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ARP 5: Reflection
When I first began this project, I thought I was researching discomfort. What I’ve come to realise is that I was actually researching silence, the kind that sits quietly in classrooms, between glances, beneath feedback, or inside someone’s decision not to speak. Silence doesn’t always mean exclusion, but it often points to something unacknowledged. And this project became, for me, a way of paying attention to that.
In a very early stage of this ARP unit, I had added a four objective: To test whether co-creating a brief Cultural Sensitivity and Dress Guidelines can enhance mutual understanding of self-expression across cultures at a HE creative space such as UAL. I imagined it not as a policy, but as a shared artefact: something that might signal care, create reflection, or offer a bridge between worlds that don’t always meet.
But the findings make clear why that was premature. The terrain is not only complex; it is politically and emotionally charged in ways that make any “guideline” vulnerable to flattening nuance, hardening polarities, or being taken up as a tool of control. What I can responsibly take forward at this stage is not a draft document, but a clearer sense of what needs to exist before any co-created principles could be ethical: sustained listening, careful facilitation, and shared language that can hold disagreement without immediately converting it into complaint, discipline, or moral judgement.
I have had to reflect on my own positionality in a more disciplined way. I come from fashion, where visibility and aesthetic experimentation are often treated as forms of confidence, creativity, even legitimacy. I am also someone of faith, for whom dress can carry meanings of dignity, privacy, and intention. Holding these orientations together has shaped my research instinct: I do not want to “solve” dress through rules, nor romanticise self-expression as automatically inclusive. The data has pushed me toward a more difficult, but more honest, stance: inclusion in creative HE requires not only permission for difference, but cultural literacy, interpretive humility, and better ways of speaking when something feels uncomfortable.
This project has not given me a neat solution. It has given me a direction. If we are serious about belonging (not just inclusion), we need to attend to what gets decoded quickly, what becomes contextual “normal”, and what people choose not to say because the social cost feels too high. I may return to the idea of a Cultural Sensitivity and Dress Guidelines in the future, perhaps as part of a wider co-creation process involving staff, more students, and faith groups. But for now, the most ethical move is to stay in inquiry. To allow the conversation to remain open.
As I continue teaching across CSM and LCF, I will carry this learning with me: not as a fixed outcome, but as a habit of attention. I may not always get it right, but I will keep asking: Who is in the room? Who is not speaking? And what might it take for them to feel like they belong as they are?
Final note: Many thanks to the PgCert course team and my tutorial group peers for their insightful feedback throughout this journey. And a special thanks to my tutor, John O’Reilly, for his generous support and guidance throughout the development of this Action Research Project.
In my earlier posts, I framed this project as a response to a quiet but persistent tension: creative education often celebrates radical self-expression, yet that same freedom can produce discomfort, disconnection, and unspoken questions about boundaries and belonging.
I also described why I chose a small exploratory design (focus group plus two asynchronous follow-up interviews), precisely because this topic can be hard to voice publicly.
What follows is what my primary data genuinely shows, including where it did not show what I initially expected. It surfaced clear patterns, but also challenged my initial expectation. Three themes emerged:
- Theme 1: Dress gets ‘decoded’ fast, and the decoding is rarely neutral
- Theme 2: ‘Anything goes’ is more myth than reality, and context quietly governs what feels acceptable
- Theme 3: Faith and modesty showed up more through silence, self-monitoring, and sanction imaginaries than through open debate
1) Dress gets “decoded” fast, and the decoding is rarely neutral
Although I used AI-generated outfit stimuli to reduce personal exposure and keep discussion on clothing features to start with, the focus group quickly demonstrated how dress becomes a shortcut for reading identity, values, and “type of person.” The first Miro activity made this visible: participants added in the Words Walls that moved rapidly beyond description into social inference.
Across the four outfits, participants attached not only aesthetic labels (“minimalist”, “loud”, “DIY”, “layered”) but also moral and cultural scripts. Outfit 2, in particular, attracted high-intensity narratives (“attention-seeking”, “unapologetic”, “unapproachable”, “cold”), while Outfit 3 was repeatedly positioned as “approachable”, “blending in”, “has a job”, “sorted”. This matters because it shows how inclusion issues can begin long before anyone speaks: the atmosphere of a room is partly shaped by the silent interpretations people are already making about each other’s bodies and clothing.
