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Month: May 2025
In response to the need for more inclusive and critically reflexive group collaboration, I propose introducing a structured Positionality Mapping activity at the start of group projects within the MA Innovation Management course. This intervention encourages students to reflect on and share aspects of their personal, cultural, and professional identities that may shape how they approach teamwork, knowledge, and problem-solving.
Rather than assuming “neutral” participation, students will complete a visual mapping of their positionality (e.g. cultural background, disciplinary training, language comfort, access needs, religious practices, working styles). They will be invited — but not required — to share parts of their map with their group, fostering empathy, trust, and better self-organisation. Staff will model the practice in advance by creating and sharing their own maps. This can be framed as a modified version of a personal SWOT analysis — going beyond strengths and weaknesses to include aspects of identity, learning style, and values that shape one’s role in a team.
This activity draws on the idea that knowledge is always situated and shaped by lived experience (Cuevas, 2020). By surfacing these perspectives early on, the intervention helps build psychological safety, addresses power imbalances, and aligns with Freire’s (1996) call for education as a dialogic, liberatory process. It also echoes Kishimoto’s (2018) anti-racist pedagogy, which centres self-reflection and power awareness in teaching practice.
Though it may resemble group agreements — which define how a group will work together — Positionality Mapping is distinct and comes first. It focuses on individual reflection before group coordination, supporting mutual understanding rather than just consensus. It encourages students to recognise and value the diverse perspectives shaping how each person contributes.
This intervention is low-cost, easily facilitated via Miro or paper templates, and highly adaptable. Its relevance is heightened by the diversity of our student cohort at UAL, where race, class, gender, disability, and faith intersect in complex ways. Colleagues from the PgCert responded positively, highlighting its potential to improve group cohesion and reduce invisible barriers in teamwork.
Ultimately, Positionality Mapping supports a shift towards inclusive, co-owned learning environments — helping students become aware not only of what they contribute, but of how and why they show up in the way they do (Brookfield, 2017).
References
Brookfield, S.D. (2017) Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher. 2nd edn. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Cuevas, A.K. (2020) ‘Positionality as Knowledge: From Pedagogy to Praxis’, PS: Political Science & Politics, 53(3), pp. 527–531.
Freire, P. (1996) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London: Penguin Books.
Kishimoto, K. (2018) ‘Anti-racist pedagogy: from faculty’s self-reflection to organizing within and beyond the classroom’, Race Ethnicity and Education, 21(4), pp. 540–554.
As the final post in this three-part reflection, I turn to race — perhaps the most visible and yet persistently misunderstood axis of structural inequality within higher education. Rather than approach this through anecdote, I focus here on a critical engagement with the literature and media provided, to question the institutional narratives around diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Crenshaw’s (1989) framework of intersectionality continues to offer a vital lens. Both Bradbury (2020) and Garrett (2024) extend this by showing how race, when compounded with other social markers like language or educational capital, is not only a source of individual struggle but a systemic fault line. Bradbury reveals how UK assessment policy constructs bilingual learners through deficit logics, recoding language richness as a liability. This is not merely an educational gap — it is a form of epistemic violence.
Garrett (2024) deepens this critique, tracing how racialised minority PhD students internalise structural limitations that reshape their imagined futures. The very notion of “career potential” becomes racially coded. This isn’t about overt racism, but about the subtle architecture of higher education, which rewards conformity to white, middle-class ideals while claiming inclusivity. In short, meritocracy is only as fair as the norms it privileges.
The TEDx talk by Sadiq (2023) gestures toward a hopeful DEI practice but risks staying at surface level — focusing on representation without redistribution. In contrast, the Channel 4 clip The School That Tried to End Racism promotes a pedagogy of dialogue but reinforces racism as interpersonal. The most reactionary of the set, Orr’s (2022) video for The Telegraph frames racial equity as ideological overreach, positioning white neutrality as the threatened norm. These pieces, when read together, expose a central tension: the institutional desire to appear inclusive without unsettling the very structures that perpetuate inequality.
At UAL and similar institutions, we often discuss “race” in terms of presence — who is in the room — rather than power. Yet as the texts reveal, inclusion is not a numbers game. Without addressing the embedded values that shape whose work is seen as legitimate
Reflecting on this three-part series, I’ve realised the core demand running through each post is a call for structural honesty — the courage to see where power lives, even in the soft language of inclusion. Race is not just a topic to include in our teaching; it is a system we are all entangled in. It shapes access, opportunity, and voice. As educators, we are not exempt from this — and must learn to name it, navigate it, and challenge it with care.
References
Bradbury, A. (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.
Channel 4. (2020). The School That Tried to End Racism. [Video Clip].
