FOAH2001 - Projects for 2023-24
What does ethical leadership look like?
Project Lead: Jamie Dow (PRHS)
What is involved in leading ethically? How do the requirements of ethical leadership vary across different contexts -- across different cultures, for example, or between different sectors like politics, business, the arts and religious groups? What are the main risks of unethical leadership that arise in each context? And what ultimately do good and bad leaders look like?
Students will address these questions by developing their understanding of ethics as it relates to leadership, and then applying it to two contrasting leadership contexts of their choosing. They will analyse examples of particular leaders past or present, evaluating the extent to which they have exercised leadership ethically -- that is, in a way that meets the requirements of their context. This use of critically-engaged case studies will help show what good and bad leadership looks like in the real world.
Students need an interest in ethics, and in applying it to the real world. You also need an interest in leadership and influence. You don't need to have a background in philosophy, but you do need to be willing to engage with some philosophical (ethics) literature, as well as social science literature about leadership.
There may be opportunities to work with external partner organisations to explore what ethical leadership requires in their context, if there is a good fit with the group's project.
You will deepen your understanding of leadership, of ethics, and of how they are related. You will use and develop creative and persuasive skills in communicating a picture of what ethical leadership (or unethical leadership) is like in different contexts.
Discover how stereotypes and expectations are developed and reinforced through Korean films
Project Lead: Cuie Xu (LCS)
In this project, students will view selected Korean films, analyse the cues in these films that depict Korean society realistically and research how these cues contribute to expectations and stereotypes through in-depth interviews with students who have or are studying in South Korea.
By the end of this project, you will have an in-depth understanding of how Korean society is structured, how stereotypes are formed and reinforced, and how expectations are developed. In addition, you will be able to apply the cross-cultural awareness gained from this project to studying and working in multicultural environments. You will also develop skills in critical thinking, reading, writing, interviewing, and designing a qualitative study as part of this project.
It is not necessary to be familiar with Korean society, films, and the language. The most important thing is, however, that you are interested in the topic and willing to challenge your views. This project is a qualitative study and involves interviews with UoL students. The project will not work with external partners.
Energising Women: Recovering stories of the ‘Electrical Dream’
Project Lead: Graeme Gooday (PRHS) and the Women’s Engineering Society
Global histories show how women have long been authorities on sustainable domestic energy consumption. In 1924, the new ‘Electrical Association for Women’(EAW) took responsibility for this across Britain. To mark the EAW’s centenary, the Women’s Engineering Society will run the ‘Electric Dreams’ project. That will explore how the EAW promoted more efficient energy usage via such innovations as the ‘All-Electric House’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Cs0myr00oM). There are clearly lessons here for handling today’s energy sustainability crisis.
The EAW’s magazine 'The Electrical Age (for Women)' launched in 1926 has now been digitised, and fully searchable PDFs will be available in the project’s TEAMS repository. Students will look at 'The Electrical Age' to recover EAW women’s stories to see which technologies they promoted, and why. From this, students can then examine how far the EAW pursued feminist goals: did economizing consumption via electrified energy genuinely improve women’s lives and careers?
Students will submit blogposts for the Electric Dreams project, and help the project develop a digital version of the ‘All-Electric House’. They will be supported by Helen Close (the Women’s Engineering Society Heritage Officer) and Anne Locker (Head of the Library & Archives Institution for Engineering and Technology, London). They can be contacted by email and Zoom/TEAMS calls, so no students travel will be required.
Although the main student research tasks involve historical recreation of women’s past lives and achievements, no prior training in history is needed. More importantly the key skill gained would be developing a creative and persuasive approach to learning from the past.
Addressing Sexual Abuse Scandals in Church Settings: A Toolkit
Project Lead: Johanna Stiebert (PRHS)
In a recently completed grant for which I was PI we developed a practical toolkit for use in churches/congregations addressing or seeking to prevent or heal from sexual abuse scandals, which have rocked many church communities and brought much negative publicity. The toolkit was designed for communities in New Zealand but is adaptable and was created with accessibility and hands-on usefulness in mind. I would like you (i.e. eager students!) to identify and reach out to one or more church communities in Leeds, introduce the toolkit, run focus group discussions, and gauge interest, level of need, enthusiasm, and support for the resource, as well as any feedback about how it might be best adapted or modified for use in their church.
