Racism Part two

[Davkaus]

2 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

 

• Separately, because universities are generally keen to be seen as 'woke' spaces, they have decided to advertise this basically reasonable decision as being about 'decolonising the curriculum'. This is an attempt to persuade students that the university are a right-on organisation who take social justice seriously. However, advertising a policy in this way obviously carries with it the risk of attracting the attention of bad-faith right-wing arseholes, and lo and behold, here we are.

Your post is excellent, and I agree with it. There are a huge number of courses in which really, spelling and punctuation aren't particularly relevant, and I have no objections at all to the universities making that clear, and not reducing marks due to poor spelling, grammar or punctuation. Claiming that the requirement to spell correctly is white, male and elite" is the kind of nonsense I expect to read on a student's Twitter feed, not announced by a university, it's nonsense, and I don't think it's a pre-requisite to be a bad-faith right-wing arsehole to object to that description. I'm only one of those 3 things.

[HanoiVillan]

1 minute ago, Davkaus said:

Your post is excellent, and I agree with it. There are a huge number of courses in which really, spelling and punctuation aren't particularly relevant, and I have no objections at all to the universities making that clear, and not reducing marks due to poor spelling, grammar or punctuation. Claiming that the requirement to spell correctly is white, male and elite" is the kind of nonsense I expect to read on a student's Twitter feed, not announced by a university, it's nonsense, and I don't think it's a pre-requisite to be a bad-faith right-wing arsehole to object to that description. I'm only one of those 3 things.

I basically agree that this is a bad way to advertise the policy*. The sentence is annoyingly unclear, mixing up good points and bad ones:

It can be argued constructing an academic voice means adopting a homogenous North European, white, male, elite mode of expression dependent on a high level of technical proficiency in written and spoken English, a mode of expression that obscures the students’ particularity.

What is true is that a lot of what students actually get taught on foundation courses is essentially guff about fitting in to a pre-existing template. You can definitely make a case that it not only doesn't matter whether an essay map precedes a thesis statement in an introduction, or whether a paragraph contains a clear topic sentence, or whether 'In this essay I will argue that . . .' is inferior to 'This essay will argue that . . .', but that also insisting on these and many other specifications about what makes an 'academic English essay' - which a lot of the time we do is what we're doing - is culturally exclusionary. Just because we've always done it this way, and Spanish, Arabic and Chinese people haven't, doesn't mean that we're right and that Spanish, Arabic and Chinese people are wrong. Maybe we should be a lot more flexible about these things, and I think that's what they're getting at with the 'North European', 'white' and 'elite' modifiers, though they're relying on speaking to an audience that understands that, which they shouldn't be. What any of it has to do with being 'male' I don't know, and obviously the word 'particularity' is absurd. 

*While I do basically agree they should have advertised it differently (ie, hiding what they're doing in a load of technical jargon about 'resiliency frameworks' and 'OIA guidance' and 'learning competencies'), I also think it's kind of not great that it should be necessary to be unclear about what you're doing and why in case a Murdoch journalist decides to lie about your decisions, or deliberately misconstrue them. Why do I teach lots of stuff that's basically teaching to a rigid, outdated formula? It's not because I haven't thought about these issues, it's because I assume it's what their lecturers on their undergrad courses will be expecting. How to solve that communication problem? Well, you probably need to announce the policy and the intention behind it clearly, not hidden in jargon.

[Rodders]

1 hour ago, Ingram85 said:

Couldn’t we let foreign students to write in their own language so they feel confident and comfortable to create and explain what they mean better and then the universities employ a team to or pay for a service where those essays are translated? Could help make an international world a lot easier (he says I ironically in present day post brexit England). 

 

Accept I might just be being a bit fusty about this, but if you go to get a degree in a foreign country, there ought to be the reasonable expectation you should learn the language sufficiently well enough to communicate and be held to the same standards as anyone else. Being a non-native speaker is not the same as various disabilities / impairments.  If it's a barrier, why not choose a university where you can speak comfortably? 

