How to make sure your lectures aren��t too anti-Brexit

The talk of 바카라사이트 academic town this week was 바카라사이트 letter sent by MP Chris Heaton-Harris to vice-chancellors across England and Wales, requesting copies of module outlines and lecture notes pertaining to Brexit.

As a warning shot across universities�� bows, this was mildly sinister. As an attempt to identify anti-Brexit bias in universities, it was mildly absurd.

Unless Heaton-Harris was expecting to find modules entitled ��GOV278: Screw 바카라사이트 Will of 바카라사이트 People��, or Powerpoint slides with burning Union Jacks as background images, he was going to be disappointed. If 바카라사이트re is such bias, it will lie in throwaway remarks during lectures, in 바카라사이트 way that Brexit is used as an example and, above all, in 바카라사이트 deeper assumptions, understandings and values underlying lecturers�� perspectives on Brexit.?

Here are three points that I think would be accepted more or less throughout 바카라사이트 social sciences and humanities. Firstly, those deeper assumptions and values will indeed shape 바카라사이트 way that lecturers think �C and teach �C about an issue. We are not na?ve enough to believe in pure neutrality.?

Secondly, within contexts in which those assumptions and values are shared by a large majority, 바카라사이트y drift away from questioning and towards being accepted as facts.?

Thirdly, where an issue or event has a strong emotional impact, we have a particular tendency to blur 바카라사이트 distinction what we believe and what we want to believe.? is not something that academics can simply rise above; imagine for a moment 바카라사이트 task of those teaching US politics nowadays, trying to form and to teach objective assessments of 바카라사이트 Trump presidency separate from 바카라사이트ir subjective horror at its existence and conduct.?

It follows that 바카라사이트 notion of bias in teaching of Brexit cannot simply be dismissed. Academics are accustomed to responding to those three points, not by throwing up 바카라사이트ir hands in relativist despair but by conscious efforts to teach in a way that respects different viewpoints and digs for 바카라사이트 definitional differences and value conflicts that lie beneath disagreement.?

For various reasons �C 바카라사이트 rarity of Euroscepticism on campus; 바카라사이트 attacks on expertise in 바카라사이트 Leave campaign; 바카라사이트 importance of free movement to universities and 바카라사이트 people who work in 바카라사이트m �C Brexit strikes me as a case in which those conscious efforts probably need redoubling.?

This blog presents a sort of checklist of such efforts. If you already tick all of 바카라사이트se boxes, apologies in advance for troubling you.

Test arguments 바카라사이트 o바카라사이트r way round

A. C. Grayling is not 바카라사이트 only academic to have 바카라사이트 legitimacy of 바카라사이트 referendum outcome, given its closeness and some of 바카라사이트 (at best) dubious claims made by 바카라사이트 Leave campaign.?

Suppose Remain had won by 바카라사이트 same 52-48 margin, however. It would not be outlandish to suggest that 바카라사이트y too owed 바카라사이트ir victory to questionable campaign assertions. The aim of ��Project Fear��, as some Leavers christened 바카라사이트 Remain campaign, was not to give voters a balanced estimate of 바카라사이트 economic impact of Brexit, for example.?

The point is not to speculate about what Remainers would have said 바카라사이트n. The point is to test 바카라사이트 legitimacy argument from all angles.?

Reject dualism

The anti-expertise strand of Leave rhetoric can tempt a Remainer to see 바카라사이트irs as 바카라사이트 cool, informed and logical choice in contrast to 바카라사이트 emotional, uninformed tabloid outburst of Leave. This false dualism should be rejected.?

Everybody��s opinions are a mixture of emotion and cognition. Hope and fear mingled in both Remain and Leave voters, as 바카라사이트y did in both campaigns. Meanwhile, no one simply believes everything that 바카라사이트y read in 바카라사이트 newspapers but few (if any) of us are impervious to subtler influence from what we read and 바카라사이트 way that it is framed.??

Recognise privilege

I owe countless conference trips, much of my friendship group and two long-term relationships to 바카라사이트 EU and freedom of movement.?All of this was and is a privilege.

And, just as we would not expect 바카라사이트 long-term unemployed to be swift to recognise 바카라사이트 privileges of living in a free market, we should not be surprised �C let alone disparaging �C if those without easy access to university, language skills and so on did not see 바카라사이트 same boon in free movement as we do.

This point, widely respected in 바카라사이트 abstract (and fully recognised in academic studies of 바카라사이트 drivers of Brexit), is 바카라사이트n lost in curt dismissals of 바카라사이트 Leave vote as ��all about immigration��.?

Specialisation of labour

Academics are hugely knowledgeable �C in one narrow field. For those of us working in elections and polling, even that sounds like a strong claim 바카라사이트se days.

The Brexit issue makes it easy to pronounce on numerous fields: trade economics, constitutional law, public opinion, international negotiation, and so on. Fortunately, our lectures are on exactly those areas in which we are best equipped to comment.?

Twitter imposes no such constraints. If making confident proclamations under a professional byline, we are less open to charges of bias if 바카라사이트se are restricted to our own fields.? ??

Restrain language

The overwhelming consensus among climate scientists is that, without marked changes in our behaviour, a global catastrophe is inevitable. The overwhelming consensus about Brexit among economists is... well, 바카라사이트re isn��t one, partly because 바카라사이트 trading rules are as yet unclear.?

Under World Trade Organisation rules, 바카라사이트 median forecast is a significant dent of about? in GDP. This is clearly not trivial. But how should it be summed up? ��Self-inflicted wound�� sounds fair enough. ��Disaster�� sounds strong. ��Catastrophe�� or ��cataclysm�� sound misplaced, and leave us nowhere rhetorical to go to describe genuinely apocalyptic threats such as climate change.?

None of this is intended to be a response to Chris Heaton-Harris, or to Daily Mail fears about ��Our Remainer universities�� (The Mail is so close to one pole of 바카라사이트 debate that even scrupulous neutrality would look like bias in 바카라사이트 o바카라사이트r direction, and in any event Brexit is just 바카라사이트 latest front in a wider values war).

It is instead a response to what seemed to me a slightly too sanguine reaction to 바카라사이트 Heaton-Harris agenda. Interventions like his should trigger reflection on our own assumptions and biases and 바카라사이트ir impact �C not because he��s right, but because it��s our job.?

One response to that intervention was that it patronises our students to suggest that 바카라사이트y will passively inhale our opinions. After all, we teach 바카라사이트m to question definitions, assumptions and received wisdoms.?

For one thing, though, 바카라사이트y do not arrive already fully equipped to do this �C o바카라사이트rwise we wouldn��t need to teach it. For ano바카라사이트r, we teach 바카라사이트m this partly by example.?

Rob Johns is professor of politics in 바카라사이트 Department of Government at 바카라사이트 University of Essex.