The aim of this E&D Partnerships project was to raise vulnerable students’ awareness surrounding diversity and highlight to them the effects that locally active right-wing extremist organisations may have on their community. It also aimed to give them a sense of community-cohesion, helping them understand why some organisations can be so far reaching and damaging.
The project was triggered as a response to the involvement of a disruptive minority of vulnerable students who were involved with football firms, especially with the Lincoln Youth Squad, which aligns itself with Lincoln City FC. But the project was developed to explore many more facest of equality and diversity.
Staff have documented an increased awareness by students of how behaviour could be seen as offensive (e.g. the use of word 'gay' as a pejorative term). Their observations include examples of students explaining to each other how the use of language can be offensive in informal settings. Three colleagues have been trianed as trianers in addressing equality and diversity issues and the colleagues they have suported now eel more comfortable addressing equality and dioversity issues . The project has helped to cultivate and foster a more open and inclusive environment in which to discuss and explore issues around culture and diversity. Students are also far more aware of and less vulnerable to extremist organisations as a result of the work they have done around football firms and the visit to LCFC. Colleagues now have access to the extensive materials arising from the project through the E&D moodle. Collective students' video diaries have been curated to create a permanent video diary for uploading to the Moodle. Data was gathered from observation of practice, document analysis, and participant observation.