Interrogating Participation:pedagogies, gender, identity & inclusion

Penny Jane Burke,

Professor of Education

Director, Paulo-Freire Institute-UK

Centre for Higher Education & Equity Research (CHEER)

aims

• To explore questions of WP with a particular focus on

pedagogical experiences, relations and practices – interrogating

concepts of participation• To examine the different pedagogical practices that HE teachers

draw on in relation to concepts of ‘silence’, ‘voice’ & power• To consider how pedagogical practices & relations might be

experienced as inclusive/exclusive by HE students & teachers

Widening participation

• Focus has largely been on access to HE – key discourses:

- Fair access

- Raising aspirations

- Overcoming barriers• All of these discourses, I argue, are highly problematic and raise

ethical questions (see Burke, 2012)

Brief summary

• Fair access – conflates ‘transparency’ and ‘fairness’ – and

conflates fairness with equality – reinforces meritocratic view of

WP• Raising aspirations – deficit discourse – assumes lack of

aspirations – process of judging potential and ability left

unproblematised – middle-class aspiration normalised • Overcoming barriers – imagines concrete, tangible barriers that

can be removed – tends to ignore the subtle, insidious exclusions

& misrecognitions at symbolic, cultural, emotional levels

Participation in HE

• Not intensive focus of WP discourse – tends to focus on attainment

and retention and not on processes of participation (e.g. in

pedagogical practices & relations)• Little attention to HE practices which might be exclusive or

implicated in complex social inequalities and cultural misrecognitions• Teaching and learning – largely instrumental view – teaching as

delivery –different learning styles – student often positioned as

passive subject – emphasis on quality not equality, diversity not

difference & inequality

Anxieties

• Quality and WP often juxtaposed • WP associated strongly with anxieties about lowering standards• Students associated with WP often constructed as ‘non-standard’

– needing special help – draining resources – lacking skills,

aspirations, motivation, etc• Students associated with WP often construct themselves as not

belonging, not being clever enough, not being a ‘proper’ HE

student• Institutional identity and student identity closely bound up

Formations of Gender & HE Pedagogies

• HEA-funded qualitative, multi-method project• Key research questions include: 

- The different ways that current HE pedagogical practices

address issues of diversity, equity and inclusion

- The ways that students and teachers experience the different

pedagogical practices being used in HE

- How gender and other identities (e.g. age, class and ‘race’)

shape and constrain pedagogical experiences, relations and

practices

Innovative research design

• Aims to engage HE students and teachers in

considerations about pedagogical practices, experiences

and relations• Creates dialogic spaces for reflexivity about taken for

granted practices & assumptions• Participatory approaches to get HE teachers and students

involved with discussions about the development of

inclusive pedagogies to challenge inequalities &

exclusions

Reconceptualising pedagogies

• Broadening engagement with teaching in learning in HE –

pedagogies as concept to contest mainstream discourses • Pedagogies are shaped by identity formations but are

also gendered, classed and racialised practices • Gender intersects with other (embodied) social identities

and inequalities – tied to complex power relations and to

changing pedagogical contexts

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Silent lecture

But a lot of Business language is around football, male sports, moving the goal post, team

player, all this rubbish and I just wonder if you know it’s largely written by men, a lot of the

Business Management literature and it’s very geared towards the systems type learning as well

that maybe women, female students are excluded to a certain extent and a sort of silent

lecture until the questions at the end. I thought of that word silent, the bit of research I did with

students about women’s ways of knowing. Basically silence being the lowest level of

engagement and you know by doing a lecture, we are imposing that silence but in the next

minute, we’re saying, - let’s have a discussion about this and let’s engage but we’re controlling

that as opposed to them really critically engaging. So I think there may be something wrong

there in terms of imposing silence on the people. I mean I’m finding it more and more –they’re

just not able to engage. They don’t take the risk and my group this year, there’s only about one or

two that would participate. Whereas previously it would be a really good dynamic engaged.

