Work

A New Materialist approach to exploring minoritised undergraduate students experience of university systems and processes

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Drawing on a collaborative, student-led research project at a UK university, this study adopted a diffractive methodology (Barad, 2007) to investigate how minoritised students experience the relational, material, and institutional flows of higher education. Through entangling artefact-making, spatial mapping, and collective reflection (Haraway, 1997), five key diffractive patterns shimmered through the inquiry: feedback and assessment, data sharing, relationships, space, and mentoring. Through tracing affective intensities and moments of blockage and flow, the study contributes to literature discussing how minoritised students navigate and reshape their educational landscapes. Anchored in New Materialist theory, and guided by an ethics of care (Noddings, 2013), this article foregrounds student voice not as testimony, but as an active force for institutional insight (Tronto, 1993). It argues that transformation begins not with largescale overhaul, but with attuned practices, ways of listening, noticing, and acting that reimagine belonging as something co-constituted, embodied, and alive.

Source: Critical Studies in Teaching and Learning

DOI: 10.17159/cristal.v14i1.27621

Authors: Kate Dudley, Ben Johnson, Sarah Parkes

Institutions: Birmingham Newman University, Keele University, Queen Margaret University

Language: English

Topic: Higher Education Practises and Engagement

Subfield: Education

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Quality education, Reduced inequalities

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $173