Postgraduate research projects which analyse the hairs on fruit fly wings to learn about human ageing, predict the length of volcano eruptions and investigate the influence of imported tractors on reducing poverty in Africa, were among the winners at the Open University Postgraduate Research Poster Competition held in June.

Councillor Catriona Morris, Mayor of Milton Keynes, presented the winners of the competition with their prizes. Seven of the prize winners will represent the University at the Vitae Midlands Hub competition. The Mayor was very impressed with the diversity of research topics and the standard of the presentations. She was particularly interested in Alex Rowbotham’s work investigating local communities’ involvement in the design of the proposed waterway that will link Milton Keynes and Bedford.

The winners going on to compete in the Midlands Hub final on Thursday 12 July at the Herbert Art Gallery in Coventry are:

Arts
Alice Smalley, who used GIS to determine where crimes reported in the C19th illustrated Police News actually took place.

Engineering/Mathematics & Statistics/Computing
Andrew Agyei-Holmes, who is exploring the value of importing western and eastern tractors in his project, Capital Goods in the Agricultural Sector and Poverty Reduction in Tanzania

Science
Anthony Davenport, who is paving the way for smaller, faster computers through the use of graphene in his project, Enhancing the Gap

Pratima Chennuri, who used Fruit Flies to investigate the Role of DNA Damage in Ageing

Marcus Lohr, who presented research into Variable Stars and Stellar Mergers

Leanne Gunn, who developed a new system for forecasting model eruption durations in her project, The Duration of Icelandic Volcanic Eruptions.

Social Sciences
Clare Mumford, who presented on finding a voice in business in her project, Voice and silence in collaborative project work

Other category winners were:
Arts
Alice Smalley, who used GIS to determine where crimes reported in the C19th illustrated Police News actually took place.

Engineering/Mathematics & Statistics/Computing
Andrew Agyei-Holmes, who is exploring the value of importing western and eastern tractors in his project, Capital Goods in the Agricultural Sector and Poverty Reduction in Tanzania

Social Sciences
Clare Mumford, who presented on finding a voice in business in her project, Voice and silence in collaborative project work.

Science
Anthony Davenport, who is paving the way for smaller, faster computers through the use of graphene in his project, Enhancing the Gap.

Other winners were:
Natalie Canning in Social Sciences won the Open University Students Association prize for her research into What factors contribute to children’s empowerment in child initiated social play?

Loes Koorenhof in Life Science for her research Characterising the Neuro-Physiology of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Now in its seventh year the Postgraduate Poster Competition is going from strength to strength, with over 51 students showcasing their research.

As Head Judge, Dr Verina Waights, explained ‘this competition prepares students to share their research ideas with the general public – a must for researchers in the 21st century”.

Find out more:

• Winning posters and all of the posters entered for the competition
   
• Postgraduate research at the OU

 

A self-confessed school drop-out has credited the Open University with giving him the ‘bouncebackability’ that has kept him employed for the last 22 years, despite being made redundant three times.

Simon Moody, 45, is an enthusiastic champion for the OU, having gained diplomas in European Humanities and Geography, a BA (hons) in History and Social Sciences and this year he hopes to finish his MA in Applied Linguistics.

“I dropped out of a comprehensive in the early 80s,” said Simon. “It was a very unhappy experience and I just had a rag bag of CSEs in woodwork and biology.
“The idea of going back to Uni at 28, during the Britpop summer of ’95, did have some appeal to me – but the idea of living on baked beans in baggy jumpers with no disposable income soon waned.”

After seeing general advertisements for the Open University, Simon signed up in 1995, and has been studying on and off with them ever since.

“When I saw the OU materials I was just so impressed, they really are first rate,” he said. “In my view the OU is the only choice for a mature student. And paying in monthly instalments is such a bonus for working people as it takes all the angst out of paying a lump sum.”

Simon works in commercial research and training, and firmly believes that a degree still retains respect.

“Vocational qualifications are coming back into vogue now, but a degree is still a great foundation and retains respect. Everyone needs a foot in the door sometimes, and graduate qualifications give you that.

“I’ve more than doubled my salary since 2000, and haven't been out of work in 22 years even though I’ve been made redundant three times. I have no doubt that my 'bouncebackability' is down to the OU.”

Simon says when he finishes his MA he’d love to study for a Phd: “I feel there are issues which I could genuinely contribute to but ultimately, thanks to the OU, I just love to study. I can’t see that ever changing.”

The Open University journey for Simon so far has, he says, been both hilarious and stressful.
 

The OU has released a video to highlight the different ways new students in England can pay for part-time study from September 2012, when higher education funding changes come into effect. And you’re being invited to help spread the word!

Recent research showed that 71 per cent of people considering access to Higher Education in England are either unsure or feel they don’t have enough information about the study funding options available to them*.

