Three international postgraduate research students at the Open University (UK) tell Dr Lindsay O'Dell, Graduate School Director, how they embarked on their research degrees. While recorded with new international students in mind, many of the students’ tips are relevant to all: be proactive, introduce yourself to people who can help you, keep up with your hobbies, and see the potential advantages in the unusual situation we’re all in (the conversation was recorded in August 2020 during the pandemic).

Three Open University postgraduate research students discuss how they approached taking a remote viva with Dr Lindsay O'Dell, Open University Graduate School Director.

COVID-19 has both highlighted and amplified historical inequality in the health outcomes for BAME in the UK. This episode explores intersecting factors including discrimination in the NHS, the white bias in medical education and decolonising the curriculum. Open University Postgraduate researcher Natalie, is joined by author of 'Anti-Oppressive Practice in Health and Social Care' Viola Nzira and Dr Jenny Douglas, Senior lecturer in Health Promotion at The Open University.

More on Ella’s story…

http://ellaroberta.org/

Further reading

Anti-Oppressive Practice in Health and Social Care

Viola Nzira and Paul Williams

Inside the Ivory Tower: Narratives of women of colour surviving and thriving in British academia

Deborah Gabriel and Shirley Anne Tate

Mind the Gap: a handbook of clinical signs on black and brown skin

Malone Mukwende, Margot Turner and Peter Tamony

Critical Race Theory in Education

David Gillborn et al

Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Paulo Freire

The Health Gap: The Challenge of an Unequal World

Micheal Marmot

Decolonising the Mind

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

Decolonising the University

Gurminder K. Bhambra, Dalia Gebrial, Kerem Nişancıoğlu

Sources

ITV News - Coronavirus thrives on inequalities and being BAME is major risk factor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ-1ocufR7g&t=9s

ITV News - Frontline ‘discrimination’ in virus outbreak may be factor in more BAME NHS staff deaths

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__UAPaiO0jk

ITV News - Ethnic minority leaders in NHS on what needs to change to keep BAME health workers safe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfGHD0u0JmE&t=70s

BBC Stories - Why are black women 'five times more likely to die in childbirth'?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twBQtqoPKvQ&t=76s

House of Commons

Dawn Butler

Kemi Badenoch

Trailer for a 3-part series on Race Relations in 2020:

OU research student Natalie stitches together conversations with academics, friends, and critics of the academy to explore identity, race, decolonising the academy and public health.