Project Details
Description
We started this project in early 2025 to develop an innovative pedagogical approach to deeply foster racial equity, diversity and inclusion in our University. The University has seen an increasing gap in levels of attainment for international BAME Undergraduate students (EDMARC, 2024). Moreover, in a PTAS-funded project concerning the BAME attainment gap, Gray et al. (2024) call for a) comprehensive training in racial sensitivity, and b) the development of more personalised and impactful diversity initiatives.
We are conducting and evaluating ‘dialogical interracial culture circles’ as a way to respond to this call. Culture circles is a participatory research/education methodology developed by Freire (2005). It emphasises the importance of dialogue in learning, and students are co-investigators. Crucially, culture circles are one way in which individuals can develop critical consciousness (Freire, 2005). Critical consciousness is the evolving capacity for a critical awareness of the relationship between the self and society by a reflexive questioning of one´s own assumptions as grounded in social contexts (Jemal, 2017).
We recruited 12 undergraduate students across races and schools to participate in a series of 8 culture circle sessions. Aided by pedagogical material, experiential activities, photo-voice and dialogue, we aim for students to arrive at personal/collective understandings of how unequal social structures and dynamics permeate learning experiences, and how to remediate it.
In line with Strategy 2030, we anticipate that our project's main outcomes will be to foster students´ capacity to engage with diversity, to be critically reflexive about their social position and to promote inclusiveness, enabling all students to thrive. The evaluation of this pilot will validate this methodology for a wider provision that benefits students in the coming years. For this purpose, among other outputs, we will develop a UG option course whose pedagogical approach will be co-created via and in the culture circles of this pilot project.
Project aims:
• To evaluate the impact of the methodology of dialogical interracial culture circles in fostering students’ critical understanding of their socially situated learning experiences and capacity to engage with diversity.
• To understand students´ perspectives on what would facilitate meaningful and satisfactory engagement with diversity in teaching and learning contexts in the UoE.
• To assess the feasibility and impact of the continuation and broader provision of dialogical interracial culture circles for UoE students.
• To understand the impact of racialised social structures and dynamics on students’ learning experience in the University.
Funded by Principal's Teaching Award Scheme PTAS
Project team:
J. Karen Serra Undurraga (PI)
Candela Sanchez Rodilla-Espeso (Co-I)
Mridula Sridhar (RA)
We are conducting and evaluating ‘dialogical interracial culture circles’ as a way to respond to this call. Culture circles is a participatory research/education methodology developed by Freire (2005). It emphasises the importance of dialogue in learning, and students are co-investigators. Crucially, culture circles are one way in which individuals can develop critical consciousness (Freire, 2005). Critical consciousness is the evolving capacity for a critical awareness of the relationship between the self and society by a reflexive questioning of one´s own assumptions as grounded in social contexts (Jemal, 2017).
We recruited 12 undergraduate students across races and schools to participate in a series of 8 culture circle sessions. Aided by pedagogical material, experiential activities, photo-voice and dialogue, we aim for students to arrive at personal/collective understandings of how unequal social structures and dynamics permeate learning experiences, and how to remediate it.
In line with Strategy 2030, we anticipate that our project's main outcomes will be to foster students´ capacity to engage with diversity, to be critically reflexive about their social position and to promote inclusiveness, enabling all students to thrive. The evaluation of this pilot will validate this methodology for a wider provision that benefits students in the coming years. For this purpose, among other outputs, we will develop a UG option course whose pedagogical approach will be co-created via and in the culture circles of this pilot project.
Project aims:
• To evaluate the impact of the methodology of dialogical interracial culture circles in fostering students’ critical understanding of their socially situated learning experiences and capacity to engage with diversity.
• To understand students´ perspectives on what would facilitate meaningful and satisfactory engagement with diversity in teaching and learning contexts in the UoE.
• To assess the feasibility and impact of the continuation and broader provision of dialogical interracial culture circles for UoE students.
• To understand the impact of racialised social structures and dynamics on students’ learning experience in the University.
Funded by Principal's Teaching Award Scheme PTAS
Project team:
J. Karen Serra Undurraga (PI)
Candela Sanchez Rodilla-Espeso (Co-I)
Mridula Sridhar (RA)
| Status | Active |
|---|---|
| Effective start/end date | 23/01/25 → 23/12/25 |
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