Student Perspectives on Inclusion

How should students be involved as co-creators in Higher Education?

The student voice, and student experiences, are the most important part of this conversation: you don’t know what’s happening until you talk to students and they describe the experiences they live every day. In any guidelines about inclusion in university, it’s really important that you represent these specific experiences and inclusion practices, so it’s not all generalised.  

Are there any inclusive practices at your university that you would like to highlight?

The Unitat d’Igualtat oversees initiatives relating to changing the names of transsexuals, transgender, and intersex people, as well as offering provisions for victims of gender-based violence and LGBTQ+ phobia. These are incredibly important practices, and we think it’s great that the university makes them visible from the first day when students arrive.

Also, in UPF, when you finish a course you can anonymously say anything about the teacher and rate them. So you can point out what the teacher is saying and doing. You can also go to the Unitat d’Igualtat and tell them if something happens, if someone abuses you. These are really good practices for enabling people to report problems in a safe, confidential way.  

What new or improved practices would you like to see?

There is a project at UPF called Viquidones (Catalan for ‘Wiki-women’), which aims to reduce gender bias on Wikipedia. This is a very important initiative that has been running for about 10 years. However, we think it could be improved by going beyond the focus on gender bias, and including other minorities and discriminated groups.

Are there any inclusive practices at your university that you would like to highlight?

I would like to mention three practices linked to orientation and academic achievements.
The first is ‘Les Rencontres Pour l’Orientation (RPO)’, or ‘Meetings For Orientation’. This is an Open Day which introduces ESSEC Business School to pupils from senior schools. It helps them to work on their professional career, set up objectives, and realise that they can enter a selective and prestigious school (known as a grande école) that is separate from the public university system. In 2022, R.P.O tried to gather 1400 pupils on the 2nd of April and in 2021, it proposed a set of videos, an application and a MOOC for future students about developing ambitions for their professional career.

‘New Start’ is a programme for students who haven’t enjoyed their first semester at university and want to change course, and allows them to do this without waiting another year.

Finally, ‘PaRéO (Passeport pour Réussir et s’Orienter)’ is for students who didn’t get their diploma to go to university, and gives them another option to get a new diploma.

So all these practices work to integrate minorities, students who have socioeconomic problems, those who have chosen the wrong course, don’t know whether they want to go to university, or don’t have a good level of studies so are looking for work.

Are there aspects of life at university that you think are not inclusive?

The university can be difficult to access. I live in the Southeast of Paris, and Cergy is totally opposite in the Northwest. By train, with normal Paris traffic, it takes 40 minutes to get to university, but it can take 60 or 80 minutes, especially with the strikes that are very typical in France. This is true even though there are several lines going to the university, and public transport is always very crowded.

So it’s super complex to get to some of the classes, especially for students who can’t afford to buy a car or move to another part of the region. The solution could be to establish a private bus service to pick up students in the large train stations like Châtelet or Saint-Lazare, even if only for the journey in. Students wouldn’t be scared to arrive late and it could be a meeting-point that helps them socialise. Or maybe, when there are strikes, the university could postpone lessons or change the timing.

