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Social Identity and Intersectionality workshop for 1st year students 

July 2022

My positionality  

As a mixed-race half English, half Indian woman who grew up in an all-white family I am particularly interested in intersectionality. I have been the recipient of racism and conversely, I have benefitted from white privilege due to the Whiteliness conferred on me by my upbringing. Watching Shirley Anne Tate speak about conscious bias helped me confront this duality in my positionality.  I understood that I have been guilty of (un)conscious bias because I absorbed a world view based on a white dominant narrative. 

The learnings that I’ve gained on IPU have helped me pick out these contrasting strands in my identity and focus on how my professional positionality and the intersectionality of my racial identity connects to that of my students.  My desire to advocate for students of colour connects to this learning and as a staff member of colour I see how important this intersectional representation is. 

I am Year One lead on BA Photojournalism and Documentary Photography and my artefact is designed specifically for first year students. There are many complex, intersectional social identities that present themselves in first years on this course; a high percentage have disabilities ranging from dyslexia to ADHD. 

“Within the area of disability, the discipline has higher numbers of students with a declared disability, a specific learning disability: dyslexic students represent 11% of the cohort, higher than the sector average, which is 4%.” 

(Finnigan and Richards, 2016) 

There is a majority of British female, white students from middle class backgrounds. This majority sits alongside smaller groups of Chinese international students, Black and Asian British students and European students. Many of the students openly present as LGBTQ+, other students may be at the beginning of a journey towards embracing new identities. My artefact is designed to open conversations around intersectionality and allow students who come from groups that are minoritised or marginalised to be represented, acknowledged and supported. My aim is to help students acknowledge their different and shared social identities and facilitate discussions about representation, working towards creating a shared community amongst a diverse group of students and to create a supportive environment where shared social identities are acknowledged, and individuals are encouraged to flourish.  

“The teacher is of course an artist but being an artist does not mean that he or she can make the profile, can shape the students. What an educator does in teaching is to make it possible for the students to become themselves.” (Freire, 1972) 

The retention, progression and attainment gap amongst BME students also feeds into why it’s important to create interventions that support minority and socially disadvantaged groups. The Student Equality Diversity Inclusion report 2021 contains some shocking statistics – just 32% of first year home undergraduates are from BME groups. Attainment rates at LCC in 2019/20 were 90.7% White and 73.4% BME. 

Evolution of artefact 

The initial idea came from an exercise set by Terry Finnegan in the first seminar session. In it, we were asked to assign perceived intersectional identities to people from looking at their portraits. Many students, myself included, found this extremely uncomfortable, however I understood the merit in how it made us confront the idea of conscious or unconscious bias and expanded our view of people’s social identities and where intersection might play a role. Whilst this exercise is not appropriate for first year students, it led me to thinking about how I could create an opportunity for students to get to know each and find other students from their own social groups. 

A resource that informed my thinking on this subject was Tapper, A (2013) A Pedagogy of Social Justice Education: Social Identity Theory, Intersectionality, and Empowerment.  

{…} Freire explains the role that identity plays in the shaping and implementation of education. One of his most important arguments is that students’ identities need to be taken into account in all educational settings. They should not be approached as if everyone in the classroom, including the teacher, is starting from the same place in terms of social status and identity. Although virtually no one discounts the central role that teachers play in a given classroom, Freire extends this point, expounding on how a teacher’s social identities play as much of a role in a classroom environment as anything else. {…} A teacher needs to create experiences with, and not for, students, integrating their experiences and voices into the educational experience itself (Freire 2006).  (Tapper 2013) 

The artefact has gone through several iterations, I began by designing a workshop where, in pairs, students take each other’s portraits and then have a conversation where they share their background, they are then asked to fill in questions about each other’s social identities based on that interaction.  After receiving feedback from Danielle, I reworked it so that students fill in the questions themselves and I added more general ice-breaker questions so that student had more options in what details they choose to reveal. I added a final element where the students talk about the importance of representation in relation to choosing a course rep based on the intersectional identities present in the group. 

I then ran the idea by a group of first year students whose feedback has led to the progression of the artefact into an expanded brief.  The three students that I spoke with self-identify as: 

Student A – female, black, British, gay 

Student B – male, Chinese-born, now living in Canada  

Student C – male, black, American 

We talked about whether first year students in Block 1 would feel comfortable about sharing personal details with a group of peers that there were still getting to know. 

Student C: “I feel it will equally make some people feel comfortable and equally make other people feel uncomfortable to start talking about themselves to that extent to a group of new people, but I feel like it could also be a solid possibility for them to make friends and kind of start to feel more like they know each other.” 

They were also keen to see the impact of sharing personal information being fed into tutors sharing visual and theoretical references that linked to their identities.  

Student A: “If they know it’s for a reason, if they know they are going to get certain support that might help (them share personal details).” 

They all talked enthusiastically about the ice-breaker sessions they’d taken part in during the Intro To unit and how they would like to have done more of them.  

They then talked about how showing their own work in relation to questions of identity would not only feel more comfortable but would connect the conversation to their practice.  

Student B: “I think the workshop should be a long-term workshop and shouldn’t just be about portrait, I think using their own pictures that students have taken through their lifetime … People sharing their pictures that they took and explaining to all the other students you know, find the connection … People just sharing their work and sharing their life, I think it’s more comfortable, for me personally.” 