(Male Business Lecturer)

Silence – lack of engagement

• Because I tell you, if in doubt I start playing. I either go what’s the

matter babies, tell me, or I start playing. Because I can’t bear silence,

lack of engagement, I can’t bear it, so…it’s also partly because there is

this shared belief, I think I’m right in saying, underneath, that students

need to connect with themselves, and they need to connect with one

another, in order to write well…So it’s essential that we bring them out

as people, that’s part of our job. We are not just teaching a subject. You

have to take part or you are not learning. I think that’s what we believe.

- (Creative Writing Lecturer, female)

Kind of coerce…

• Int: You said the day everybody was tired you put everybody in a circle and

you said you did the maternal thing of OK, what’s going on, what’s the

matter? So do you actively draw on that, to get people engaged?• Lecturer: I’m aware I’m doing that. I think I’ve just always done it. I think

the older I’ve become the more I do it actually. It was, I actually will

explicitly refer to myself as Auntie occasionally. Not in the initial classes,

but as we all get to know each other, I will often…maybe not often, but often

enough, kind of coerce people into saying things, or taking part, on the

basis of because Auntie knows so and so and so and so.

- (Creative Writing Lecturer, Female)

Anxious & nauseous

• Int: And you’ve given an account of feeling quite anxious when you’re having to read because

of your dyslexia. Are there any other times when you remember feeling particularly anxious

about your studies?• Student: Well I basically feel anxious if I have to like, like I don’t like, I think it’s just because

I’m scared of being stupid like I don’t like if I want to say something and I know that what I

want to say is right and if I don’t say it, the tutor points it out. So I should have said it to show

how clever I was but I didn’t and no-one did. But I’m just too scared to put up my arm or just to

say it. And sometimes I even feel nauseous - l like I want to be sick just from having to

say a sentence. And it’s not because like I sometimes I got good stuff up there as well but it’s

just scary to say it. And I’m not shy – I’m not a shy person. I get in contact with people

quite easily and I’m good at speaking to people I think but I’m just very nervous.

- Creative Writing Student 1, female

‘The best’

• Well sometimes it gets worse like if it’s like ‘cause in some

classes you know that everyone there is very respective and

humble but in other classes you have people who are a bit more

arrogant and stuff like that. And that makes it worse if there

are people who you know are like just like the best.

- (Creative Writing Student 2, female)

frightened

• I get more of a sense of there are some students there who are actually frightened

of the seminar environment, they find it creates a good deal of anxiety, because I

think it’s one of the, you know, the normal ways we teach at university level that

is very different, perhaps, from their experience of teaching at school or college,

because it’s much more focussed on their involvement, their participation, them

leading discussions, and generally, you know, as facilitators of that discussion in

our role, we are not there telling student X you’ve just said something that’s

complete rubbish, even if actually they have said something that’s complete

rubbish, we try and phrase that in a way that’s kind of constructive, and let’s

have somebody else join in the debate.

- History Lecturer, female

Power, voice & silence/ing

• ML1: I can hear blokes. Again I can usually hear their chatter let’s say more acutely more than I can hear

some female chatter simply because of the difference in pitch.• ML2: I really can’t tolerate talking. It really drives me nuts and I will stop a lecture and they know. Whereas

in the old days I used to just get louder and louder and they got louder and it got out of control. But I think

you learn as a lecturer how to control a group. And if they’re too quiet you… • FL1: I think after 20 minutes you put a question to them. It gives them an opportunity to talk to each other

otherwise I know that their attention span is not all that great so it’s best to give them a bit of a breathing

space.• ML3: Actually my experience is thinking about the power dynamics in business studies as well ‘cause I

think we all think, I don’t think any of us would think we have to go in and manage that space because as a

lecturer it’s not about allowing silences and not allowing silence and telling them when they can speak and

when they can’t. But there is that dynamic about independent learning and reflective learning – probably

you go into a situation and you are the manager, if you have power.•  FL1: The only power they have is to walk out.

