White Atmosphere and Pedagogic Violence: Female Muslim Graduate’s Experiences on an Undergraduate Degree in a Russell Group University

This chapter draws upon qualitative interviews with recent Muslim graduates from the Sociology programme of a Russell Group university. It brings together Bohme’s (2017) theory of atmospheres as arenas with certain emotionally charged moods with Matusov and Sullivan’s (Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 54, 438–464, 2019) account of pedagogical violence to reflect upon the graduates’ experience of university, its learning environment and assessment. It will show how the “White atmosphere” of the university, in learning and non-learning contexts, and its pedagogic violence in the forms of summative assessment, epistemological pedagogical violence produce isolation and disenchantment with education for Muslim students. This has the potential for diverse outcomes in terms of future careers. The chapter will analyse recent empirical data using theoretical resources that are new to or rarely used in this area.