Professor Jacqueline Stevenson: 'The marginalisation of religious students in UK Higher Education’, 19th March

 “The marginalisation of religious students in UK higher education”

Professor Jacqueline Stevenson (Director of the Lifelong Learning Centre and Co-Director of FLaG, University of Leeds)

A link to the talk is here https://web.microsoftstream.com/video/0c2708b3-0a58-41ba-8663-c0095aefba10

10am - 11am, Friday 19th March

The seminar will be followed by a PGR workshop 11am to 12 midday. There will be presentations by  Izram Chaudry (SSP) and Burgandi Rakoska (SSP)

 Click here to register for both events and we will share the Teams link 

Seminar abstract: Despite being present in high numbers, many religious students are marginalised by the policies and practices of UK higher education, which is framed by a set of prevailing assumptions, namely that UK higher education is (and should be) a secular space; that higher education secularises students so religion becomes irrelevant fairly quickly; and/or that religious students are the cause of (potential) threat and so need to be managed. As a result religious students are frequently perceived as a minority group even if they are not, or subjected to ‘unfreedoms’ (Sen, 1999) and prevented from leading ‘the kind of lives they have reason to value’ (Sen, 1999, p. 10). Drawing on existent literature and institutional Religion and Belief policy documents, this discussion explores how the capabilities framework (Sen, 1999) can be utilised as a helpful heuristic through which to understand marginalisation, including how religious freedom is, or is not, enabled on the higher education campus.

Following her presentation and questions Jacqueline has kindly offered to facilitate a PGR workshop as follows.

11 - 12 midday: PGR workshop on Inequalities and HE. We are delighted to facilitate the following presentations which we follow with Q and A and plenary discussion.

The first presentation is by Izram Chaudry (SSP): "Death By A Thousand Cuts’ - Islamophobia, Microaggressions & The Academy" and will draw on empirical findings from his article: Chaudry, I., 2021. “I felt like I was being watched”: The hypervisibility of Muslim students in higher education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 53(3), pp.257-269.

The second presentation is by Burgandi Rakoska (SSP) who will discuss findings from her PhD: "Why Disabled People Drop Out; A Study On The Retention Rates Of Disabled University Students in the US and England". Burgandi is studying the social and institutional factors that cause disabled students to drop out of higher education in the US and England. Specifically, Burgandi is centering disabled students' voices, listening to their experiences and perceptions of disablement in higher education and the broader society.