- Discussion of Business Lecturers

Making noises

• …and you find yourself that they are just really, they are there

physically, but they are not engaging, you know, and they are the

same group who’s actually been making noises - so affecting

the students’ hearing, and the lecturer themselves, you know,

and the problem, sometimes, you find the same group time and

time again. When you warn the first time, come the following

week, and exactly the same. So the question we raised as well,

before, how far you can go to say OK, enough is enough

- Sports Science Lecturer, male

Power & confrontation

• And that’s precisely how far you can go to change, you know, and confront and

make the situation (I 33.55) I mean I’ve done it, I think, twice or three times, and

one of them is going and complain to the boss, you know. But I mean I

have nothing to hide, you know. It’s just…I know the reason why, I’m happy

with that. But sometimes it is constant, you know, like I said, when you want to

start raising the issue. Even, I explain, I stop sometimes and say – look, if you

know the subject that’s good, don’t bother to turn up. You know. But at the

same time I won’t allow you to keep staying in the back and talking and interfere

with the lecture and with the other students, and actually this year some

students were complaining about that…

- Sports Science Lecturer, male

Culture of expectation

• Yes, it’s always been discussed hasn’t it, and the compact was supposed to try and sort all of

that out and things. But again a lot of it comes down to the culture, and the culture of

expectation. And, you know, the…what do we expect and what do they expect, and what is

acceptable within a culture, and what is not acceptable within a culture? And part of that is

about education, us educating ourselves and us educating them. But in…it’s impossible to

educate, you know, in the sense that we don’t have time to sit down and navel gaze about

how can we engage these people better in order to do this, that and the other, or do we look

right back to our admissions criteria and say OK, well, we only choose the ones who are like

us. And, you know, it comes down to what’s institutional racism? And I think, I think without

question higher education has a tendency to be institutionally racist, but to what extent can I

address it and can the university address it, or is it just a societal issue that we have to get

over, you know?

- Sports Science Lecturer, female

Student expectations

• Yeah I mean it depends again on a few things. It depends on the lecturer – if

they can sort of, what’s the word, control, if they can allow everyone to sort

of, if they were able to speak loud enough and get everyone involved then it’s

a really good lecture and if everyone’s listening and if everyone’s quiet but

when there’s lecturers that are like sort of having people talking in the back

and don’t do anything about it – that’s the bad parts of that big lecture room

and that really annoys me because my friends tend to want to sit sort of

middlish and so we’ve got the lecturer talking at the front, but then we’ve got

them at the back and it’s like trying to concentrate on who is actually talking.

- Sports Science student, male

Really intelligent

• I sit with generally two girls my age and one guy my age. Actually a

couple of guys my age sometimes do and sometimes don’t but like it’s

normally just the four of us and we are all like the same age. Yeah and

two of them voice their opinions about what they want to say. Me and

my other friend don’t’ really say that much but she is really intelligent as

well. Like when me and her talk about things in group work she is really

intelligent. She is taking everything in but she doesn’t like saying it out

loud either so it’s quite nice having a friend like that.

- Art History Student, female

Voice and Mis/recognition, Othering

• I think the government has set this unrealistic goal of having fifty percent of the population go through university. Now that inevitably means a massive proportion of people at university today probably shouldn’t be here, and call me very, you can say I’m being very harsh there, I probably am, but the simple fact is I don’t think they should be here, I don’t think they are bright enough. Students should adapt to the lecturers, students should have the intelligence to adapt to their lecturers, and they should just have the simple respect and not talk in the back of the class (Male Student 1, Sports Science).

Peer regulatory discourses

• I would say, it sounds so bad, I would say like maybe eighty percent, this is a guestimate, eighty percent of people who come from a lower class, whose parents didn’t go to university, might not address learning in general with as quite a passion as those who maybe came from middleclass, or those who had their parents who went to university. I went to a secondary school which although it was state it was quite top end, we had the PM’s children there, and from there you always had high expectations bred into that sort of way of thinking. You moved into that way of thinking, that that is the way forward, and that is a normal thing to do, whereas people who went to other schools might not see it like that… (Male Student 2, Sports Science).