One focus group moment captured this reflexive awareness clearly. When discussing discomfort, a participant reframed it as a mirror, not a verdict:
“My take on me feeling uneasy about something … it says something about me, rather than them. … I shouldn’t just judge people by their clothes.” (P2, focus group)
That comment does not erase the existence of discomfort, but it shows a key dynamic: students often manage tension by turning judgement inward, trying to be “a good inclusive subject,” even when the reaction is real.
2) “Anything goes” is more myth than reality, and context quietly governs what feels acceptable
A strong pattern across the discussion was not a simple permissive culture, but contextual permission. Several participants argued that the same outfit reads differently depending on institutional setting, audience, and expectations of professionalism. One participant contrasted “fashion school normality” with other university environments:
“It’s very normal in fashion school to wear something like that. But then if you were in a business school, it would be seen as more like a big statement, because in business school I think people come from more conservative backgrounds.” (P2, focus group)
Others described how visible political messaging or high-exposure styling can become read as disruptive depending on space, even if that disruption is not the wearer’s intent. The “decoded outfit” maps reinforced this: Outfit 1 (with visible text) was largely placed as socially/culturally coherent and symbolic, while Outfit 2 was clustered as disruptive and culturally ambiguous, suggesting that participants felt more unsure about how to interpret it and how it would land on others.
This tension sharpened when the group moved from “would it bother you?” to “should there be boundaries?” Several participants did not demand restrictions, but they did invoke the idea of shared norms and mutual responsibility.
This is a crucial finding for my research question: creative freedom does not remove norms, it relocates them into the implicit, the contextual, and the emotionally negotiated. That is exactly where faith and modesty tensions can become invisible but powerful.
3) Faith and modesty showed up more through silence, self-monitoring, and escalation routes than through open debate
Here is the honest part: in the focus group, faith and modesty were not discussed as explicitly or as centrally as my framing might predict. The most visible “faith/modesty” element in the group data was indirect: the way participants placed outfits on the intent map (for example, Outfit 3 was consistently positioned toward “consideration” and “private/modest,” while Outfit 2 was placed toward “self-expressive” and “visible”). But the group’s verbal conversation was dominated by general inclusion language (avoid judging, be respectful, context matters), rather than sustained engagement with religious modesty as lived practice.
So, in what ways do dress, faith, and modesty intersect at UAL-like creative environments?
- They intersect through interpretation: students and staff do not just “see outfits,” they read them as signals of identity, politics, sexuality, class, morality, and social intent, often at speed and with high confidence. That interpretive layer shapes who feels safe to participate.
- They intersect through the difficulty of naming discomfort: the focus group leaned toward “I shouldn’t judge” and “it depends on context,” while the interviews revealed more direct boundary language. The method itself demonstrates how careful and constrained these conversations can be in public settings.
My data suggests that surfacing can help, but only if it is scaffolded. The Miro mapping worked because it externalised reactions (words, assumptions, comfort ratings) and gave participants something to point at. But it also revealed a risk: when you invite people to name assumptions, you will surface stereotypes. I don’t see this as a failure, but as the material of the problem.
By the time I reached the data collection phase of the research, I had already gathered a great deal of insight from my literature review and critical reflections, but I knew that what I was looking for couldn’t be found in texts alone. I wanted to surface unspoken discomforts, unheard perspectives, and lived tensions around dress, modesty, and belonging in creative HE spaces. To do this, I designed a small, exploratory qualitative study combining a focus group with two asynchronous individual interviews.
This research was never about generalising. Instead, it was about making space for the subtle, emotional, and sometimes contradictory experiences that arise in classrooms where radical self-expression and religious/cultural modesty coexist, sometimes harmoniously, sometimes not.
RESEARCH DESIGN AND APPROACH
I adopted a qualitative, interpretivist approach rooted in the belief that knowledge is co-constructed, especially when working with embodied and culturally situated issues such as dress and identity. Inspired by reflexive thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2021), I allowed themes to emerge through iterative engagement with the data, rather than imposing a rigid framework from the outset.
Methodologically, this took shape through one focus group, followed by two asynchronous individual interviews with participants from that same group. I added the interviews deliberately, not as an “extra”, but as a way to extend care and create a different kind of space: slower, more private, and less shaped by group dynamics. The intention was to give participants the opportunity to share anything they may have felt hesitant to voice in the moment, and to do so individually and anonymously, at their own pace.
