SuperdiverseUCL: a podcast showcasing empowered, cross-cultural discussions between students

Post by Jiawei Ding and Lyndsey Li, UCL PhD students within the Institute of Education and Clinical, Education and Health Psychology department.

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Reading time: ~ 2 mins

SuperdiverseUCL is a podcast series funded by UCL Grand Challenges and co-hosted by Jiawei Ding and Lyndsey Li. They want to promote cultural awareness and inclusiveness through fortnightly conversations on a range of topics, with UCL students from different cultural backgrounds.

In the past few years studying at UCL as international students, we felt there was so much we could learn from conversations with our fellow students. UCL is an international university – 53% of our students come from countries outside the UK. Even within the UK student community there is lots of cultural diversity.

Conversations with people from other cultures allow us to learn about different people, giving us new perspectives, making us more curious and open-minded, and enabling us to embrace differences in the changing world. However, these opportunities are often lost.

We want to showcase and celebrate diversity, not simply label students by their race, ethnicity or nationality

Although there are calls to celebrate diversity, some students still find it challenging to engage and feel included. International students from a different backgrounds may feel out of place and find it difficult to approach new people, whilst home students have also told us they also struggle to find the right opportunities to connect with international students. These challenges may have been more significant this year, with teaching and student activities moved online because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

We have called the podcast ‘superdiverse’ because we want to showcase and celebrate diversity, not simply label students by their race, ethnicity, or nationality. We understand that everyone’s journey is unique, and we’d like to hear about the different views and stories that each individual journey has brought.

We are hoping that by participating in and listening to the podcast, students feel empowered to contribute to cross-cultural discussions in an active way. We hope our conversations will introduce you to new perspectives, and virtually accompany you at this unprecedented time.

Catch the most recent episodes of our podcast by visiting our website, SoundCloud or Spotify.