What does inclusion mean to you?
 Often we focus too much on ‘disadvantaged groups’ and see inclusion as a privilege – as in ‘Because they are disadvantaged they have this privilege’. Instead, it should be normalised that everyone has the same options and rights, but we consider everyone’s personal situations and backgrounds.
How should students be involved as co-creators in Higher Education?
Sometimes there are focus groups – for example last month, there was one for the inclusion of transgender students. But it doesn’t get a lot of reaction from the students: the project is launched, they say there will be a focus group and they want student opinions, but not a lot of students respond to it. Or when we organise Pride in May, we want input from LGBTQ+ organisations, and it’s really difficult to get their input. So it’s a good start to have these focus groups, but it’s really important (as Irene and Victor said) for these people to be present in the whole decision-making process.
Sometimes I think they have the impression that the university just wants to listen to them, but then not do anything about it. I’ve heard this from some of my friends. It shouldn’t just end with ‘Give your opinion and we will listen to you’. In the Student Council, for example, there are mechanisms for all students to express their opinion (with votes etc.) but in practice people in the council can’t always be heard.
For me, it’s hard to get at the level of the professors: sometimes they are not open to these kinds of discussions. It feels like I need to navigate my language and be really careful with the words I’m using so they will accept something, so I give them the impression it was their idea, and then they will implement it and be more open. I think their attitude is, ‘I’m giving my classes and I have my way of teaching, and it’s the right way.’ I don’t want to give the impression that I’m doubting their teaching skills, but I want to tell them, ‘You are trying to be inclusive but you’re actually doing the opposite’. Like Irene said, having two slides about women’s rights or the history of women is not enough; or having one class about the Belgian colonisation of Congo is not enough.
The key is to get support from staff. If it just comes from the students it’s like ‘Oh yeah, it’s the students, and it’s just for the disadvantaged groups, they’re not the majority’. We should find a professor who is open to this – without their support it will be hard to make it happen.

Are there aspects of life at university that you think are not inclusive?

We have a place where you can go with complaints, but still people are very hesitant about what to do, they’re not sure who to talk to, whether to send an email or go to the information desk. So they keep quiet and nothing will happen, or if they do try to make their complaint they get redirected to the office and have to make the complaint again, re-telling their story and going through the trauma over and over.

I like the idea of people being able to send emails anonymously, but also agree with Ajda that they can only do this if they know how: that’s the issue with a lot of things at VUB, people lack knowledge, and we need to raise awareness among professors and students. The issue is that we don’t know how to do it. People don’t follow the relevant accounts or read their emails.

What new or improved practices would you like to see?

At VUB there are a lot of good projects about decolonisation, and about equality. In contrast with what Ariadna said, these projects are not visible, and when I talk to other students they don’t know about them. It’s sad because these projects are very good.

I think there should be a place where all students know they can go if they have questions or complaints. And I’d know that if I go there and I’m gaslighting myself, or neglecting my own experiences, the people here won’t gaslight me as well: they won’t say ‘Are you sure? Did you misinterpret this person’s behaviour? He’s a nice professor…’

I agree with the other students that to improve education we need to educate teachers through training workshops. And although it is difficult to create safe spaces with different people from different backgrounds, that include students and professors, it’s important that we try to do this so that we can have open discussions about these issues. That kind of process should be implemented on deeper level, and on a yearly basis, in a structured way.

It’s very hard because students are so much more engaged in talking about these topics, and as I said before, professors are just focused on teaching a course and don’t see this as part of their job. So I’d want to make this a place where everyone is engaged, everyone is trying to make everyone else feel comfortable. Students just want to get their degree, but it’s a shame that some have more obstacles because some people are not inclusive or welcoming.

What does inclusion mean to you?

Society is unjust. Different parts of society are not equally accessible for everyone – it differs due to how you are perceived as a person. To me, inclusion is every action made to lessen the effects of social injustice, unequal opportunities, and unequal access.

I connect inclusion with a feeling of being welcome in a room, just as welcome as the rest of the people in the room. It’s a relational concept, something that happens in the space between people.

In practice, I think inclusion has a lot to do with being aware and critical of the norms that surround society as well as specific areas of society. Inclusion work is also to take action to change those norms. For example, if white males are overrepresented in a specific university programme, inclusion work could be making oneself aware of what creates this overrepresentation. After identifying what excludes groups of people, it’s possible to take actions to make the space more inclusive.

Inclusion has to do with power structures. You cannot include yourself, only the people that already feel included can let you in. They have the power of inclusion/exclusion. As with most other norms, it’s mostly invisible until you are excluded. Until you do not fit in. Until you are not there as an equal.

How is inclusion discussed in your university?

The interest in matters of inclusion varies depending on which faculty you’re in: if you’re in the faculty of social work, where you work with these issues, it’s much more natural to have a deep analysis about it, because there are people that care about it to have it put into practice. One university consists of so many different faculties and different people, but it doesn’t only depend on the subject – it’s also about the culture and tradition. Not only students, but also staff experience this.

