[Extra postscript] Inclusive Practices: Faith History through Manuscript Studies and storytelling – A curation of video resources

Posted on 15th July 2025 by Lucy Parker

I found myself collecting these videos, as something that I was interested in, alongside writing the faith blog. Manuscript studies is an adjacent profession to archives, there is some cross-over but it is not quite the same. However it does give the opportunity to consider ways to engage in the subject of faith in different ways, through texts. There is a chance that this might also be attempting too much ‘balance’ in my curation… but comparative textual studies is interesting, so that was my reason for it. There are still many gaps.

Identifying a Manuscript from West Africa

I love the collaborative approach to this video and it is very much like the experience of trying to understand what an archive or manuscript is about. Interpretation, as an experience of collaboration, sometimes in the moment, sometimes across time.

Islamic manuscripts from Southeast Asia in the British Library

I appreciated the Librarian’s sensitivity in describing these manuscripts. I also thought it helpful how she explained that texts in the British Library are categorised by language, not faith, so for someone interested in manuscripts relating to a particular faith, you would have to work across the existing categories. I also appreciated her close examination of the texts, showing influences from other faiths and change within a particular faith.

Guest Speaker Session: A Conversation with Calligrapher Gulnaz Mahboob May 23, 2021

I was moved by the sensitive way this calligrapher talked about her practice. Talking about the beauty of characters. The art and practice of writing encouraged as an act of faith. The process of training and practice as lived experience. Cultivating spirituality, connection to the sacred, and self-knowledge.

It was also a new piece of information to me, or if I had known, I had forgotten, that the Ottoman Empire restricted use of the printing press, which may have been influenced by, and continue to influence, the practice and art of calligraphy in Turkey.

Discovering Sacred Texts: Judaism

Text is here shared as a core part of Jewish identity. Reading, interpretation and storytelling as a way of practicing one’s faith, tradition, history.

Community Scholar Program: The Ultimate Modern Illuminated Haggadah

I enjoyed the quirkiness of this Haggadah, and the warm humorous nature of this conversation. The emphasis on making a tradition one’s own might speak to different religions too. Thinking about tradition, and continuity as well as change, is an interesting question in relation to faith. What it means to ‘stay true’ to a one’s faith and tradition does not mean that would always appear the same.

Traditional Care Practices for Ethiopic Manuscripts

The book as a living thing. Physical encounter with the object connecting you to history. Repairing and caring for a physical text. Care. All the senses, including smell, are engaged in working with it. The book as a body. The book with the body, to be carried.

The Lindisfarne Gospels: Medieval Multiculturalism | Collection in Focus | British Library

Cross fertilisation in traditions. Again, making one’s religious practices one’s own, by incorporating existing folk traditions.

Why knights fought snails in medieval art

A close reading of a particular motif saying something about the political prejudices of the manuscript writers at the time!

The Astonishing Book of Kells

Multiple influenece woven into a single text.

Thinking about alternatives to text: Oral Traditions for transmitting knowledge, history, belief, religious practice, faith

https://www.peeruk.org/swirl-of-words (page 188)

Why are these Indian Languages so Curvy?

How lettering itself tells a story

The shape of a page.

Acknowledging a decentralised aspect to common practices of Hinduism. And actually here, perhaps often the texts are supplementary to oral traditions.

Resurrection of Ancient Books Ep 5 Treasure of Tibet

Careful restoration, careful transcription… as a political act? On the other hand, is this propaganda for a ‘benevolent’ Chinese nation state, looking after a minority religion’s texts?

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*Coda to reflective report

Posted on 14th July 2025 by Lucy Parker

I observe that I am an over-thinker, which perhaps sometimes is not helpful in some aspects of this process in this Unit. I must regulate it a bit… but it is also who I am.

I have an aversion to labelling. Which is ironic as this is part of my job as an archivist.

This in part explains my difficulty, at times to the practices of labelling in identity-thinking, in the frameworks introduced in this unit (intersectionality, positionality). I have sought to take up the frameworks and use them in good faith in my blogs, and in my interventions and reflections, to show that I understand. And in the process, I have also learned from them. But still, I do get concerned by the processed of categorisation that are repeated in these frameworks.

But, on the other hand, there is a difference between unhelpful labels, and ‘naming’ a problem, an issue, as it arises, or showing where there is an obvious gap in our teaching. I don’t want to avoid naming the obvious inequities, where they exist.

And yet, it is important for me, where I can, in a very limited capacity in my context (I am not a teacher, but auxiliary to teaching and research) to encourage students (and myself) to become more subtle thinkers. To not make assumptions about people, or evidence, or objects. To not over-generalise.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t want to see the wood from the trees, or that I want to insist on ‘balance’/’neutrality’ to demonstrate ‘thinking’. But I would like to think about ways to approach nuance. Sometimes I am still not sure that can quite be captured, by the methodology of intersectionality, even by intersecting the intersection… but thinking about it has been helpful.

I feel we still live in a world that Adorno and Horkheimer described in Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947) as ‘ticket-thinking’: ‘it is not just the anti-Semitic ticket which is anti-Semitic, but the ticket mentality itself’. I take this to mean reification. This is something I have found myself thinking about again, and how to overcome it, during this course.

This is not an argument, therefore, for greyness, or relativity, or against categories or naming per se. But maybe about the (im)possibility to still think dialectically, and whether (or not) that might still be useful.

I am not sure if this applies directly to my intervention(s), but it has been in the back of my mind. And I am thankful for the course, for it to be so thought provoking.

Adorno, T; Horkheimer, M (1944), The Dialectic of the Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments https://monoskop.org/images/2/27/Horkheimer_Max_Adorno_Theodor_W_Dialectic_of_Enlightenment_Philosophical_Fragments.pdf

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[Extra] More thoughts on Faith (Thanks, Renee!)

Posted on 14th July 2025 by Lucy Parker

Dear Renee, 

I found this moving and thought provoking, thank you. 

I also thought about it as I was going around the Siena exhibition at the national gallery. The intricate “works of art” which were made as objects for contemplation and prayer. And making them was an act of devotion, in and of themselves.  

Whilst I am not a practicing Christian, I am, and have been, close to many people of faith. As well as people who have moved away, and people of different faith backgrounds. How to do justice to all these perspectives I have known is a challenge, but I have always valued opportunities for conversation, and feel there are central truths (and I do believe in truth) that can be drawn from the morality and rationality in most faiths. “Love thy neighbour”, means something, to me. 

