I was planning on studying at Open Uni.... what should I do

[BlessedKali]

Hi all, not sure where else to post this as looking for specific Sex and Gender related advice...

I was planning on studying Psychology part time with the OU - I'm a stay at home mum to three little ones in a rural part of the country, making OU the only viable option.

With all the current court cases against the OU regarding freedom of speech/gender critical views I am now feeling unsure of how to proceed.

If gender ideology propaganda has manged to enter law degrees, I can only imagine the infiltration that has occured in Psychology.

I was really looking forward to diving into the academic world and writing essays / dissetations - now I am feeling apprehensive that I will feel restricted in my work, or suffer the punishment.

Any advice or thoughts?

Seagullchippy, beautifully put!

Hello @BlessedKali

Firstly I wish you well with your study plans and I hope they come to fruition. Studying with little ones will be hard, but (hopefully!) incredibly fulfilling.

Don’t be put off. I work at the OU. I am GC. You might come across the odd bit of module material which is nonsense and have to decide whether you react, ignore, other. You might have a tutor whose views you find problematic. Again, you will have to decide how you respond.

It could be framed that this is part of the higher educational experience. How do you deal with difficult situations like this? This sort of thing is actually a really useful skill that practically anyone working in a professional environment will need to develop/use at some point. You might tactically ignore contentious material and avoid confrontation for the sake of one assignment grade. You might speak up, making effective evidenced (academically sound) arguments for a different perspective. You might ask to be transferred to a different tutor group.

OU module materials are, in my view, in general, outstanding. I have worked on lots, in different subject areas, although not psychology. I have first hand experience of external academics being extremely impressed by what is offered to students.

I would not be swayed by the upcoming employment tribunals. As others have said the OU is a massive institution. It has thousands of employees, some of whom are very into LGBTQ+ activism, some of whom set up the gender critical research network, some of whom are oblivious to or not particularly interested in the whole subject. And many other points of view. It is a very diverse organisation and has a very diverse student population.

Also, time has moved on and public opinion and awareness of gender identity has also changed since the time of the circumstances of the cases coming to tribunal. Jo Phoenix left the OU over 18 months ago. Her tribunal will be in October. Almut Gaddow’s case dates back to autumn 2021. I have no idea when the tribunal will be (if it goes that far), but it will not be any time soon.

The University Secretary today sent an email that acknowledged the upcoming employment cases in the media, recognised the different perspectives of staff and students on the topic of gender and reminded staff of the policy on academic freedom. It might not be perfect but it is a very different world to two years ago.

Here are some links to the GCRN seminars. They include Emma Hilton, Cathy Devine, Lisa Littman and many others. There is some overlap between the two channels.

OU Gender Critical Research Network YouTube channel

Early GCRN videos on YouTube on OU Health and wellbeing PRA channel

I live in Milton Keynes (home of the OU) and know a few Psychology lecturers from the OU who are fully paid up TRAs. Especially the ones with specialisms in feminism which just boggles me.

My concern would be whether what I was being taught was in any way evidence / fact based or just someone's pet ideology.

Almut Gadow's case is just jaw dropping. If I'm reading the crowdjustice page correctly the law course was deliberately implying the law that states it is illegal for adults to have sexual relationships with children doesn't exist or is in some way unimportant. If they're deliberately not teaching bits of the law / facts that a certain group of people don't like how on earth is the degree of any value? Even before the quite obvious ethical issues, it just wouldn't prepare you adequately for a job after graduation.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4874912-almut-gadow-v-open-university-again

@dimorphism
“If I'm reading the crowdjustice page correctly the law course was deliberately implying the law that states it is illegal for adults to have sexual relationships with children doesn't exist or is in some way unimportant.”

There is another thread about the Almut Gaddow case. There have been reservations expressed on that thread by an OU member of staff who has looked at the material and identified how Almut Gaddow may have made inferences which the actual material does not actually imply. The reason one of the individuals in the question scenario is 17 is because students are being tested on their understanding of the course material
on the youth justice system. The individual is over 17 so they are over the age of consent. There -is- material (effectively the mark scheme) that none of us have seen, which Almut, and her lawyers, will. But her interpretation in relation to the age of the protagonist at a particular point in the scenario is speculation. Based on what was provided to the students there is no suggestion whatsoever of an underage relationship, or grooming. The assessment is about other aspects of criminal law.

Some people are getting quite carried away with their interpretations of what is actually known, and ignoring reasonable points being made by others with evidence to back them up. They would not score well if it was their assignment!

By all means support Almut in pursuing this as you wish. She may well have a strong case for how she was treated in response to her asking questions about the assignment, seeking clarification and expressing her views on it. That will play out during the legal process. The case is multifaceted in what the issues were. In my view it’s not helpful to make extrapolations about what the OU is or isn’t actually teaching/assessing without first-hand evidence. See the screenshots on the other thread.

As i and others pointed out, a 17 year old can be a CSE victim in circumstances where there is coercion, control or an imbalance of power.

I wouldn't be so quick to accept that poster's interpretation as gospel, which seems to be that it was completely unreasonable to mention the possibility of grooming in a controlling relationship, and indeed various people on the thread weren't convinced by it.

I'm planning on doing a HR degree and the magical thinking had steeped into HR big time. My work sent me the menopause policy to update and it's horrendous. I'm trying to hold the line that only biological women i.e. those born with female reproductive organs can experience menopause. Guess what the bosses think.......?

Agree, that poster is rather invested in defending ou and is putting words into other posters mouths (words they haven't said).