You will work with one or more church communities in/around Leeds. You will develop skills in communication, outreach, presenting the resource, leading focus group discussions, and reporting on findings. Training and familiarisation with the toolkit will be provided by me, the academic lead. The project might involve out-of-hours time, depending on when the church-based groups have availability.
Unlocking the Workhouse
Project Lead: Ross Horsley (Thackray Medical Museum)
Heritage volunteers at the Thackray Museum of Medicine have compiled hundreds of biographies of marginalised people listed on the 1881 census. These include inmates of the Leeds Workhouse, patients in the nearby Infirmary (now St James’s Hospital) and pupils at the Moral and Industrial Training School. These are citizens who were marked out in Victorian society, due to intersections of health, disability, immigration, and social standing. From a modern perspective, we’d also see how their ethnicity, sexuality, and mental health could have put them in these positions.
This project looks beyond the stigmas faced by these individuals to ask how we can break down the stereotypes that surround them. We want to read between the lines of their recorded lives to suggest how labels like ‘criminal’ and ‘vagrant’ trapped them in cycles of vulnerability that still occur today. However, we want to balance this against a sensitive understanding of often well-meaning social reforms, and how these also improved people’s circumstances.
Undertaking this project will involve reading lots of personal histories and becoming literate in the language of Victorian life. An interest in local and family history research will be essential, as stories are drawn from a wide range of resources, including old documents, parish records and newspapers.
Dickens Search: An Online Exhibition
Project Lead: Emily Bell (English)
When you think of the author Charles Dickens, what springs to mind is most likely his novels. However, beyond the novels, Dickens was an avid philanthropist and advocate for working class education as well as social reform, and a lot can be learned about his interests and impact in this area through looking at his speeches, often given at charitable institutions around the country. However, no attempt to bring together Dickens’s speeches, often reported in newspapers, has been made since 1960 — and new databases, digitised publications, and online research tools mean it’s likely many new speeches are waiting to be discovered, expanding what we know about Dickens.
This project invites you to contribute to a major project attempting to bring all of Dickens’s works together (https://dickenssearch.com), giving you the opportunity to create an online exhibition around the speeches and their significance, as well as adding the speeches to the database. How does this different side of Dickens allow us to reflect on what we know about him?
You will learn about nineteenth-century politics, philanthropy, literary culture and periodical culture. You will also develop independent research skills, skills writing for the web and curating digital exhibitions, and experience with database and content management software.
You don’t need expertise in digital methods or databases to apply to this project: there will be guidance on the (simple) database interface, and the bulk of the work would be using library resources to find new speeches, working effectively as a team to keep track of tasks and new findings, and conducting research to enable you to present what you discover to different audiences.
Community Knowledge of snakes, snake bite risks and treatments in rural Uganda: An arts-based perspective.
Project Lead: Jessica Mitchell (Nuffield Centre for International Health)
This project is a collaboration between UoL, University of Swansea and the New Life Community in rural Uganda. Work aims to understand how rural Ugandan communities perceive snakes, snake bite risks and treatments. Snakebites are recognised by the World Health Organisation as a Neglected Tropical Disease, with ~5 million bites globally causing ~100,000 deaths per year in. Many communities impacted by snakebites also kill and harm snakes through fear of bites. Most current work on snakebites focuses on post-bite therapeutics (health seeking and medical approaches) but this project aims to prevent incidents of bites via deep and integrated understanding of both sides of the human-wildlife conflict: the impacted communities and the snake
Work will utilize an existing data set of survey findings, interview transcripts, observation notes (both in English), photos and some videos regarding community perceptions of snakes, snake bite myths and stories in rural Uganda. We would like students to help us to summarise findings from this data in engaging and creative ways which allow rural Ugandan people to engage with the data they have provided us and use their own knowledge of snakes to support pro-snake behaviour and minimise incidents of human-snake conflict.