From this discussion I’ve expanded the scope of the artefact to include: 

  • Initial conversations exploring social identity will be done using Mentimeter. Students will share their positionality around race, gender, sexuality and disability in Word Clouds. The cohort can then see the different identities that sit within their cohort whilst remaining anonymous. This will take place during Intro To.
  • Ice breaker and community building exercises will take place throughout the Intro To unit.  
  • Over a series of scaffolded sessions with accompanying briefs students will be invited to make personal work as a route into exploring and sharing their identities. 
  • The discussion about Course Reps will come at the end of these sessions. 
  • The final output will be a student-led exhibition 

Conclusion 

Talking to my first-year students about these issues revealed some important learnings around their understanding of representation and identity.  Students of colour seek each other out and when seminar groups are made they want to be put together.  They want to represent themselves through their work and be given opportunities to explore their identity within the curriculum. They need to be given visual references that reflect their diverse identities, and they want help early on in Block 1 in forming communities and getting to know each other.  

For me personally, this unit has given me access to theories ranging from Critical Race Theory, Whiteliness and Social Justice Education with which to understand my positionality and the struggles that students of colour and students with disabilities face. My intrinsic drive towards creating an inclusive classroom now has a framework based on key theoretical texts. I believe that active interventions need to be worked into the curriculum to affect change.  

On a less positive note, I’ve been shocked by the white fragility that has been displayed by some colleagues who have felt challenged by this unit. This, along with case studies shared in seminar pre-tasks, has been a wake-up call to me to not assume that we are all on the same page, fighting the same fight.  

Bibliography 

Finnigan, T, Richards, A. (2016) ‘Retention and attainment in the disciplines: Art and Design’. [Online] Available at: https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets.creode.advancehe-document-manager/documents/hea/private/ug_retention_and_attainment_in_art_and_design2_1568037344.pdf [Accessed June 2022] 

Eddo-Lodge, R. (2017) Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race. Bloomsbury Publishing 

Suka-Bill, Z and Clay, S. (Undated), AEM Toolbox, University of the Arts London. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/201935/Teaching-for-Retention-PDF-489KB.pdf (Accessed March 2022) 

Freire, P. (1972), Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York, Herder and Herder 

Burke, P, McManus J. (2011) Art for a few: exclusions and misrecognitions in higher education admissions practices, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 32:5, 699-712, DOI: 10.1080/01596306.2011.620753 

Richards, A, Finnigan, T (2015) Embedding equality and diversity in the curriculum: an art and design practitioner’s guide [Online] Available at: https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/embedding-equality-and-diversity-curriculum-discipline-specific-guides [Accessed July 2022] 

Tapper, A (2013) A Pedagogy of Social Justice Education: Social Identity Theory, Intersectionality, and Empowerment. [Online] Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264611824_A_Pedagogy_of_Social_Justice_Education_Social_Identity_Theory_Intersectionality_and_Empowerment [Accessed on: 16/07/22] 

Tate, S (2018) Whiteliness and institutional racism: Hiding behind (un)conscious bias. [Online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lur3hjEHCsE [Accessed on: 12/07/22] 

University of the Arts London – Teaching for retention. [Online] Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/144474/190206_EDI-Report-2018.pdf [Accessed on 20/07/22] 

University of the Arts London (2021) Student Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Report. [Online] Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0014/306014/Student-Equality-Diversity-and-Inclusion-Report-2021-310121.pdf [Accessed on 20/07/22] 

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Blog task 3 – Race

  1. Shades of Noir

The Demelza Woodbridge article is an example of a resource I would direct students to. I can see a lot of value in students hearing from alumni who have had similar experiences to them and who have gone on to be successful.

The main resource that I think is a wonderful idea is the Tell Us About It Archive. It not only showcases a range of incredible creative designs, but it tells important stories from students of colour around their experiences at UAL. I would love to know more this archive. What does the award entail? What is the brief that students are given? How would students apply for an award? Where are the physical artefacts kept?

(Note: I found all this information in ‘Retention and attainment in the disciplines: Art and Design’ Finnigan and Richards 2016.)

Unfortunately, the viewer that we see the artefacts in has some design elements that prevented me from being able to fully interact with each project. The Accessibility Menu tab covers the beginning of the sentence that describes the artefact, and some artefacts need magnifying to see what they are, but the magnifying tool doesn’t let you move around the page. This is a real shame and I wonder if there are plans to change this.

Another very useful resource is the Diigo Database. The section I was interested in was Photography and I can see that this could be a fantastic research tool for students studying on BAPJD.

I had heard of Safe Space Crits but didn’t know a lot about them, so it was useful to read in more detail about them and to be able to direct students as appropriate.

Overall, this is a resource that I will share with all my students as part of the Year 1, block 1, Intro To unit.

2. A Pedagogy of Social Justice Education Social Identity Theory, Intersectionality, and Empowerment

This article was very useful to read as it goes deeply into Social Identity Theory (SIT) which my artefact is going to be based on.

I read the whole article and was particularly interested in how much freedom they give the students within the discussion group. There is a facilitator present, but the students are encouraged to take their conversations in whatever directions naturally occur in the classroom:

“They do not try to impart an ideologically-based set of information onto their students. Rather, their primary goal is to have students teach one another about social identities and intergroup dynamics using critical thought.” Tapper (2013)

I find this empowering however I do wonder what happens if the conversation becomes side-tracked or stuck? Or is this accepted as a valid part of the process?

The article gives a very clear explanation of what SIT is:

“SIT maintains that human beings are social by virtue of their relationships with one another, an existence embedded within a vast web of networks that are constructed based on identity-based associations. Everyone to one degree or another, is a member of a multitude of social groups that are shaped in relation to ethnicity, gender, nationality, religion, socioeconomic class, and other categories.” Tapper (2013)

There was a lot of interesting discussion around different approaches to social justice education – from Contact Hypothesis to Group Process. I appreciated how the writers took the time to explain and layout the reasoning behind these pedagogies and then moved on to why they have chosen not to work in this way.

