Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education ISSN: 1759-667X Issue 26: Special EDI Issue February 2023 ________________________________________________________________________ ©2023 The Author(s) (CC-BY 4.0) Editorial Lee Fallin University of Hull, UK Nicola Grayson University of Salford, UK Jenny Hillman Open University, UK Katharine Jewitt Open University, UK Eleanor Loughlin Nottingham Trent University, UK Craig Morley University of Chester, UK Gita Sedghi University of Liverpool, UK Alicja Syska University of Plymouth, UK EDI. Equality Diversity Inclusion. Three words that have revolutionised the way we think about higher education. These words have a weight of history behind them. Tumultuous revolutions have been fomented over Equality, entire political systems toppled, and violent and non-violent protests are still held across the world to achieve it. And when the dust settles after each victory, the battle-hardened warriors sit down and realise how much more is left to do if we are ever to achieve true Inclusion and benefit from the beauty of Diversity. One of our current battlegrounds relates to language. Many words carry burdens that our imaginations do not always allow us immediately to notice or even accept. We have long understood, for example, that ‘race’ is a construct and yet we keep using it because we have not figured out a better way of communicating the experience of minoritised people. We know that the B(A)ME acronym (which stands for Black (Asian) and Minority Ethnic) is problematic (Aspinall, 2020; Gabriel, 2021) and even the UK government rejected it in 2021 in favour of ‘ethnic minorities’, but in learning and teaching scholarship we have not yet agreed on a better way of capturing the ineffable. And so we keep using it across the sector, albeit mostly in the context of the so-called ‘awarding gap’, which remains a ‘wicked problem’ (Ugiagbe-Green and Ernsting, 2022) in HE. Thus, in this issue our readers will find a range of terms representing not just this lack of consensus but the diversity of contexts our authors work within. The irony often lies in the fact that we use terms that have traditionally excluded in our effort to achieve more Inclusion. Syska Editorial Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, Special Issue 26: February 2023 2 Words have power. Words are illusive. They change meaning according to context. They betray us when we most need them and keep putting us in situations of intense and productive discomfort. They stop us in our tracks, force us to rethink and re-evaluate. The author and activist bell hooks, much cited in this volume, embodied it particularly acutely by choosing to spell her adopted name in lowercase. The least she has achieved with her provocation is a sense of curiosity and the need to know more. And this is what we hope for in this Special Edition: to stimulate new questions, to open up new conversations, and to help us speak with what hooks called ‘the liberated voice’ (1989, p.9). And the ‘us’ in this mission refers not only to our entire LD community but also to the journal itself. We will be looking for better ways to thoughtfully and meaningfully commit to the principles of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in our own processes and publications. We begin by drawing on the knowledge of subject experts and sharing our platform to diversify our voices. We are honoured to have two accomplished scholars, Drs Karen Lipsedge and Hilda Mulrooney of Kingston University London, to introduce the volume for us. In their expert guest editorial, they provide a rich overview of the articles in the collection and invite our readers to use this Special Edition to start ‘meaningful and courageous conversations’ on issues that need greater attention from us as Learning Developers and which have the potential to effect real change. With this volume, we also say goodbye to Jenny Hillman who has been a member of our editorial board for over two years. Her expertise was invaluable to advancing our publications and her commitment to the journal much valued by the entire team. We thank her for her service and wish her well on her new path. We also want to take this opportunity to thank our magnificent reviewers whose critical reading of submissions and thoughtful feedback and recommendations have made invaluable contributions to the quality of the articles in this volume. Our heartfelt appreciation for the time, expertise, and work it took to review papers in this issue goes to the following reviewers: Daisy Bao Suzy Beck Sara Bird Jennie Rose Steres Blake Annie Bryan Cath Caldwell David Clover Vicky Collins Syska Editorial Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, Special Issue 26: February 2023 3 Tracey Coppins Anika Easy Anne Elizabeth Davey Lee Fallin Grainne Gordon Peter Hartley Siobhan Hawke Dustin Hosseini Joy Igiebor Ian Johnson Rhian Mari Kerton Humaira Khan Michael Kilmister Tom Lowe Victoria Mann Sheryl Mansfield Heather Mitchell Leisa Nichols-Drew Elliott Spaeth Claire Stocks Jayne Taylor Sarah Wolfenden With best wishes, The JLDHE Editorial Board References Aspinall, P. J. (2020) ‘Ethnic/racial terminology as a form of representation: a critical review of the lexicon of collective and specific terms in use in Britain’, Genealogy, 4(3), 87. https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy4030087. Gabriel, D. (2021) Racial categorisation and terminology. Black British Academics. Available at: https://blackbritishacademics.co.uk/about/racial-categorisation-and- terminology/ (Accessed: 22 February 2023). hooks, b. (1989) Talking back: thinking feminist, thinking black. Boston, MA: South End Press. Ugiagbe-Green, I. and Ernsting, F. (2022) ‘The wicked problem of B(A)ME degree award gaps and systemic racism in our universities’, Frontiers in Sociology, 7, https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2022.971923. UK Government (2021) Writing about ethnicity. Available at https://www.ethnicity-facts- figures.service.gov.uk/style-guide/writing-about-ethnicity (Accessed: 22 February 2023). https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy4030087 https://blackbritishacademics.co.uk/about/racial-categorisation-and-terminology/ https://blackbritishacademics.co.uk/about/racial-categorisation-and-terminology/ https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2022.971923 https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/style-guide/writing-about-ethnicity https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/style-guide/writing-about-ethnicity Syska Editorial Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, Special Issue 26: February 2023 4 Licence ©2023 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education (JLDHE) is a peer-reviewed open access journal published by the Association for Learning Development in Higher Education (ALDinHE).