Students do not need to have any prior knowledge of snake biology or behaviour as this will be developed through the engagement with community level data on the project. We are looking for creative individuals with an interest in community engagement and possibly story telling methods, who are able to disseminate findings in new ways. An interest in global health would be an advantage but not essential. There may be the opportunity to travel to Swansea University to work with other collaborators but again this is not essential. Unfortunately there is not current budget for travel to Uganda.
Exploring 21st Century ‘Cults’
Project Lead: Aled Thomas (PRHS)
Whether you're a fan of a 'cult band' or recently read an article about the 'cult of Trump', there is a good chance that you have encountered the concept of 'cults' in popular culture and media. ‘Cults’ are closely tied with controversy, often associated with issues such as ‘brainwashing’ and charismatic (yet ultimately duplicitous) leaders. But the reality is more complex. For example, did you know that ‘brainwashing’ has been debunked as a pseudoscience by scholars in the social sciences? Moreover, the concept of ‘cults’ is often weaponized to marginalise people based on race, gender, and ethnicity. By getting involved with this project, you will learn about the complex nuances at play within groups commonly identified as ‘cults’ (both religious and non-religious), and explore how use of the term in the 21st century allows us to understand highly controversial and contested discourses. These will range from minority religions such as Scientology and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, but also political movements such as QAnon, the ‘cult of Trump’, and conversations surrounding the COVID-19 vaccine.
Students working on this project will be involved in the organisation of a public workshop at the University of Leeds on contemporary ‘cultic’ discourses. Working with Dr Aled Thomas, you will have the opportunity to develop your skills as independent researchers, working collaboratively, and public speaking/teaching. The workshop itself will be a highly supportive environment, in which people from a variety of backgrounds will come to take part in a series of discussions which you will help organise – including ‘what is a “Cult”’, ‘is “Cult” a colonialist term?’, ‘what does QAnon and COVID tell us about “cult” rhetoric?”, and ‘can “cult” be an empowering term for survivors?’ (topics may change based on your research!).
Working on this project will involve conducting research on 21st century issues pertaining to ‘cults’, and the dominant themes that emerge. These topics will be highly provocative and may challenge your assumptions of what ‘cults’ may be. Prior knowledge in religion is not required – rather we are looking for critical minds and those with a taste for the controversial! This is an exciting opportunity to develop your academic skills whilst working on the wider ‘Cult Rhetoric in the 21st Century’ project (led by Dr Thomas and Edward Graham-Hyde from the University of Central Lancashire).
Access to higher education through the eyes of under-represented learners
Project Lead: Natalie Aldridge (Go Higher West Yorkshire/UoL)
Go Higher West Yorkshire (GHWY) is a partnership of 13 higher education (HE) providers working together to reduce inequality in HE access, success and progression. They GHWY team (including those employed for the Uni Connect project) supports learners across West Yorkshire who are underrepresented in HE by delivering outreach and attainment raising activities.
We would like students working on this project to develop our portfolio of learner-led resources. You would ideally be collaborating with a group(s) of school pupils (we would provide the access) and/or other HE students to co-produce creative online resources. We want to elevate the voices and experiences of underrepresented learners to help make HE feel like a viable and attractive option for others like them.
For example, resources could incorporate stories/fact files of local learners’ experiences of outreach, experiences in HE and/or their role models. We work specifically with learners with some characteristics that are under-represented in HE, namely:
• Males on free school meals
• Black, Asian and Minoritised Ethnicity learners
• Learners with a disability
• Learners who are care-experienced.
As a group you would choose the learners you would like to focus on, from the above list, and design resources with and for them. Alternatively, you could target your resources at other important influencers of these learners, such as teachers or parents/carers. We are also open to other ideas on how to approach this task in general.
You will need to bring a problem-solving attitude and a sensitivity to the barriers to higher education experienced by many learners. Creative thinking, some techy skills and an interest in social mobility would also be useful!
