Session One – Learning Environment
• Explore meanings, language and power in relation to inclusion, equality and diversity
• Discuss the role of identity in terms of learning environment
Reflection and Professional Practice
Identity and Culture
It is not surprising that we shy away from true understanding. If I am truly open to the way life is experienced by another person – if I can take his world into mine – then I run the risk of seeing life his way, of being changed myself. So we tend to view this other person’s world only in our terms, not in his. We analyse it and evaluate it – we do not understand it !! Rogers and Stevens (1967, page 93)
Identity and Self
When I am standing in the school playground with my English friends, I am Black. When an African Caribbean girl joins our group, I am Asian. When another Asian girl comes in, I think of myself as Pakistani and a Muslim. When Pakistani friend join us, I become a Kashmiri girl who turns up, I become a Bradford School girl again!!!
Diverse definitions of cultureDefinitionsCulture consists of…….
Topical Everything on a list of topics, such as social organisation, religion of economy
Historical Social heritage, or tradition that is passed on to future generations
Behavioural Shared, learned human behaviour, a way of life
Normative Ideals, values or rules for living
Functional The way humans solve problems of adapting to the environment
Mental Complex ideas, or learned habits that inhibit impulses and distinguish people from animals
Structural Patterned and inter-related ideas, symbols or behaviours
Symbolic Culture is based on arbitrarily assigned meanings that are shared by a society
A thought!
"Liberation is impossible if we fail to see ourselves in more positive terms. For without a change of vision, we are slaves to the oppressor's ideas and values - ideas and values that finally attack the very core of our existence. Therefore, we must see the world in terms of our own realities." Larry Neal, "Black Art and Black Liberation," 1969