The community theme explores the connection between students and their local areas and the key role they can play in organising for positive change for both local student and non-student communities.
What are the shared issues that bridge both student and non-student communities, and what practical ways can students and students’ unions become catalysts and hubs of activism in partnership with their local communities? And in particular, what is the role of students in local democracy and what impact would student voter registration on a mass scale have?
How can we make the student voice heard loud and clear in forthcoming votes, whether they’re European elections, local elections, the Scottish independence referendum or the General Election in 2015?
There is a clear cultural misunderstanding about the diversity within the student marketplace. I’ve said for some time that there is room for someone to carry out some rebalancing about expressing that diversity.
The problem with this is that it is difficult to establish what the success measures of any campaign would be. Is there anything that measures the general public’s perception of students? Are we just making assumptions based on anecdotal information?
Thanks Andy. In response to your idea, we’re going to look at some public perceptions work. Watch this space!
Do you think that negative stereotypes of students, e.g. in sitcoms/media, influence people’s perceptions in real life? If so what could/should we do about those?