The section on Intersectionality and Intergroup Encounters explained how intersectionality is enacted within these complex social groups:

“Intersectionality posits that oppression in one place is intricately linked to oppression everywhere else.” Tapper (2013)

“The false binary trap that members of groups in conflict are either innocent or guilty is all too common in intergroup work (Sonnenschein et al. 1998; Zembylas 2008). In contrast, this organization’s approach emphasizes that all groups, to various degrees, are victims and perpetrators, innocent and guilty. All of us play active and passive roles in the structures of oppression in which we live (Scheff and Retzinger 1991; Sonnenschein et al. 1998; Tryfonas 2000; Berlak 2004; Zembylas 2008).” Tapper (2013)

This article gave me lots to think about in addressing social identity in the classroom. It helped me shape my own ideas about why this is a relevant and important issue to acknowledge and how I might share this with students. I will be drawing on this article and the wider reading in my reflective essay.

One question I was left with after reading the article, was who is the program aimed at? Obviously one answer is Palestinian and Jewish young adults. But I was interested in knowing more – how do they end up on the course? What is the aim of the participants in taking part in the course? Where are they selected from? What social groups do they belong to? Are they already in Higher Education? Are these students from privileged, high socio-economic backgrounds? Is there provision for students who might not be able to pay for flights for the experiential field trips? I felt that this information was missing in my understanding of the program.

3. “Witness Unconscious Bias” video

My big takeaway from this video which follows on from the Shirley Anne Tate talk that we watched last week is that conscious change is possible. As Josephine Kwhali says in this clip, wryly, at the end of the film:

https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxXWFX3VjyHr2CR4cfkybhVU-kjHCwz_u4

I find this to be very true from my own experience. I worked at Reuters News Agency for 20 years from 1998 and it was a very white, middle-class world for a long time. When change did happen towards embracing diversity it was white, middle-class women who were allowed into management roles first. Followed by middle class people of colour who lived in Europe and United States. I feel that Josephine Kwhali makes a very powerful, relevant point here and it ties into the idea that Reni Eddo Lodge writes about that feminism is White Feminism and has no concerns with the intersectional experience of women of colour.

Reference:

Reni Eddo-Lodge. 2017. Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race

4. Retention and attainment in the disciplines: Art and Design

I found lots of relevant and important pieces of information in this paper. The shocking data around recruitment and progression of BME students confirms much of what I’ve already learned from reading other resources such as the Student Survey. The high number of students with disabilities who study Art and Design was a new piece of data to me but is very much backed up by my own experiences teaching on BAPJD, particularly in the latest first year cohort where I have many students with ISA’s in place. I was struck by the low attainment rates of students from SEC three to nine. What does this mean for students who are BME and also from lower socio-economic groups? This intersectional group is particularly vulnerable. I have many students who fit into these two groups and I see how they struggle – often working long hours on jobs outside of college, often with challenging homelives. These students need support, often they may be unable to attend classes for very good reasons and they need tutors who will try to get to know them and take the time to understand the difficulties they are facing.

This data presents a huge challenge and we as educators need to address this and think about how we can actively provide support for low-attaining students from minority backgrounds. Maybe there is the option a kind of ISA-type extension or additional tutorials or specialist support that needs to be put in place.

I was interested to read in the section on Art and Design Pedagogies about the friction between giving students space to take risks and explore their creativity, with how that freedom can be perceived by first years as a very challenging space. This again is something I see a lot in first years and can be a real barrier to them settling in to HE, this quote sums it up very well.

I wasn’t expecting to be left to do projects completely on your own. I was expecting more guidance with it being first year and I didn’t know what kind of work they were looking for. (Yorke and Vaughn 2012, p. 24)

The quote below reflects my own experience:

So, students in their first year of study are constantly looking for certainty and reassurance, while staff are encouraging ambiguity and risk taking and expecting a tacit knowledge of how the subject is delivered. They rely on their tutors for guidance and for evaluation of the quality of their work. (Richards and Finnegan, 2016, p. 7)

Our students are all unique, and they learn in different ways. The challenge that I find is to get to know each student quickly enough to adapt crits, feedback and expectations to their individual needs. This is a process that, without active intervention, takes time. By the end of the first year, I feel I know most of my students pretty well. But for many students who withdrew after Block 1, it’s too late. It comes back to curriculum design and unit assessments, we need to ensure that there is a structure there that students can work to, and that there is room for other students to stretch their creative wings.

The last part of this paper that I want to touch on was 4.5. Art and Design Teachers:

The percentage of staff of colour at present is very small at 3.6% (See Appendix A) and does not in any way reflect the student cohort. These staff bring a positive experience to diverse students on course in the form of role models. (Richards and Finnegan, 2016, p. 9)

Again, I wholeheartedly agree with this statement and can corroborate through my own experience. We recently hired a new AL, who is a young black artist with a very exciting and relevant personal practice. She was hugely popular with the students particularly in the one-to-one’s tutorials. However, it was not just the students of colour who responded positively to her. She was received with enthusiasm across the entire, mainly white and female cohort. And I believe that this AL is an aspirational figure not just due to her race but because she is young and exciting and represents something that the students can aspire to. Having her on the staff team, along with a new young Muslim AL doing amazing work has been a huge benefit to students and staff. The students see someone who is representative of themselves in a few years time, someone who is succeeding in their field and they can imagine leaving university and having that career.

5. Terms of reference from SoN around Race


I have chosen to respond to the article ‘Shedding Whiteness’ written and illustrated by Jon Straker, Macalester College.

I chose this article because it reflects my own experience of growing up Indian in a white family in a white community with zero Indian representation around me. I have two sisters who are both lighter skinned than me, but we all share the surname Singh, so even their light skin did not protect them from being ‘othered’ by the curious and ignorant people around us in Yorkshire in the ‘70s.

