Focused Discussions
Evidencing Transformative Learning for Diversity and Equality : Measuring the Experiences and Outcomes of Learning and Teaching on Race, Racism, and Anti-racism View Digital Media
Focused Discussion Sukhwinder Singh
Our study explores whether the practice shift from anti-racism to a broader anti-oppressive practice paradigm has led to a weakening or a dilution of anti-racist education and critical pedagogy. Two experienced social work tutors reflect upon their different educator standpoints and present auto-biographical and empirical evidence to interrogate the implications and gains of the discursive shift in social work on ‘what works best’ for students to learn and develop awareness of social discrimination. We draw upon an emerging educational model to map out our respective positionalities and assess empirical work on how student learn about diversity and social oppression. The empirical work we draw upon is from a longitudinal research study undertaken in England and focused on the educational outcomes and experiences of students who participated in a discrete component of learning on anti-racism as part of their professional training. The session explores the educational outcomes of this teaching intervention and the different sets of footprints it left behind. We draw upon different strands of this research to explore the pedagogic relevance and practice utility of teaching students about diversity and anti-racism and whether this enables them to develop ‘cultural awareness’ and ‘cultural competence’. This is contrasted with an educational approach which is centered on Anti-Oppressive Practice and consider the utility of these two approaches how they can challenge the attitudes and values of individual students, and lead to ‘perspective transformation’ (Mezirow, 1981), and ‘critical consciousness’ through the process of conscientization (Freire, 1970).
Accelerating A New Global Different: Incubating Organizational Belonging EcoSystems
Focused Discussion Dr Lisa Coleman
This session considers how leaders adopt and implement principles of belonging as a strategy to manage disruption, promote organizational nimbleness, future readiness, and innovation. Dr. Coleman proposes we move away from notions of the status quo and towards, what she calls, a New Global Different built on best practices in organizational development and specifically applying principles relevant to design thinking, trans-disciplinary and trans-generational co-creation, sustainability, decolonization, resiliency, and adaptivity. To do so, Coleman will highlight common misconceptions around belonging (and related DEI misconceptions) to present a framework that moves away form the status quo and toward innovation. The initial first part of the session will provide guidance on how leaders may leverage, as opposed to obliterate, dissension within their organizations and in the second half focus on real life application by using case studies.
Diverse Food Cultures and Reality Television: Appreciation, Appropriation, and Transformation View Digital Media
Focused Discussion Mary Helen Millham, Karin Haberlin, Diana Rios
Integrating popular culture into educational materials, especially for concepts like intercultural/cross-cultural communication, allows students to better visualize and understand cultural and other communication processes. How can instructors best utilize food-culture reality TV shows in our classrooms to expand and illuminate cross-cultural topics with students? Docuseries such as Hulu’s Padma Lakshmi’s Taste the Nation, PBS’s La Frontera with Pati Hinich, and Netflix’s High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America, are designed to educate and entertain. The programs review regional dishes/ingredients while appreciating historical food origins. These shows describe how ingredients, dishes, and preparations have been assimilated/appropriated into local, majority, and dominant cultures. The authors draw on recent and future undergraduate course modules highlighting these shows and various cultural/racial/political issues. Students thoughtfully engage with the material through both classroom discussions and written assignments. The authors hope to spark conversations about how indigenous communities, minoritized ethnic groups, and smaller co-cultures maintain their ingredients and traditions while the dominant culture borrowed, assimilated, poached, and transformed their heritage foods. How can a non-dominant culture know & experience their heritage foods while surrounded by the dominant culture? How are heritage foods recovered and remade by members of a diaspora? To what degree are change and adaptation inevitable in a world marked by commercial trade, human migration, geopolitics, changing tastes, and food fads instigated by social media celebrities? We envision this presentation as a discussion of how to use what is available on reality television while respectfully recognizing local cuisines.
Featured Acculturation or Cultural Preservation?: A Mixed-methods Study of Greek Parents in the Netherlands View Digital Media
Focused Discussion Iria Asanaki
Dutch society is becoming more and more diverse. In this context of super-diversity, Greek parents have their place in multiple municipalities of the Netherlands, trying to adjust to the new circumstances by simultaneously preserving their culture and language for themselves and their children. Greek language schools play a significant role in this effort. This paper explores how both qualitative and quantitative evidence has been used to highlight the migrant families’ needs in the country of residence in terms of acculturation and cultural preservation through the eyes of expatriates and second-generation Greeks of the Netherlands.
