ReSearching Diversity

In this first-ever student takeover episode, Emma Adden, Ikram Tahiri, Celine Sebregts, and Loïs Nederveen from the Erasmus University Rotterdam (Master’s in Educational Sciences) speak with Dayna-Lee Stewart, founder and director of the Black Austrian Youth Forum. She is an educational professional with a background in Educational Sciences from Vienna, Austria. We explored her career path, the challenges she faced, and her vision for greater equality in education.
 
PAST (00:01:27): Dayna-Lee explains that her journey into education was not a straight line. She originally planned to study music but ultimately earned a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Educational Sciences. Alongside her studies, she gained experience in social care and educational roles. She reflects on the challenges she faced, such as navigating academia as a Black woman, dealing with systemic inequalities, and finding her professional identity in the complex field of education. She also gives honest advice to young professionals about standing their ground, exploring different paths, and ensuring their careers match their values.
 
PRESENT (00:06:17): Dayna-Lee shares details about her current work with the Black Austrian Youth Forum. She creates educational safe spaces for Black youth in Austria. Her efforts include organizing summer schools, hosting conferences, training educators, and securing funding. Her main goal is to make education more accessible and fair. She shares a powerful story from a recent summer school expansion, showing how important it is to support not just students but also to create safe, reflective spaces for Black educators. Through her work, she stresses the need for educational systems that support both learners and staff.
 
FUTURE (00:15:47): Looking ahead, Dayna-Lee critically examines diversity and inclusion in academia and educational settings. She calls for deeper changes beyond just symbolic diversity. She urges institutions to rethink how they manage, allocate resources, and offer support. Dayna-Lee encourages educators to question the systems they work within, to expand their perspectives through global scholarship, and to embrace discomfort as part of meaningful growth. She sees her own future increasingly in advisory and coaching roles, contributing to more reflective and inclusive educational environments.
For more information on the episode, guest, and included references, please visit researchingdiversity.com.
You can also follow us on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
We want to thank Minor Revisions for the music, Lotte Gottschewski for the logo design, Max Kersten for post production, and zeythehuman for their artwork. Stay tuned and talk soon!

In this episode, we talked to Ursula Moffitt who is an assistant professor at the University of New Mexico, in the USA. 
PAST (00:02:42): Ursula describes her path into academia and her continuous struggles with the boundaries of particular academic disciplines, including psychology.
PRESENT (00:11:33): We talk about a study from Quiles and colleagues (2023) about how young adults during the Covid-19 pandemic perceived their own critical consciousness and how this differed depending on the societal position of participants. We further discuss how critical consciousness can be connected to being and identifying as “White”, which is closely linked to Ursula’s own academic work.
FUTURE (00:24:55): Ursula highlights how important it is that all researchers are aware and reflective of their own societal position when they conduct research (positionality). Also, we talk about the need for going beyond the typical questionnaires and experiments for collecting data from youth, but to instead better train educators and psychologists in qualitative research methods.

For more information on the episode, guest, and included references, please visit researchingdiversity.com.
You can also follow us on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
We want to thank Minor Revisions for the music, Lotte Gottschewski for the logo design, Max Kersten for post production, and zeythehuman for their artwork. Stay tuned and talk soon!   


FULL REFERENCES OF THIS EPISODE:
 *Quiles, T. B., Hoyt, L. T., Dotson, M. P., Castro, E. M., May, M., & Cohen, A. K. (2023). Who has to act? A qualitative exploration of emerging adults’ critical consciousness during the COVID‐19 pandemic. American Journal of Community Psychology, 71(1–2), 136–146. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajcp.12638

 
FURTHER INSPIRING AUTHORS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
Adriana Aldana, Katie Richards-Schuster

In this episode, we talked to Elisabeth Kaneza who is a legal and political scholar and a community outreach officer at the German Center for Integration and Migration (DeZiM) in Berlin, Germany. 

PAST (00:02:20): Elisabeth emphasizes the importance of equal rights and chances for all, the impact of racial discrimination that require structural solutions. She also describes her journey into academia. 
PRESENT (00:09:35): We discuss an article by Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989) about equality in law, the intersections of race and sex. This article has been groundbreaking in many ways. Importantly, it has established that scientific theories insufficiently capture experiences of intersecting identities, such as being a woman of color, and related discrimination experiences.
FUTURE (00:26:40): Elisabeth shares encouraging thoughts to empower emerging scholars of color. She highlights that their voices and work are highly needed. Therefore, she demands for structural support, research, and actions for racial equality.
For more information on the episode, guest, and included references, please visit researchingdiversity.com.
You can also follow us on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
We want to thank Minor Revisions for the music, Lotte Gottschewski for the logo design, Max Kersten for post production, and zeythehuman for their artwork. Stay tuned and talk soon!   