I do recognise some of the abiding “default” feeling at university/art school about talking about faith. Whether this stems entirely from “criticism,” I am not sure. Indeed, returning to take a look at Greenberg, for example, I was struck that by reading which did not seem, actually, as anti-religion/anti-faith in some ways as one might expect (in his reflections on T.S. Eliot, he says he thinks Four Quartets is not as good as his poem Ash Wednesday, but he is genuinely favourable towards the latter (I like bits of Four Quartets too.. But there we go!). And in his critique of some aspects of Eliot’s own criticism, it is not a rejection of Eliot’s perspective, but rather he appears to seek to show how Eliot’s perspective might point beyond itself. 

Greenberg brings his own knowledge and experience (as Jewish) to bear in his appreciations of Franz Kafka, where Kafka’s exploration of the concept of time is connected, in Judaism, with ideas of Messianism, redemption. It has also been speculated (Platt, 2012) that Greenberg may have chosen to focus on formal considerations of art work out of an (understandable) fear, after the Second World War and the Holocaust, of drawing too much attention to his, or other Jewish, identities. I suppose I am raising all this to say that there are conversations there, even in the canon of art history, even if we don’t really talk about them.

Having said all this, I *do* know what you mean, and the (other) tradition that Greenberg is working within, Marxism, does have its more vulgar (what I would call “Stalinist”) perspectives, which do fall into simplistic “anti-religion” positions. This might otherwise be called a kind of “philistinism”. (Although perhaps that word is too loaded, in origin).  

In parts of the 20th Century, “Official Communism” has dealt very cruelly to believers. And in my opinion, as someone interested in Marxism, has given Marxism a bad name. But is Socialism/Marxism also a faith? Some of its detractors argue it is… it is a commitment, at least, I think. 

What does it mean to be “cultured”? Surely, appreciation of the importance of faith comes into that. Faith is such an important wellspring for creativity, and joy for so many. I know this from people in my own life. It’s also certainly a problem, given so much of art history, and indeed, present art *is* inflected by faith practice, that if we can’t talk about it. 

(Catholic) Marxist Terry Eagleton also points out that culture is something that means so much to people, they are prepared to die for it. (And indeed, kill, for it). This chilling aspect may have something to do with the ambivalence we may have, about culture, about faith, and about talking about it. (It does for me, sometimes). 

Faith does also take us beyond ‘criticism’ in some ways, as it can deal with the ineffable. And yet words, too, (The Word) are also with God, are God (John:1).  

The act of naming that God bestowed to man, tasks us with naming not only the animals and trees but our experiences. And through naming, we reflect on them… is this the origin of critique? (Benjamin, 1916). 

This blog also resonated with your previous, for me, as I also recognise some of the tensions you have experienced in your background, around stigma to do with mental health, which might also run alongside practice of faith. Perhaps these have a particularly difficult aspect to them, for minoritised/racialised groups, but they can apply to many. For example, I think members of my (predominantly white) family have wrestled with their own mental health alongside faith, and whilst often faith brings them strength, it can present a challenge: are they not practicing their faith hard enough, if/when mental health problems occur? Does the ‘front’ that you might have to put on for a church community, match the reality of home/personal life? For my mum, at least, in relation to her parents, a certain kind of dissonance she experienced between the community and home life, may well have contributed to her moving away from her faith… But for others it can reinscribe a commitment to faith… It’s complicated!  

University is also a time where students want to, and should be, encouraged, I think, to encounter different perspectives. But if there is a ubiquitous lack of conversation about religion, if lack of faith is the norm, then students (and teachers) are not being challenged. So, thank you! Keep doing your (God’s?) work! 

Lucy x 

p.s. I once had a late night conversation with two Marxist friends of mine, once Christian, one Jewish, about what life might look like after overcoming capitalism… We joked (but seriously!): we would have more time to have sex, more time to make art, and more time to pray.

–

Benjamin, W. (1916, 1978) ‘Language as Such, and the Language of Man’ in Reflections: essays, aphorisms, autobiographical writings, New York : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich

Bible (Old Testament), Genesis 2:19 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%202&version=NIV (Accessed 13/07/2025)

Bible (New Testament), John 1:1 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%201&version=NIV (Accessed 13/07/2025) 

Greenberg, C. (1961), Art and Culture: Critical Essays. Boston: Beacon Press 

Eagleton, T. (2024), ‘Where does Culture Come From?’ London Review of Books, https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n08/terry-eagleton/where-does-culture-come-from Accessed 14 July 2025 

Eliot, T.S. (1930) Ash Wednesday, https://englishverse.com/poems/ash_wednesday Accessed, 14/07/2027 

Odjidja, R, (2025) ‘The invisibility of Religion in Fine Art’ https://reneeislearning.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2025/06/08/invisibility-of-religion-in-fine-art/ Accessed 12/07/2025

Platt, S.N. (2012) ‘Clement Greenberg in the 1930s: A New Perspective on His Criticism’, Art and Politics Now, https://www.artandpoliticsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Greenberg-1930s.pdf Accessed 14/07/2025

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Inclusive Practices – Reflective Report

Posted on 3rd July 2025 by Lucy Parker

1) Introduction – what is the report about and how does it intersect with your positionality? What do you want to change and why? How does it relate to your academic practice? 

In this report I will reflect on limitations of in my initial attempt at an intervention. I have drafted a new intervention since. But I am focussing on the learning from the second draft of my first attempt (with padlet).

I want to make archives much more inclusive places. I have found them intimidating spaces in the past, and occasionally, still do. Legacies of colonialism, exploitation and political power are still with us in collections. They persist in policies and practices in archives too.

In my initial attempt, I did not fully follow the instructions for considering a particular intersectional experience (Crenshaw, 1990). And so will try to reflect on that, and ways forward.

2) Context – what is the (teaching/learning support) context for the intervention? What practice, course or department are you in and what is the proposed utility of this intervention? 

I work in the Archives and Special Collections Centre at UAL. I conceived the intervention for one of our existing teaching activities: our one-off teaching sessions within courses. We introduce students to our service and what an archive is. We raise awareness of archival bias to consider when researching (Rolph-Trouillot, 1995). The sessions tend to be 1-2 hours.

Sometimes course cohorts can be large, e.g. 50, or even 100 students. The structure starts with 30 mins delivery within slides to everyone. Then we run sessions with smaller groups, so students can handle archive material directly.

We introduce the concept of ‘archival bias’ in the talk, then handling activities may build on it. I hoped to enhance our introductory talk, by a group activity around this involving case studies, rather than just delivery from slides. I thought using Padlet could help to facilitate.

3) Inclusive learning – why is inclusion/inclusivity important within your discipline? What is the rationale for your intervention design (based on relevant theory)?

