WEDNESDAY SHORT FILM SCREENING: Student Film and Video for Change

These films emerged from a student-led initiative focusing upon analysing and addressing the attainment gap between Black/African/Caribbean/Black British, and white students in higher education. Six undergraduate students from Queen Mary and Roehampton took part over four days to develop their stories, decide on the film format before shooting and editing their short films.

What is the ‘attainment gap’?

The term really applies to an achievement gap which is a significant and persistent disparity in academic performance or educational attainment between different groups of students, such as white students and minorities, for example, or students from higher-income and lower-income backgrounds. In this case the attainment gap in focus was that between white students and students from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds.

Organisers Dr Marilyn Holness and Dr Ruqiyabi Awan suggest organising screenings of these films to help ‘promote self-reflection and/or to stimulate discussion within (teaching) teams,’  to consider “how would we respond to the issues raised if it were bought to our attention by a student? Do the students that I teach think/feel like this?” And “what does that mean for how I approach my teaching?”