I think that the University of Gothenburg, at least at the faculty of social science, has come a long way with the way we treat each other. There are critical discussions of power structures ingrained in the courses, including the perspective of intersectionality. There is support available for those with disabilities or a different mother tongue. But I do think that we think we are better at this, than we actually are. The body of students is quite homogenous.

Are there any inclusive practices at your university that you would like to highlight?

There are several things that I think are good practices.
The University of Gothenburg is a state agency, and all our buildings have to be wheelchair-accessible. There are laws about the university having to meet the needs of people with different abilities, dyslexia, etc.

We have the Swedish Board of Student Finance (CSN), where you can take out a student loan with a low interest rate, to support you in going to university. That addresses the class aspect of access to university. We have workshops focusing on different kinds of inclusion and oppression.

I appreciate that the university participates in West Pride, an LGBTQI-focused arts and culture festival in the local region. This is a way of showing that we want to be an inclusive environment for everyone.

We also have unisex bathrooms – I hadn’t even thought about it before hearing other students discuss it, because it’s taken for granted here in Sweden.

Are there aspects of life at university that you think are not inclusive?

We do have a lot of problems as well. Some have already been touched on: Emelie is definitely onto something when she says the university is quite homogenous. You see a lot of the same people, especially in Economics and Law – the same people are attracted to university. Even though ‘on paper’ everyone in Sweden can go, and there are a lot of chances – if you don’t succeed in school there are other tests, other roads to access university – in reality lots of people don’t feel university is for them. It’s connected to power structures to do with race, sexism, class, LGBTQ – the University of Gothenburg is very segregated.

I grew up in a poor area with lots of crime, and there people are not focused on going to university: it’s not what is spoken about, not the story of who you are. To create real inclusion and widen participation, we need to get to those roots of the problem. We can have as many projects as we want in our own bubble, and they are important, but they don’t go to the root of the problem if we don’t participate in creating the society needed for inclusion. West Pride is a great example of how we can do that.

We also need to give voice to research regarding intersectionality, segregation, how schools are organised: the university can play an important role in heightening inclusion and creating actual change.

What new or improved practices would you like to see?

I have been working alongside my bachelor’s and master’s studies, and when you work in an organisation there are systems in place to make it clear how to handle situations. For instance, if I get sick I can do a phased return to work, doing 50% then 75% of working hours, increasing slowly. That’s not possible at university, and this is very exclusive. I either have to be 100% sick or not at all. That’s how it is at Gothenburg due to how programmes and courses are built. It’s hard if you are worried about your financial situation – it’s a risk to go into studies. If you have mental health problems and need to go at a slower pace, it’s almost impossible to study.

I have been working alongside my bachelor’s and master’s studies, and when you work in an organisation there are systems in place to make it clear how to handle situations. For instance, if I get sick I can do a phased return to work, doing 50% then 75% of working hours, increasing slowly. That’s not possible at university, and this is very exclusive. Since university revolves around terms, or ‘läsår’ (the Swedish word for ‘academic year’), you can’t just take sick leave for a month. This makes it hard for people with health problems to attend university, without constantly risking their financial situation. You can’t be on sick leave for longer than you need to be, but you can’t just return to school if it doesn’t fit with the course you need to take.

I would also like to see an improvement of how we use course evaluations. It differs a lot between institutions and courses: sometimes, there has been no evaluation. I think this should be a mandatory part of education, and include a broad spectrum of factors. Also, if there is negative feedback regarding how teachers treat students, there needs to be a plan of action. Now, it feels like evaluations amount to nothing, matter to no one, and are just a bonus. Evaluation is a fundamentally important part of organisations.

When you work in an organization, you often have a clear idea of how to report problems, injuries and such, at least in the places I’ve worked at in Sweden. I think this is very unclear when you are a student. I have no idea who to turn to if I’m harassed. I think it would be good if there were clear online systems for students as well, or if opportunities to meet the person you are supposed to contact. The student union is not something you interact with very much in your everyday school life, at least not at the faculty of social science. As a student, you are in a very clear hierarchy, and when these systems aren’t in place you are very exposed, especially if you have bad experiences with teachers who might have something against you. Maybe these processes do exist, but if students don’t know about them, and they’re not accessible, then what’s the point?