We want to encourage students towards inclusive and critical research. Highlighting archival bias/ silences helps reconsider evidence: whose perspective it is from, who it is serving. Teaching can be a space where we can question the “authority” of the archive. (Grout, 2019)

My rationale focused on design of group activities, as the necessary basis for inclusivity.

  • Reflecting on my intervention, as if it were to help students with ADHD:

Active learning with group work is recommended (Hughes et al., 2022) for students with ADHD to process information. I wanted to structure and chunk information. (CADDRA, 2020; Hughes et al, 2022). Students also find concept-mapping tools (CADDRA, 2020) useful.

Assigning roles within the peer group such as note-taking (Tyrone, 2020; Hughes et. al, 2022) can help reduce “executive load” for ADHD students. The Padlet served as an asynchronous learning tool (Hughes et al., 2022), that students could refer to later.

4) Reflection – what supported your thinking in deciding on this intervention? What feedback did you receive from peers/other colleagues? What were some of the key decisions? Did you encounter any challenges? Did you identify any potential risks?

The intervention did not clearly centre one intersectional student experience. I tried to address too many experiences. This may have served none. Or, worse, in attempting ‘balance’, from a CRT perspective, perhaps I even supported ‘systemic whiteness’ (Bradbury, 2020).

I should have focussed on ‘Challenge 3’ but more specifically: for students with ADHD. I should then have intersected it with another student experience. Tim suggested by focusing on a particular intersectional experience/need, we may help other students too. Supporting the Social Model of Disability approach (Oliver, 2004), taken up more recently in the ‘Universal Design for Learning’ (Hughes et al., 2022).

In Garrett’s account (2024), of Black and/or racialised Phd students’ experience at university, one student account struck me. Her intersectional identity, as both Black AND neurodivergent was erased. Other examples from Garret highlighted material and cultural reasons why racialised students who live with ADHD conditions may go un-diagnosed.

Attainment gap statistics for Black students are a recognised concern. Failure to consider the needs of ADHD students in general might affect Black students in terms of attainment.1

Padlet might be beneficial in many contexts for ADHD. However, there might be a risk in the intervention. It might place more of a load on executive function, by asking to switch between group discussion and the Padlet space. Working on paper or a hands-on activity might be better. In presentation with peers, they agreed.2

Group work is important for all students, especially students with ADHD (Hughes, et al). But my focus on this, might reflect something Leah Cox observed regarding ‘pedagogies of discomfort’: Teachers tended to state concern about the internal ‘dynamics’ of the student group, rather than reflect on their own feelings/positionality. (Cox, 2025).

Engaging creative learning is a recognised strategy for ADHD students (ADCET, n.d.). This is particularly relevant in our creative context. I was encouraged by Tim to also consider how the form of the intervention might better ‘dramatise’ the experience of ADHD.

I wanted to speak more directly to aspects of Black identity as well. I am conscious of my own positionality as white, without lived experience. But it is burdensome on those with lived experience only, to be tasked with making systemically ‘white’ spaces more inclusive.

5) Action – How do you propose that this intervention be used and what might this mean for your personal academic practice and your work context?

I am disinclined to use the original intervention as it is. But working on it and receiving feedback will help me to reflect and develop alternatives. The new intervention I drafted might be something to build on. It came out of further thinking, reading and listening in this unit, since the initial intervention.

How to better centre ADHD

Students with ADHD may experience fragmentary memory and attention (Hood, 2018). They may benefit from hands-on activity. (Hughes et al, 2020; ADCET, nd; CADDRA, 2022). Peers suggested the workshop might allow ‘chaos’ in the centre, with a structured beginning and end. Tim recommended I investigate ‘Patchwork’ methodology (Cattaneo, 2014), as a creative way to engage students with writing.

These recommendations inspired the new, collage-based intervention. Writing it also brought me close to ‘pedagogies of discomfort’ (Cox, 2025): I devised something similar but different to the ‘privilege walk’, about how inequity affects us, and might be changed, collectively. I also looked at contemporary art archival practices, exploring chaos as a way of challenging power relations in institutional archives (roush, 2016).

I sought to introduce different kinds of archival/memory loss, starting with traits of students and adults with ADHD (CADDRA, 2022) then expanding from there in ways that might intersect with ‘Race’. I then sought a way through the second activity, to re-integrate these experiences in a collective action.

I am nervous about gauging how much discomfort one can introduce in a one-off session. Some revision of the new intervention might be needed on this ground, and in terms of time.

Further centring Black Students

Peers made wonderful suggestions about how better to intersect with Black student experience. I will also add these to our resource lists for future interventions/collaborations, or as resources for students.3

It might also be worth exploring “chaos” with something more celebratory – e.g. mas/the carnivalesque, as an alternative to centring around trauma. Equally, I don’t want to shy away from attempting pedagogies of discomfort.

6) Evaluation of your process – what have you learned from this process? If you were to implement it, how would you know if it’s working?

I am a kinaesthetic learner, I learn through doing. Like many of our students. So whilst I was frustrated by the limitations of my initial intervention, perhaps I had to write it and receive feedback to learn.

Perhaps I was experiencing resistance to the assignment as well?  And working through that, with the feedback was part of the process? I do think I genuinely overlooked part of the instructions but is also possible I was resistant to the methodologies of intersectionality and positionality.

The collage intervention does have potential to be more engaging, to speak to aspects of ADHD and Black student experience. I still am not quite comfortable with putting it out there, but it is an attempt.

In terms of gauging its success within the classroom, I find that feedback forms are rarely helpful. I feel you must judge by how the conversation goes with the students in the space and the work that is produced. It is hard to see the results, due to the one-off nature of our sessions. We rely on verbal feedback from students and course tutors.

7) Conclusion – what are your key observations and reflections regarding this process, your positionality, and your practices?

I want to remove barriers to learning and find new ways to engage students with different lived experience to my own. There is still much to do within my context to make our teaching more inclusive. Partnering with others with different expertise, as well as educating ourselves (/myself) more, is necessary.

I also realise I need to look after myself better (particularly in terms of the day today differing demands in my work schedule). In this way, I will be in a better position to engage/focus appropriately (whether it be on assignments, or in the classroom), with care, for others. I struggle to set boundaries for myself, say yes to too much, this leads to overwhelm and overstretch, and then care-less-ness. I am still learning but can keep trying to do better.

Bibliography

Australian Disability Clearinghouse on Education and Training (ADCET), (n.d.), ‘Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)’ https://www.adcet.edu.au/inclusive-teaching/specific-disabilities/adhd Accessed 2 July 2025

Bradbury, Alice.(2020). A critical race theory framework for education policy analysis: The case of bilingual learners and assessment policy in England. Race Ethnicity and Education, 23(2), pp.241-260

Canadian ADHD Resource Alliance (2020): Canadian ADHD Practice Guidelines, 4.1 Edition, Toronto ON; CADDRA, 2020.

