Tag Archives: diversity

How to make people with learning disabilities feel more included in society

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Thomas from St Roses School, Stroud, playing the Clarion, an instrument designed for people with learning disabilities. Laura Naylor, Author provided

Val Williams, University of Bristol

People with learning disabilities can often find themselves feeling excluded when it comes to making decisions about their lives. This can range from everything, from shopping to making music or even bringing up a baby. Sometimes this exclusion can be exacerbated by the kind of support that they receive from social services – but it can also be countered by sensitive personal assistance or support. Continue reading →

‘You are unfit for the city’: Bodies of right and rights of bodies in Iran

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Image credit: Ali Rankouhi

By Dr Marzieh Kaivanara  

Why does Iran have one of the biggest markets in the world for aesthetic surgery? In seeking the answer to this question, I found that a number of different factors are at play: the market for cosmetic surgery is informed by culture, geographic and urban spaces, religion, and even politics.[1]

In Iran, bodies are scrutinised to be physically “fit” within the narrowed-down standards of beauty, ability, health, gender, age, class and so forth. Cities have the power to constantly eliminate individuals’ bodies that are considered “unfit” for the urban space; these include, but are not limited to: the so-called overweight, oversized, obese, visually impaired and people with any mobility impairment, wheelchair users, the elderly, cyclists, runners and even people using pushchairs. In a sense, all people are dealing with some form of disability and at some point in their lives will become disabled by the city’s physical layout. The city’s physical structure reinforces the notion of ‘the right body’, and raises urgent questions around the right to access – a fundamental human right.

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It’s time to put mature students at the heart of widening participation

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Why should we care about mature students?

It has become almost routine to read stories giving ‘more bad news’ about part-time student numbers in universities.

Tom Sperlinger is Reader in English Literature and Community Engagement at the University of Bristol.

Lizzie Fleming is Widening Participation and Student Recruitment Officer, and a postgraduate student, at the University of Bristol

On 29 June, the Office for Fair Access (OFFA), which monitors access to universities in the UK, published its outcomes for 2015-16. The report highlights a ‘crisis’ in part-time numbers, which have fallen for a seventh consecutive year, a decline of 61% since 2010-11. Since more than 90% of part-time students are over 21, this has also led to a significant decline in the number of mature students in the sector.

This also means that, overall, the number of students entering universities has fallen significantly since 2012. Continue reading →

Marriage migration and integration

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Around a quarter of British Indian Sikhs, and half of British Pakistani Muslims have a spouse who migrated to the UK as an adult, making these two of the largest British ethnic groups involved in this kind of transnational marriage.

In recent years, such marriages have increasingly been seen as an obstacle to integration – with suggested implications ranging from poverty to lack of attachment to the UK, and persistent gender inequality. In Britain, as in some other European countries, the demands of integration now also feature in justification for restrictions on spousal immigration, such as the income requirement for sponsors introduced in 2012.

It is surprising to many to learn that the empirical research on relationships between marriage migration and integration has actually been rather limited, and has produced varying results.

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