Interestingly, it was the move into asynchronous, one-to-one reflection that most clearly confirmed the sensitivity of this topic. What emerged in those follow-up responses was not simply “more data”, but a clearer sense of how challenging it can feel to name discomfort around dress, faith, and perceived respect within a culture of inclusivity. In that sense, the method became part of the finding: the need for anonymity and time was itself evidence of how carefully these conversations are currently held, and how easily they can be silenced.
DATA COLLECTION
- Focus Group: Tabling the Conversation
The focus group brought together CSM MA level students from a mix of cultural and religious backgrounds, including those who identified as believers, agnostic, and non-religious. We explored a set of AI-generated outfit images designed to open up reflection across a broad spectrum, from bold, revealing looks to more modest, covered styles.
On Creating the Outfit Stimuli for the Focus Group
For this stage of the project, I chose not to use photographs of real students. Instead, I generated four outfit images using AI, drawing on multiple visual references that I input to produce variation in silhouette, coverage, texture, colour, and styling detail. The aim was not to create “representative” students, but to produce non-identifiable visual stimuli that could be discussed more safely.
This decision was shaped by ethics and pedagogy. Because the project explores how dress can trigger feelings of comfort, discomfort, neutrality, or belonging in shared creative learning spaces, using real students risked shifting attention from the outfit to the person, and inviting judgements or assumptions about identity, even with consent. AI helped keep the focus on observable features of dress while reducing the risk of personal exposure.
Using AI also supported methodological clarity. I designed the four outfits to differ across visually verifiable variables, including coverage, opacity, layering, silhouette volume, and the presence or absence of text or graphics. This created a more consistent basis for discussion and helped me separate description from interpretation when analysing participant responses.
Below, I present a short, objective description of the four outfits, alongside a comparison table focusing exclusively on observable variables. The descriptions intentionally avoid interpretation or value judgement, establishing a neutral baseline for later analysis. I also include screenshots documenting the process of using ChatGPT to generate and refine the outfit stimuli from multiple visual references, to make the image-production method transparent.
Here is the Miro board I used during the focus group.
I’ve broken it down into sections and shared as screenshots to improve readability.
Below I include my moderator notes, the session transcript and the participant consent forms links:
2. Asynchronous Individual Interviews: Listening More Closely
After the focus group, I invited participants to share further reflections through asynchronous individual interviews, mainly to reduce the social pressure of speaking “in the room” and to offer a quieter, more anonymous space for anything that felt too delicate, unfinished, or hard to phrase publicly. What these follow-ups gave me was a slightly different register of insight: participants wrote more openly about how personal style can feel, and how real the fear of “unintentionally offending someone” can be when commenting on clothes tied to identity.
One participant described the experience as unexpectedly introspective, noticing how quickly we attach cultural connotations to colours, accessories, and silhouettes, and how they “struggled” to express their perceptions while still respecting the intent behind someone’s style.
Another reflected on context and behaviour as shaping interpretation, and noted the group’s hesitation to voice anything that might sound negative, suggesting that more time and probing could have surfaced richer disagreement.
Collectively, these interviews didn’t just add detail; they confirmed the sensitivity of the topic and the careful self-monitoring it can evoke.
References
Braun, V. and Clarke, V. (2021) Thematic Analysis: A Practical Guide. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.
This research emerged from a moment that might have seemed minor at the time but stayed with me. After a seminar, a student quietly shared that she had felt uncomfortable engaging in the discussion due to how another peer was dressed. Her concern wasn’t rooted in moral judgement or conservatism; it was about emotional safety, a sense of disconnection, and the absence of shared boundaries in the space. It raised uncomfortable questions I couldn’t ignore: in a creative institution where we actively encourage radical self-expression, what happens when that very freedom creates discomfort for others? Whose sense of belonging gets protected, and whose discomfort goes unspoken?
This project is rooted in that question. It seeks to explore how students and staff in creative HE spaces like UAL navigate the tensions between cultural and faith-informed modesty and dominant cultures of inclusivity that often promote a “maximalist” approach to dress, where anything goes, and everything is valid. While this principle may appear open and liberating, it risks marginalising those whose dress choices are shaped by modesty, reverence, or religious conviction.