Cattaneo, J. (2014). ‘Patchwork Writing in the Creative Arts: An Alternative to the Academic Essay’. Connectivity: Linking the Learning Community. Articles from the Learning and Teaching Conference 2012.

Crenshaw, K. (1990) Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), pp.1241-1299.

Cox, L. (14 May 2025), ‘Pedagogies of Discomfort,’ (Lecture given from University of Winchester to UAL PG Cert, Inclusive Practices Module, Online).

Davidson, N., Major, C. H., & Michaelsen, L. K. (2014). ‘Small-group learning in higher education—cooperative, collaborative, problem-based, and team-based learning: An introduction by the guest editors’. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 25(3&4), 1-6.

Faal, B. (2009) ‘Fabric wall hanging’, artwork/archival object from the Tell Us About It archive, TU/4/2

Garrett, R. (11 Feb 2024): Racism shapes careers: career trajectories and imagined futures of racialised minority PhDs in UK higher education, Globalisation, Societies and Education, Volume 23, Issue 3, 683-697DOI: 10.1080/14767724.2024.2307886

Grout, H. (2019). ‘Archiving critically: exploring the communication of cultural biases,’ in Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal, 4:1, pp.71-75

Harvard Kennedy School, (n.d.), ‘Guide to Small Group Learning,’ https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/Academic%20Dean’s%20Office/Guide%20to%20Small-Group%20Learning.pdf (Accessed 1 June 2025)

Hood, M. (2018). A Phenomenological Study: How College Students With ADHD are Affected by Fragmentation and Disassociation (Thesis, Concordia University, St. Paul). Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.csp.edu/cup_commons_grad_edd/151

Hughes, G., Upsher, R., Nobili, A., Kirkman, A., Wilson, C., Bowers-Brown, T., Foster, J., Bradley, S., Byrom, N. (8 Feb 2022), AdvanceHE  ‘Inclusivity for ADHD’ in Education Mental Health Toolkit, https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/teaching-and-learning/curricula-development/education-mental-health-toolkit/social-belonging/inclusivity-adhd Accessed 2 July 2025

also published as pdf,

Hughes et al., Education for Mental Health: Enhancing Student Mental Health through Curriculum and Pedagogy 8 Feb 2022, Advance HE.

Marima, F. (2024). ‘Body As Archive: Re-Imagination Of Identities Within Contemporary Practices Through The Lens Of The Performing (Black) African Female Body’ IMPACT Printmaking Journal, Vol 3, Issue 10. https://doi.org/10.54632/1305.IMPJ6

Oliver, M. (2004). ‘The Social Model in Action: if I had a hammer’ in Barnes, C. and Mercer, G. (ed.) Implementing the Social Model of Disability: Theory and Research Leeds: The Disability Press, pp. 18-31.

Roberson, B., & Franchini, B. (2014). ‘Effective task design for the TBL classroom’. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 25(3&4), 275-302.

roush, p. (2016), ‘Chaos of Memories: Surviving Archives and the Ruins of History According to the Found Photo Foundation’, in Order and Collapse: The Lives of Archives (2016), Published by Photography at Valand Academy, University of Gothenburg, Hasselblad Foundation, Art and Theory Publishing.

Trouillot, M-R. (1995). Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History, Boston: Beacon Press

Tyrone, B. (11 September 2020) ‘How to Support Your Students with ADHD,’ Duke University Learning Innovation & Lifetime Education Blog. https://lile.duke.edu/blog/2020/09/how-to-support-your-students-with-adhd/ Accessed 2 July 2025

Universities, UK (2022) ‘Closing the Gap: Three Years On’. https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/what-we-do/policy-and-research/publications/features/closing-gap-three-years Accessed 5 July 2025.

Washington University in Saint Louis, Centre for Teaching and Learning, ‘Teaching Resources: Using Roles in Group Work,’ https://ctl.wustl.edu/resources/using-roles-in-group-work/ (Accessed 4 June 2025)

Zavalaa, J., Migonib, A. A., Caswell, M., Geracid, N. and Cifore, M. (2017), ‘A process where we’re all at the table’: community archives challenging dominant modes of archival practice’ Archives and Manuscripts, 2017, VOL. 45, NO. 3, 202-215 https://doi.org/10.1080/01576895.2017.1377088

  1. Whilst the gap in general is closing between white and BAME students over the last few years, the gap between white students and Black students receiving a 1st or 2:1 is still 18.4% (Universities UK, 2022). ↩︎
  2. Some elements of my initial Microteach, from the first term, on drawing, dealt with archival bias, in a more implicit, hands-on way ↩︎
  3. One suggestion was to consider Indigenous practices such as ‘Potlatch’ (a gift giving ceremony). I conscious of not wanting to “appropriate” this practice inappropriately, given my own positionality as a white western archivist within a European institution. But it is something I would be curious to learn more about. Another was contemporary thinking around the ‘Black Body as Archive’ (Marima, 2024). To investigate artists who may have explored this. We do introduce students to artists who do this kind of work, but I will gather more resources on it for the future. Again, I do not have lived, embodied experience. But feel I can guide students to look at artists who address this. Alternatively, I will look for opportunities to collaborate with practitioners with lived experiences, on these topics. In September, 2025, my colleagues and I will be working with the Decolonising the Arts institute on a set of workshops to reflect on archival practices. I hope that this work will not only inform our archival practices but also our teaching going forward too. ↩︎

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Inclusive Practices [Supplementary] – New Intervention, post feedback: Collaborative Collage-making, centering ADHD experience, to explore Archival Bias [with pedagogies of discomfort]

Posted on 29th June 2025 by Lucy Parker
Red and grey painted pattern cut into shapes and stuck down. The pattern cuts across the shapes
‘Fragments’, Barbara Sawyer Archive, Archive Ref: BSY/3/2/1/11. Barbara Sawyer was a former textiles teacher at Camberwell College of Arts.

Content warning: This exercise engages with difficult themes including trauma, dislocation, silencing, state repression and racial, gender or sexual prejudice. Anyone who does not feel comfortable can step out and is welcome to return as and when they feel able. In this activity, there will be three rounds of what will feel like disintegration, and then we will explore ways of re-integrating what we have left and what we have experienced in the exercise.