The video takes potential students on a whistle-stop tour through the Government’s tuition fee loans, financial support for those with low incomes, the OU’s own loan system OUSBA, employer sponsorship and paying upfront.



Bev Stewart, Director, Student Recruitment and Financial Support, says: “There is a perception that the increase in university fees has made university study inaccessible for many, but this isn’t the case. There is a wide range of payment options for new part-time students which means cost shouldn’t be a barrier to gaining a university-level education.”

How you can help spread the word
The OU is encouraging members of its community to spread the word about this video to help new students in England understand the funding options available to them, should they decide to take up OU study. You can share this link on your blogs, Facebook and Google+ pages and by sharing the message below on Twitter.

Find out more:

• Study for a qualification with the OU
• OU launches ‘ways to pay’ video for new part-time students

*Research commissioned by The Open University in April 2012 showed that 71 per cent of people interested in entering Higher Education in England were either unsure or felt they didn’t have enough information around the funding options available to them. The research was undertaken by DJS Research on behalf of The Open University. Sample: 1,590 respondents who were interested in studying at university in the next five years.

 

 

Meg Barker asks: should we open our minds to all emotional states, not just happiness, in order to have fulfilled lives?

On Tuesday (22 May) the magazine DIVA and the mental health charity PACE are holding an evening event called The H-word. The H-word in question is happiness, and the plan is to have a discussion about happiness, health and well-being and about how people can support each other towards 'happier, more meaningful lives', with a particular focus on lesbian, bisexual and queer women.

The focus on these groups is appropriate because both women, and lesbian, bisexual and queer people, are particularly highly diagnosed with mental health problems such as depression and anxiety (when compared with men, on the one hand, and heterosexual people on the other). They also self-report higher levels of distress and lower levels of happiness and well-being than other groups. 

My brief presentation at the event will focus on the social aspects of such suffering. Women's experiences of depression have been linked, for example, to the ways in which women are socially expected to demonstrate distress (sadness and fear, rather than anger), and to aspects of conventional femininity such as having identities which are strongly bound up with other people's well-being and feeling a lack of agency over their own lives. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) people have higher rates of such problems because of the challenges of living within a heteronormative world and related experiences of homophobia, biphobia and transphobia. Recent research has found that rates of depression, self-harm and suicide are particularly high amongst bisexual and queer people, which is likely linked to their lack of visibility in wider culture. It is difficult indeed to have one's identity questioned, ridiculed, and/or disregarded by heterosexual and lesbian and gay communities alike.

Suffering is often exacerbated when distress which has such a strong social component is regarded as being something which is internal to the individual themselves. Currently there is a powerful cultural tendency to see all distress as being internally caused. Many people believe that when they are depressed or anxious there are only two possible ways of understanding this: Either they are ill, and they need help, but at least this means that it is not their fault. Or they are not ill, and therefore don't need help, but this means that they are to blame for their own suffering (the 'pull your socks up' attitude). 

Both of these understandings are internal: either there is something physically wrong, or there is some kind of personal deficiency on the part of the individual. Such understandings can prevent us from seeing – and addressing – any social element to our suffering. They also catch us in a double bind whereby we have to accept that there is something wrong with us or that we are blameworthy, neither of which is a great outcome, and both of which continue to haunt the other even if we dismiss them. 

 

'there is a powerful cultural tendency to see all distress as being internally caused'

An alternative to this internal perspective is to see all forms of human distress as complexly biopsychosocial. Of course there are some physical vulnerabilities which we have to experience distress in certain ways, and social experiences like being the victim of prejudice write themselves on our psychology and biology in various ways (affecting brain chemistry, thought patterns, and the way neurons wire up, for example). However, our biology is intrinsically interwoven with the ways in which we experience the world, and the ways in which in which it treats us. The statistics on mental health problems in women and LGBT people alert us to just how important these social aspects can be, and may leave us asking whether 'depression' or 'oppression' is the more useful word to apply. Opening up the possible role of social forces also opens up potential for other ways of addressing struggles than the common individual modes of drugs or therapy. Both community involvement and activism because important possibilities to consider.

This finally leads us to the H-word and why I find it somewhat troubling. We hear a lot at the moment about the importance of individuals achieving happiness through positive psychology. However, there is a real danger that this throws us back into an internal understanding of such things: 'Everyone should be happy and here are some techniques you can use to achieve it. If you can't achieve it then there is something wrong with you'.

In her book, The Promise of Happiness, Sara Ahmed talks about the ways in which happiness may be more available to some rather than others (often those who can more easily conform to the 'norm'). She suggests that we require 'feminist killjoys' and 'unhappy queers' if we are to reach a more equal society where pleasure isn’t always found at the expense of others, or by conforming to problematic power hierarchies.

