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A North West event on exploring the issues of identities and cultural diversity

The post-16 citizenship North West regional network offered an additional regional event in addition to network meetings this year. The event focused on identities and cultural diversity – a popular topic following the publication of We all came here from somewhere: Diversity, identities and citizenship. The event aimed to:

  • To explore the important role of citizenship in facilitating learning about identities and diversity
  • To share learning strategies in this area
  • To consider policy initiatives and their implications for post-16 citizenship learning

The event was well attended with 25 people from across the region taking part at URBIS, an exhibition space in city centre Manchester. The event programme had been advertised as an opportunity to explore the role that citizenship can and should play in helping young people to confront a variety of issues which inevitably arise when dealing with cultural diversity.

Richard Demby, regional network leader for the North West introduced the day and outlined why this issue in particular has become such an important social issue and one which citizenship learning lends itself to naturally. Using PowerPoint slides he also gave a policy context to the issues, referring to the high profile Ajegbo review, the National Curriculum Key Stage 3 & 4 reviews, as well as the many high profile comments made by high profile politicians.

There were then 2 icebreaker activities – the first to literally to break the ice (have fun, be stupid and laugh!) and then a more citizenship oriented one, a citizenship speed-dating session. These both encouraged there to be a more relaxed and inclusive atmosphere as well help to get participants talking to a variety of other participants about citizenship issues in general, and cultural diversity issues in particular.

The first workshops were brought forward – and entailed an opportunity to consider ways of promoting community cohesion in a 6th form college. Alison Fairclough introduced the concept of community cohesion and set it in the context of Oldham Sixth Form College which has been held up as a beacon of good practice in an area which has had serious divisions and disturbances. The delegates in the workshop worked together in small groups to identify how community cohesion can be actively promoted through the college curriculum including the tutorial and enrichment programmes, and current educational initiatives including the Every Child Matters and Learner Voice agendas. Two students from the college ended the workshop by talking about their role as elected members of the Student Association and how, through the activities of Student Association they have worked co-operatively with students from different backgrounds. The workshop produced a very useful exchange of ideas and good practice.

Shared Future, an organisation which has experience of working in divided communities, simultaneously ran a second workshop. After an initial contextual outline of who Share Future are, expertly and confidently presented by two of the young people/peer facilitators themselves, delegates were then engaged in a very interesting and effective activity. This entailed people writing down their reactions to photos and putting these comments into an envelope on which the photos had been stuck. The photos then circulated and each person had the chance to react to about 5 different, controversial photos, which all, in some way, addressed cultural diversity issues.  This was a safe way in which to express opinion about sensitive and controversial issues, maintaining anonymity. Once this stage had been completed, the photos were placed in the centre and we chose one which we felt was particularly important. All people’s comments were then taken out and read to the group. This again provided a relatively safe environment to express opinions, some of which were indeed controversial. Inevitably some of the more interesting reactions stimulated debate. As no-one knew who had written each statement, people still felt relatively safe reacting to the comments. Clearly time became an intrusive factor – the debate could have run and run. However, all participants had experienced an active, safe and thought provoking way to address the issues. The photos included one of a Muslim woman dressed in a burqa, the bus destroyed in one of the London bombings, the leader of the British National Party leaving a courtroom etc. This was very well received by all, who would have liked the activity to continue. There did however follow a vibrant Q-A session, in which the young people shared their experiences of using the activity in a range of age groups, from primary to post-16.

Richard then facilitated a session on identities and learner engagement. With an initial outline of the importance and benefits of full inclusion in the learning process, there was then an activity on identities from the LSN pack We all came here from somewhere. This was well received – demonstrating the value of active learning and of the learners having the opportunity to be fully immersed in issues which directly related to their own experience – they were in fact exploring and deciding which factors helped them to define their own identity.

After lunch representatives from PeaceMaker delivered a very interesting session. They again gave a contextual outline to who they are and what they do. They then followed this with an interesting activity on using photographs to help identify what is and isn’t “British”. This was then followed by an activity looking at the history of immigration, using cards of the many different immigrant groups and trying to locate these on a (long) timeline. This is an activity used with young learners to help them to grasp the long history of immigration to Britain, and one which could then lead on to an exploration of the different stories of these immigrants, including their contribution to the economic, cultural, political and social life of Britain.

There was an additional workshop run by Gill Simpson, Course leader for AS level Citizenship from Oldham 6th form College, exploring how the topic of cultural diversity had been incorporated into the  ‘AS’ level Social Science: Citizenship course. This was again a very interesting and thought provoking session which enabled participants to explore how the media can be used as a tool to explore the way in which issues of culture, ethnicity and race are dealt with. A wide variety of newspaper articles were circulated and participants were asked to identify how these could be used as a starting point for discussions in citizenship in general and cultural diversity in particular. Participants discovered that there very many ways each of the articles provided a useful stimulus to open an issue up to initial debate. This was followed by a discussion of the teaching and learning strategies used successfully on the AS level Citizenship course at Oldham Sixth Form College. This was very well received by all who attended.

An evaluation form for the day was used to gauge how valuable delegates found the day – responses were very positive with delegates feeling that the opportunity to explore these issues in this context was good preparation for trying out activities on this theme with young people.

Lead organisations: Oldham Sixth Form College and Whalley Range High School

Contacts: Richard Demby and Alison Fairclough

Email: richard.demby@chorlton.co.uk or afh@osfc.ac.uk

Telephone: 07990 612197 (Richard) or 0161 287 8000 (Alison)