We are sharing here some autumn 2024 updates from History UK, which relate to EDI in the discipline.
The History UK Disability and History Project (co-funded by the RHS) invites disabled and non-disabled participants to contribute via surveys and focus groups. Your contributions will feed into the project report. This will provide an evidence base for recommendations, which we hope can enhance experiences in HE and showcase examples of good practice.
For more information, survey links and participation in focus groups, please visit the Disability and History project page on our website. Please share widely within your departments and networks as the more responses, the better the evidence base.
Another important and related project, Accessible Pasts, Equitable Futures may be of interest.
Imperial War Museums are currently running a survey to ask how they might reimagine some of our services. This is being run as part of the ‘Accessible Pasts, Equitable Futures‘ project, which is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and led by Ann-Marie Foster. The project asks what can be done to improve access for disabled, chronically ill, and/or neurodivergent users of our collections.
As part of this, we are asking our collection users if they have any feedback about how accessible they find our research services. You do not have to have a disability, chronic illness, or be neurodivergent to take this survey, although some of the questions are geared towards people with these lived experiences. The survey can be found here: https://forms.office.com/e/XqPWkUnDWU
If you have any questions about the survey, or the wider project, please contact apef@iwm.org.uk
The new History and Wellbeing article in the RHS Transactions aims to promote discussion on this very important topic among those working in history departments in the UK. David Stark’s Promoting Well-being through History Teaching explores the potential for the greater infusion of well-being concerns into the teaching of history.
A Portrait of the Teaching of the British Empire, Migration, and Belonging in English Secondary Schools is inviting participation from university historians to better understand how these topics are approached in higher education (and how they align with secondary school teaching). Contributions will shape professional development for secondary school teachers and help bridge the gap between academic and school-level teaching of these critical topics. Participate by completing the PortraitEMB project survey.