I found it hard to bring these different sources together into one, so I’ve recorded my thoughts about each. They were really illuminating reads and I need to look at them again, particularly the first two. Sorry it’s a bit long…
Hahn Tapper (2013) ‘A pedagogy of social justice education: social identity, theory and intersectionality’, Pp. 411-417
I found this excerpt from Hahn Tapper really fascinating, partly because it succinctly brought together several interconnected theories and discussed both uses and pitfalls, and partly because I feel this discussion of power dynamics is really lacking in education. I come from an English language teaching background where within a lesson you might have 9 or 10 different nationalities. There were certainly power dynamics at play, not least with me as their white, middle class teacher.
I realise now that the positive results we were aiming for there were based on interpersonal interaction (the Contact Hypothesis), and the hope that this would somehow break down barriers. To some extent this happened but there was always a reversion to group (usually, but not always, based on nationalities), outside the classroom.
I noticed it last week too, that in a session we did with students at CSM, there were dominant groups and it was tricky to know how to handle it, particularly as we had only one session with these students. Although the session was fine, and we received positive feedback from the individuals, I came out with the feeling that the dynamics of the group were rather dysfunctional and unsatisfying. I guess if they were my class, I would try and break down these barriers and encourage greater mixing of the social groups as well as sharing work (Social Identity Theory). I think this would be more effective with some kind of overt acknowledgement of power dynamics, and group dynamics in the room, but doing this would require a lot of skill as the stakes are high. I wonder if it’s something you could more effectively address after you’ve earned the students’ trust, as a tutor, and after you’ve established a student centred approach to your classroom. Or perhaps this would be too late, I’m not sure.
In any case, I agreed with Hahn Tapper about the need to create the space to take account of multiple group identities, and also interpersonal interactions.
‘Retention and attainment in the disciplines: Art and Design’ Finnigan and Richards 2016
This article was just what I was looking for. Being relatively new to Art and Design education, and to UAL, I’ve been struck by the amount of talk there is about inclusivity, social justice and race equality but also by how often this doesn’t appear to be the experience of individual, or groups of students (and even staff). I’ve looked at the data dashboards and seen the awarding gaps and also seen the work that goes on to try and address this. However, there seem to be very obvious gaping holes in this work and huge power imbalances. I found this quote fascinating:
Finnigan and Richards 2016, p. 3 cite Hatton (2015): Art education has generally been conservative, repetitive and exclusive. Art education theorists have even described art education as Eurocentric, racist and imperialist and have called for curriculum reform and social change.
Also the discussion of deliberate vagueness and ambiguity was useful to me, as well as the comments about aesthetic preferences. I work in an area where we are mostly trying to pin down information and communicate it to students. These discussions helped me to see why this is so difficult and also (as far as I’m concerned) vindicates my point of view that it’s necessary. I would have found it useful to have more discussion of this report on the unit.
‘Witness unconscious bias’ TED Talk – Josephine Kwhali
I couldn’t agree more with Josephine Kwhali’s views on unconscious bias in the HE sector – that’s willful ignorance. It’s interesting to hear what she says about white middle class women, that there have been changes made, notwithstanding the ongoing unconscious bias against white, middle class women. It hasn’t prevented change. Why not for black women or working class women?
Shades of Noir
I haven’t looked at all the SoN journals in one place before now, but I can see there are a lot of compelling topics. I’m really interested in Discourse: The power of language and communication. I read one article about someone who is deaf and gay and how this intersectionality impacted on their experiences and expectations and how they see this now. In addition, I’m really interested in the language teacher talking about the ‘language of power’ and how this is an enormous cultural barrier. She talks about the experience of international students and how their use of language is viewed. I’m familiar with this as I regularly hear course staff say about students, ‘they can’t really speak English’ which somehow has an implicit meaning which is more than ‘this student could improve their language skills’ and certainly isn’t ‘how can I help them’.
From the Shades of Noir publication ‘Whiteness, I see you’, I read a few different articles which represented a range of thoughts and feelings I am familiar with, although of course still interesting. The one that stood out to me though was ‘Shedding whiteness – Forming the shell’ by Jon Straker, about a Korean child adopted by a white family and their relationship with their own skin, appearance and identity. It is shown through a series of artworks, including one showing their white self devouring their yellow self. He says, ‘At times, my existence felt like a yellow stain on a white shirt’. I found this a very powerful piece about identity in a social context.
References:
Tapper H. (2013) A pedagogy of social justice education: social identity, theory and intersectionality, Pp. 411-417
Kwhali, J. TED Talk (2016) Witness unconscious bias. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6XDUGPoaFw (Accessed: June 2023)
Richards, A. and Finnigan T. (2016) Embedding Equality and Diversity in the Curriculum: An Art and Design Practitioner’s Guide. The Higher Education Academy
Shades of Noir (2018) Peekaboo, we see you: Whiteness. Available at: https://issuu.com/shadesofnoir/docs/peekaboo_we_see_you_whiteness (Accessed: June 2023)
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on these resources Amy, it was a really interesting read!