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Ethical challenges raised

• The data show the ways that subjects in HE are implicated in

power relations and complex inequalities • The notion of ‘participation’ positions subjects in certain (unequal)

ways – pedagogical practices work to regulate and position

subjects around notions of il/legitimate voice and silence – • Who is the subject/object of the ‘disciplinary’ gaze of WP? This

appears to be gendered, classed and racialised as well as tied in

with power differences of age – notions of voice and silence

seem to exacerbate such differences

Politics of identity & difference

• ‘voices’ are heard, silenced, included, excluded, re/presented in pedagogic spaces in relation to classed, gendered and racialised inequalities and differences

• Participation - profoundly shaped by politics of identity & difference – raises key questions

- what is the responsibility of the (individual) subject in this? - Are there ways to challenge differences and inequalities

through critical, feminist or inclusive pedagogical practices? - Are pedagogies always implicated in the re/production of

inequalities?

Ethics, Inclusion and power

• How might teachers and students negotiate these complex power relations in more ethical, equitable and inclusive ways?

• Critical pedagogies attempt to address issues of power but are also problematic in relating ‘voice’ to empowerment

• Silence can be a form of power and resistance and voice can be a form of challenging the traditional authority of the HE lecturer – but how does this impact on the relations between students – how does this reinforce gendered and racialised constructions of students and teachers?

Implicated in inequalities

• A feminist poststructural position is that we are always

implicated in unequal relations of power however we need to

draw on reflexive, ethical and participatory pedagogies in the

continual attempt to disrupt inequalities (e.g. Gore, Lather,

Ellsworth)

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Participatory pedagogies

• underpinned by explicit sets of social justice principles and ethical

starting points;• E.g. might involve teachers and students initiate their pedagogical

relationship with an explicit plan of the ways they will work together,

ethically, critically and inclusively and review this regularly;• involves a commitment to creating interactive spaces for learning

and teaching, where different forms of knowledge and experience

might be drawn on to help illuminate and make accessible the

disciplinary or subject knowledge at the heart of the course;

Participatory pedagogies

• might involve an explicit discussion of the different perspectives,

backgrounds and forms of knowledge of participants whilst also

subjecting these to critical reflection in collaborative learning processes;• concerns with curriculum and assessment are understood as part of

pedagogical practices and relations, not separate entities;• concerned not only with explicit practices of teaching and learning, but

also with the construction of knowledge, competing epistemological

perspectives and the ways that learning and meaning might be

assessed to support pedagogical and meaning-making processes

Accessible knowledge

• To create the opportunities for exclusive forms of knowledge &

practice to become accessible, inclusive and participatory

through processes of redistribution• developing HE in ways that nurture, enrich and fully recognise

the importance of diverse forms of knowledge, identity and

practice

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Paramount for WP & Equity in HE:

• that awareness is raised around these complex issues through

REFLEXIVITY. • requires serious attention to the relationship between

pedagogical practices and relations and social identities,

inequalities and exclusions – situating individual

experience/identity in wider social relations• Gender is not only tied to individual identity formations but also

shapes pedagogic and disciplinary practices, epistemologies and

assumptions.

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obligation

• All of us, regardless of credentials, regardless of time since receiving advanced

degrees or prominence in our respective fields, have an obligation to educate

ourselves about the world around us, about developments in our fields, and

most especially about people, events, and ideas about which our class, race

and/or social position would normally insulate us from knowing. (…) earning an

advanced degree and entering a profession in the academy is still

predominately the province of Whites who come from privileged backgrounds.

(…) Primarily, the obligation to educate ourselves means going out to meet the

world, and not expecting it to come to us – or, perhaps more pointedly, not

assuming that was has come to us constitutes ‘the world’ (Gordon, 2007).

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Beyond ourselves…

• ‘the conjunction in critical social theory of the

various feminisms, neo-Marxisms and

poststructuralisms feels fruitful ground for

shifting us into ways of thinking that take us

beyond ourselves’ (Lather, 1991: 164).

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Possible reflexive questions

• Do the experiences of teachers and students resonate with your

own experiences? What are the differences/similarities – and

what challenges do these raise? • What spaces might we create to transform pedagogical practices,

cultures and relations in HE? What are the possibilities for doing

things differently? What are the constraints?• How do you understand the relationship between widening

participation, identity formation and pedagogies?

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