Before we carry on, it is important to distinguish between inclusion and belonging. Two terms that are often used interchangeably in institutional discourse, yet carry very different implications. As Strayhorn (2018) explains, inclusion refers to being invited or allowed to participate, typically framed as an institutional action: a policy, a gesture, a structural change designed to allow someone “in.” It is conditional, often focused on access or representation. Belonging, by contrast, is relational, feeling accepted, valued, and safe to be fully oneself. It is not something granted, but something experienced (Pleet-Odle, 2023). While inclusion may allow someone to be present, belonging means they feel safe enough to participate fully, without needing to assimilate or suppress key parts of who they are. This distinction is particularly relevant when thinking about dress and expression of one self through fashion. A student might be “included” in a space where all styles of dress are technically allowed, but if the cultural codes in that space reward only visibility, skin, or transgression, they may never feel they truly “belong”. Inclusion without cultural literacy risks becoming performative, and belonging requires attention to the unspoken, the relational, and the emotional dynamics of power, especially around the body.
According to HESA (2025), over 44% of UK students identify as Christian and Muslim, two belief systems where modesty is not simply a personal preference but often a spiritual or ethical imperative. Yet modesty is systematically under-theorised in higher education policy, pedagogy, and creative curriculum design. It is rarely addressed in institutional narratives around belonging or inclusivity, despite being a central element of identity for a significant proportion of the student body. As the Modest Fashion and Policy report from UAL (2022) highlights, modesty in secular spaces is frequently misunderstood, misread as repression, or seen as incompatible with contemporary feminist or creative values.
This misreading has real consequences. When modesty is met with silence or suspicion, students and staff who practise it may feel unable to fully participate, or they may internalise the idea that their mode of dress, and, by extension, their presence is somehow out of place.
Literature across multiple fields underscores this complexity. Oliver et al. (2022) show that what educators wear can shape students’ judgements of credibility and professionalism, highlighting the social and affective “work” that dress performs in learning environments. Ibrahim et al. (2016), examining moral education and dress expectations in higher education, similarly suggest that institutional norms around “appropriate” appearance can be culturally coded and unevenly experienced, with students reading them through different lenses of identity, morality and resistance. In school settings, Gajardo (2015) analysis of bans on religious symbols in British schools makes a parallel point from an equality-law perspective: rules framed as general, uniform standards can still operate as indirect discrimination when they disproportionately constrain pupils whose religious or cultural practices involve particular garments or symbols, thereby reproducing dominant norms while maintaining the appearance of neutrality and inclusion.
Waite et al. (2024) offer valuable insight into how university students articulate the relationship between appearance, wellbeing, and inclusion. Their study reveals that concerns around dress and appearance significantly impact students’ mental health, sense of belonging, and willingness to participate in university life, with many describing moments of comparison, discomfort, and invisibility. Crucially, participants highlighted the need for intentional, culturally aware, and genuinely inclusive practices, not surface-level representation or tokenistic gestures. As several students stressed, inclusion only works when people feel their identity is not just permitted but valued, and this includes appearance, culture, and visible difference. For creative HE contexts like UAL, the question isn’t just whether everyone can dress freely, it’s whether everyone feels seen and respected in the process.
My research doesn’t aim to resolve the tension, at least not yet. Instead, it seeks to table a conversation that remains largely absent from institutional discourse: one that surfaces unspoken experiences, discomforts, and silences; that centres those often overlooked in discussions of inclusion; and that asks how we might co-create more respectful learning environments where differing values around dress, including modesty, are acknowledged rather than sidelined.
These reflections continue to raise questions for me: How can we make space for the full spectrum of self-presentation within our creative classrooms? And are we truly considering how appearance norms, both spoken and unspoken, shape who feels welcome, who feels seen, and who quietly withdraws? These are some of the initial provocations that now guide my primary data collection.
References
Aune, K., Lewis, R. and Molokotos-Liederman, L. (2021) Modest fashion in UK women’s working life: A report for employers, HR professionals, religious organisations and policymakers. London: University of the Arts London and Coventry University. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0030/362370/modest_policy_FINAL.pdf [Accessed: 20 January 2026].
Gajardo Falcón, J. (2015) ‘Erica Howard. Law and the Wearing of Religious Symbols. European bans on the wearing of religious symbols in education, Routledge, Londres, 2012 (223 pp.)’ Revista de Derecho (Valdivia), 28(2), pp. 265–267. doi: 10.4067/S0718-09502015000200014.
