Direct Talk

Across the world, there is a strong link
between education and employment.

In the UK, many argue that
the education system

needs to be more equitable and inclusive,

with a greater emphasis on
helping students succeed,

from lower socio-economic backgrounds,
and ethnic minorities.

Professor Jason Arday
is a highly respected academic,

sociologist, author and
Professor of Sociology of Education.

He made history this year when at 37,

he became the youngest Black person ever
appointed to a Professorship

at Cambridge University – one of the
most prestigious universities in the world.

Direct Talk met Professor Arday to hear about
his work, analysing the issues in education

that are preventing students
achieving their full potential.

So what is a professor of
sociology of education?

Fundamentally, I research social phenomena
in the context of education.

So the aim of my work primarily
has always been to kind of illuminate

some of the patterns of inequality:

So for example, race, class, disability,
gender, sexuality, religion, etc.

And part of it, is really to kind of
draw attention to what the issues are,

how we can address them
from a policy perspective

and how from a societal point of view,

we can, I guess, engage more cohesively
with these issues and think collectively

about how we dismantle and disrupt
a lot of these pervading inequalities.

Before taking up his role at Cambridge,

Professor Arday has been a professor
at two other universities,

worked in the US as a research fellow,

and co-authored and written several books.

His work highlights
issues of race and inclusivity,

as well as inequality in education.

And it is rooted in
his own experience as a teacher.

A lot of the work that I and others do
really attempts to find that equilibrium

and that balance to ensure
that those individuals,

particularly most in need,
but generally speaking,

have access to education in
all of its kind of varying forms.

The firsthand experience of that,

was that I was in a previous life,
I was a schoolteacher,

so I was a PE teacher.

And

it was just amazing

what groups of children were
kind of thrown off the scent.

So it tended to be children from,
you know, working-class backgrounds,

ethnic minority backgrounds and
white working-class backgrounds.

And if you're hearing actually that
you can't attain to do something new,

you are not cut out for this

or you don't kind of have the breeding
to do this type of thing.

And you hear that over a prolonged period,

that gets into one psyche.

And then there's this kind of really

narrow range of beliefs about
what one can achieve and what one can do.

And that's kind of

emphasised

by the environment,
by what's being said to you on a daily basis.

And I think that can do a lot of damage,

a lot of lasting damage.

So it make take five years
for that to happen,

but the lasting damage
it does over a lifetime

is actually very hard to undo that.

Amongst educators in the UK,

there are many critics of a
"one size fits all" model of education

which prescribes milestones that
every child should reach at a specific age.

Professor Arday believes
a more holistic attitude

to a child's educational development
would be more helpful.

I think the predictive element,

you know, in some respects,
it does amount to playing God.

We don't know how somebody could turn out.

We don't know the kind of educational,
cognitive arc somebody may be on.

And how things may make sense to them,
either at an immediate point

or at some point down the line so,

I think it's important that
we think about individuals

as arriving at particular points
at different times.

You know, I don't think there needs to be

this kind of
"one glove fits all" approach where

people have to do things by particular
cognitive and intellectual milestones.

So I think the thing
I would like to see change,

which I've often recommended in my work,

is to kind of think of more
holistic ways of engagement,

to recognise that
people learn in different ways.

It is about developing the individual,
not just kind of developing them to pass exams

or to kind of navigate academia.

It's about developing personal skills,
interpersonal skills,

finding ways to engage with people,

learning how you work with people,
how to work with people,

different types of people
in different types of backgrounds.

I think that is what I would like to see
in our education system.

You want to see people being prepared

as a whole, human being,

ready to take their place
within a very diverse society.

Jason Arday's childhood is
both surprising and inspiring.

As he faced many challenges.

Born in South London, to Ghanaian parents,

he was diagnosed aged three,
with "global developmental delay"

and did not speak till the age of 11.

His childhood was filled with
hours of daily speech therapy.

He was also diagnosed with
a form of Autistic Spectrum Disorder,

and he has firsthand experience
of the stereotypes

that are applied to
any kind of neurodiversity.

As his parents were told
he would need lifelong support.

I was born half deaf in one ear.

But that's actually got nothing to do
with the "global development delay."

It's a cognitive issue.
So in terms of processing speed.

That was the reason why I couldn't speak.

Because cognitively, just,

just that part of the brain,

you know, didn't reach those milestones.

And because the processing
is really, really slow,

then obviously it took
even longer to reach that.

So that is how that happened.

The social model of disability

is "can do."

You know it places an emphasis on

society and social environments
and cultures being able to stimulate

people, who may have a disability
to be able to thrive

in spite of that disability.

Now that's a completely
different way of thinking.

And

the reason why that becomes important

is because a lot of those stereotypes
around autistic people, they have endured.

I think to homogenize
the autistic experience in that way

actually is, ONE - it's limiting.

And TWO,

it doesn't actually
speak to the fact that autism

operates on a spectrum.

And people will have
different experiences with autism,

based on a myriad of factors.

That's the interesting thing,
that people won't see autistic traits,

but that's part of a problem.

In a lot of cases you wouldn't know

because they are masking
a lot of those autistic traits

or behaviours because of
the stereotypes that exist.

For me, yeah, people often will look at me
and kind of be like, I don't see it.

But yeah, that's the whole point.

Professor Arday struggled at school,

and only finally began to read
and write in his late teens.

He credits his success to
meeting a sports lecturer Sandro Sandri

who recognised his potential
and mentored him.