Section 1: 20 mins

  • Sit in a circle.
  • Start with this print copy of an archival image/record/object/ a piece of newspaper/or even a blank piece of paper, in your hands. For the purpose of this exercise, these, taken together, are your collective archive.
  • Keep your focus on the piece of paper in front of you. Hold it, touch it. Notice its texture. Breathe slowly, in through your nose, into your belly, and slowly, out through your mouth. Notice sensations in your body.
  • I will be making some statements. Every time a statement resonates with your experience, tear off a little of your paper somewhere. Discard the piece to the floor and keep hold of the rest of the paper. Keep breathing!
  • Then, pass your ‘kept’ piece around the circle to the next person, before I read the next statement.
  • I will intermittently check in with everyone. As a reminder, if you don’t feel comfortable, feel free to stop, relax have a lie down if you want to.
  • Make one tear in your paper if you have ever lost anything. [As a reminder, now pass to the next person on your right, take the piece on your left]
  • Make one tear in your paper, if you have moved house more than twice. [Again, pass your paper along to your right, and take the piece on your left]
  • Make a tear in your paper if your home has ever flooded, or it has mould.
  • Make a tear in your paper if your home has been on fire or has been damaged by an earthquake.

Ok, well done so far. Let’s have a breathe. Some more statements are coming up that are quite difficult, Again, focus on the paper in front of you, and breathe

  • Make one tear if you tend to forget things.
  • Make one tear in your paper, if your parents are no longer together, or you are estranged from them.
  • Make two tears in your paper if you have moved from an area of global conflict.
  • Make two tears in your paper if you were in care.
  • Make one tear in your paper if you are a carer for somebody.
  • Make one tear in your paper if you have a disability or health condition that has impacted on your everyday activities.
  • Make one tear in your paper if you were eligible for Free School Meals.

Well done. We are almost there a few more things to consider. But let’s have another quick stretch! Well done, so far.

  • Make a tear in the paper if you find it hard to keep in touch with old friends.
  • Make two tears, if exploring your family history would take you to a colonised, or formerly colonised, country.
  • Make a tear in your paper if you have experienced racism.
  • Make a tear in your paper if you have experienced sexism, homophobia or transphobia.
  • Make a tear in your paper if you or your family have experienced prejudice against your religion, or culture.
  • Make a tear if you, your family, or your friends have been subject to censorship: Restrictions on your freedom of expression, either by a nation-state, institution, or the culture you, or they lived in.

Section 2: 40 mins

  • Well done, that was not easy!
  • With your remaining piece of paper in your hand, however small, bring them together to stick them down on this central, larger piece of paper, with pritt-stick. Make sure that each piece touches at least one other piece that has been stuck down. Stand back and look at the result. [10 mins]
  • Well done
  • Then select one of the larger discarded pieces from the floor. Treat it lovingly. Note down a word, words, or a sentence (in a language of your choosing) that comes to your mind, reflecting on the experience we have just had. [5 mins]
  • Select another discarded piece. Treat it lovingly, as a precious object. Draw on it in a way that is satisfying to you. It might be a particular mark or shape you want to explore within the space of the piece of paper. See if you can cover the piece of paper with the mark or shape that you find satisfying to draw. [10 mins]
  • Bring these written and drawn pieces together to this new large sheet of paper and make a collage together. Make sure each piece is stuck down well with pritt stick. Again, let each piece touch one other piece on the paper. [5 mins]
  • Select another piece from the floor. Write any further thoughts or words down that have occurred to you. Stick them to this second collage, touching to the other pieces already stuck down. [5 min]
  • Well done
  • Together, clear up any other pieces from the floor to tidy the space ready for the next class. Place them in the recycling, or keep them to take with you, if you want to, for another artwork later [5 mins]
  • Well done. If you are happy to share anything about your experience, feel free to.

The idea with this exercise that by passing the papers to each other, we all take collective ownership for how societal and archival biases affects our collective memory and attempt to tell stories. That whilst it is uncomfortable, we have a collective role to play, in attempting to make sense of the contingent evidence we have available to us, and in trying to understand where the gaps and silences are.

Colour photograph of a fabric artwork made from sewn sections of printed canvas with text, images and a London tube map and samples of other fabric. The printed text shares Babou Faal's experience as a student at London College of Fashion
Babou Faal: Fabric wall hanging, Tell Us About It archive, Archive Ref: TU/4/2. Babou Faal was a student at London College of Fashion.

Cox, Leah(2025), ‘Pedagogies of Discomfort,’ (Lecture given from University of Winchester to UAL PG Cert, Inclusive Practices Module, Online, Wednesday 14 May)

Faal, Babou (2009), ‘Fabric wall hanging’, artwork/archival object from the Tell Us About It archive, TU/4/2

roush, p. (2016), ‘Chaos of Memories: Surviving Archives and the Ruins of History
According to the Found Photo Foundation’, in Order and Collapse: The Lives of Archives (2016), Published by Photography at Valand Academy, University of Gothenburg, Hasselblad Foundation, Art and Theory Publishing.

Sawyer, B, (no date) ‘Fragments’, from the Barbara Sawyer Archive, BSY/3/2/1/11


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Inclusive Practices Blog 3: Race

Posted on 21st June 2025 by Lucy Parker

The two readings1 “bookend” the educational experience of racialised students in the UK. The first, their entry into the education system when starting school. The second, the Phd and contemplating academia as a career. Both articles do so from a Critical Race Theory (CRT) perspective. Also, in terms of their positionality, both are published in academic journals.

The policy of the ‘one-size fits all’ is not necessarily beneficial to any student. But Bradbury (2020), developing a CRT framework, shows how a baseline assessment policy can particularly affect the outcomes for students with English as an Additional Language (EAL). And this also may intersect with race.

The framework offers a range of questions on the development and application of the policy to see not ‘who benefits?’ but rather, how white people benefit/white dominance is prioritised. Examining the ‘policy silences’ might show not ‘who is disadvantaged?’ but rather ‘how are minoritised groups disadvantaged?’.

The ‘context of influence’, Bradbury argues, is a ‘color-blind’ one. ‘White people gain in that they do not appear ‘racist’, but neither are they accused of ‘political correctness’ in creating particular conditions of assessment for EAL children’. Whether ‘white people’ created the policy, in literal terms, I think Bradbury means how the idea of ‘neutrality’ as such, in this framework, supports systemic whiteness.

Whether ‘white people’ create the policy, in literal terms, I think Bradbury means something about how the idea of ‘neutrality’ as such, in this framework, supports systemic whiteness.

This is like how Eddo-Lodge asserts, ‘When I write about white people…I don’t mean every individual white person. I mean whiteness as a political ideology. A school of thought that favours whiteness at the expense of those who aren’t… It affords an unearned power; it is designed to maintain a quiet dominance.’ Or more briefly, ‘Neutral is white. The default is white’. (2017).