HESA (2025) Higher Education Student Statistics: UK, 2023/24 – Religious Affiliation. [Online] Available at: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/news/20-03-2025/sb271-higher-education-student-statistics/numbers [Accessed 20 Jan 2026].
Ibrahim, R., Mohamed, S. and Salim, N. (2022) The Role of Moral Education on the Dress Code in Higher Learning Institutions. Journal of Education and Social Sciences, 20(1), pp. 15–26.
Oliver, M.B., Moshontz, H. and Green, M.C. (2021) Fitted: The Impact of Academics’ Attire on Students’ Evaluations and Intentions. Teaching of Psychology, 47(3), pp. 390–410. doi:10.1177/0098628320938776
Pleet-Odle, A. (2023) ‘Inclusion & belonging’, Joyful Inclusion, 26 October. Available at: https://www.joyfulinclusion.com/blog/inclusion-and-belonging [Accessed: 28 January 2026].
Strayhorn, T.L. (2018) College Students’ Sense of Belonging: A Key to Educational Success for All Students. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge.
Waite, E., Parnell, J., Guest, E., Harcourt, D., Stokes, R. and Slater, A. (2024) ‘“Make sure that everybody feels there is a space for them”: Understanding and promoting appearance inclusivity at university’, Body Image, 51, 101809. doi: 10.1016/j.bodyim.2024.101809.
UAL (2022) Modest Fashion and Policy Report. London: University of the Arts London. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/274074/modest_policy_FINAL.pdf [Accessed 25 Jan 2026].
My name is Elisenda, and I’m an AL at UAL, working across CSM with the MA Innovation Management and at LCF in the BA Fashion Buying & Merchandising, the MA Fashion Design Management, and the MBA Fashion Business, where I contribute to the Innovation and Fashion Business Futures unit. My background spans fashion styling, entrepreneurship, and tech-driven innovation across both industry and academia. I collaborate with fashion-tech companies, supporting the development of algorithmic styling journeys for e-commerce, and I’m currently pursuing a PhD exploring how AI-driven fashion recommendations intersect with human values and aesthetic decision-making.
Whether working in digital retail spaces or the classroom, my practice has always centred on how we express who we are through what we wear. Over time, this interest has deepened: moving from questions of aesthetic preference into the politics of self-presentation, especially in creative learning environments. In these spaces, dress is not just a mode of expression but often a site of negotiation: between visibility and discretion, freedom and discomfort, belonging and difference.
This Action Research Project emerged directly from reflections from previous posts, particularly a moment that stayed with me long after one of my sessions finished. A student approached me after class and, in a confidential and respectful tone, shared that she had felt deeply uncomfortable taking part in the discussion because of how one of her peers was dressed. Her response wasn’t about moral judgement, but about the emotional difficulty of feeling out of place in an environment where full visibility is often the default. That moment made me pause. What are the unspoken norms about self-expression in creative institutions like UAL? When we say “everything is accepted,” who might feel excluded, silenced, or unseen?
As John O’Reilly said, sometimes the task is simply “to table the conversation.” This research seeks to do just that; to create space for the often-unheard voices around dress, modesty, and belonging. Through this research, I aim to explore how students and staff with diverse beliefs and backgrounds navigate inclusion and discomfort in relation to how we dress in shared learning spaces. My goal is not to resolve the tension, but to better understand it, and to invite an open dialogue within institutions like UAL.
This leads me to my core research question:
In what ways do expressions of dress, faith, and modesty intersect within HE creative learning environments such as UAL; and how might surfacing students’ and staff’s experiences help initiate more open conversations around inclusion, discomfort, and mutual respect in how we dress in shared spaces?
Introduction
This reflective post documents the process of designing an inclusive learning intervention as part of my PgCert journey. Titled Positionality Mapping, the intervention stems from my desire to foster more equitable and critically reflexive collaboration in group work. Positioned within the MA Innovation Management course at UAL, where students work in diverse, interdisciplinary teams, I often witness the tensions that can arise from unspoken assumptions around identity, communication, and authority.
Coming from a multicultural and multilingual background, and working across both academia and industry, I am particularly sensitive to how power operates through language, visibility, and assumed norms. I want to challenge the idea of the “neutral” student or collaborator by making space for students to reflect on and articulate how their lived experiences shape their ways of working. This commitment aligns with my broader values of intersectional social justice (Crenshaw, 1991), and with UAL’s strategic objectives to foster inclusive and participatory education.