I think that a lot of the changes needed are on a larger scale than just the University of Gothenburg. Society needs to change. For example, due to the policy related to people seeking refuge in Sweden, the road to university is very long and hard. The long waits in the migration process put lives on hold. Furthermore, the fact that we don’t grant residence permits to youth living in Sweden, studying at high school level, hinders a large group from attending university.

It’s the same with segregation. Gothenburg is a very segregated city, and it creates parallel societies where opportunity and success are seen in different lights. Equal opportunity is not a thing in today’s Sweden. We need to create equal learning opportunities at all schools in our city. Only then can we recruit more youth from a variety of backgrounds. Today, a lot of responsibility lies on the individual, and it takes a lot more to end up at university for a person from Angered than Långedrag. I think that the university has a responsibility to analyse and impact society on a larger level. Otherwise, we are only scratching the surface and it’s only ‘for show’.

Are there any inclusive practices at your university that you would like to highlight?
In Ljubljana we recently got a Student Ombudsman: this is an office that operates to uphold equality and inclusion, the implementation of the gender equality plan, the prevention of violence, harassment, and bullying, handling complaints and requests, and providing a psycho-social counselling service. It’s a good practice if it works, but I don’t know exactly what the areas of activity are.
Another thing that is really important to me is the LGBT-friendly certificate. This is not connected to the university, but universities can choose to get certified: the practice operates under the municipality of Ljubljana, in collaboration with non-governmental organisations. If the university or another institution chooses to get certified, they participate in a short training programme where they are educated about these issues. The university is then committed to providing a safe and inclusive environment, and to promote more LGBT-oriented themes. So far, our faculties of Social Work and Maths & Physics are certified. I’m not sure if this is mainly on a symbolic level, or if it works practically, but at least it’s a start that makes you feel more welcome.
Building on that, I also wanted to talk about our LGBT coordinator, a practice that is only in the Faculty of Maths & Physics. The professor has his office and you can come to him with issues. He is openly gay so has some experience and can give psychosocial support, inform you about your rights, and so on.
Are there aspects of life at university that you think are not inclusive?
In 2021, the Slovenian government implemented a law saying that foreign students have to ensure they have €5000 in their account before they can get a student visa. It’s discriminatory, especially for students from the Balkan regions, where a lot of our students come from. No Slovenian students have that much in their account. So in this case the government laws are discriminatory, and the university can’t do much about it. I think some people issued statements that they were against this law, but nothing happened.
What new or improved practices would you like to see?
In the end-of-course evaluations, you anonymously give feedback about whether you learnt what you wanted to learn, how satisfied you are with the professor, and so on. Even with these study-related issues, I’m not sure anything is addressed, because you can give a low score to a professor who is really bad but nothing will happen.
I was thinking we could take this one step further. Using this evaluation system that is already there, could we ask students different types of question about sexual abuse, discrimination, hate speech, and so on? Then maybe these things would have to be taken seriously.
Last year there was a grassroots feminist group called The Resistance, who created an online questionnaire about sexual abuse. They found that 17% of their respondents had experienced some form of sexual abuse. If you gave students a platform to say that these things are happening, we could see a lot more issues that are currently happening in the background.
But of course there would have to be a committee consisting, preferably, of students and professors from multiple faculties, who would actively and continuously monitor activity and consider sanctions. Now that the Student Ombudsman is being implemented, it could be done through them: if you experienced hate speech you could send a form directly to them, or to someone else, and they would take action.
I would also think about implementing coordinators – both students and staff – who could support students from LGBT or minority backgrounds for instance. They could build more trust over time. And the students involved could also be paid: people with marginalised identities are often also economically disadvantaged, so I see it as an opportunity to create jobs for students.

