Race

Born and brought up in India, I was always the majority growing up so my awareness of ‘race’ only properly came into being when I moved to the UK to study back in 2005. Still, it took many more years before I started to recognize racism, explicitly or in the form of micro-aggressions, or by being excluded from certain conversations or social groups of people. I should acknowledge, I came with my own set of prejudices and privilege.

The past couple of years have been transformative – I became part of a community of practitioners who address and interrogate South Asian diasporic culture to provoke debate and challenge the status quo, I read ‘Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race’ that made me confront my understanding of race and intersectionality, it also made me realise that racism isn’t something that happens to other people (a rather naïve and ignorant stance I subconsciously held for many years), I started the PG Cert and the Inclusive Teaching and Learning Unit in particular helped me understand my positionality and the impact that has on a day to day basis in my teaching and professional context.

Kwame Anthony Appiah’s Reith lecture on Colour/Race discouraged fixation on racial stereotypes and cultural custodianship, and encouraged cultural exchange with a deeper respect and understanding on each other’s historical, social and economical backgrounds so our views don’t become so polarised.

Shades of Noir

The SoN website has been a real revelation to me. I knew of it’s existence of course, but the reading recommended and discussions throughout this unit has made me further aware of the resources that I can refer to and share with students and colleagues. The terms of reference on Race, Gender, Religion and Disability have particularly been helpful for me to understand the language, theories and discussions we have held over the past couple of months; but also empowered and equipped me with a new vocabulary to articulate, implement and (hopefully) facilitate conversation around inclusive practice.

I read Claire Hiscock’s ‘Expanding the conversation: The power of language or the language of power?’ in the Journal ‘Discourse: The power of language and communication’. This term I have been involved in teaching on the Professional practice unit on the 2^nd year Textiles course. I’ve read many CVs and Cover letters where my main message has been that the language (English, in this case) needs to be tightened for a stronger impact. This article has really challenged me to think of how to approach this as despite ensuring that grammar is not the top priority here, I know that when seen in a professional context, the CVs and cover letters will be read by people in the industry who will make judgements based on this very point. How then do I encourage my students without making the English language a big focus of the feedback?

Hahn Tapper (2013) ‘ A Pedagogy of Social Justice Education: social identity, theory and intersectionality

It was really interesting to read about the 3 different approaches that within social justice education that were discussed by Hahn Tapper.  In particular, Freire’s approach reminded me of the introduction to Critical Pedagogy earlier in the unit and also how important it is to acknowledge our student’s and our own positionality to design the curriculum with that knowledge as a considered priority.

“It is impossible to think of education without thinking of power . . . the question . . . is not to get power, but to reinvent power” (cited in Evans, Evans, and Kennedy 1987, 226).

This quote by Freire really stood out to me as it challenges the traditional ‘banking system of teaching’.

I’m also reminded of what the university in doing with the introduction of Contextual Admissions, which is a step in making the student recruitment process more fair and inclusive.

Perhaps Freire and Gadamer would have been friends, as they believe it important that both performer and audience (or teacher and student) need to be involved for meaningful learning to take place.

I was not aware of the term ‘Contact hypothesis’ but this is something we actively do anyway. In order to encourage interactions within a large cohort amongst a diverse group of people, we often set group tasks and have mostly seen a positive outcome. On rare occasions, it doesn’t work and students end up feeling isolated or frustrated; however the overall impact has always been mostly positive. I think the key is to set out the goals in advance and emphasize the importance of teamwork, skills that will be beneficial to students long after they’ve left their studies.

Social Identity Theory (SIT) poses a new question – in our current climate of ‘culture wars’, it seems as though political and cultural identities trump social identities. Social identities can be seen as positive, but I’m concerned that the imposed identities that can lead to stereotyping.

‘Colour of Britain‘ and ‘Brimful of Asia‘, Pratibha Parmar’s films about British Asians creatives in the 1990s touches upon these multiple intersectional identities and the refusal of the mainstream to accept these identities, despite the shared experiences and culture.

Witness: unconscious bias: Josephine Kwhali

Josephine Kwahli’s comments about ‘unconscious bias’ helped clarify a thought that’s been niggling at me. Unconscious bias does/may exist on an individual basis (I often think this with family members who are older/live in the country side). However, institutions and the people who work within them need to be held to a different standard, they have been engaged in these debates for years and are supposedly the leaders in their respective fields. We should expect them to acknowledge racism, marginalisation, bias. Josephine touched about how they have consciously made headway when it comes to gender; so why not race? It’s important for them to recognise ‘Intersectionality’ and address all marginalised identities consciously.