FULL REFERENCES OF THIS EPISODE:
*Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Anti‐Discrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Anti‐Racist Politics. In The University of Chicago Legal Forum, 140(1), 139–167.
Esposito, J., & Evans-Winters, V. (2021). Introduction to intersectional qualitative research. SAGE Publications Inc. 
Kaneza, E. (2024). Rassische Diskriminierung in Deutschland. Verwirklichung eines positive Rechts für die Gleichberechtigung von Schwarzen Menschen – Analyse und Empfehlungen. Nomos. https://www.nomos-shop.de/nomos/titel/rassische-diskriminierung-in-deutschland-id-118829/.

In this episode, we listen to a conversation between Lysanne te Brinke (assistant professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam) and Milene Gonçalves (associate professor at the Technical University Delft). Both are leading members of the ambition “Youth participation” in Healthy Start, a consortium that aims to better understand and support the healthy development of all youths in the Netherlands.
PAST (00:01:43): We learn how different academic fields (developmental psychology versus design) have influenced how Lysanne and Milene define and use “youth participation” in their work. 
PRESENT (00:09:55): Lysanne and Milene give us insights into how participatory research can be used to amplify the voices of youth regarding societal issues, but also very practically to utilize youth’ creativity to co-create or co-design products. They both stress the importance of having youth participate at several phases in a given project and to recognize that involving youth requires a lot of flexibility and training from researchers and designers. 
FUTURE (00:20:52): We hear Lysanne and Milene reflect about the feasibility of youth participation, about how different disciplines can learn from one another, and, importantly, that youth participation should only be used if it is meaningful for the project and for youths themselves.

This episode is part of the spin-off series “(Re)Searching a Healthy Start”, in which we uncover the pathways and struggles of inspiring scientists and practitioners working together in the Healthy Start consortium. Healthy Start is part of the convergence of the Technical University Delft, Erasmus University Rotterdam and Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands.
Want to know more? See https://convergence.nl/healthy-start/
For more information on the episode and guests, please visit researchingdiversity.com.
You can also follow us on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
We want to thank Minor Revisions for the music, Lotte Gottschewski-Kooijman for the logo design, Max Kersten for post production, and zeythehuman for their artwork. Stay tuned and talk soon!

In this bonus episode, we listen to Yara Toenders (fellow at Healthy Start / Erasmus University Rotterdam) and Wanda Tempelaar (clinical child and youth psychiatrist at the Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam). Both are members of the ambition “Youth Mental Health and Well-being” in Healthy Start, a consortium that aims to better understand and support the healthy development of all youths in the Netherlands. 
PAST (00:02:10): Yara and Wanda both share the challenges and opportunities they have faced when relocating to another country during their studies and work life. They talk about the uncertainty and ambiguity, about coincidence and spontaneity, and about embracing their personal and professional journey.
PRESENT (00:11:50): Yara and Wanda give us insights into their daily work with youth in the Netherlands. Yara explains that any initiative to increase youth well-being, such as banning phones in schools, always has positive implications for some, while having negative implications for other youth. She shared with us what intrigued her during data collection and how reality is often very different from what we would expect from scientific theory. Wanda shares a moving story of a young client who successfully combated severe mental illness, and how as clinical psychiatrist Wanda was able to support this client during this process.
FUTURE (00:19:50): Yara and Wanda explain why it is crucial to work closely with youth themselves and how to use youths’ lived experiences to make research and treatment more meaningful.
This episode is part of the spin-off series “(Re)Searching a Healthy Start”, in which we uncover the pathways and struggles of inspiring scientists and practitioners working together in the Healthy Start consortium. Healthy Start is part of the convergence of the Technical University Delft, Erasmus University Rotterdam and Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands.
Want to know more? See https://convergence.nl/healthy-start/
For more information on the episode and guests, please visit researchingdiversity.com.
You can also follow us on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
We want to thank Minor Revisions for the music, Lotte Gottschewski-Kooijman for the logo design, Max Kersten for post production, and zeythehuman for their artwork. Stay tuned and talk soon!