Fostering dialogue across racial differences in undergraduate students

Team: Dr Jacqueline Karen Andrea Serra Undurraga, Dr Candela Sanchez-Rodilla Espeso, and Ms Mridula Sridhar

School: Health in Social Sciences

Abstract

Our project develops an innovative pedagogical approach to deeply foster racial equity, diversity and inclusion in our university. The University has seen an increasing gap in levels of attainment for international BAME Undergraduate students (EDMARC, 2024). Moreover, in a PTAS-funded project concerning the BAME attainment gap, Gray et al. (2024) call for a) comprehensive training in racial sensitivity, and b) the development of more personalised and impactful diversity initiatives. We will conduct and evaluate ‘dialogical interracial culture circles’ as a way to respond to this call. Culture circles is a participatory research/education methodology developed by Freire (2005). It emphasises the importance of dialogue in learning, and students are co-investigators. We will recruit 14 undergraduate students across races to participate in a series of 8 culture circle sessions. 

Aided by pedagogical material, experiential activities, photo-voice and dialogue, we aim for students to arrive at personal/collective understandings of how unequal social structures and dynamics permeate learning experiences, and how to remediate it. In line with Strategy 2030, we anticipate that our project´s main outcomes will be to foster students´ capacity to engage with diversity, to be critically reflexive about their social position and to promote inclusiveness enabling all students to thrive. 

The evaluation of this pilot will validate this methodology for a wider provision that benefits students in the coming years. For this purpose, among other outputs, we will develop a UG option course whose pedagogical approach will be co-created via and in the culture circles of this pilot project.