
It is crucial to ensure that racialised concerns are framed through curiosity, relationality and shared purpose, where, for example, “I would like to understand what happened here”, instead of “this is absolutely unacceptable“, becomes an invitation to an open, constructive and caring conversation rather than immediate thrust into an offensive-defensive binary logic.
A shift from “calling-out” to “calling-in” deepens institutional accountability and creates an infrastructure for care by cultivating space for principled, humanising and epistemically liberating dialogue that drives meaningful change with a focus on sustaining relational connection. In such an environment, staff and students can co-learn and engage with troubled knowledges, including the often-invisible wounds of racial trauma, without collapsing into guilt, shame or self-flagellation over a mistake.
This is where not yet having the right words must be met with curiosity rather than punishment. Doing so fosters a sense of togetherness and creates authentic conditions for critical dialogue, reciprocity, relational care, mutual accountability, and collective liberation. “Calling in” offers a generative pathway forward, but only when it is understood and enacted as a praxis rather than merely a technique. It is important to understand that “calling in” is emotionally demanding, it requires intentional and sustained commitment, an ethically grounded engagement and a willingness to remain present in discomfort. W
hen an individual feels triggered or emotionally depleted, stepping back and returning with clarity, composure and a sense of purpose is reasonable for preserving the integrity of the interaction and the relational ethics of care at the heart of ‘calling in’. In what follows, we offer practical examples for engaging meaningfully with “calling in” as a praxis for transformative change.
Practical strategies for calling-in
Loretta Ross distils a five-step process for halting the escalation of a call-out urge and transforming it to call-in anyone who “has let their tongue run wild”. Such situations happen between colleagues, between friends and between students in university settings on a regular basis when simple comments surface racialised assumptions and trauma responses go unrecognised and unaddressed, causing harm to those whose lived experience is dismissed. These are ideal situations to call-in colleagues so long as the respondent can calibrate their own feelings first by asking three questions. If the answer to any of these is “no”, Ross says to proceed with a call-in:
- Have I or anyone else been wronged in this situation?
- Have I been wronged intentionally?
- Am I certain that it was intentional and not as a result of ignorance, stupidity or miscommunication?
Ross advocates for creating a “calling-in culture” through advance accountability, whereby a set of practices is designed ahead of any conflicts, enabling all to navigate volatility should passions erupt. She highlights that all concerned will still experience anger and frustration but will then have a shared pathway through the conflict.
In organisations where call-outs are common, the constant sense of threat makes it hard for people to speak up, and hard for others to listen. This can contribute to poor staff survey responses. Shifting from a call-out to a call-in culture requires leadership to embrace holding power with rather than power over one another. This allows everyone to contribute to conversations about race in “safe enough spaces” which are necessary to co-create change to reverse the race-based awarding gap.
Calling-in lets us listen to what we are not yet hearing, creating space where everyone feels able to step-up without relying on those who are marginalised to come up with solutions by 2030.
Hold space for mistakes
The fear of making mistakes and saying the wrong thing can silence conversations about race. It is, therefore, important that institutions do not invite dialogue without creating conditions where it is possible, purposeful and productive. Where calling out stops harm in the moment, calling in serves to prevent future harm through understanding the harm already caused. “Calling in” reframes mistakes as opportunities for (un)learning. Thus, making room for mistakes affords discursive spaces where individuals can interrogate their assumptions and biases without immediate foreclosure. This may take a gentle, invitational prompt such as, “Can I check what you mean by that? I think there might be another way to think about this. Can we explore it together?”
The intention is not to dilute the challenge, or to avoid discomfort, but to explore it by encouraging individuals to resist defensiveness, sit with complexity, reconsider their position, and remain connected as part of ongoing learning anchored by values of inclusivity, hope and co-liberation.
Practise how to “call in”, and how to be “called in”
“Calling in” opens space for shared relational responsibility. It requires that individuals (staff and students) are supported to challenge with care and to receive challenges with openness to (un)learning. When calling someone in, the aim is to invite reflection and reflexivity without closing the dialogue, as in, “I wanted to come back to something you said earlier, I think it might land differently for some students or staff” or “I know this is a sensitive subject, but it is important that we consider its impact on those at the receiving end.”
When being called in, a relationally responsible and accountable response might be, “I am really grateful you pointed that out. While it was not my intention, I understand how it could have come across that way. I appreciate the opportunity to reflect (or sit with this), learn and be more mindful going forward.”
These small but intentional shifts move conversations from defensiveness to responsibility in ways that sustain dialogue whilst deepening accountability.
Create shared expectations to reduce uncertainty.
Fear often emerges in the absence of clarity, leaving individuals to navigate difficult conversations about race without a shared sense of what is expected. Moving towards collectively agreed principles helps reduce uncertainty and creates the conditions for more confident, purposeful engagement. Prioritising curiosity, attending to impact and committing to follow up anchors dialogue in an ethic of care and accountability.
Even a framing such as “I would encourage us to hold this conversation with openness and curiosity. Our perspectives are shaped by our individual experiences, histories and positionality – how we are situated in relation to power, culture and context – and this informs how we orient ourselves to the world and interpret situations. With this in mind, it is worth asking how this might be experienced or understood by others whose backgrounds and orientations differ from our own” can shift the tone, actions and solutions whilst signalling the intentionality of the space for reflection, reflexivity and ongoing learning through humanising and liberating dialogue.
Ensure conversations lead to change
The impact of calling in lies in how it informs and (re)shapes how we engage with race, for example, in assessment processes, curriculum design and relational encounters. Without this, even the most well-intentioned equity-focused initiatives risk remaining surface-level, unable to meaningfully disrupt the conditions that sustain the awarding gap.
If conversations about race are absent or avoided due to fear, then efforts to address inequities in assessment design, marking practices, and curricular content will continue to fall short. Calling in creates the possibility of naming and interrogating these dynamics, whose knowledge is centred, and how racialised assumptions may be embedded within daily academic practices. A generative question to hold is, “In light of this discussion, what will each of us do differently to centre openness about race in our day-to-day practices across curriculum, assessment and (re-)shape the systems that allow the racial awarding gap to persist?“
This question insists that dialogue must lead to action. In our higher education policy context, which is shaped by the Office for Students’ mandate to close the racial awarding gap by 2030, we argue that silence about race is consequential. Calling in makes it possible to remain in conversation long enough for it to matter. It offers a way of engaging with race that is grounded in care, accountability and a collective commitment to transformative change. It could be the difference that makes a difference to the entrenched, wicked problem of racialised awarding gaps in UK higher education.
An invitation to a webinar
The racial awarding gap conversation is ongoing. Please join us for a constructive and forward-facing webinar What Must Change to Close the Racial Awarding Gap by 2030? On 16 September. Together with expert panellists, we will discuss what the sector has learned, where progress has stalled and what institutions may need to do differently over the remaining years to realise the OfS 2030 ambition to close racial awarding gaps. Do register for the webinar, if you are interested.