I really resonate with your reflections on diverse nationalities within one class and how to increase interaction between students. Is there a particular year group or is it across all years where you find there is a reversion to groups both inside and outside of the classroom?
I was having this same conversation recently in a workshop at UAL called ‘Roots and Routes: Climate, Cultural and Social justice in Fashion’ where we were discussing actively mixing students up (outside of their preferred social groups) during group work and in sessions to encourage the sharing of stories and perspectives on their work and create a more homogeneous feeling of community within a cohort. In contrast to this we then reflected on the student perspective, particularly for international YR1 students, who are experiencing so many new things; new to university, new country, new education system, learning in English which is not their first language. In this time of glacial newness it’s not surprising that some students may find comfort and support in surrounding themselves with other students from the same nationality. Maybe this is something to embrace in YR1 and start to mix social groups in YR2 when they are more comfortable in their environment and with us as tutors? Or perhaps as you say, could this be too late?
Something I have been trialing with my YR1 students when doing group work is to have groups of 4-6 were each student has someone else in that group they are friends with. So whilst there majority of the group is new, there is still that familiarity and support from a friend which I have found makes them lean into the process a little easier.
Thanks for your comment James. I think that’s a really good idea to scaffold the mixing in that way. My gut feeling is that mixing early on, and regularly, in different set ups, would have a more positive result than not doing. So sometimes, inevitably people would end up with their friends but not all the time. I’m thinking of how at the age most of our undergraduate students are, there is, as well as the ‘glacial newness’ (great phrase!), also perhaps a need to shed old identities, and being outside of their social group might help enable this. You asked about my previous context, and I’m thinking of teaching 16-18 year olds in a college. As working in pairs and groups is so integral to communicative language teaching as an approach, we really took a firm line and said everyone works with everyone, no exceptions, but then of course tried to give roles within those groups etc that enabled different people to ‘shine’, so to speak. Anyway, I guess it’s important to to feel there are options, as a teacher, and to try some things out as well as discussing with students how they feel and why decisions are made.
Amy, thanks for an always thoughtful and considerate blog post. I think you are right that is very hard to address some issues in the context of a one-off workshop with students you don’t know, especially when the “content” of the workshop is not directly about these issues. I think for me it’s always a struggle between wanting to fix things NOW and reminding myself these issues have long historical roots and causes that will hardly “fixable” in one session, let alone one term, or one course. This makes me think more broadly about the rather unglamorous, long, hard, slow road of activism more generally, and how important sustaining each other in this daily practice is. I really hate the phrase “preaching to the choir” because the choir needs support and inspiration too.
I would also second your emphasis on the Retention and Attainment Report’s value. A not so easy, but important social theorist, Bordieu, talks a lot about how something as ephemeral as aesthetic and cultural “taste” is a form of social stratification and reification. And even more depressingly how art and artists figure into the oppressed class within the social elite. I think a lot about how my artistic values that I advocate for in class could also be viewed as imbued with certain class- (and race, gender, sexuality, etc.) based values.
Thanks Andrew, that’s a really interesting point about ‘preaching to the choir’ – it’s definitely true that it’s hard work to keep going and I think sometimes it’s hard to know what is good enough from an individual point of view. There is also the point where it’s also gone too far isn’t there. I recently read ‘Poverty Safari’ by Darren McGarvey and he talks about the ‘poverty industry’ and how dependent elements of it are on maintaining the status quo, and how little of it involves the thoughts and ideas of the people it’s trying to help, partly as a result of class-based prejudice. I feel conscious of this about the work that I do on digital accessibility and inclusivity, and am determined now to make sure that the next step involves more voices of people who are affected by these issues.
Thanks for your blog and sharing your thoughts on race. I particularly resonated with the quote you presented: ‘Hatton (2015) states that: Art education has generally been conservative, repetitive and exclusive. Art education theorists have even described art education as Eurocentric, racist and imperialist and have called for curriculum reform and social change. (Hatton 2015, p. 3)’. It often feels like art is only validated through the lenses of Europeans or at least the East. As an African woman, I felt for a very long time (especially while growing up in France) that I was not artistic because my creativity did not match the society I was living in. I was never encouraged to look at my roots for artistic inspiration, at least a valid source. Maybe you could have a discussion about this report with your students?
Hi Genevieve, thanks for sharing that experience, how depressing. I don’t have students as such in that I work in Digital learning, but I do want to find a way that I can support diversification of reading lists and reference points through digital learning. I’m not sure what it is yet, but I’m sure there is somewhere the two overlap. Certainly there is work to do on making the actual reading lists more accessible and inclusive from a digital point of view. Just need to find a way into the content too.