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.