Exploring Sustainable Development in UK UNESCO Designated Sites
Project Lead: Francesca Giliberto (LUBS)
In this research project, students will explore a systemic approach to sustainable development within specific UK UNESCO designated sites in collaboration with the UK National Commission (UKNC) for UNESCO (info at: unesco.org.uk). They will investigate how these sites address interconnected challenges and serve as a bridge from local to global action. Throughout their research, students will work with site managers, project evaluators and the UKNC for UNESCO to understand the interactions between diverse sectors and goals.
Students will conduct online interviews and surveys to gain insights into how these sites address economic, social, environmental, and cultural concerns in connection with UNESCO’s Medium Term Strategy 2022-29, the United Nations’ Agenda 2030, the Sustainable Development Goals and the United Nations’ Common Agenda. Their research would align with the key metrics of the evaluation framework of the UKNC’s project "Local to Global – building a resilient UNESCO network in the UK", providing an opportunity for their work to be referenced in the final evaluation report of this project.
Throughout the project, students will develop skills, experience, and knowledge in UNESCO designations, policy frameworks and sustainable development practices. They will acquire research skills, including data collection, report writing and effective communication with stakeholders such as the UKNC’s Local to Global Board. Optional knowledge exchange events can facilitate critical discussions with site managers, policymakers, and academics.
No prior expertise in sustainable development or UNESCO designations is required to apply for this project. Students passionate about cultural and natural heritage, sustainability, and policy implementation are encouraged to join this project.
Education Support for Refugees and Asylum Seekers
Project Leads: Mohammed Hussain (Lifelong Learning Centre) and Leeds Asylum Seekers Support Network (LASSN)
In this project you will be working with students from other Leeds Universities and staff from community refugee partner organisations who work with asylum seekers and refugees to further develop materials to support refugees and asylum seekers to access education pathways to higher education institutions in Leeds. You will be conducting research and working with professionals from a range of organisations in the city to further develop and refine existing online resource and supporting materials.
Leeds Asylum Seekers Support Network and the Refugee Education Training Advice Service in Leeds are our key city partners who will be providing training and support. You will further develop your research, teamwork and communication skills as well as develop your knowledge and expertise in matters relating to refugee and asylum seeker experience. You will need to be proactive and willing to develop your skills but you do not need expertise in UK education systems or refugee and asylum seeker issues. Training will be provided. As well as the weekly meetings and training you will need to be able to travel to visit partners across the city, usually but not always during office hours.
Smeaton300 – The Art of Engineering
Project Lead: Dibyadyuti Roy
The University of Leeds has proudly announced its official partnership with Smeaton300 to commemorate the 300th birthday of John Smeaton, known as the father of civil engineering.
Born in Leeds in 1724, Smeaton dedicated his life to developing tools and innovations for the betterment of society, leaving behind a legacy in the field of infrastructure design, including bridges, canals, harbours, and lighthouses.
Smeaton300, a national creative events programme, takes inspiration from the groundbreaking work of the UK’s first civil engineer to curate a series of engaging events for the public.
The year-long programme will draw inspiration from four key areas that underpin Smeaton’s work:
- Inspired by Nature
Smeaton harnessed elements like water, wind, and air, earning the Copley Medal for his work on renewable off-grid technology. - The Art of Engineering
Smeaton’s work was interdisciplinary in nature. This theme will be looking at how partnerships among engineers, artists, scientists, and designers can be found everywhere. - Find Our Way Home
Smeaton's contributions to bridges, waterways, lighthouses, and navigation instruments highlight civil engineering's role in navigation, mapping, and migration. - For the Public Good
Smeaton was an ethical employer, providing fair treatment, sick pay, and medical coverage for injured workers. He prioritised public good over personal profit.
The output of the project depends largely on the direction the student group decides to take the material, inspired by one of the above themes but could take the form of one of the following:A History trail exploring where Smeaton’s legacy can be found in Leeds or further afield; Interactive website; Short film; Zine; Public talks; Contributions to the Smeaton300 JournalYour work will actively contribute to the University of Leeds Smeaton300 programme, and you will have several chances to present work throughout 2024.
There are no external partners formally attached to the project, however you may have the chance to speak to and /or work with Foxglove, who first developed the Smeaton300 programme, as well as Leeds Industrial Museum, who are running an exhibition largely inspired by Smeaton from October 2023.