Race talk and white normativity: classroom discourse and narratives in Norwegian higher education

How does the process of racialization unfold as a discursive project at the university? How do students and faculty in the classroom use racial categories in supposedly post-racial places? How do People of Color in higher education in Norway narrate their experiences of being ‘Othered’? We draw on two linked studies and use membership categorization analysis and the analysis of narrative interviews to examine the shared dynamics of racialization in classroom discourse and lived experience. We use Nirmal Puwar’s (2004. Space Invaders: Race, Gender and Bodies Out of Place. Oxford: Berg) Space Invaders to explore the racialized dynamic of disorientation in academic spaces, and how disorientation and assumptions of non-belonging contribute to the condition of epistemic injustice (Fricker, Miranda. 2007. Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.) in higher education.publishedVersio

“We don’t throw stones, we throw flowers”: race discourse and race evasiveness in the Norwegian university classroom

Under embargo until: 2022-10-01How do university students and instructors engage in discussions about race and racism in a country where speaking about race is perceived as racist? In Norway, as in much of Europe, the concept of “race” is silenced, discarded as a wrong-headed remnant of Nazism, despite continued documentation of racial discrimination in labour, housing, education and interpersonal interaction. We used Membership Category Analysis to explore race-related interactions in classroom discourse in three university courses. We find that students and instructors implicitly equate Norwegianness with whiteness, peacefulness, and innocence, and characterize racism with deviance and non-Norwegianness. The national belonging of racialized “Others” in Norway is ambiguous: accepted, but not unproblematically. The category race is elided with the concepts of culture, ethnicity and biology. We propose discursive meta-awareness as an educational approach to countering race evasiveness (often described as “colourblindness”).acceptedVersio

Maintaining quality assessment practices in Norwegian higher education after the two-evaluator law

In May 2021, the Norwegian parliament voted unanimously to again require the use of two evaluators to assess all student work given a grade on the A-F scale in higher education. This revision of the law regulating higher education marks a return to a rule that had been rescinded with the Quality Reform of 2001, and has the potential to lead to a cascade of negative consequences for the quality of practices in STEM higher education. We first provide an overview of the problem, and then offer practical, constructive, and evidence-based suggestions for how instructors can meet these requirements while still offering students opportunities to gain formative feedback, to engage in deep and meaningful learning, and be assessed in ways that are aligned with the intended learning outcomes of the course. These recommendations are certainly not exclusive to a STEM learning context, but two of us (CJ and SC) are STEM educators and bring that perspective to this work.publishedVersio

On the homology of the Harmonic Archipelago

We calculate the singular homology and \v{C}ech cohomology groups of the Harmonic archipelago. As a corollary, we prove that this space is not homotopy equivalent to the Griffiths space. This is interesting in view of Eda's proof that the first singular homology groups of these spaces are isomorphic

Oral Contraceptives and Reproductive Cancers: Weighing the Risks and Benefits

The hypothetical incidence of reproductive cancers resulting from oral contraceptive use was estimated in several models comparing the cumulative lifetime incidence of cancer of the breast, cervix, ovary and endometrium expected in pill users with the incidence expected in nonusers. The potential number of cancer-free days that would be gained or lost by pill users was com- pared with similar estimates among nonusers. If five years or more of pill use were associated with a 20% increase in the risk of breast cancerbeing diagnosed before age 50, a 20% increase in cervical cancer risk and a 50% reduction in the risks of ovarian and endometrial cancers, then every 100,000 pill users would experience 44 fewer reproductive cancers during their lifetime than would nonusers, and would gain one more day free of cancer. If higher estimates of the five-yearpill-associated risks of breast and cervical cancer are used-a 50% increased risk of each, for example-then pill users would experience more reproductive cancers than nonusers and would have 11 fewer cancer-free days of life

Utdanning, rasialisering og tilhørighetens grenser

Språklige konstruksjoner bærer med seg forestillinger om tilhørighet og verdi, så vel som avvik og underordning. Denne artikkelen bygger på funn fra analyser av dialoger mellom studenter og forelesere i fire bacheloremner ved to norske universitet. Vi viser hvordan dialogene produserer forestillinger om det norske som setter grenser for tilhørighet og rasialiserer deler av befolkningen. Med utgangspunkt i funnene diskuterer artikkelen utdanningssystemets rolle i å utfordre diskursivt konstruerte maktstrukturer.publishedVersio

LORIS: a web-based data management system for multi-center studies

Longitudinal Online Research and Imaging System (LORIS) is a modular and extensible web-based data management system that integrates all aspects of a multi-center study: from heterogeneous data acquisition (imaging, clinical, behavior, and genetics) to storage, processing, and ultimately dissemination. It provides a secure, user-friendly, and streamlined platform to automate the flow of clinical trials and complex multi-center studies. A subject-centric internal organization allows researchers to capture and subsequently extract all information, longitudinal or cross-sectional, from any subset of the study cohort. Extensive error-checking and quality control procedures, security, data management, data querying, and administrative functions provide LORIS with a triple capability (1) continuous project coordination and monitoring of data acquisition (2) data storage/cleaning/querying, (3) interface with arbitrary external data processing “pipelines.” LORIS is a complete solution that has been thoroughly tested through a full 10 year life cycle of a multi-center longitudinal project1 and is now supporting numerous international neurodevelopment and neurodegeneration research projects

The GOAL study: a prospective examination of the impact of factor V Leiden and ABO(H) blood groups on haemorrhagic and thrombotic pregnancy outcomes

Factor V Leiden (FVL) and ABO(H) blood groups are the common influences on haemostasis and retrospective studies have linked FVL with pregnancy complications. However, only one sizeable prospective examination has taken place. As a result, neither the impact of FVL in unselected subjects, any interaction with ABO(H) in pregnancy, nor the utility of screening for FVL is defined. A prospective study of 4250 unselected pregnancies was carried out. A venous thromboembolism (VTE) rate of 1·23/1000 was observed, but no significant association between FVL and pre-eclampsia, intra-uterine growth restriction or pregnancy loss was seen. No influence of FVL and/or ABO(H) on ante-natal bleeding or intra-partum or postpartum haemorrhage was observed. However, FVL was associated with birth-weights >90th centile [odds ratio (OR) 1·81; 95% confidence interval (CI<sub>95</sub>) 1·04–3·31] and neonatal death (OR 14·79; CI<sub>95</sub> 2·71–80·74). No association with ABO(H) alone, or any interaction between ABO(H) and FVL was observed. We neither confirmed the protective effect of FVL on pregnancy-related blood loss reported in previous smaller studies, nor did we find the increased risk of some vascular complications reported in retrospective studies