My intervention proposes a structured, two-part activity: first, students will create private positionality maps to reflect on aspects such as cultural background, communication style, access needs, and personal values. Second, they will be invited — but not required — to share selected elements with their peers as part of forming group agreements. I see this as a foundation-setting process that supports mutual understanding, rather than a box-ticking inclusion exercise.
This report reflects on the theoretical rationale, ethical considerations, and personal motivations behind the design. It also outlines my intended implementation, anticipated challenges, and next steps for trialling the intervention in the upcoming academic year.
Context
The intervention is designed for postgraduate students on the MA Innovation Management course, but can be applied to any other course that works with group briefs. In the MAIM course in particular, we bring together students from design, business, social science, and technology backgrounds, many of whom are international, multilingual, and navigating cultural adaptation. Group work is central to our pedagogical approach, and while students are encouraged to collaborate and bring in diverse perspectives, I’ve observed that the processes of forming groups and developing shared values are often left unstructured.
Students frequently encounter friction due to differences in working styles, language fluency, confidence in speaking, and expectations around leadership and collaboration. These frictions are not necessarily problematic in themselves — in fact, they can be productive. But without tools to navigate them, they risk reinforcing inequities and marginalising those who don’t conform to dominant norms.
The idea for Positionality Mapping emerged from my desire to support students in recognising and valuing these differences from the outset, and to move beyond performative inclusion. It was also influenced by conversations with colleagues during Workshop 2, where we discussed how to create conditions for meaningful peer learning across difference. Feedback from peers highlighted the need for a preparatory stage that allows students to reflect individually before co-creating group norms or group chartres — something that would avoid putting undue pressure on students to disclose sensitive information prematurely.
The activity is intended to be implemented within the first week of group project work. Students would complete a guided reflective template (inspired by, but expanding on, a traditional SWOT analysis), and staff would model the practice by sharing their own maps in a limited, voluntary way. This context-specific approach feels aligned with UAL’s inclusive education framework and speaks directly to the access, success, and progression dimensions of the Access and Participation Plan (UAL, 2025).
Inclusive Learning: Rationale and Theoretical Grounding
My intervention is grounded in inclusive pedagogy that foregrounds lived experience as a site of knowledge (Haraway, 1988; Cuevas, 2020), and is informed by theories of intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1991), anti-racist education (Kishimoto, 2018), and critical reflection (Brookfield, 2017). These frameworks collectively challenge dominant models of teaching and learning by making space for marginalised voices and perspectives.
Positionality Mapping supports the idea that knowledge is always situated — shaped by who we are, where we come from, and how we engage with the world. It also speaks to Freire’s (1996) notion of dialogic education, in which learning emerges through reflection and exchange, rather than passive reception.
Importantly, this intervention also considers the emotional and ethical dimensions of learning. Inspired by Boler’s (1999) concept of the pedagogy of discomfort, I believe that creating inclusive spaces doesn’t mean avoiding difficulty — rather, it involves building structures that can hold complexity in compassionate and intentional ways.
From a policy standpoint, the intervention responds to the UK Equality Act 2010, particularly the duty placed on educators to promote equality and foster good relations across differences. By prompting reflection on individual and collective experiences of power, marginalisation, and belonging, Positionality Mapping becomes a micro-level response to a macro-level structural duty.
Reflection on Development
The intervention began as a simple idea: a visual map of identity and learning preferences. But through feedback and reflective dialogue with peers and tutors, it evolved into a two-stage process that distinguishes between private and public reflection, and introduces a crucial “pause” — a space between personal awareness and group disclosure.
This distinction was a direct result of a tutorial with one of the PgCert tutors, which raised ethical concerns about privacy, vulnerability, and unintended disclosure. The feedback helped me see that even well-intentioned inclusion practices can replicate harm if they are not scaffolded carefully. For example, students from certain faith backgrounds or with invisible disabilities may feel pressure to share beyond their comfort level if we do not provide clear boundaries and alternatives.
One key challenge was balancing the depth of reflection I hoped to encourage with the emotional labour it might require. I also questioned whether students would see the value of the task, or whether they might perceive it as abstract or overly “personal.” To address this, I plan to frame the exercise explicitly within the context of group effectiveness — helping students see how positionality influences collaboration, decision-making, and creative dynamics.