 

[chrisp65]

1 hour ago, Rodders said:

 

Accept I might just be being a bit fusty about this, but if you go to get a degree in a foreign country, there ought to be the reasonable expectation you should learn the language sufficiently well enough to communicate and be held to the same standards as anyone else. Being a non-native speaker is not the same as various disabilities / impairments.  If it's a barrier, why not choose a university where you can speak comfortably? 

 

Racist.

 

[Rodders]

I have just realised I've got my degree and have lived in Cardiff for 15+ years and I beyond hello, good night and 'the next stop is' I don't speak a word of welsh 

[chrisp65]

2 hours ago, Rodders said:

I have just realised I've got my degree and have lived in Cardiff for 15+ years and I beyond hello, good night and 'the next stop is' I don't speak a word of welsh 

Cont and coc oen are pretty much all you need.

[StefanAVFC]

 

[blandy]

19 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

You can definitely make a case that it not only doesn't matter whether an essay map precedes a thesis statement in an introduction, or whether a paragraph contains a clear topic sentence, or whether 'In this essay I will argue that . . .' is inferior to 'This essay will argue that . . .', but that also insisting on these and many other specifications about what makes an 'academic English essay' - which a lot of the time we do is what we're doing - is culturally exclusionary. Just because we've always done it this way, and Spanish, Arabic and Chinese people haven't, doesn't mean that we're right and that Spanish, Arabic and Chinese people are wrong.

I have a question on this line.

If a student travels to another country, undertakes an academic course in that country, shouldn't part of the learning be not just the academic, primary content/subject, but also the [in this case English] cultural norms and lines of presentation and so on? If as a student I "just" want to learn about Chemistry [say] then I can do that in my home nation. If I go abroad to France/China/wherever] to learn about Chemistry, then part of my reason for doing so will be around the culture  - not just Social culture, but also academic culture, surely?

Here's why I ask: From experience of working with French engineers, there is a very different way of working in France, much more hierarchical, much more deferential to "rank/status", more formal. In the UK we are more questioning of information etc. presented by higher status individuals, for example, whereas in France what they say goes unchallenged to a greater extent. It's important to understand these differences, not just to make working in France easier, but also because one way may have advantages over another. In other words  'In this essay I will argue that . . .'  versus  'This essay will argue that . . .' is not only not culturally exclusionary, but is actually an important part of learning. The scientific principle of "here's a paper that makes an argument" being different to "I make the argument" may seem like nit-picking, but it's a key scientific differentiator. Take a different field - say I dunno, Football and you can maybe see what I mean: "this paper presents an argument that Tony Xia was a good owner of Aston Villa" is very different from " I argue that Tony Xia was a good owner..." - the second way leads to any contrary argument being against the author, personally, whereas the former is against the theory, not the author. Also it's not just the UK that follows that ethos - it's basically all Western science, engineering and so on - it it a valuable thing to learn and in fact calling it culturally exclusionary risks removing a valuable part of the overall learning experience.

[villa4europe]

19 hours ago, Rodders said:

 

Accept I might just be being a bit fusty about this, but if you go to get a degree in a foreign country, there ought to be the reasonable expectation you should learn the language sufficiently well enough to communicate and be held to the same standards as anyone else. Being a non-native speaker is not the same as various disabilities / impairments.  If it's a barrier, why not choose a university where you can speak comfortably? 

 

First word being wrong is brilliant

[Rolta]

I might be picking up fag ends here, but universities are businesses and a lot of them make most of their money, I believe, through international students who pay much higher fees.

I live in Spain and there are plenty of university courses here in English. I've heard the same in Germany and elsewhere. At the end of the day the universities want students (aka money) and the students want a degree. Anything beyond that is, unfortunately, I think, overcomplicating/overthinking reality. Universities are competing with each other globally for international students. If somewhere in the UK makes their courses something the international students don't want, then the international students won't come to the UK and certain unis will struggle.

As I say though, I might have got the wrong end of the stick.

Edited April 13, 2021 by Rolta

[HanoiVillan]

52 minutes ago, blandy said:

I have a question on this line.

