Slide 1: context/ my background – I am Suprina, a designer and a storyteller focusing on identity, the representation of women of colour, and the effects of patriarchy. I also am a freelance workshop host/ facilitator where I have done workshops around the importance of lived experiences and diverse narratives.
Slide 2: What is the problem? During my own higher education years, I had always felt the classroom and the curriculum were very alienating and white. As a student of colour, I was made aware that my narrative around my heritage, and identity was unwelcomed as it didn’t meet the ‘acceptable graphic design aesthetic’. The references I was given were mostly male and Eurocentric. I was not able to resonate and engage with the resources being shared – is my work valid? Do I belong in this course? These self-doubts arose in me – this was often shared by my PoC peers as well.
According to Liz Thomas (2012), student belonging is considered one of the key roles to tackle the awarding gap. The Student Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Report 2020/ 21 (pp. 12) states that in 2019/ 20 [UAL total] 90.3% of White students were awarded a 1st compared to only 74.4% of the Black and PoC students.
These are problems I wanted to address – through the enquiry my aim is to develop an understanding of diverse perspectives and analyse how the introduction of ‘multicultural’ knowledge increases participation/ engagement and empowers the students to recognise the importance and value their own voices.
Slide 3: What is intercultural dialogue?
Slide 4: As part of my resource review, I resonated with what Rathna Ramanathan said in one of her Intercultural and Decolonial lectures. Rathna asks us to question What happens when we view the world from the perspective of the other. What changes both within us and in the context outside of us.
Another resource is by Aisha Richards and Terry Finnigan where they’ve pointed out ways to embed equality and diversity in the curriculum and what impact this can have. So, in that resource, they talk about the importance of representation in the curriculum and creating opportunities to share and engage in more diverse perspectives, concepts, and knowledge – which is not only beneficial to the marginalised students but all of us where we are constantly learning.
Slide 5: Reflecting back on my own student experience, I recognised the importance of representation in our reference/ resource list. It made me look back on directing myself to find the resources I could resonate with. How the lack of non-Eurocentric reference made me feel that I did not belong in my class, affecting my decision and value of what is considered to be a valid acceptable design and what is not.
In order to make a ‘resource pool’ – we need to think about what kind of resources we are sharing. Along with knowing who are our students, we need to realise whose voice are we practicing to exclude and why is that and what impact this could have on our diverse student body?
Slide 6: Here is a screenshot of the references & resources list in which has been categorised into four sections: Artists, Podcasts and videos, resources of archives, books, and current and past exhibitions. This was introduced in my workshop called ‘tapping into your narrative’. What I realised from this workshop is that when the introduction of lived experiences, culture, and identity was spoken off, the students were seen being engaged with the topic. There was a lot of conversation around love, relationship, and connection. The dialogue exchanged between me and their peers reminded me of the book all about love by bell hooks.
Slide 7: This was a conversation, a quote taken from one of my students who I spoke with after the workshop around personal narratives and storytelling.
Talking with many of the students that day made me think about methodology through a focus group. Where I had hoped conversation around this can be shared freely.
Slide 8: This is some examples of the student work which touches on the topic of self-identity and relationships.
Slide 9: Reflection on methodology – I planned to do this in a focus group because of the dialogic engagement this workshop evoked. As mentioned above, I had students come up to me who wanted to learn more about lived-experience work, therefore through the focus group, I wanted the students to be engaged with the reference list and observe the intercultural dialogue happening. I had expected at least to recruit four-five students where conversations and hearing one another about the experiences and resources will be promoted. I also decided to use observational methodology to collect data from the workshop – this included quotes from dialogue being exchanged and some of the students work (the ones who gave consent).
When I reached out about the focus group, only one student responded. I learned that due to the students having their deadlines as well as the timescale of this project, I decided to change my methodology into a questionnaire. The questionnaire was sent out to 20 students and only 7 of them responded. The questionnaire format allowed the students to respond in their own time. However, I realised that although the intercultural dialogue was being shared in the responses, it would have been more effective if the responses could be conveyed face-to-face with one another. This is something I would like to do in a future session as a follow-up activity.