There is a related idea in the mindfulness approach which I find useful. Buddhists believe that it is actually the craving for happiness which is the cause of suffering. Our consumer culture constantly tells us what we need to be happy (more money, fame and success, the perfect partner, the ideal body, the product they are selling, etc.). As Sara Ahmed points out, such things are more accessible to some than others, but even for those who can get them, they are never enough. Mindfulness advocates an alternative approach of bringing our attention to the here-and-now, rather than constantly striving after whatever we think we need to be happy. It also advocates being with whatever emotions we're experiencing rather than privileging one (happiness) over all others.

I was interested that the H-word event description talked about finding 'happier, more meaningful lives' as if these two things necessarily go together. From another perspective we might regard constantly grasping after happiness as the very thing which will prevent us from achieving it. It might be that in order to have a meaningful life we need to let go of the quest for happiness. If we turn our focus to welcoming all emotional states and what they have to tell us, and to compassionately seeking to improve society through mutual support, perhaps we may find that happiness sneaks up on us after all.

Meg Barker 21 May 2012

Meg Barker is an Open University lecturer teaching mainly on counselling modules,  and is also a therapist specialising in relationships. Find details of her other blogs here. 

The views expressed in this post, as in all posts on Society Matters, are the views of the author, not The Open University.

 

Cartoon by Catherine Pain

 

 

 

Dr Donna Smith is dismayed by the Government’s vacillation over gay marriage in the face of mid-term electoral blues.

When the Coalition Government announced it would hold a consultation on opening up marriage to include gay civil marriage, it suggested that one half of the Coalition, the Conservative Party, had become much more socially liberal since the Party’s opposition to many of Labour’s gay rights policies in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron made it clear that he supported gay marriage, with the Lib-Dem Equalities Minister, Lynne Featherstone, stating gay marriage was a “change for the better”.

But a lot changes in six months. Cameron’s Conservatives are on the ropes, after a dodgy budget and local election hammering. Some backbench Tory MPs have suggested that it’s support for gay marriage that has damaged the Conservative brand – a view shared by various right-leaning newspapers, who have deemed the change irrelevant and unimportant in the current economic climate. Post-local elections the Conservative Chancellor, George Osborne, said that the Government would take care to focus on the things "that really matter”, the suggestion being that this isn’t gay marriage.

But, hang on a minute. Who says gay marriage doesn’t matter? It certainly matters to many gay people, their friends and families. In fact, it could be said to matter to society as a whole, as an issue of equality and fairness. And don’t governments have a duty to focus on issues whether they affect the ‘majority’ or ‘minority’? If the Government doesn’t look out for people, who will?

Perhaps Government should just go ahead and legislate. That is, after all, what they have been elected to do. Doesn’t consultation give the wrong message on this one? If a government believes something is morally right, there is no need to consult. Especially as the consultation was not about whether gay civil marriage should be allowed, but rather the best way to go about it. Just make a decision and legislate! (By comparison, on the day of the Queen's Speech that failed to mention gay marriage in the Coalition's plans for the next year, President Barack Obama affirmed his support for same-sex marriages in a nation where 29 States oppose it).

The previous Labour Government faced huge opposition to some of its equality measures, but pushed on nevertheless, resulting in a fairer and kinder society. Of course, we have to accept that not everyone will be in favour of gay civil marriage. Their opinions should be heard, without the need for shouting by either ‘side’. But by consulting, the Government weakens its stated belief in gay marriage. It leaves room for the policy to be picked apart by the media, with opponents in the Conservative Party having room to blame it for the Government’s current woes.

It seems unlikely that the Coalition’s stance on gay marriage had that much of an impact at the polls; high unemployment, lack of consumer confidence, petrol prices and the perception (fair or unfair) that the Conservatives are a party for the rich, not poor, are higher on most people’s agendas, surely.

So, stand up for gay marriage, Cameron and Osborne, if it’s what you support. You’ll be stronger and more respected for it.
Donna Smith 8 May 2012
twitter: @Dr_DonnaSmith

Donna Smith is a tutor on the Open University modules Introducing the social sciences - part one (DD131) and Living political ideas (DD306), and is based in the East of England. She is the author of Sex, Lies and Politics: Gay Politicians in the Press and talks to Platform about gay politicians and the media here

The views expressed in this post, as in all posts on Society Matters, are the views of the author, not The Open University.

Cartoon by Catherine Pain

Social Science Bites is a new podcast series, launching in May 2012, and is brought to you by the team behind the enormously successful Philosophy Bites: Nigel Warburton and David Edmonds. The series is produced in association with SAGE – the world’s leading independent academic and professional publisher. Watch this space for more information!
 