Crenshaw, K. (1989). ‘Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex’, University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989(1), pp. 139–167.
Garrett, R. (2024). ‘Racism shapes careers: Career trajectories and imagined futures of racialised minority PhDs in UK higher education’, Globalisation, Societies and Education, pp. 2–11.
Orr, J. (2022). Revealed: The Charity Turning UK Universities Woke. [Telegraph Video].
Sadiq, A. (2023). Diversity, Equity & Inclusion: Learning How to Get It Right. [TEDx Video].
This table shows the breakdown of UK higher education student enrolments by religious belief from the 2019/20 to 2023/24 academic years (Higher Education Statistics Agency [HESA], 2024).
References
Appiah, K. A. (2014). Is Religion Good or Bad? [Video]. TED.
Crenshaw, K. (1989). ‘Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex’, University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989(1), pp. 139–167.
Jawad, H. (2022). Islam, Women and Sport: The Case of Visible Muslim Women [Video].
Trinity University (2016). Challenging Race, Religion, and Stereotypes in the Classroom [Video].
Pope Benedict XVI (2005). Deus Caritas Est [Encyclical]. Vatican.va. Available at: https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20051225_deus-caritas-est.html
Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) (2024) Who’s in HE? Personal characteristics of students. Available at: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/students/whos-in-he#characteristics
Last term, I had a Chinese student in my postgraduate class who consistently produced brilliant individual work — sharp insights, strong research frameworks, thoughtful responses to feedback. And yet, during group activities, she struggled to be heard. She relied on a real-time translator app to convert English conversation into Chinese via her phone, and would often join in a few beats after her peers had already moved the conversation forward. Nobody excluded her intentionally — but her presence remained peripheral.
This experience has stayed with me. It prompted me to reflect on how language barriers, while not typically classified as “disability,” can function as structural obstacles that similarly restrict access to participation, knowledge production, and recognition in higher education. When we talk about inclusion, do we assume linguistic fluency as a baseline? And if we do, whom are we unconsciously leaving out?
Kimberlé Crenshaw’s (1989) theory of intersectionality helps illuminate how different forms of marginalisation compound. In this case, the student’s experience is shaped not just by language, but by culture, race, and a specific pedagogical model that privileges speed, fluency, and verbal spontaneity. Her knowledge wasn’t any less valuable — but it wasn’t compatible with the pace and format of the group work. As a result, it went largely unheard. According to Oliver’s (1990) Social Model of Disability, it is not impairment that disables, but the way environments are structured. If we take this seriously, then her experience is not a language problem — it’s a design problem. Are group work structures that reward quick, English-based verbal interaction that are not neutral? They are environments built for a particular kind of student.
Garland-Thomson’s (2002) concept of “misfitting” furthers this point: the mismatch between body (or mind, or language) and system isn’t inherent — it’s contextual. The same student might thrive in a reflective seminar, a visual map-making session, or an asynchronous discussion thread. But in fast-paced group debates, she might misfit — not because of her capability, but because the mode of participation didn’t leave enough room for her way of engaging. It leaves me wondering: how often do our teaching formats inadvertently signal who belongs — and who doesn’t — without our meaning to?
The deeper issue, as Fricker (2007) would argue, is one of epistemic injustice: a student’s ability to contribute knowledge is compromised not by lack of insight, but by lack of recognition. In spaces where diversity is celebrated in principle, the actual formats for learning can still default to fast-paced, verbal, and English-dominant modes of exchange. It raises a difficult but necessary question: when students struggle to engage in these settings, are we too quick to see it as a personal limitation — and too slow to ask whether the structure itself might need rethinking? In response, I invited the group to reflect on how we might adapt our ways of working to ensure everyone could contribute more meaningfully. They proposed using shared written boards, audio voice notes, clearer turn-taking, and allowing more time for translation. These adjustments weren’t perfect, but they changed the pace and tone of the collaboration. With more entry points and shared responsibility, contributions that had previously been missed began to land. It made me wonder: what else becomes possible when inclusion is shaped collectively, rather than delivered top-down?
This experience reminded me that the line between “language barrier” and “disablement” is not always where we think it is. When we talk about inclusion, we must look not only at the bodies and minds in the room, but at the rhythms and assumptions that govern how we teach. Sometimes, being left behind is not about ability — it’s about tempo, design, and who the classroom was built for in the first place.
References
Crenshaw, K. (1989) ‘Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics’, University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989(1), pp. 139–167.
Fricker, M. (2007) Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Garland-Thomson, R. (2002) ‘Integrating disability, transforming feminist theory’, NWSA Journal, 14(3), pp. 1–32.
hooks, b. (1994) Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge.
Oliver, M. (1990) The Politics of Disablement. London: Macmillan.