This definition, to me, seems to be multivalent: “not all white people, (but also, yes, all white people!).” And there might be good reason for this, from a social justice/reparative perspective.

Garrett (2024) introduces intersectionality to better explore experiences of Phd students. I was struck by the experience of a student who found their racialised identity had been acknowledged/accepted by the institution as something they could speak to, but not their experience of neurodiversity. The implication is that if neurodivergent needs had been better met, they would be less excluded (and, in this context, therefore, less likely be another “statistic” of a person with a racialised minority identity, excluded from academia).

This connected for me to the task of resisting some of the generalisations, and who can speak to what, which I think Asif Sadiq is trying to navigate through in his talk.

Bradbury (2020) critiques ‘interest convergence’: ‘how even seemingly progressive moves may, in fact, benefit whiteness’. This reminded me of my own failure to focus on one specific intersectional identity in my teaching intervention.

In future, I will consider, better, how focusing on making things inclusive for a particular student experience might have wider positive impact.

However, in addition, for me, I believe that the task of building the ‘world of the you’ (Fanon, 1952), also involves a political commitment, with and through class action. My positionality here is guided by my private political commitments, separate from the professional role I play, but also “intersecting” with work.

This is not really addressed in the scope of these resources. But it is for this reason I want to promote the current campaign of staff and students at UAL, to End the Outsourcing of cleaning staff .

And also, for myself and for students, a prayer, ‘make of me always a [person] who questions’. (Fanon, 1952; 1986).

—

Bibliography

Bradbury, Alice. 2020. A critical race theory framework for education policy analysis: The case of bilingual learners and assessment policy in England. Race Ethnicity and Education, 23(2), pp.241-260

Eddo-Lodge, Reni. 2017. Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race, London: Bloomsbury

Fields, Barbara J. & Fields, Karen E. 2012. Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life. London: Verso

Fanon, Frantz, 1986. Black Skin, White Masks. London: Pluto Press. (First published in the French, 1952)

Garrett, Rihanna. 2024. Racism shapes careers: career trajectories and imagined futures of racialised minority PhDs in UK higher education. Globalisation, Societies and Education, pp.1–15.

Sadiq, Asif. 2023. ‘Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. Learning how to get it right’. TEDx [Online}. Youtube. 2 March. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR4wz1b54hw 

UAL End Outsourcing Campaign, https://www.instagram.com/ualendoutsourcing/?hl=en, Accessed 21/06/2025

  1. I choose to focus on the two readings, as I did not feel the space to be able to also address the videos, although I do refer to Asif Sadiq’s talk. ↩︎
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Inclusive Practices: Intervention: Second Draft!

Posted on 8th June 2025 by Lucy Parker

Enhancing small group learning activities for students discussing archival bias: Using assigned roles, new prompts, pen, paper and a digital padlet.

Screen shot of a padlet activity for small groups
Draft padlet for enhancing small group activity on the topic of archival bias

‘The presences and absences embodied in sources or archives are neither neutral or natural. They are created […] Sources are thus instances of inclusion, the other face of which is, of course, what is excluded.’

Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past

Padlet Link

In our work in the Archives and Special Collections Centre, we run many one-off workshops for courses, in liaison with tutors. These sessions introduce our services, what archives are, share items from our collection and some of the things to consider when researching with archives.

We encourage students to become critical researchers, and introduce students to the topic of archival bias. (Trouillot, 1995) 1.

Having introduced and explained the concept, we ask the students to get into small groups to consider the following questions:

  • How might archival bias affect your research and/or creative practice using archives?
  • What strategies might you use to try to mitigate the effects of archival bias?

We then offer students the chance to feed back to the whole class.

  • Challenge 1: With one-off sessions we cannot build up a relationship with the individual students to understand their needs.
  • Challenge 2: Many students do not feel comfortable participating verbally in class. There may be different reasons for this (Harris, 2022; Orgill, 2023), including due to language barriers, or neurodivergence.
  • Challenge 3: During the collective feedback to class, students sometimes “switch off” once their group has fed back. This is especially so if there are many small groups in a large class. Students not listening to their peers does not foster an inclusive environment.

Group Activities and Verbal Participation

Using group activities is already intended to facilitate peer-to-peer learning (Kryousi, 2022; Chickering and Gamson, 1987).

But there might be more we can do to develop some of these activities to help students engaging with the content (Harvard Kennedy School, 2025; Espey, 2018; Davidson et al, 2014; Biggs, 2003).

My colleague Georgina Orgill (2023) did research for her PG cert on the expectations around verbal participation in our sessions, and using an anonymised padlet, as a way to help students to feel more comfortable to do so.

Small group work can also be a way of facilitating verbal participation, towards an intersectional practice, where students feel more comfortable sharing ideas within smaller break-out groups (Willcocks, 2023)2.

Small Group Activities and question prompts:

Davidson et al (2014) and Roberson and Franchini, (2014), argue that for productive conversations in short-term small group activities, the prompt needs to focus students on a particular problem, where they are tasked to decide on a course of action and their reasons for it.

So, in this context, rather than starting with an open-ended question, e.g., “How might archival bias affect your research and/or creative practice using archives?” we might instead present the students with live examples from our collections in a scenario where the students have to make a decision and reflect critically on why.

Listening and taking notes:

I wanted to find a way for the collective group feedback to be done differently, via Padlet, in a way that would:

  • Still allow students to hear from each other and find out at least something of what was discussed in other groups (This is what is sometimes called ‘Jigsaw-ing’). (U. Waterloo, 2023; Harvard Kennedy School, 2025).
  • Be accountable to each other, and demonstrate active listening, by assigning roles within the group (Washington University, 2025; TPP Unit, 2025). If one person is assigned to take notes on the padlet, the rest can really listen.
  • Allow us as teachers to hear/read something of what was discussed to assess how well students had grasped the key concept (Imperial College, 2025).
  • Allow students to consolidate their learning by referring back to the conversation later, through notes taken in a shared space. The padlet therefore acts as an additional asynchronous resource, to remind students of what they discussed (adhd centre.co.uk, accessed 2025; Imperial College, 2025).