Slide 10: Findings –
- 7 out of 7 students shared resources/ references about lived experience, different narratives empower them.
- 7 out of 7 students agreed that diverse [voices] references benefit all members of the college.
They shared“it is crucial to engage with diverse materials – also equally important as to what we define as diverse. It is important to show the different ways that work can be made and thought about. It is a great way to challenge what we categorise as ‘good design’. It is necessary in expanding the canon and being more critical of the work we are producing and also the audience it is made for. Who are we excluding and what (unintentional) impact could that have”.
Another participant shared, “as creatives, we should seek to make work that resonates with the world around ours…but without including diverse voices, we risk creating an exclusive bubble for ourselves and our work.”
- Some students noted that they prioritise engaging with artists and designers of colour but they have to find resources/ references themselves because of the default being euro-centric work.
- Students shared how the references & resources list influenced them and how they will use it. Student C responded the representation in the list makes them curious and inspires them to bring their own culture through their work. Another student shared that the list “shows the variety of what could design mean and empowers me to create/ design for good”. Some of the findings suggested that representation in the resources reassured students in doubt to continue creating work revolving around their stories and experiences – that they do not have to “sacrifice their cultural roots”.
Slide 11: Second research findings –
In an interview that I had conducted with artist Demelza Woodbridge for Shades of Noir Tell us about it project, Woodbridge shared her experiences as a student of colour: “I found it really difficult being a student of colour; from dealing with micro-aggressions to having knowledge presented to you by people and from people that don’t look like you. To find strategies to get on, to not let that get in the way of your learning is really hard. To get by you have to kind of almost inhabit two bodies in some way. You have the ‘student body’ and then your ‘personal body’.
Why should you be separated? Other students don’t have to separate themselves like that.
In the podcast episode of ‘Interrogating Spaces: Belonging in Higher Education’ Dr. Gurnam Singh questions what is belonging – he shares it is feeling connected, a feeling of inclusion, that there is ‘empathy that you can share with other people’. He further explains the sense of un-belonging is created when the student is physically excluded in spaces of learning.
Signals of un-belonging can be done through erasure in the curriculum, lack of representation of role models in their profession, or ‘whose pictures are on the wall?’ (Interrogating Spaces, 2020). In the same episode, Neil Currant explains ideas to understand what belonging means. He breaks them down into two ideas:
- Contact – the importance of individual relationship
- Fit – can students belong? What is the university doing to support, value, and respect our students? How is the course – can our students belong there? What about the department?
Slide 12: Conclusion/ Reflection
I would like to reflect upon my research project – does it answer my question of ‘does intercultural dialogue, through the introduction of my reference list empower graphic design students? – to some extent it does, but does it do well? While the students engaged with the reference list and responded to the questionnaire, I believe that it would have been an appropriate method to organise a focus group and generate discussions and thoughts around resources being shared – again due to time constraints and deadlines, the students were not able to participate in a focus group, but after conducting this questionnaire, I would love to do a follow -up session/ activity around this. However, the questionnaire findings were not in vain – I understand how this is a continuous intervention, to bring necessary change in learning and fostering belonging.
Students’ responses shared what resources they want to see, what kind of references empowers them, and how they will be using the resource list. This has reassured me that while intercultural dialogue through participation and engagement amongst each other was not as successful as expected, a part of the participants shared that they recognised the importance and value of their own narratives/ voices – this was one of my aim of the enquiry. Assuring me that I am working in the right direction. As the nature of this enquiry requires student voices to be heard, I believe the value of their voices can also be conveyed during the building/ development of the references & resources list. As part of my research, it is reiterated that students would like to be reflected in their learning. This not only probes for belonging but also enables cultural engagement, challenges perspectives, and decenter whiteness.
(Finnigan and Richards, 2016 pp.7- 9)
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