My Indian father had left us and gone back to India when I was two years old, leaving us with our white mother who was too busy being a single parent of 3 small children to even try and deal with our Asian identity. Like Jon Straker I wrapped myself in a white shell. When a friend’s father told me I had a lovely tan and asked me if I’d just come back from holiday I lied and said yes. I still don’t know to this day if this was a genuine comment or a passive agressive racism. In primary school when they put on a musical play of Rapunzel, the white girl with the long blonde hair who couldn’t sing was cast for the lead role. I was made to stand in the wings where no one could see me and sing her part for her. They called me ‘Echo’.

Despite these childhood experiences I count myself as someone who benefits from White Privilege. The racism that I experienced in my childhood changed when I became a teenager and young adult when being mixed-race but presenting in a very unchallenging white manner was just exotic enough to be cool. Looking back this is very uncomfortable, but there is no doubt that compared to the experience of my black colleagues, friends, and students, I’ve experienced very little discrimination. My career suffered more from me being a woman than from being half Asian. Because my skin colour is light, by hair is straight and my habits, mannerisms, accent and cultural refences are all overwhelmingly white, I have been accepted into a world of white privilege.

I wonder if I had grown up half-English in an Indian family how different that might have been. Would I have experienced the same White Privilege if I’d grown up watching Bollywood and eating dahl with chapatis rather than watching Grange Hill and eating sausages and chips? If my mother picked me up from school wearing a sari rather than jeans and a jumper what additional discrimination would that have brought on me? It’s an interesting question to reflect on.

My response to this issue of SON is perhaps not what’s been asked of me for this blog, but it has provided a very valuable moment for me to reflect on my mixed race ethnicity in the context of this unit.

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Blog Task 2 – Faith

Resource One: Religion, Belief and Faith Identities in Learning and Teaching at UAL

Although there are not that many resources on this website, it was interesting to see how much emphasis was put on the intersectionality of faith – where it sits amongst discussions of diversity and social identity. In the ‘About’ section of the website it is one of the stated aims of the community.

“The group will consider the intersection between faith identity and other social identities (e.g. gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, class).”

This focus on faith as a social identity, alongside those mentioned above, makes the website feel relevant and positions discussion around faith in the same space as discussions around diversity and inclusivity – which is obvious now the I’m writing this, but maybe wasn’t something I’d recognised before.

The case studies were interesting and the one titled Pen Portraits feeds into my idea for my artefact which will be about designing an ice breaking exercise that combines reflections on positionality with a portrait brief.

Resource Two: Religion, the public sphere and higher education, Professor Craig Calhoun, London School of Economics and Political Science

I read several headers of the section of this paper written by Professor Craig Calhoun. In the section “Religion and dissent in universities” he addresses gender segregation and sexuality intolerance in the Church of England. In one paragraph he writes:

“But today, gender hierarchies are often justified in religious terms and this is challenging to universities committed to equality. Anglican dithering over the appointment of women bishops is not the same as segregation of the sexes in meetings, but both raise concerns. As Modood notes, it is interesting and perhaps evidence of the embrace of the Church of England as a public institution, that its reluctance to appoint women bishops received a good deal more attention than outright exclusion of women from clerical roles in other religions.“

While I don’t necessarily disagree with him on this point, I found the language he uses in this paragraph extremely loaded. For example choosing the verb ‘dithering’ to describe the issue around appointing women bishops seems to deliberately downplay the deeprooted misogyny at the heart of this debate AND at the heart of the Anglican church – which in many countries still does not appoint female priests, let alone bishops. In the final sentence he points out that many other religions exclude women completely from clerical roles. So rather than debate the issue at stake he seems to swerve it by saying the Church of England is doing better than other religions in this area. This made me wonder if the author is inadvertently revealing a bias not only against women in the church, but also against other religions in comparison to the Anglican church.

Further down the article he moves on to discussing gender identity and sexuality. He touches on the homophobia that exists in many religions which he links to contentious readings of scriptures, then he concludes the section by writing: “At the same time, some religious congregations and student groups are specifically welcoming and supportive of sexual minorities.” I couldn’t help feeling that he was brushing over the reality of the damage done by the church and other faiths to LGBTQ+ community.

He finishes this section writing:

“Not least, religiously motivated students are active in efforts to secure harmony among different religious groups, and lead in efforts to promote greater knowledge of religions beyond their own. They often seek to provide public goods on campuses such as neighbourhood tutoring, peer counselling and mediation.“

To me this reads as a rather unconvincing attempt to offset the rampant homophobia at the heart of many religions. Calhoun does admit this, writing “Homophobia in particular is often visceral, and by no means limited to immigrants or adherents of non-Western religions.” But again the language that he chooses seems aimed at deflecting rather than acknowledging.

My positionality is as an atheist woman with a strong dislike of organised religion and I acknowledge that my innate hostility towards them means that I struggled to read this article with an open mind and without bringing my own bias into my reading of Professor Calhoun’s writing!

Resource 3: Kwame Anthony Appiah – Mistaken Identities – The Reith lecture

This is a long lecture that I’m having to listen to in chunks. I may not be able to add comments about it in time for the deadline, but I will certainly listen to it.

Resource 4: William Whitcombe, Chaplain and Interfaith Advisor for LCC and LCF interview, SON terms of reference, Faith

This article was interesting to me because I teach at LCC. Very few of my students openly talk about their faith, but for those who do, it often manifests itself in the work they produce, so this was a good opportunity to learn more about the chaplaincy and religious guidance that LCC offers.

William Whitcombe opens this interview by describing his role as being to support ‘the religious, the atheist and the unaligned’ and to be there for people no matter what their religious or ethnic background, and this made me immediately warm to him! He then goes on to create an eloquent metaphor for what he believes religion, spirituality and faith to mean. He talks about people riding a bus down a road in a desert and how that bus is operated by fallible humans which means that thing might go wrong or breakdown. He says people might get on or off the bus at different points in the journey. I particularly loved these words:

“There are also people in this picture. People who have a side to them that yearns, wonders, dreams, creates, loves. They have moments on that road in the desert when their vision is somehow extended, and they see so much more in and around them than they did just a few moments before. This is the spiritual side that I believe exists in all of us.”