If a student travels to another country, undertakes an academic course in that country, shouldn't part of the learning be not just the academic, primary content/subject, but also the [in this case English] cultural norms and lines of presentation and so on? If as a student I "just" want to learn about Chemistry [say] then I can do that in my home nation. If I go abroad to France/China/wherever] to learn about Chemistry, then part of my reason for doing so will be around the culture  - not just Social culture, but also academic culture, surely?

Here's why I ask: From experience of working with French engineers, there is a very different way of working in France, much more hierarchical, much more deferential to "rank/status", more formal. In the UK we are more questioning of information etc. presented by higher status individuals, for example, whereas in France what they say goes unchallenged to a greater extent. It's important to understand these differences, not just to make working in France easier, but also because one way may have advantages over another. In other words  'In this essay I will argue that . . .'  versus  'This essay will argue that . . .' is not only not culturally exclusionary, but is actually an important part of learning. The scientific principle of "here's a paper that makes an argument" being different to "I make the argument" may seem like nit-picking, but it's a key scientific differentiator. Take a different field - say I dunno, Football and you can maybe see what I mean: "this paper presents an argument that Tony Xia was a good owner of Aston Villa" is very different from " I argue that Tony Xia was a good owner..." - the second way leads to any contrary argument being against the author, personally, whereas the former is against the theory, not the author. Also it's not just the UK that follows that ethos - it's basically all Western science, engineering and so on - it it a valuable thing to learn and in fact calling it culturally exclusionary risks removing a valuable part of the overall learning experience.

That's a very eloquent description of the kind of 'traditionalist' view, as it might be described. You've described very nicely *why* we generally do focus on these questions at length, in EAP work.

The theory is: It's important for students to learn both cultural and academic norms - in this country (and others) one norm in academic writing is depersonalising your arguments - students should be taught ways to avoid depersonalising (and other ways of following traditional academic norms) - therefore it should be a part of the syllabus - as part of the syllabus, it should be assessed

My opinion is that this is a perfectly valid and logical argument, and as I say it's literally what we do at my university. However, I don't think it's beyond question, at least in certain aspects. Some questions people might want to consider are:

• the questions suggested above about impacts on 'fairness' with regard to non-native students or students with learning difficulties;
• a majority of conversations that are conducted in English worldwide, on a daily basis, are conducted between two non-native speakers. This is what it means for English to be the lingua franca. Therefore, are we or should we be insisting on European/Anglo academic norms, or is the challenge simply to equip students with a level of English and then for them to apply their own norms?;
• is a British university a business selling a global product that happens to be located in Britain (like Shell or Barclays)? If the answer is no, is that complicated by satellite campuses and online learning options that mean a student can get a degree from a British university without setting foot in the country?

On balance, I'm happy with the way I do things now, and I'm happy to keep teaching - and then marking students on their adherence to - the norms of academic writing I gave as examples above. But it's always worth checking priors on these things, and there are interesting debates in this space.

(Though I think what Hull are actually doing is really quite a modest change, and they're mostly just advertising a small change using some over-the-top woke sauce)

[HanoiVillan]

Aditya Chakrabortty's column on the Sewell report is very good and worth reading: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/16/government-race-report-evidence

Some of the intellectual dishonesty he has found is pretty depressing. Two examples:

'. . .the police’s use of stop and search has always been controversial, especially as black boys mainly seem to be the ones on the receiving end. But the Sewell report backs it, and cites a study in the British Journal of Criminology “suggesting that drug crime patterns change when stop and search is taking place in an area”.

Look up the original study and at the very top it says: “[T]he effect of stop [and search on] crime is likely to be marginal, at best. While there is some association between stop and search and crime (particularly drug crime), claims that this is an effective way to control and deter offending seem misplaced.” The source argues the opposite to the report quoting it.

[...]

Supporters of the report and its politics often quote its points about how much of what is ascribed to racism is instead down to black boys being raised by single mums. There’s a reason for that: the Cabinet Office went hunting for research to establish a link. I have seen an email from last November to two leading social scientists that says the commission is interested in “whether there is any evidence to support perceptions that young people living in single parent households … experience poorer outcomes and in turn a higher propensity to become involved in risky or criminal activity”. In other words, the government went looking for proof to back up a prejudice, long expressed by Sewell, against lone-parent families. The Cabinet Office did not respond to my questions about this correspondence. The academics declined the invitation.'