How would you describe yourself? What defines your identity?
I would start with the cultural bit of my identity. I am originally from Nigeria, I’ve grown up around that culture; this is one of the main things that defines my identity as a person in the UK in 2022. The second aspect I think about is that I’m a twin: I spent many years growing up with my twin, and a lot of the time I just found myself doing what she did because we’re very similar. It took a while to break out and find my own identity as an individual. Now my identity is shaped from other perspectives, for instance from a faith perspective as well.

Do you feel that your unique attributes, experiences, and background are valued at your university?
It depends on the people you’re around. In my second year, I was on the exec for a society, Warwick Inspire, that focuses on education and inequality. There, they really focus on people’s individual attributes and how these can positively influence your academic path and career path. Through this experience, I found there was a beauty in cultural differences and educational differences; these are not things that oppress us but things that allow us to flourish.
Doing an undergraduate degree in management, I encounter so many different cultures and places, and this opens up a space to talk about cultural differences and similarities. It’s very interesting exploring this, and being able to say, ‘You’re from this country and this is how you do this’, for instance while doing group-work, which we do a lot of in Warwick Business School (WBS). In my first year at Warwick, I joined the African & Caribbean Society (ACS), and we ran this big production called Afrofest, where there was drama and singing – it really opened up a space for you to learn and understand different people and different cultures.
These two examples show what you can make out of university in terms of being able to explore yourself culturally. For me, university is where I started to find myself again. I didn’t go to the same secondary school as my twin, but we went to the same sixth form. It was easy to convince ourselves that because we’d had some time part, we knew ourselves as individuals. But when we both came to the same university, we both realised that although we’re similar we are also so different, and we started to see the beauty in those differences. That came from being in this university environment where you’re constantly being asked who you are, what do you like, what don’t you like. It’s a new burst of independence, like a new birth, where you can do whatever you want. So I really believe university is what you make it to be.

Do you feel comfortable being yourself at university?
University is so unfamiliar – perhaps if you went to boarding school it would be more familiar – but for me, coming to a new city, it was all very unfamiliar. In my first year, I didn’t focus on making friends on my course but made them elsewhere. Going to lectures and seminars on my course, I was surrounded by people but had no one to speak to, which was quite sad.
In my second year, I wanted to redeem myself – and then the pandemic came. Everything was online and it became very, very difficult. We had groupwork online, but there were few meaningful conversations outside of ‘We need to get this done’, and everyone was quite drained.
But now in my third year, I’m very open to having different conversations and seeing my education in a different way. My seminar tutors have helped with this: on one module, the tutor is so great, she creates an environment where we can feel comfortable and safe speaking to new people. So the lecturers, and the people you encounter, and whether you enjoy the module, are important to making you feel comfortable.
On one module recently, the tutor asked how everyone was feeling, since we hadn’t had an in-person seminar in a long time. My immediate response was to say that I felt very shy, but as things have become more familiar, the shyness has gone away. I felt very contained during the pandemic, and now coming out of that I have to re-learn things and break out of that shyness again.
For me, what makes me want to stay, and pursue a friendship, is the environment people create: comfortable, peaceful, a safe space. And as weird as this sounds, it’s about the things they bring out of me: the character development that comes with the things they show you about yourself. Like they might show me that I can be a loving person or a good friend, or they tell me I’m funny. It’s about the things they allow you to reveal about yourself.
When I first started at university I was in a very competitive cohort on the ‘finance’ pathway, with students who have an end-goal they want to reach like banking or consulting. As I got to know myself better, I moved into the ‘entrepreneurship’ pathway on my course. The students in this cohort weren’t necessarily competing with one another, they were very much trying to explore creativity, and how that links with entrepreneurship and the mind. People are calmer, they take more time to process ideas: they ask ‘How does creativity influence this? Do I have an entrepreneurial mindset and how does that affect things?’ So over time, as my interests have developed, I’ve found this group who are not necessarily competitive-minded.

