Undergraduate dissertation on institutional violence in the context of the Grenfell Tower fire.

‘The pen is mightier than the sword.’ This phrase is key to understanding education as a tool for social mobility and it is a concept I have always felt attached to. Numerous measures, policies, and movements around the globe echo this assumption and promote education for all, believing it to be the best way for people to advance themselves. For many, university is the holy grail of such academic achievements, with a degree–though maybe less valuable today–being an important ticket for access to...

As spring approaches, so do the annual Students’ Association elections. Though all will notice the changing temperatures and rave over the ability to leave the house coat-less, the elections for most will go unnoticed and ignored. Apart from the occasional Facebook post urging you to vote for the person who lived down your corridor’s academic mum for DoAS, DoEd, or DoSDA, it’s easy to forget elections are even happening. For most, the person they choose to vote for (if they vote at all), will be...

International Relations has an enigmatic reputation as a discipline with students and scholars alike. For IR students, much of our time studying it is spent discussing what it actually is and how we should go about defining the subject. Social science? Sub-discipline of politics? There are many ways people wish to categorise IR and there are countless angles to be taken within the discipline, from economics to history to anthropology. When applying to study the subject though it was this diversi...

Studying indoors for the past 18 months, largely confined to their bedrooms and childhood homes, students have no doubt found the walls of their study spaces are permeated by, if not creative force, then certainly academic stress. As Virginia Woolf pleaded for women to be allowed to move their studies from their private domestic spheres into the public, students have been waiting for the chance to free themselves from their private study spaces to experience the joy of studying in public. This a...

There are certain lessons we all learn from a young age about how to keep safe. Always look both ways when crossing the road, do not walk with scissors, do not… trust the police? After the sentencing of former Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens for the rape and murder of Sarah Everard last month, women have been advised just that. No longer our protectors, police officers are as likely to be predators as any other man on the street. Although there is no doubt that Wayne Couzens' actions w...

unethical depending on where it comes from, which means that when you try to be healthy and get some of your five-a-day, you could be adding thousands of air miles to your personal total or be eating fruit farmed by someone who got paid a pitiful amount. Ultimately, the choice to buy local produce from somewhere such as a farmers’ market is available, but no one can deny the difficulty for students who have just moved away from home and don’t have the time or money to act on those kinds of ethic...