I found this to be a very beautiful explanation of spirituality. Now that I have discovered William Whitcombe I would recommend him to students who are interested in discussing their own journey towards spirituality or who want to explore religion in their work.

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Blog Task 1 – Disability

Christine Sun Kim – 10 min short film (Nowness)

I found Christine Sun Kim’s film showing how her hearing impairment has fed into her art practice beautiful and inspiring. She has ‘lent into’ her deafness, using it to make performative art that subverts expectations of what is sound and what is noise and how deaf people interact with both. She creates art that celebrates the experience of being hearing impaired, and how it has given her unique approach to creating sound based art. Her biography on whitespace.cn says:

“She highlights what is constantly present and yet unnamed by us all through naming and then deconstructing preconceived ideas about sound and communication through their parameters, social values, and linguistics.”

This celebration of her disability as a gift, that allows her to express herself and interact with the world in a wholly original way, was very powerful to me. It feeds into ‘The Affirmation Model of Disability’ that I read about in (2020) Shades of Noir, Disabled People: Many Voices, “Evolution of Disability Models. Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow.” pp. 58-63

I would encourage my students to approach any documentary project that they embark on featuring people with disabilities to watch this film and think about the Affirmation Model of Disability. Let’s celebrate how disabilities give someone a unique perspective that we can all learn from. Bringing this into the classroom can help create an inclusive space and encourage an inclusive art practice.

I have a deaf student in my year group that I would love to share this film with, but rather than single her out, or send it to her outside the group, I will find a way to work viewing the film into one of our regular teaching sessions. I will also share this with my teaching colleagues.

#DisabilityTooWhite article/interview with Vilissa Thompson

This article reminded me a lot of key passages from “Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race” (Eddo-Lodge, 2017) where she powerfully dissects how White Feminism discludes and discounts the voices and experiences of women of colour. Thompson highlights the lack of representation and diversity within the disability community and how that adds to the marginalization of people of colour. The article references particularly the lack of representation of disabled people of colour on TV or in film and how this inattention to intersectionality in the experience of disabled people is damaging.

Intersectionality is very common within the cohort I teach. The convergence of race, gender, sexuality and economic and social background are realities for many of my students. Creating a space where students can express and explore their experience of intersectionality within a supportive peer group is very important. I currently have a first year student who is making a documentary photography project on people who share her experience of growing up as a ‘queer, black, young adult’. Having read this article I wonder if I should have given her more space to speak out in class about this, rather than seeing it as just another personal project. Lots of my students in this group are making work based on difficult personal subjects, but I wonder whether her desire to explore her intersectionality and share it with the class deserves more attention and more focus. I took it for granted that all my students understand the concept of intersectionality and that we are in a safe space to explore these issues, but this does not acknowledge the struggle that these students have likely experienced and their bravery in sharing it with the class. It also assumes that the rest of the cohort understand these terms and their meaning which in hindsight is not necessarily the case.

Lack of representation is a big topic and on one hand it feels like things are finally changing with TV series such as Bridgerton and the His Dark Materials series casting more actors of colour. We are also see far more people of colour and far more depictions of non-hetero normative relationships on TV. I’ve also see far more representations of disabilities. However I feel that its the voices of people from these marginalised groups who should be listened to on whether these changes are far reaching enough.

‘Deaf Accessibility for Spoonies: Lessons from Touring Eve and Mary Are Having Coffee’ by Khairani Barokka

Khairani Barokka writes very honestly and movingly about her experience of touring a one-woman show all over the world whilst chronically ill. I was particularly interested in the lengths she went to in ensuring that her shows were accessible, from putting the script on a Google Doc to giving D/deaf or hearing impaired audience member iPads and iPhones to read the poetry, to projecting the URL to the google doc onto a wall.

Her article also touched on the intersectionality of being a ‘brown woman’ with a hidden disability and how appalling she was treated by different institutions. One passage particularly stood for me:

It behooves us to understand that accessibility should extend to all – those behind the scenes, performers, as well as audience members – with multiple D/deaf and disabled identities, and more than one impairment. My story serves to show the need for us disabled and D/deaf arts practitioners to uphold such sensitivities ourselves, to recognise the need for advocacy for D/deaf and disabled communities in the arts outside of our own experiences. It is also a reminder to, as my case illustrates, never forget nor underestimate the need we all have at times to ask for help, to treat self-care as paramount, and to do justice to our needs in our own work, particularly if we don’t see ourselves represented, and if we put pressure on ourselves as representation.

I have one deaf student, many students with dsylexia and several students with ADHD and autism along with lots of students who are struggling with their mental health. Whilst their ISA’s, should they chose to share with me, do a good job in letting me know what they need. I need to make more of an effort to understand how their disability impacts them. It is sometimes hard to have these conversations if the student has chosen not to share their ISA with me, but with so many students presenting such a range of disabilities this Inclusive Practicse unit is going to be extremely useful and important for my practice. Barokka’s article gives valuble insight into the additional struggles that artists with disabilities face and how much there is to learn in creating accessibility in the arts.

UAL Disability Service Webpage and Terms of Reference, Shades of Noir, (2020) Disabled People: Many Voices, “Evolution of Disability Models. Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow.” pp. 58-63

The Social Model of Disability at UAL – short animation

This wonderful animation was made by UAL graduate Gabriele Lorusso and was posted on the UAL Disability Services Webpage. It beautifully illustrates the Social Model of Disability with simple and impactful graphics. It sets up a view of disability in relation to the construction of the world around us. Inviting us to reflect on whether we expect disabled people to fit into a world that is not designed to be inclusive to different abilities, rather than ensuring that our world fits all.

