Humans often tend to surround themselves with people who are more or less alike themselves. How this becomes evident in Lund and why we might miss opportunities and perspectives by doing so is what Eleonora Kleibel has touched upon in her column.
“So wait, there are truly only students in this club?”
Until a friend from home came to visit me in Lund, I honestly did not spend too many thoughts on how exclusive and non-diverse many of the typical Lund activities are.
Living in a student-town definitely has its perks. I enjoy the community spirit Lund has and the proximity of everything that comes with its small-town charm.
I think it is great to have talks with so many people who also dig their head in research and science. I might already have had lunch with the person inventing the Bluetooth of 2016 or finding an answer to the global crisis.
But sometimes I feel that our relations, conversations and meetings result in a lopsided perception.
Education is still a privilege. And by far not everyone has the chance to go to University. Even if we feel we worked hard to be, where we currently are, statistics show a strong bias.
European Universities are predominately white and middle-class. The gender gap among undergraduate students could be overcome in the past years, but the higher one goes up, the thinner the air still is for women. The majority of students come from a household where at least one person holds a University degree.
Overall, no European country has more than 37% of academics. And in that case, we are speaking about Norway. Other countries, like Slovenia and Austria, have rates below 15%.
Of course, not everybody has to go into tertiary education. Some people enjoy acquiring skills through hands-on experiences or directly pursuing employment. But there should be an actual possibility to choose. And this is want many people still do not have.
Thus, as diverse as Lund sometimes comes across, we still swim in a fairly small pond. Hanging out in one’s own academic bubble, we easily forget that this is not at all a cross-section of society. Surrounding yourself with people from different departments can be eye-opening, but there are also important lessons to learn outside the lecture halls.
Actually reaching out of the student-hub can can make us aware of our own privileges. Educational and social opportunities are not equally open to everyone. Where we are born and who are parents are is still a decisive factor in what we are able to achieve. There are still several barriers of structural discrimination on the way to higher education institutions that cause, and reproduce present inequalities.
Overall, as difficult and exhausting as our one little world sometimes seems, we should be aware that many of us get to play this game called life at the lowest difficulty level.
