Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
Bath Spa University is conducting an internal inquiry into claims that it turned down an application for research on gender reassignment reversal because it was "potentially politically incorrect" and would attract criticism on social media.
James Caspian, a psychotherapist who specialises in working with transgender people, proposed the research about "detransitioning" to the university in south-west England, which, he said, initially approved the application.
When he went back with his preliminary findings that suggested growing numbers of young people, particularly women, were regretting gender reassignment, Bath Spa said his proposal would have to be resubmitted to the ethics committee, which rejected it.
Caspian, who enrolled on an MA course at the university, said he was "astonished" by the decision and had sought legal advice.
"The fundamental reason given was that it might cause criticism of the research on social media, and criticism of the research would be criticism of the university. They also added it's better not to offend people," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Monday.
I was going to add some snark here but they pretty well covered making a mockery of academia for me.
Source: The Guardian
Also at: The Times
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 10 2017, @11:55AM (1 child)
You're extremely incorrect there. Unsupervised research is required for quite a lot of majors. Especially of the social sciences variety. I've personally had my time wasted on silly research studies more than once by family and friends looking for a head-shrinky masters.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Tuesday October 10 2017, @06:56PM
Well, as I mentioned, I have a science background.
I can tell you how it works in a science curriculum - and yes, that's extrapolating from what little data I have.
The core of the science curriculum challenge is that usually, there isn't enough time in the study to teach a decent background in the area. You end up having to make choices. So you're not going to waste time letting students flaunder when you could actually be teaching them something.
Of course, if the flaundering is the whole point of the exercise, that's different. You see that e.g. in teacher training (for some levels at least): practice is over 50% of the curriculum. Similarly, a few of the social sciences groups around here teach people research methodology. So I'll admit that that could be the case: that this person enrolled in a programme that teaches (social science) research methodology. It's still more than a little weird to me that he'd go in dead set on what his research should be about though - part of learning about doing research is learning the questions to ask.
If you go in knowing what to do already, what's the point of the programme?