This led me to the Shades of Noir, Terms of Reference article titled “Evolution of Disability Models. Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow.” This lays out evolving views of disability from the earliest ‘The Religious Model’ that frames disability as punishment for a sin through to ‘The New Radical Model’.

Learning about these models put a framework to different attitudes towards disability that I’ve seen played out from my childhood onwards. I remember how the London 2012 Paralympics changed the conversation about disability and seemed to mark a shift in attitudes. My positionality as an able bodied, woman who before becoming a lecturer had almost never interacted with the disabled community means I have a lot to learn. Reading this issue of Terms of Reference was a much needed education and I found several articles interesting and useful. Negotiating the UAL Disability Services website has given me a better idea of what help is available and what challenges still remain.

Teaching for Retention – Social integration and Belonging

Takeaways from the Teaching for Retention Pdf from the Academic Enhancement Model Toolbox on the AEM and Attainment Resources website.

Credit: Getty

As first year lead on BAPJD, the subject of student retention is very relevant to me. Retention is without doubt linked not only to helping students pass their required units but on a deeper level it’s about their sense of belonging. This pdf, which is part of the AEM Toolbox, suggested interventions that can improve retention rates, from using data gathered in student surveys to teaching strategies such as using formative feedback as a diagnostic tool.

This year’s cohort told me directly that they wanted more help in bonding as a group during Block 1. Although by Block 2 I could see that friendship groups were being formed, as evidenced by a week where at least 6 students were sick and absent from my group tutorial. When I made a joke the following week that they must all have been at the same party, they all laughed and looked sheepish admitting this is exactly what had happened!

Some of the teaching strategies and social integration interventions that were suggested could certainly be could put in place in the ‘Intro To’ unit. The points that resonated with me were:

  • How can current students input more into welcoming new students?
  • Should we reconsider the assessment brief in ‘Intro To’, which to me is extremely rigorous and challenging for such an early point in the year?
  • Can we incorporate more student-centred learning?
  • How can we emphasise and assist more with building peer relationships?

In my experience creating small peer group activities every week helps students get to know each other. As do ice-breaker exercises at the beginning of class. But these should happen regularly throughout Block 1 rather than just in the first session. I’d like to introduce Object Based Learning sessions throughout Year 1 as a peer bonding opportunity – with students bringing in objects that are important to them. And I want to set regular mini-photography challenges for all 3 year groups to respond to. These challenges will be a chance for students to take pictures for fun, without being assessed, and will also be opportunities for students to work in pairs or small groups. Throughout the year, work from each year group will be rewarded – as in incentive to take part and to bring different year groups together. Rewards might be tickets to see a film screening or for the opening night of an exhibition. This also feeds into creating scaffolding for students to practice their technical skills.

The pdf also touches on how important it is for students to feel known by the staff, and an important question it posed was: How are students given the opportunity to understand how the relationship with University staff may differ from their previous experience?

This is something that I’ve prehaps taken for granted, even though its clear at the beginning of the year that students are unsure of what name or title to give me or even how to talk to me. I will take the time to address this moving forwards.

Block 1 pastoral tutorials are important in getting to know students and checking in with them, but this year none of the first year students signed up for them in Block 1. I felt that I had explained clearly what they were for, however having spoken to the students about it since, there was some confusion still and I should have taken more time to explain to them in person what these tutorials were for.

Lots to think about and lots of actions that I can implement for 2022/23!

Reference list:

Suka-Bill, Z and Clay, S , (Undated), AEM Toolbox, University of the Arts London. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/201935/Teaching-for-Retention-PDF-489KB.pdf (Accessed March 2022)

How do we support students who are going through mental health crisis?

An audio blog reflecting on student mental health over the course of a final year project

Image Credit: melitas/Shutterstock.com

I run a seminar group of 3rd year students working on their Final Major Project for BA Photojournalism and Documentary Photography. We meet once a week over the course of the final year.

Here is my audio blog about my recent experience working with students who are struggling with mental health problems.

This recording leads straight on to the next clip below.

After recording the first two sections I’ve added a final section reflecting on how what I’ve learned on the PgCert has informed my feelings about student assessment. Particularly important has been Dr Maha Bali’s keynote address in the ‘Belonging in assessment’ symposium.

Finally I feel very strongly that all staff should be receiving mental health training so that we have some of the basic tools that we need to help our students, particularly when they are sharing details of traumatic events in one-to-ones.

Pass/Fail – Learnings from Interrogating Spaces podcast

I spent three years as an AL before moving into my current post as senior lecturer and year 1 lead on BAPJD. In my first AL role, I was assessing first year students using the Pass/Grade system. This felt very comfortable to me, being used to this from my own educational background. When we moved to pass/fail in 2019/20 I wasn’t aware of the reasons behind the change – except that it was precipitated by the pandemic. My first thought was that while this was easier on the tutors in terms of working through the marking, it felt unfair on students. I found myself wanting to let the students know, within the feedback, what grade they might have received. This felt particularly important for the highest and lowest achieving students. My instinct was to fall back on grading to highlight the best and worst submissions rather than relying on the quality of my feedback. I felt it was unfair to give two students from opposite ends of the scale the same ‘grade’ (a pass) when their effort and attainment was so different. This has been at the back of my mind since the change to pass/fail, even though I’ve become more confident that my feedback is detailed and personalized.

Coming across the Pass/Fail episode of the UAL podcast Interrogating Space has given me some much needed clarity on both why the change was made but also the value judgements behind the decision.

The podcast took the format of a panel discussion recorded during the ‘Belonging through assessment: Pipelines of compassion’ symposium on 21st October 2021. The panel speakers were: Professor Sam Broadhead (LAU), Dr Neil Currant, (UAL) and Peter Hughes, (LAU) and the facilitator Dr Kate Mori (Academic Engagement Manager, QAA).