Having read the thread fully now I'm more, not less concerned. There is a difference between not giving marks for raising other issues and actively penalizing students for raising other issues (losing points for wrongthink).

There is a difference between not giving marks for raising other issues and actively penalizing students for raising other issues (losing points for wrongthink).

Quite.

I would recommended the OU to anybody and I do so all of the time. The same tendency of theirs to support the gender ideology has also served for me to have the best of support as an autistic student and also has created a university that is geared up for those of us left behind by the standard process. I know a lot of fellow mums who couldn't study any other way, a lot of fellow working class people who couldn't afford any other way, a lot of disabled people who require distance learning, etc.

I can't speak on Psychology. I'm a History student, just now starting my 4th and 5th modules. I have been flicking through my books as I get prepared for the year and noticed a chapter on gender which is remarkably impartial, although this is around 500 years ago we are talking! Maybe it would be written differently in reference to today's standards, I don't know.

But one thing to remember, at least from my perspective, is that we are constantly taught how to be critical thinkers. We are told to remember the bias of the author (including the OU materials), we are told to remember our own bias when looking at the past for example, we are told to use multiple sources and not to take things at face value. They teach the tools that undoes all of this dogma.

If you have an independent head on your shoulders (and it is a huge amount of solitary work, not much hand holding, and hard with other commitments), it is the right thing for you.

Best of luck, whatever you choose. I can honestly say it's the best decision I ever made.

I'm part way through an OU degree and this has not come up. But I'm doing maths so they would have to crow bar it in.

That wasn’t what I meant at all. There are definitely times in general would be reasonable to talk about a 17 year old in those terms if say, you were describing a relationship between a teacher and a student.

My point was that a) grooming sexual offences aren’t covered in the course so students wouldn’t get marks for talking about these issues and b) in her crowdfunder Almut presents the assessment as representing a relationship between an adult and a child and normalising pedophilia. In fact the younger party is 17 and over the age of consent which is far less dramatic and IMV makes describing the relationship as ‘boyfriends’ totally normal not sinister.

Clearly a lot of people on the other thread disagree with me! But you know, can’t win them all.

OP, I did a degree with the OU when my children were small and it worked so well - the flexibility was great, the materials were high quality and it was great to keep my brain working.

Regarding subjects, I've studied STEM and arts subjects with the OU. I'm interested in psychology too but had similar concerns to you - I recently got some of the OU materials from ebay and concluded that I wouldn't find it satisfying to study - the gender identity and 'sex work is work' stuff is opinion presented as fact. I thought I would find it too annoying and it also made me question the quality of the rest of the materials.

If you see psychology as leading somewhere career wise, may be worth putting up with this, but if you want something you can trust, I would chose a different subject.

If it's any help, OP, my younger daughter is doing the OU's MA in Forensic Psychology at the moment and loving it. She's not impressed with gender identity ideology and she's a very nerdy critical thinker - she always ferrets through the evidence base before accepting anything (she used to drive me to distraction with that when she was little) so she wouldn't have been happy with a course that was less than evidence-based, or where questioning was ruled out. She says that none of the module contents she's had have promoted gender woo, and although some of the other students have tell-tale signals like pronouns in their bios, there's been no pressure on her to profess allegiance. The modules she's done have been slanted towards the hard-science-end of psychology. I don't know how the course structure works, but might it be worth looking at the modules you're considering, and choosing the more scientific ones if that's an option?

Do they actively promote ’sex work is work’ as the accepted standard or do they offer another side, that with all the ‘normalisation’ and formalisation it is still highly dangerous, degrading and just as likely to lead to human trafficking?

If there is no discussion on these sort of difficult topics, I would be very concerned about doing psychology in order to become a psychologist through the OU.

Furthermore, this is concerning that if this is going on in modern psychological training, that the psychologists are actively and knowingly telling/reinforcing dangerous behaviour and thoughts in their patients.

If you’re going to do it online then the OU is the best option by a long mile. Just do it. I’m about to graduate via an OU degree and I now have loads of options. No point shooting yourself in the foot.

Sounds promising!

@chardonnay79 sorry, completely off topic but I see you have an 'edited' flag in your previous post. Can we edit now?! And if so - how?

Oh - on edit (!) - scrap that. I've found it. Hurrah for editing options!

@chardonnay79 the materials I saw pay lip service to views other than ‘sex work is work’ but there’s nothing deeper - for example, no discussion of whether it might be psychologically difficult for a person to have sex with someone they are not attracted to, the psychology of those who pay for sex etc

Indeed! I only just discovered it myself, such a relief when using a phone with predictive text and or have dyslexia and other learning issues ☺️.

I understand your concern and wonder if it would be useful to write to the OU asking about academic freedoms. As someone said above - TRAs can be the loudest voices. It might be useful for the OU to hear from potential students who do not share such views.

Going into my 4th year studying with the OU, doing an early childhood degree. Mostly it's child psychology & some sociology but I've only had one tiny part last year discussing gender identity. I'm very GC, highly supportive of LGB, & raised a few points against affirmative approach & gillick competence, teenage rebellion & not affirming any other conditions such as anorexia, which my lecturer wholeheartedly agreed with! I did it in a posing question way rather than flat out statements.

Only one student in all four of my modules, has done an introductory forum post describing themselves as she/her (I inwardly screamed) - not one other person did the same!! I'd say go for it. As someone else pointed out you have the choice of modules for each level of your chosen degree & you can look to see what the options are before committing. The ones who run the GC group I'm familiar with from Twitter & they are phenomenal people. Don't let the alphabet mafia stop you - it's been the best thing I've ever done! Good luck