Bibliography

Books:

Trouillot, M-R. (1995). Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History, Boston: Beacon Press

Chapters and Articles:

John Biggs, J. (2003), ‘Aligning teaching for constructing learning’, The Higher Education Academy
Chickering, A. W. and Gamson, Z F. (1987), ‘Seven Principles For Good Practice in Undergraduate Education’, Washington Center News, Fall 1987
Davidson, N., Major, C. H., & Michaelsen, L. K. (2014). ‘Small-group learning in higher education—cooperative, collaborative, problem-based, and team-based learning: An introduction by the guest editors’. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 25(3&4), 1-6.
Espey, M. (2018) ‘Enhancing critical thinking using team-based learning’, Higher Education Research & Development, 37:1, 15-29, DOI: 10.1080/07294360.2017.1344196
Grout, H. (2019). ‘Archiving critically: exploring the communication of cultural biases,’ in Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal, 4:1, pp.71-75
Karen Harris, (2022), ‘Embracing the silence: introverted learning and the online classroom’, Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal, Vol 5 / Issue 1, pp. 101–104
Kyrousi, A. (2022), ‘Laying the foundations for groupwork’, in Active Learning Network, University of Sussex, 100 Ideas for Active Learning, (Creative Commons).
Roberson, B., & Franchini, B. (2014). ‘Effective task design for the TBL classroom’. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 25(3&4), 275-302.
Willcocks, J. and Mahon, K, (2023), ‘The potential of online object-based learning activities to support the teaching of intersectional environmentalism in art and design higher education,’ Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education, Volume 22 Number 2, 2023

Talks and teaching:

Orgill, G. (2023), ‘Student Participation in One-off sessions’ UAL Education Conference, 2023.
Group Activity (2025), experienced during ‘Theories, Policies and Practices’ Unit 1 of PG Cert [Developed by UAL Academic Practice team]; delivered by Kwame Baah and Victor Guillen, January 2025.

Online resources:

ADHD Centre, London, (2023) ‘Our top tips and strategies to help students with ADHD’ https://www.adhdcentre.co.uk/our-top-tips-strategies-to-help-students-with-adhd/ (Accessed 1 June 2025)
Harvard Kennedy School, nd., ‘Guide to Small Group Learning,’ https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/Academic%20Dean’s%20Office/Guide%20to%20Small-Group%20Learning.pdf (Accessed 1 June 2025)
Imperial College, London, (2025), ‘Padlet for online teaching and learning’ https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/staff/education-development-unit/public/Padlet-for-online-teaching-and-learning.pdf (Accessed 1 June 2025)
UAL Archives and Special Collections Centre Lib Guides, ‘Critical use of archives and collections’ https://arts.ac.libguides.com/c.php?g=681650&p=5196399 (Accessed 1 June 2025)
University of Waterloo, Canada, (2023) ‘Group Work in the Classroom: Types of Small Groups’ https://uwaterloo.ca/centre-for-teaching-excellence/catalogs/tip-sheets/group-work-classroom-types-small-groups (Accessed 1 June 2025)
Washington University in Saint Louis, Centre for Teaching and Learning, ‘Teaching Resources: Using Roles in Group Work,’ https://ctl.wustl.edu/resources/using-roles-in-group-work/ (Accessed 4 June 2025)

Footnotes:

  1. We explain what Trouillot means by Archival Bias with the following:
    “Archives can only show you what was recorded and later selected for preservation.​
    Material that has been preserved often relates to groups which have held power in a society or culture.
    Underrepresented groups in archives broadly mirror historically marginalised groups in our wider society​.”
    We then link students to a collection of resources that we add to on our Libguides that address this further as well as our ASO sessions, which help to unfold these issues in different ways, over a longer session.

    Our activity was reflected on by fellow archivist Hannah Grout (2019), “Teaching with archival materials creates a space to critique collections and the attitudes of the archive, enabling inclusive approaches to pedagogical and artistic practices, as well as provoking discussion of the archival process.”
    ↩︎
  2. ‘Student teams met in online breakout rooms to work with their digital objects and were invited to share some thoughts with the wider group when they returned to the main online classroom. While presentations and talks were recorded, breakout sessions were not, the aim being to create a safe space where students could share their ideas freely.’, Willcocks, 2019.
    So this is why it is important in my example that the first part of the activity happens within the small group discussion using paper, not on the padlet, to allow people to share their ideas to begin with and decide what to write down together, before sharing on the padlet. The padlet is then used at the next stage in the group sharing, to collectively take notes. ↩︎
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Inclusive Practices: Intervention idea

Posted on 27th May 2025 by Lucy Parker

In our work in the Archives and Special Collections Centre, we run a lot of one-off workshops, in liaison with tutors, for courses.

These are often to introduce researching with archives, sharing the importance of considering archival bias, and may be tailored in terms of subject-matter, to the course brief.

Often within these sessions, we introduce short group activities in order to encourage students to engage with the concepts around archives and also the content we hold. The challenge is, we have not had previous contact with the students, so there is not the opportunity to build up a relationship with the individual students and understand their needs, ahead of time.

My colleague Georgina Orgill did some work for her PG cert on the expectations around verbal participation in class. Her solution was use of padlets, to facilitate students who may not feel comfortable to participate verbally, but may feel more confident to do so by writing on a padlet. I would like to extend this activity in some way, with group work.

With the group activities, these are already structured in a way that is meant to facilitate peer-to-peer learning, and then with a nominated student feeding back something to the general class discussion.

What we have noticed is sometimes during the general class discussion stage – students appear to switch off from listening to the other groups’ reporting. (If we have a group of say, 30 students, and they are grouped into 6 groups of 5, it can take a longish time for each group to feed back). This does not foster a very inclusive environment, and can also be a challenge for students with short attention spans.

I am wondering if there is a way we might adopt a mode of activity that allows for group activity and feedback, using the padlets to encourage those who do not feel comfortable to contribute verbally, but also prevents people from zoning out.

I would like to try doing something like what we did for a couple of the sessions in the ‘Theories, Policies, and Practices’ course, where groups feed back to each other and then swapped over, to report to each other, on what another group came up with.

I am not sure if this was based on a particular theoretical approach to group work, but I thought it was interesting.

But perhaps, do so in a digital way, on padlet, where we can build up the group responses in one place, collaboratively.

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Protected: Inclusive Practices: Blog 2: Faith

Posted on 23rd May 2025 by Lucy Parker

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Inclusive Practices Blog 1: Disability

Posted on 23rd April 2025 by Lucy Parker

Discuss specific examples from the resources that illustrate the intersection of disability with other identity aspects; Evaluate how these intersections impact the lived experiences of the interviewees.

In 2020 (around a highpoint in activism of the Black Lives Matter movement), Ade Adepitan spoke as a black disabled Paralympian, about how the intersecting struggles of both Black people against racism and disabled people against prejudice point to an issue of systemic racism (and ablism), but the struggles from both these communities can learn from each other. I would have been curious to hear more about how he experiences being among other disabled people, as a Black man, and also when he is among other Black people, as a disabled person. However, I can also appreciate how burdensome it might be to have to speak to these things all the time.