The panel discussed pass/fail as a “compassionate approach to assessment” it also explored ” the challenges in changing practice and policies from the perspective of staff, students and the wider institution.”

https://interrogatingspaces.buzzsprout.com/683798/9644305-pass-fail-assessment-in-arts-higher-education

All three of the speakers had been involved in research that led to their institutions switching to Pass/Fail, primarily as a result of the pandemic. The discussion covered the benefits of pass/fail, and the challenges, both for students and staff.

After listening to the podcast clear themes emerged explaining the thinking behind Pass/Fail. Firstly there was the feeling amongst all 3 speakers that grading encouraged competition amongst students and a focus on ‘grade chasing’ (Hughes) rather than fostering a drive towards valuing ‘learning’.

This made a lot of sense to me and chimed with my own experience of being a student when I was at school. I was never a particularly conscientious or hard working student but I had a good memory and I performed well in exams, so consequently received A grades, which in reflection, rewarded my exam performance rather than my understanding or engagement with the learning. I was definitely guilty of grade chasing and valuing an A above any actual knowledge that I accrued.

Secondly there was reduction of stress in a pass/fail environment.

Dr Currant conducted research with first year students who were assessed using pass/fail and found that:

“one of the big things that we saw was that students felt there was a reduction in stress and anxiety. You know, students really talk about grades causing a lot of stress and a lot of anxiety. And so that pass fail, particularly during the pandemic was a real, really helped them calm down and come into university transition into university and feel they could get their feet, if you like, under the table, and not have to worry about performing. ” (Currant)

And thirdly there was some data that suggested that progression rates for Black and Asian students had increased relative to their white peers.

“And I think intriguingly, we got some data that suggests that our progression rates for Black and Asian students have increased relative to their white peers. So the gap of progression has actually decreased during the period when we had pass/ fail.” (Currant)

These are convincing and important findings that back up why pass/fail might be a better assessment criteria for a large percentage of students. However there is also the issue of how to help students, who like me had grown up in a grading environment and had become used to the validation or otherwise of grades, to adapt to and accept the value of pass/fail.

The panel discussed this at length with Professor Broadbent explaining that they start preparing students for a pass/fail environment right from open days so that students know what the are signing up for. He also talked about instilling a culture that values creative, independent thinking above grades and fosters a collegiate spirit as opposed to one of competition.

For me, helping students adapt to pass/fail also comes back to feedback and how important it is for it to be detailed and personalised, refering to specific areas in their projects and explaining what could be improved (and how) and praising what worked well. But also ensuring to give an overall feel of how well they have responded to the brief.

The speakers also spoke of evidence of students embracing collaborative working and seeing themselves as a cohort rather than individuals in competition with each other.

One of units that I currently lead is based on collaborative working so this is very relevant to me. I try to instil a mentality of ‘no man left behind’ and encourage students to embrace group work, whether they are natural leaders, or prefer to work in the background. After listening to the podcast I feel that students might find it easier embrace a group ethos knowing that other people’s performance won’t affect their own grades. Groups that I’ve worked with on collaborative projects have occassionally had issues working together, and I’ve been asked if another student’s performance will affect their own grade. Being able to answer simply that students will either pass or fail in this unit, has immediately de-escalated what could be an area of contention in a grading environment.

The panel also touched on how taking away grading encourages risk taking and a focus on learning rather than reproducing, which is particularly important for arts’ students. There was also evidence that students were more willing to take on extracurricular activites. I have not seen evidence of this myself, I find that first years in particular are generally not willing to take risks or take on extra external activities. In the second and third year this changes a lot so I wonder if this was taken into consideration.

The podcast was enlightening and helped me understand the reason behind installing pass/fail. It also made me reflect again on the importance of feedback and has given me important insight to share with the ALs and unit tutors who work with me.

Works Cited:

“Interrogating Spaces. Pass/fail assessment in arts higher education” 01 Dec. 2021. www.interrogatingspaces.buzzsprout.com/683798/9644305-pass-fail-assessment-in-arts-higher-education

Object Based Learning

Learning about Object Based Learning (OBL) – and then getting to try it out – has been a highlight for me so far. There were some great materials available to introduce me to a subject that I was almost completely ignorant of before. I started by watching a video featuring Judy Willcocks, Head of Museum and Study Collection at CSM explaining how she’s built OBL into her practice to encourage students to engage with the collections. She’s done incredible work to bring the study of artefacts into the curriculum across several courses. It was an inspiring talk that showed a real commitment to learning about pedagogy and bringing the collection to the heart of the student learning journey – a great introduction to the topic. From there I explored the ‘Emotional responses to objects’ video and associated worksheet. The worksheet invited us to engage with a beautiful handsewn box on an intuitive and emotional level. It was interesting that none of the prompts directed us into discussing what the object was, it was all about what it evoked in us. This is what differentiated it to me from a more direct, investigative approach. This is all about encouraging students to interact with artefacts on a deeper level and to make connections in new ways.

The next resource that I found was the Rose Visual Analysis model. For me, lecturing in photojournalism and documentary photography, this was a particularly interesting way of looking at and discussing images. This was taken from a chapter in Gillian Rose’s book Visual Methodolgies: An Introduction that was posted on the . In her book (Rose, 2016) suggests a four staged approach to analysing images and artworks. This introduced me to an entirely new way of approaching discussions around an image. Although much of my teaching is based around reading images; both the student’s work and leading them in discussions of other photographers’ work, I’d not broken things down in this way before and I could immediately see the value in working through these stages to elicit deeper conversations and responses.