An additional complexity is managing the diversity within the room — not just in terms of culture or language, but also power, confidence, and educational background. In highly mixed cohorts, there is a risk that students with more familiarity with reflective practice might dominate the process. Mitigating this requires a carefully facilitated structure and multiple modes of engagement (e.g. visual, verbal, anonymous input).
Action: Implementation Plan
In the upcoming academic year, I intend to pilot the Positionality Mapping intervention during one of the units from the Autumn Term, depending on what feels most appropriate for the rhythm of the academic calendar. The intervention will begin with an individual task and move through a carefully scaffolded process to group interaction.
First, I will provide students with a guided worksheet including prompt questions on cultural background, learning needs, working preferences, values, and any access requirements they may wish to reflect on. Filling in this template will be a personal, private task. The aim is to support students in becoming more conscious of how their positionality might shape their engagement in group work.
Students will then be asked to review their completed template and consider what, if anything, they are ready to share. They will be explicitly told they are under no obligation to disclose anything — the emphasis will be on mindful, intentional sharing. They are encouraged to reflect on what feels useful or meaningful to communicate with their group, and why. It is expected that each student might choose to share different aspects, and that not everyone will contribute the same type of information.
Once students are ready, structured time will be set aside for groups to have a facilitated sharing session. This will be handled with care, using clear ground rules, and with tutor support as needed.
This staged, ethical implementation acknowledges the emotional and interpersonal dynamics at play and builds in time for feedback and adjustment. I plan to document insights throughout and share them with the programme team as part of a wider conversation around inclusive group work design.
Evaluation and Limitations
Although I have not yet implemented the intervention, several potential limitations are already apparent. First, there is the question of emotional safety: even with a clear structure, students may feel uncertain about what is “safe” to share. Offering a two-part structure (private and optional public sharing) aims to address this, but it may not fully resolve the issue for all students.
Second, the intervention may require more time than typically allotted in early project sessions. Negotiating time within a busy curriculum is always a challenge, and I will need to collaborate with colleagues to embed this meaningfully rather than as an add-on.
Third, measuring the impact of the intervention will require both qualitative and informal approaches. I plan to use anonymous feedback tools such as Padlet to gather student reflections and adapt accordingly.
Finally, I am aware that my own biases — particularly around valuing reflection and verbalisation — might shape how I facilitate this. Being mindful of that, and remaining open to feedback, will be key to ensuring the process remains inclusive for all.
Conclusion
Designing the Positionality Mapping intervention has been a generative process of reflection, theory-building, and dialogue. It has helped me clarify my own commitments to inclusive learning, and foregrounded the ethical responsibility we hold as educators to design with — not just for — our students.
The process has also reinforced that inclusion is not a fixed outcome, but a continual practice of listening, adjusting, and co-creating. I don’t expect this intervention to be a perfect solution, but I hope it opens up space for more intentional conversations about who we are when we come together to learn, and what we each need to thrive.
Ultimately, Positionality Mapping is not just about understanding identity — it is about making space for the diverse conditions under which learning happens, and recognising that justice in education begins with how we treat each other in the room.
References
Boler, M. (1999) Feeling Power: Emotions and Education. New York: Routledge.
Brookfield, S.D. (2017) Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher. 2nd edn. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Crenshaw, K. (1991) ‘Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color’, Stanford Law Review.
Cuevas, A.K. (2020) ‘Positionality as Knowledge: From Pedagogy to Praxis’, PS: Political Science & Politics.
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.
UAL (2025) ‘Access and Participation Plan’. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0030/458346/University-of-the-Arts-London-Access-and-Participation-Plan-2025-26-to-2028-29-PDF-1297KB.pdf
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].
If intersectionality teaches us anything, it is that lived experience is always shaped by multiple, overlapping identities. Faith, like disability, is not a standalone category; it intersects with race, gender, class, and culture, influencing how individuals navigate institutions and how those institutions respond in turn (Crenshaw, 1989).
