Diversity Challenges
Some Crowned Themselves, Others Stayed behind: The Problem with Independent Learning in the Art School
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Lois Rowe
From the moment an applicant arrives at an open day, the Art School presents itself as an opportunity. It is an opportunity that reaches beyond the potential of the creative processes that might make you a better artist. It is an opportunity to fundamentally change you and your habits, and to prepare you for a wonderful and often daunting and competitive future in the creative industries. This will be liberating and this will be transformative, in many cases even creating who you will go on to become. Something therefore about the 'self' will be developed through the experience of your degree. You will be changed. How? Through teaching you how to cultivate an "independent practice." This paper interrogates how factors of esteem impact on attainment within the art school. It identifies and problematises independent learning as a significant area in which inequality is foregrounded. In the recent higher education white paper ‘The Future of Higher Education’, lifelong independent learners are highlighted as the solution to meeting the needs of the economy and to addressing the ‘productivity gap’ at a time of rapid social and technological change. This paper asks: Who is able to self-crown and who stays behind? The author suggests a rethinking of the individual focus within independent learning to instead focus on networks and communities: dependencies, in other words, that can support rather than isolate the student. It draws on the relevant theorists in this area: Morwenna Griffiths, bell hooks and Carole Leathwood.
Historical Representations of and Prospective History Teachers’ Beliefs on Religious Diversity
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Van Nieuwenhuyse Karel
Due to globalization and increasing migration flows, classrooms become increasingly diverse, which poses huge challenges to educators: how to deal with diversity? This paper focuses particularly on religious diversity. In many countries, heated debates take place on the role of religion in society/education, and on the value/dangers of religious diversity. In those debates, however, historical dimensions of religious diversity and the voices of religious people are often being neglected. This situation risks to oversimplify debates on religion, to exclude and marginalize religious people, and hence to disturb their belonging. Education might be a place to counter those risks, by offering nuanced (historical) representations of religious diversity and by making religion and religious identities debatable. This contribution, being part of a bigger research project on "religious toleration and peace," therefore focuses on two main stakeholders in education. The representation of religious diversity in history textbooks influences its perception among learners in the present. And ultimately, (history) teachers determine how religion and religious identity are being approached in the classroom. Via a content, discourse and narrative analysis, the way how religious diversity and coexistence throughout the past are being represented in current European history textbooks for secondary education is being examined. Via semi-structured focus group interviews, the beliefs and perceptions of (prospective) (history) teachers on religious diversity and on how to address religion and religious coexistence in the classroom are analyzed. Analysis results will be reflected upon, with regard to identifying fruitful ways in dealing with learners’ religious diversity in education/teacher training.