I got a chance to try this out in the observed micro-teaching session yesterday. Although the brief was to bring in a physical object I wanted to use this observation as a chance to try out something that I might do in one of my units, so I chose to base this around a digital photograph, using Rose’s methodology. This allowed me to test drive how a discussion of this type might work. The image that I chose is known as The Kiss, by Alred Eisendstaedt. It’s an image that I was pretty sure most people would be aware of, but ideally they wouldn’t know the whole story behind it and the controversy that has since built up around it. The picture was taken in Times Sq in 1945 on VJ Day and shows a sailor embracing a nurse surrounded by celebrations. There is so much to discuss and dissect in this image so I was aware that 20 minutes would go by very quickly. For that reason we focused on 3 of Rose’s 4 ‘sites’.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is kkiss.jpeg

So, how did it go and what did I learn? Firstly, what didn’t work. I was cross that I let time get away from me. I was using my phone to time 5 minutes for each discussion point, but I forget to press ‘go’ when we moved to the second point. This meant we ended up running over without me getting on top of the timing. I felt really bad because it’s not fair to the rest of the group who are then under pressure of time for their own presentations and its show a lack of control over the session.

Secondly I invited one of my colleagues, who hadn’t spoken till that point, to make a comment and it immediately became clear that she was aware of the controversy around the image. I wanted to keep this information back until the end of the session because I felt it was important for the rest of the group to come to that realisation (or not) after going through other discussion points first. This was a big part of the structure of the session and I felt it was important to allow the group to find their own way to that conclusion – although led by me. Consequently I had to ask Rosa not to finish her point and wait until the end to bring it up again. This felt a bit uncomfortable, particularly because I had asked her to speak. I hope that I did this in a respectful manner and I don’t think it ruined anything but it was a lesson in knowing when to invite someone to speak and when to let them speak in their own time.

So, what went well? As always, I love having discussions about photography so it was a genuinely enjoyable experience. Rose’s methodology worked as a framework for discussion and the group made some valuable points that I would not necessarily have thought of. This is very often the way and I can see how Object Based Learning is a brilliant tool to encourage thoughtful and thought provoking discussions. I was happy with the balance of my input versus allowing the group to talk. The final discussion about reading the image as an assault captured on film was unfortunately cut short due to my own bad time keeping. However it was interesting to see how everyone came to that conclusion when shown the cropped image.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is kkisscrop.jpg

We didn’t get a chance to discuss this present day response to the image in depth unfortunately.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is imrs-scaled.jpeg
A statue depicting the famous scene of a sailor kissing a woman in New York’s Times Square as people celebrate the end of World War II has been vandalized with red spray paint spelling out #MeToo. (Photo by HO / Sarasota Police Department / AFP)

I can see many ways that I can bring OBL into my teaching, both through individual photos like this and but also around physical artefacts like photo books and magazines. It gives agency to the students and engenders self directed learning and discussion and is less about ‘teaching’ and more about engaging. I think the students would really enjoy this experience.

I wish I’d been able to see more of my group’s sessions but was unfortunately only able to sit in on 4 of them. Ceclia’s presentation of samples of hair was fascinating and great example of using an object as a jumping off point for wider discussions. The presentations that worked particularly well were the ones where there was almost no instructions or explanations. Just the object and a simple prompt, then space for the group to examine and interrogate their object and finally have time for discussion. It became clear that there is no ‘one way’ to approach OBL. The person leading the session can take this in almost any direction – using any object, artefact or prompt to explore different ideas.

I’ve learnt so much from this section of the unit and can’t wait to put this into practice.

References:

Rose G, (2016) Visual Methodolgies: An Introduction. Rose’s Visual Analysis. Available at: https://arts.ac.libguides.com/c.php?g=686452&p=4906489 (Accessed Feb 2022)

PgCert introduction session and thoughts on ‘assessing creativity’

This morning we had our PgCert introductory session. I met my cohort and our tutor Emily. We each shared slides about our teaching experience and professional practice and exchanged thoughts about areas of interest. Everyone comes from varied and fascinating artistic backgrounds and I’m looking forward to some interesting and fruitful discussions!

Before the session we were each asked to read an article related to pedagogy and the visual arts and share insights from it. I read a brilliant article on ‘Assessing Creativity’ (Cowdroy and Williams, 2006) from the University of Newcastle.

This is a subject that is particularly interesting to me as a lecturer who tries to foster and grow creativity in students.

The article asked: How do we break creativity down into its constituent parts and then teach and assess it?

Cowdroy and Williams had some interesting answers that I’ll be putting to use with my 3rd year seminar group.

There were several pages on the research the team did around what is creativity and how to teach it, going back to Beaux Arts and Bauhaus teaching styles and referencing sources from Plato to more contempory studies. (I’m paraphrasing enormously here!) Finally they came up with 3 concepts that together must be present to produce work that can be assessed as having the highest creative impact. Conceptualization + Schematization + Actualization.

Highest level: Conceptualization + Schematization + Actualization

Intermediate level: Schematization + Actualization

Lowest level: Actualization

This emphasis that all 3 stages are necessary to gain the highest level of attainment is something that we teach our students already but seeing it simplified in this form is incredibly useful. This is something that I stress a lot with my 3rd year students who are working on their year-long final major project – without evidence of conceptualization – involving visual and theoretical reserach and evidence of their own original thinking – they will be unable to achieve the highest grade. To see this spelt out in this article, along with the research behind was reassuring.

Update: Since writing this blog I have spoken to my 3rd year seminar group about this research, however its clear that not all students have an interest in research and are happy working on the intermediate and lowest level. I believe that my role is to support them through that process whilst suggesting references that can enhance their project.

Reference list:

Cowdroy, R and Williams, A (2006) “Assessing creativity in the creative arts’ Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education, 5 (2), pp. 97-117. doi: 10.1386/adch.5.2.97/1.