Do you mask or minimalise any aspect of yourself at university?
For me, in terms of what I share about myself, it mainly depends on the time and place: whether it’s an academic, social, or work setting. But over time, I’ve found that you don’t need to limit areas of yourself, just because you’re in a different setting. It’s good to be self-aware, to be conscious of time and place, and what is expected of you, but don’t let that lead to you pretending, or not being yourself. Sometimes I do find myself succumbing to society’s standard, to something I’ve grown up seeing. But over time, as I’ve discovered myself, I’ve also discovered the freedom to be myself in different settings.

How is inclusion discussed at your university?

Sometimes the most difficult thing is starting these conversations. Environment is very important: are you in an environment that encourages these conversations to happen? There are a lot of different things that influence this, like social media. People don’t want to say the wrong thing, so don’t say anything. I’ve definitely observed this at university and in other spaces. There are a lot of things that people brush under the carpet, because they don’t have the words to articulate it, or don’t know how to get the message across without offending people, and then things build up. That’s definitely something that needs to be addressed.
The university definitely has a duty to teach you more. Yes, you can learn from experience, but it’s hard to learn unless you’re being educated. The university has a role in supporting you in completing your education, so you can leave university as someone who is growing in terms of how you understand these cultural issues. The university should educate students on the intricacies of things like racism and inclusion, on how to go deeper into these issues rather than taking them at face value, while also offering a holistic perspective.
To be honest, in my first year, it wasn’t the university, it was students creating spaces where we could discuss inclusion. But since the pandemic started, the university have increased wellbeing support, and increased awareness of wellbeing support – that support was probably there in my first year, but I wasn’t aware of it. Because of this global issue, there was a mutual understanding that it affected people in different ways, and the university provided spaces where issues that would normally be brushed under the carpet can be addressed. It’s been a joint effort with students, and with the Students’ Union.
How should students be involved as co-creators in Higher Education?
Co-creation has to happen from the beginning to the end, not just getting people involved in defining the problem, then asking what they think about the final product. It’s everything in between that gets neglected.
From a co-creation perspective, it’s also really important that university structures are visible and accessible – a lot of the time they’re working behind the scenes, but are not necessarily open and transparent to other people, so students don’t know they can engage with them.
What new or improved practices would you like to see?
We need to focus on interdisciplinary collaboration. For example, in the University of Warwick I know they’re trying to integrate innovation in all the different departments. It’s important to make an active effort to integrate inclusion into module discussions, and not let it be something that you only find if you study history or politics, but also something that students in business, life sciences, or engineering talk about.

What does inclusion mean to you?
I and the other students in the UPF team discussed what inclusion means for us, and we agreed on the following definition.
Inclusion is an approach, attitude or action which aims to make possible for groups or individuals in conditions of exclusion, segregation or marginalisation to have the same opportunities and possibilities to participate, be, live and coexist in society.
To explain our definition of inclusion we have chosen two types of roads with different shapes that represent two society models.
The first one, on the left side (below), represents a society without inclusion. You can see a damaged curved road. This one has less accessibility, it’s more dangerous and therefore more difficult to drive. An exclusive road which limits your possibilities.
On the right side, we can see a straight road with more room and less complications. This represents our idea of inclusion, a way opened to everybody. Because it’s easier, safer and flatter. In conclusion it’s available to anyone who wants to go through.
With this comparison we try to explain that, for us, inclusion is to have all the facilities for everyone to do whatever they want to do.

Are there any inclusive practices at your university that you would like to highlight?

At UPF, there are lots of tools and provisions to help you deal with things like dyslexia and dyscalculia – and the professors do a lot to help you. I’ve seen this very often, and am really happy to have this kind of support. 

It’s good that there are a lot of extra-curricular activities at university, because you need these to help you figure out your own purpose in life. Students can also benefit from career-development organisations and opportunities outside the university – it would be good if the university could make these external things more accessible for students. 

What new or improved practices would you like to see?

We saw that the University of Gothenburg runs mandatory workshops for academics about inclusion in teaching and education. This would be a great thing to implement at UPF and would make a real difference in our university. It is not easy to influence students on these issues, but if you see a very good teacher promoting good practices about gender equality, maybe you will follow them.