Professor Tim Chappell, Director of the OU Ethics Centre, writes about the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sport. Is there a place for them? Should athletes be putting their health at risk to achieve medals? And will competing become more about the size of your wallet than your physique?

With the  Olympics bearing down on us, and with the sprinter Dwain Chambers and the cyclist David Millar appealing their lifetime bans in order to be eligible for the London 2012, perhaps it's time to have a think about the place - if any - of performance-enhancing drugs in sport.

We  all know the usual arguments in favour: “Everybody's doing it anyway.” “Bring it out into the open so you can regulate it.” “Whatever helps you win is fine.” “It's up to you what you take.” Or even: “The athlete who stops eating pies and the athlete who starts taking steroids are both altering their diets in the interests of good performance - where's the real difference?”

Before we look at these arguments more closely, I think we should step back to ask ourselves - what are we doing in sport anyway?

Whether as competitors or as spectators, we're looking for glorious, exceptional, superlative physical performances. But that doesn't mean that we want to see (or run) the fastest 100m sprint that anything can do. (If it did, we'd go and watch a jaguar, or get in a Jaguar.) It means that we want to see the fastest 100m sprint that a human can do.

With drugs in the picture, is it really about what humans can do any more? I'd say not. I'd say watching a drugged performance is more like watching what drugs can do, and the money that buys them. I'd say it’s about taking things away from the competitors and giving them to the market. Where's the glory in that?

Or think of it another way. Remember when you were two, and your game was to try and jump across a puddle two feet wide? This game is fine if you’re toddler sized, boringly easy if you’re an adult-sized adult. The logical conclusion of enhancing athletes' performance is that at least some of our games will go the way of the toddler's puddle game. Do we want that? Do we want to outgrow the games we play?

Climbing is a case in point here. If you stick bolts in it, you can get up any rock. This is what makes climbers get so angry on the subject of bolts. If you want to rattle a climber's cage ask him what his favourite climb is, then tell him you think it should be bolted. Provided it hasn't been already, of course.

Of course, if we did outgrow our current games by drugs or magic or whatever, no doubt we’d invent some other games. Fine. No more football - time to switch to quidditch... But the point for the moment is just this: athletics with drugs is, at best, a different game from athletics without. And when some of the competitors are playing one game and others the other, the whole activity gets into hopeless confusion.

Not just confusion, though; corruption as well. It's quite easy for the participants in a sport to be fairly severely exploited. Here's something that can happen: a naïve young boy from the slums with no prospects at all is taken up by a rich promoter and turned into a boxer. The boy makes some money, sure. The promoter makes more. And the promoter doesn't end up brain-damaged. If this happens (and I'm not saying it does, just that it can), then it seems to me that the boy has been pretty severely exploited for the enrichment of the promoter, and the entertainment of those who like watching boxing.

'In practice, if there is no regulation, individuals will not be free to decide. They will have no choice but to take the drugs because everyone else is taking them'

So compare the case in athletics where someone achieves fantastic performances by taking steroids for 20 years. Think about the kind of horror-stories we used to hear regularly from the Soviet Union about 50-year-old steroid-raged moustachioed ex-shot-putters with cataracts, duodenal ulcers, and severe weight problems. These people have been sacrificed for our entertainment. Are we happy with that? I don't think we should be.

Of course, athletes in the Soviet Union were forced to take performance-enhancing drugs. That doesn't mean it's a whole lot better to “leave individuals free to decide” what drugs they take. In practice, if there is no regulation, individuals will not be free to decide. They will have no choice but to take the drugs because everyone else is taking them. Here as elsewhere, by regulating the state serves the role that it's there for in a genuinely liberal settlement. It can regulate in a way that actually increases citizens' freedom, rather than decreasing it.

Also of course, not all performance-enhancing drugs are bad for you. Or like caffeine, they're a bit bad for you, but not very. Or their long-term effects are unknown. And there are drug therapies which involve not taking things rather than taking them, which seems just like giving up alcohol to perform better... surely some of these therapies must be all right?

Yes, there are grey areas. But there are often are grey areas in life. The fact that some things are grey doesn't mean that nothing is black or white. We can be quite clear about the kinds of performance-enhancing drugs that we most want to eradicate, and work backwards from those cases to the less obvious ones.

I suggest that the two things most worth eradicating are really harmful drugs and really expensive drugs. We should ban the harmful ones because, well, because they're harmful; we should ban the expensive ones because they turn what ought to be a competition between physiques into a competition between wallets. And once we know what we think about the clear and easy cases, we may find ourselves in a better position to think about the marginal and difficult ones.

 

Find out more:

• Professor Tim Chappell
• The OU Ethics Centre
• Free study unit: The Ancient Olympics: Bridging past and present
• More about philosophy on OpenLearn
• Study with the OU: Philosophy
   

Picture credit: Thinkstock