Sandro Sandri

And then when I was 18,
meeting Sandro was probably

the most seminal moment
of my adult life in that,

you know, if it wasn't for him,
I don't think I'd be sat here now.

So his way of thinking
and what he did with me and

how he got me to kind of converge,

you know, the one or two strengths
I had into something

that could put me in the situation I am now,

is one of the more remarkable feats
I've probably seen in my life.

Because he didn't, it's not like
he had a lot to work with, but,

you know, he was remarkable.

His whole thing was that
I think we can take on the world and win.

So Sandro spent I mean

tens of hundreds of hours,
hundreds of hours with me.

College would finish at 2, 3pm. most days.

He would stay with me till 10 or 11 pm.

doing phonics, writing exercises.

And his whole thing was repetition.

So we were doing the same thing
over and over again.

And he was obsessed with repetition.

And he was obsessed with being obsessed.

So his whole thing was, you know,
you need to be obsessive about this.

And he was the first person
who said to me, he said,

"People say that obsession is a bad thing.
It's not always a bad thing,

you know, if you want to do
something great in life,

if you want to achieve something,

actually most people
who achieve something great,

actually have to be obsessive about it."

He said, it's like the thing
Muhammad Ali always used to say, Jason,

is like "will versus skill."

He said, you may not have the skill

now.

But you have the will

and that skill will accompany the will
at some point down the line.

But right now
what we've got to work on is will.

And it was very, very disciplined.

And it was like that for

18 months.

And then I went to university.

After his degree, Professor Arday
completed two masters and a PhD.

As a result of his own experience,

he would like to see
mentoring formally introduced into schools.

There is a lot of mentoring
that takes place in communities,

so it involves a lot of
community stakeholders

giving up and volunteering their time
to work with individuals

from disadvantaged backgrounds or
to help individuals on a particular path.

I think what we need to do
is to take some of that

and actually get it formally into the
education curricula and education systems.

But I think for it to
become a formalized thing

I think would be really, really useful,

particularly to a lot of people
who would benefit from having that kind of

structured guidance

in some way, shape or form.

And yes, look to a large extent
teachers do provide that.

You know, I think it's important
to recognize the amazing work teachers do.

But I also think that,

there are a lot of people that slip through
the net of the education system

and don't have that kind of mentoring

and don't have that kind of guidance
and that type of encouragement.

And it's, you know, yeah,
part of it is due to structures

and part of it is due to

the fact that resources have been taken away
from teachers to invest that time.

Professor Arday's work has also
highlighted the need to encourage

and support more students
from minority ethnic backgrounds,

to succeed in an academic career.

A study by the BBC last year found that
just one per cent of UK professors are black.

With only 62 black female professors
out of 24,000 in the UK.

And a few years ago, he co-authored a report
called "The Broken Pipeline."

We wrote a report on this phenomena

which actually led to the UK Government
putting together an £8 million competition

to fund and improve the academic pipeline

for Black and ethnic minority students
across the UK.

So that was quite a significant,
you know, policy win in some respects

because to get £8 million out of the
UK government to fund something

that fundamentally has been
a stain on British academia.

And it is a stain given the fact that
higher education is a microcosm of society.

And as such it should reflect
a multi-ethnic, multi diverse society and

what we have had historically is
an institution that isn't reflective of that

and that is problematic.

But I think there has been some progress.

But it is still a slow pace of change.

And probably too slow actually
for a lot of people

who are on the sharper end
of that inequality.

In what little spare time he has,
Professor Arday is also a prolific fundraiser;

he has raised more than five million pounds
for 80 charities over an 18-year period.

In 2010 Professor Arday
ran 30 marathons in 35 days

to raise money for a UK homeless charity
called SHELTER.

It is a cause close to his heart, as in the UK
many of the homeless are young people.

If someone asked me,
what's your big kind of

passion project, I would say

it's, you know,
homelessness would be up there.

My mom took me to a homeless shelter
when I was 18 for Christmas.

So this would be

2003, Christmas of 2003.

And it was a profound experience.

I met someone there and spoke to them.

I'd obviously myself been brought up
in pretty humble surroundings,

so I had a good understanding
of these things,

but that just kind of
emphasized my understanding.

You know, my big thing is that
everybody's life has purpose,

so everyone's life has meaning.

And I felt that my particular purpose
was to help people.

But the three things that kind of became,

I guess, that drew the public's attention
or media attention was that I

ran 30 marathons in 35 days

and I ran 300 miles in three days
and then 600 miles in six days.

SHELTER particularly focuses on homelessness.

There's almost this malaise where
we are almost anesthetized to it,

we walk past sometimes and I don't think
it stirs people in the way that it should.

And so that particular charity
has always been kind of a huge

focus of mine.

Much in demand as a speaker and advisor
to governments and academic institutions,

Professor Arday is busier than ever,

and has just been commissioned
to write another book.

Having made history with his achievements,
and professorship at Cambridge,

he hopes to inspire more people

from under-represented backgrounds
into higher education.

So my mission was to do the best I could,
to help as many people as I could.

And fundamentally, it's just
a continuation of that work.

And in an education sense,
it comes back to kind of democratizing

and redistributing
all the resources available

in education to those most in need.

And I've been very fortunate that
there are many other people

who have done brilliant,
much more impactful work than I have done.

And I follow their tradition.

And part of them leaving that legacy
is that you try and build on that legacy.

Everything is possible.