Adepitan did confide that he could not honestly say, if he had a child, that their lives would *not* be affected by the colour of their skin, or whether they had a disability. His lived experience has shown that despite no longer often hearing explicit verbal racist or ablist abuse, that the systemic forms of oppression he experiences are still in effect. On the other hand, his experience has shown him examples of when barriers for someone are genuinely removed, and support is given, how much they can achieve.

Chay Brown (2023) talked about being a white trans gay man with an invisible disability. He shares the relative priveleges, as he sees it, compared, perhaps to other members of the trans community, or other people who are disabled. However I think there are both challenges and privileges to having an invisible disability. On the one hand you can ‘pass’ as able bodied, and therefore receive privileges of a non-disabled person, on the other hand, as your disability is invisible, people might assume you are not affected by certain situations, or not realise you may be less able to do, or need more time to do, certain things than other people.

Brown shared an example where he recognised the impact of an event by a trade union organised well, with access in mind, because of the lived experiences of the organisers. That this experience is something that helped in his own activism and organising, to think about how to make events more inclusive for different access needs within the LGBTQ+ community.

Consider any recurring themes or differing perspectives highlighted in the interviews.

Visibility: All three speakers (Ade Adepitan, Christine Sun Kim and Chay Brown) talked about the importance of “visibility” in different ways. Adepitan noted that if you don’t see other people with disabilities around then that can foster discrimination at a social level – contributing to the social model of disability, that it is society as it is that disables people. Christine Sun Kim talked about the importance of making big artworks for her, to make the experiences of deaf people more visible. She also talked about the need, ultimately, to become visible within the hearing community, outside of her supportive network in the deaf community, to do so. Chay Brown talked about both how greater visibility of disability within the LGBTQ community had helped him to come accept his own mental health difficulties and neuro-atypical experiences. But he also talked about visibility in terms of the priviledges of ‘passing’ as a cis-gendered person and that his disabilities are invisible. (Adepitan, 2020); (Sun Kim, 2024); (Chay Brown, 2023).

Systemic oppression: Ade Adepitan talked about talked about systemic oppression and discriminiation that affects both black people and disabled people in different ways, and the deep history of oppression for black people, and disabled people. But he also talked about how disabled movement and anti-racist movements can learn from each other. This reflects Kimberle Crenshaw’s approach, where she introduced the term Intersectionality (1990).

Adepitan cited examples from the Paralympic movement that show that removing barriers to achievement “allows people to shine”. The main challenge, as he has seen it through various schemes attempted to both tackle inequality in terms of race, and of disability is that they have not addressed the systemic problems that inhibit black or disabled people getting jobs, for example. That the accommodations for disabled people appear to be too expensive or people, or alternatively that people may still not be recruited because of unspoken prejudices based on skin colour.

List the disability considerations in your own teaching context, drawing on UAL data and your own experience.

  1. I have been thinking about the Social Model of Disability both in this course, and for a while now. A big project I did last year was to initiate, and to produce and deliver an Access Route and Video with Audio Description and transcription for our service, to help people to feel prepared for what to expect when visiting the archive. I discussed this an example for my teaching observation last term. With a social model of disability in mind, I wanted to create something that could increase transparency around access to our service – both the challenges and the opportunities. The hope is, that by enacting changes to improve access, that it would benefit everyone. (Oliver, 2004); (Grigley, 2018)
  2. Regarding UAL as a whole, I think there is a lot of awareness around disability, but some aspects of the organisation still make access and inclusion really challenging. The ambitions around more recruitment (UAL, 2022), which will likely mean larger class sizes, not only mean that the tutors are not as able to give as much 1-2-1 support. Larger class sizes also make access within classroom spaces really challenging. Classrooms can be very crowded which both makes it difficult to physically enter and exit, but also it can be quite an overwhelming experience for both students and teachers. On the other hand, the offer of more online courses may help to facilitate participation from students who would otherwise find attending in person challenging, or where online access can facilitate asynchronous learning. But there is a challenge that facilitating real care for students would appear to come up against costs – as Chay Brown (2023) noted, it needs to be budgeted for.
  3. In terms of my own experience, living with a chronic disability and its effects, which significantly impacted my time as both an undergraduate and graduate student, I am aware of the challenges of those with unseen disabilities, or ill health and it’s impact on the student experience and learning. Having to take time out from studies due to ill health not only has the potential to affect attainment but also relationships with peers and the wider sense of feeling included in the student body. One has to spend a lot of time in self-advocacy, not only within college but in ones spare time, with the health service, which is very energy and time consuming (increasingly so, it feels, in the last 20 years or so). (Hughes et al, 2015). To take an intersectional approach however, I would also recognise my priviledge compared to others with invisible disabilities, in terms of coming from a middle class white background, I am less disadvantaged than others when it comes to interfacing with institutions in the UK, be it the health service or universities. (Crenshaw, 1990).

—

‘Ade Adepitan gives amazing explanation of systemic racism’, 2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAsxndpgagU, Accessed 25/05/2025

‘Christine Sun Kim in “Friends & Strangers”’ – Season 11 | Art21, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NpRaEDlLsI, Accessed 25/07/2025

Crenshaw, K. (1990) Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), pp.1241-1299.

Grigley, J. (2018). ‘Thank You: On What it Means to Care’ , Talk at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG_cZjUP088 (Accessed 7 March 2025)

Hughes, K., Corcoran, T. and Slee, R. (2015) ‘Health-inclusive higher education: listening to students with disabilities or chronic illnesses’, Higher Education Research & Development, 35(3), pp. 488–501. doi: 10.1080/07294360.2015.1107885.

‘Intersectionality in Focus: Empowering Voices during UK Disability History Month 2023’, (Interview with Chay Brown) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yID8_s5tjc, Accessed

Oliver, M. (2004). ‘The Social Model in Action: if I had a hammer’ in Barnes, C. and Mercer, G. (ed.) Implementing the Social Model of Disability: Theory and Research Leeds: The Disability Press, pp. 18-31.

Stanford Graduate School of Education (2025). What is synchronous and asynchronous learning? Available at https://teachingresources.stanford.edu/resources/what-is-synchronous-and-asynchronous-learning/ (Accessed online, 7 March 2025)

UAL Strategy 2022-2032, Guiding Policy 2, ‘To bring a high-quality creative education to more students than ever before.’ https://www.arts.ac.uk/about-ual/strategy-and-governance/strategy/guiding-policy-2

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