Masters Degree Student Cerys looking for participants for MSc dissertation

Master’s degree student, 22 year old Cerys Anderson from Livingston spends most of her weekends and summers at her parent’s caravan in Creetown and has done since she was young.

Cerys told DGWGO “I love spending my time in Dumfries and Galloway as it is so picturesque, and everyone is so friendly! The area has been a massive part of my life. I graduated from Edinburgh Napier University last year with my BA (Hons) in Psychology with Sociology, but I decided to stay on to study a master’s degree in Forensic Psychology and Criminology this year.

For my dissertation topic this year, I have decided to look at a topic that interests me a lot. I have chosen to research the topic of racial microaggressions in Scotland. The name of my project is ‘Should Racial Microaggressions be Criminalised?’. Racial microaggressions are often referred to as ‘everyday racisms’ and are generally known to be small and subtle interactions hidden behind a deeper prejudice toward a minority group. At the moment, only racial harassment is a convictable offense under the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021. Although someone cannot be convicted of committing racial microaggressions, research has shown that victims of racial microaggressions are negatively impacted in a number of ways. However, there isn’t a great deal of research talking about racial microaggressions in Scotland specifically, so this means there is a lot to find out!

I am keen to talk to people from all over Scotland to find out what they think of racial microaggressions generally, and whether they should become a convictable offence. There are no right or wrong answers, I am just interested in your thoughts and opinions! The only requirements I have for my research are that you are aged over 18 and live in Scotland. I will be conducting semi-structured interviews on MS Teams that should last an estimated time of between 45 and 60 minutes (although so far, all interviews have lasted 45 minutes).

If you feel this is something that may interest you, please send me an email at [email protected], and I can send you some more information. If this is something you feel any family or friends may be interested in, please pass this along to them too, the more the merrier! Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope to hear from you soon!”