Engaging with this week’s resources, I appreciated the richness of perspectives offered, particularly the nuanced exploration of racialised and gendered experiences within minority faith groups. In the Trinity University video Challenging Race, Religion, and Stereotypes in the Classroom, for example, students speak powerfully about being misjudged based on their appearance, especially when wearing religious clothing such as the hijab or yarmulke. These reflections highlight important dimensions of faith and embodiment. However, I also found myself reflecting on the notable absence of Christian perspectives in the discussion. This omission is striking in light of updated data from HESA (2023/24), which shows that Christianity remains the most widely declared religious affiliation among students in UK higher education (30%), doubling the next largest group, Islam (14%). And yet, Christian Catholic viewpoints – particularly those addressing modesty, embodiment, and moral reasoning, are often absent from conversations in secular creative spaces. This silence risks perpetuating a form of epistemic erasure, where some beliefs are rendered invisible or perceived as culturally regressive.
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).
Catholic social thought offers a rich tradition of human dignity, care for the other, and responsibility in how we present ourselves in the world. Pope Benedict XVI, in Deus Caritas Est (2005), writes about the body not merely as a physical object but as a vessel of meaning, capable of communicating love, respect, and truth. From this standpoint, modesty is not repression but intentionality: a mindful expression of one’s values, not just a matter of aesthetic preference. This framing sits uncomfortably alongside a dominant ethos where the principle of “everything is accepted” is often celebrated as a marker of progress. Yet this idea, when unexamined, can produce tension. Are we genuinely fostering a shared environment or are we defaulting to a form of expressive individualism that inadvertently sidelines quieter, faith-based forms of expression? I recall a classroom experience that left me, as a person of faith, genuinely shocked and unprepared. A student arrived to a seminar wearing extremely short, ripped denim shorts and a sheer top through which her breasts were entirely visible. While no comments were made during the session, I later heard from several classmates who expressed discomfort and uncertainty about how to participate in the discussion. Their concerns were not about the student’s body, but about the context, and the implicit assumption that such levels of exposure were appropriate in a learning environment.
As an educator, I found myself reflecting not only on the moment but on how ill-equipped we often are to navigate such situations. In highly diverse classrooms, are we truly creating spaces where all students, including those of faith, feel able to be fully present? Or are we, by omission, creating environments where certain modes of expression are protected and others quietly marginalised?
Appiah’s Is Religion Good or Bad? explores how religious belief informs moral frameworks, yet avoids the tension that arises when religious values confront hyper-liberal interpretations of freedom. Similarly, Jawad (2022), in her study on Muslim women in sport, shows how modesty is often misread as regressive. Christian women, particularly those who choose modest dress as an act of faith, face similar scrutiny, often dismissed as outdated. Yet within Catholic teaching, modesty is understood not as regressive or outdated, but as a meaningful expression of dignity and self-possession. In Theology of the Body, Pope John Paul II (2006) reflects on the body as a site of truth capable of revealing the inner life of the person through intentional and respectful presentation. Modesty, in this light, is a way of affirming one’s worth and resisting objectification. It becomes not a denial of visibility, but a form of clarity, a refusal to be reduced to external perception and a quiet assertion of agency within shared cultural spaces.
Inclusion in higher education, particularly within creative fields, must move beyond surface-level visibility and account for the deeper complexities of shared space. Visibility for some can unintentionally result in the silencing or withdrawal of others. If one student feels empowered by revealing their body, while another feels unable to speak or be present in that same environment, we must ask whether our classrooms are truly inclusive or simply permissive in ways that favour dominant modes of expression. When does fashion shift from liberation to exclusion? Are we genuinely attentive to the needs of those whose beliefs call for modesty, reverence, or discretion? This is not a call for censorship, but an invitation to re-evaluate how we define respect within educational settings. While we rightly celebrate personal expression, we seldom interrogate its boundaries when it unfolds in shared, pluralistic spaces. When freedom of expression and freedom of conscience come into tension, what structures are in place to ensure that all students and staff – not just the most visible or outspoken – feel safe, dignified, and heard? Ignoring such tensions is not neutral; it shapes who feels they belong and who does not.
For many students and staff, faith remains a meaningful source of identity, purpose, and ethical grounding, just as others may be shaped by secular, humanist, or non-religious beliefs. True inclusivity is not about privileging one worldview over another, but about fostering a learning environment where a range of values and expressions can coexist respectfully. This includes making space for modesty as well as visibility, conviction as well as questioning. Inclusive education must be attentive to difference in its many forms, recognising that a genuine sense of belonging is not created through uniformity, but through mutual care and thoughtful dialogue. I’m still learning what this looks like in practice, but I keep asking myself: how can I, as an educator, better hold space for all students, including those whose beliefs, practices, or silences might otherwise go unnoticed?
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