Dismal stuff.

[blandy]

48 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

The source argues the opposite to the report quoting it

It doesn't. That's over-egging things. It's weasely, but it absolutely does not argue the opposite. it's said "Stop and search changes crime patterns in an area" (i.e. the crime goes elsewhere - people stop offending where they may be searched by Plod, and move to another area nearby). That is not the opposite of "it deters offending" - the offending moves to another area, it doesn't stop. It's weasely because it doesn't make that as clear as it should - it's like speed cameras or something - they don't stop people spending on the motorway, they just stop people speeding in the 100 yards of motorway where they might get snapped so they behave where the cameras or Police are and then speed up again when they're out of camera range. The cameras change the pattern of speeding in an area, but they don't stop speeding on the motorway.

You may say it's pedantry and doesn't matter in the big scheme of things, because Stop and search is basically not that effective and has many counter-productive effects which more than counteract any marginal positive effect, and I'd agree with you on that, but to me it's important to actually nail what's wrong, not rail against something that's not actually claimed.

 

[HanoiVillan]

20 hours ago, blandy said:

It doesn't. That's over-egging things. It's weasely, but it absolutely does not argue the opposite. it's said "Stop and search changes crime patterns in an area" (i.e. the crime goes elsewhere - people stop offending where they may be searched by Plod, and move to another area nearby). That is not the opposite of "it deters offending" - the offending moves to another area, it doesn't stop. It's weasely because it doesn't make that as clear as it should - it's like speed cameras or something - they don't stop people spending on the motorway, they just stop people speeding in the 100 yards of motorway where they might get snapped so they behave where the cameras or Police are and then speed up again when they're out of camera range. The cameras change the pattern of speeding in an area, but they don't stop speeding on the motorway.

You may say it's pedantry and doesn't matter in the big scheme of things, because Stop and search is basically not that effective and has many counter-productive effects which more than counteract any marginal positive effect, and I'd agree with you on that, but to me it's important to actually nail what's wrong, not rail against something that's not actually claimed.

 

Yes, I see what you're saying. I think it is a bit pedantic, since his point is that the study does not support the conclusion in the report, and I think that point is clearly valid, but perhaps the word 'opposite' is ill-chosen.

[HanoiVillan]

Let's zoom in on another newspaper front page, I guess:

Sad story by Christina Lamb here, but what's that third paragraph you say?

Interesting use of 'we' to implicate everyone reading there.

[blandy]

7 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Yes, I see what you're saying. I think it is a bit pedantic, since his point is that the study does not support the conclusion in the report, and I think that point is clearly valid, but perhaps the word 'opposite' is ill-chosen.

It’s just that he is taking a written report, dealing with the words in it and making claims about those words and arguments and how they are misleading and stuff...in a way that is itself misleading.

[villa4europe]

Video doing the rounds of an incident in brum Saturday night, pissed up girl racially abusing (and pushing) a black bouncer 

She's been arrested, she's from Worcester, no doubt about to be identified and polite messages sent to her employers 

Its just so brazen its depressing how she feels empowered enough to do it 

Also surprising she didn't get a slap... 

[ml1dch]

1 hour ago, villa4europe said:

Video doing the rounds of an incident in brum Saturday night, pissed up girl racially abusing (and pushing) a black bouncer 

She's been arrested, she's from Worcester, no doubt about to be identified and polite messages sent to her employers 

Its just so brazen its depressing how she feels empowered enough to do it 

Also surprising she didn't get a slap... 

I think her employers said they knew about it within hours of the video doing the rounds.

[lapal_fan]

Her "apology" on Instagram was very lacking in... anything as well.

"I've got black friends AND I'VE EVEN DATED A BLACK GUY!!!" - how can she possibly be racist?

Also, her nan said she wasn't.

Shame it only takes a second to completely disprove that and wreck your reputation innit? 

[Wainy316]

1 minute ago, lapal_fan said:

Her "apology" on Instagram was very lacking in punctuation.

FTFY