IP. Proposal Outline.
Aim.
To enhance the sharing of students diverse cultural capital[1],[2], (Bourdieu, P. 2018) within the course.
Context.
The MA Design for Art Direction MADAD course recruits 60 students a year. A quality that is unique about the course is that the students come from diverse cultural, academic and professional backgrounds because Art Direction is not often taught, meaning there is an incredible range of interests and practices in the room.
Opportunity.
At the start of the year, we the course team design opportunities in the format of exercises and workshops for the students to share their cultural capital with each other. Such as sharing of information, presenting past-practice, manifesto writing, potluck dinners, a shared map-of-home, timecapsules and generating a communal lexicon of Art Direction for the year. How can one or multiple of these opportunities be appropriated and enhanced to further this action?
Intervention.
I propose to better articulate these as a family of connected activities, enhance some of the current activities and introduce a new one.
New activity.
Cultural Language Lessons[3].
Objective: Introduce students to different languages spoken by their classmates.
Activity: Each student teaches their classmates in small groups a few basic phrases in their native language or vocabulary associated with their culture. This could include greetings, common expressions, or culturally significant terms.
Outcome: Enhances linguistic diversity awareness and provides a fun way to learn new languages and interact with others through peer learning by leveraging cultural capital (Santiago-Garabieta, M. 2023).
Draft.
https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVKC2EmZc=/
Enhance.
Map of Home. Students identify and map locations on a digital world map that they associate with home (Leask, B. 2009). I would like to transfer this to an analogue version, using giant whiteboards in the teaching space and maintain a collection year on year.
Enhance.
Time Capsule. This year the students opened a time capsule made by previous students five years ago lead by Louise Healy. The students and MADAD team are interested in continuing this.
Footnotes.
[1] Cultural capital refers to the non-financial assets that contribute to social mobility and status within a society, including education, knowledge, skills, and cultural resources (Oxford Reference, 2024).
[2] The aim is to enhance the sharing of students diverse cultural capital at the start of the academic year, encouraging students to share their unique cultural backgrounds, experiences, and knowledge with each other. This objective aims to:
Promote Inclusivity: Foster an inclusive environment where students from diverse cultural backgrounds feel valued and respected. This can help build a supportive community where all students feel a sense of belonging.
Encourage Mutual Understanding: Facilitate opportunities for students to learn about and appreciate the diverse cultural perspectives and practices of their peers. This can enhance empathy, respect, and cross-cultural understanding among students.
Enrich Learning Experiences: Leverage the diverse cultural capital within the student body to enrich the overall learning experience. Students can gain new insights and perspectives that enhance their academic and personal growth.
Stimulate Intercultural Dialogue: Create platforms for intercultural dialogue and exchange, encouraging students to share their cultural stories, traditions, and values. This can lead to meaningful conversations and collaborative learning experiences.
Support Equity and Opportunity: Ensure that all students have the opportunity to share their cultural capital, recognizing the value of diverse contributions and perspectives. This can help promote equity and inclusivity in the academic setting.
Overall, this aim is about creating an environment that values and celebrates cultural diversity, fostering a richer, more inclusive academic community at the start of the academic year.
[3]This would be an activity out of my comfort zone as I have dyslexia and phonological processing and working memory would be a challenge.
Reference.
Bourdieu, P. (2018). Cultural reproduction and social reproduction. In Knowledge, education, and cultural change (pp. 71-112). Routledge.
Leask, B. (2009). Using Formal and Informal Curricula to Improve Interactions Between Home and International Students. Sage Journals. Available at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1028315308329786 . Accessed 27th May 2024.
Oxford Reference (2024). Cultural Capital. Quick Reference. Available at https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095652799 . Accessed 27th May 2024.
Santiago-Garabieta, M. (2023). Inclusivity, friendship and language learning: boosting collaboration in interactive groups. Taylor Francis Online Homepage. Available at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00131881.2023.2189433# . Accessed 27th May 2024.
17th July 2024 @ 5:03 pm
Hi Jordan, lovely to read about your ideas.
And I think it is great that you are leveraging cultural capital in the classroom and getting students to learn new things about each-others’ cultures in this way. Even different parts of the uk have distinct phrases so I’m sure everyone would have something to contribute and it could lead to a nice conversation.
Interesting to look at it from the point of view that it would be challenging due to dyslexia, are there any strategies that you use to help with this? Likely any adaptations you could make to the activity that would help you, would also likely be beneficial for the students. Maybe a way to add visuals for the words chosen could give them more meaning, context and make them easier to process/ remember?
I also really like your mapping idea as a way to create a place for students to record their home countries. maybe there is a way of combining this with the words so that students could refer back to the map and find the words/ phrases tagged somehow? It also made me think about the term ‘third culture kid’ relating to people who might not identify as being ‘from’ one place as they might have lived in many different countries or have parents from different countries.
All the best
Emma
24th July 2024 @ 11:57 am
Hi Emma, I appreciate your thoughtful and insightful comment, and have 100% incorporated parts of this this feedback in the development of the proposal. I completely agree that leveraging cultural capital in the classroom can be a powerful way to foster connections and understanding among students. Your point about the distinct phrases used in different parts of the UK and even other english speaking countries that is not England is great, incorporating vernaculars and colloquial expression and how all of this can be combined to enhance this proposition is helpful.
Regarding your question about strategies for supporting students with dyslexia, you’re absolutely right that we do provide accommodations to help our students access the activity set by the school but also from personal experience. For example, we use multisensory approaches to learning, such as using visual aids, manipulatives, and hands-on activities to help students with dyslexia process and retain information. Myself and a colleague who is also dyslexic often leverage our own challenges to inform adaptions to the delivery. I can struggle differentiating between sounds, so phonetic writing of words and phrases is useful. I appreciate your suggestion about adding visuals for the words, as this is something that helps me and as a tool to also discuss further decolonisation. As a large part of this proposal is to decolonise the language.
I love your idea of combining the map activity with the word collection. We could definitely do this by having students label their home countries on the class white board map and then using sticky notes or coloured markers to highlight the corresponding words and phrases they’ve collected. We do a version of this currently, but I feel an enhanced version for the coming year would be beneficial. Given the word count for the proposal I will implement it, but omit it from the write up most likely.
Regarding your comment about “third culture kids,” you’re absolutely right that this concept can be relevant to our students who have experienced living in multiple cultures or having parents from different countries. I am going to consider how this could be incorporated, maybe in the verbally explanation of the activity this can be implemented.
Again I really appreciate all your thoughtful comments and suggestions. I clicked on your name and it took me to your website, amazing work.