After changing my question and adding ’empowered’ into it, I decided to do some research into what being empowered means.
This screenshot from Cambridge Dictionary online gives two definitions and uses. I find it interesting that the example sentence for the first meaning talks about girls being empowered. Why not just people in general? Does this imply that it’s only women who need to work on feeling empowered?
I decided that this warranted some further research in the hopes of answering my questions but also gaining further insight into how empowerment is viewed.
The main part of the word is ‘power’ – Liz Kelly (1992) observed “I suspect it is ‘power to’ that the term empowerment refers to, and it is achieved by increasing one’s ability to resist and challenge power over”. Using this meaning, my question would essentially mean ‘how can female working class students have (or find?) the power to overcome their feelings of imposter syndrome in an arts education environment?’
According to an article written in 1995 by Jo Rowlands, there are three types of empowerment:
Personal : where empowerment is about developing a sense of self and individual confidence and capacity, and undoing the effects of internalised oppression.
Close relationships : where empowerment is about developing the ability to negotiate and influence the nature of the relationship and decisions made within it.
Collective : where individuals work together to achieve a more extensive impact than each could have alone. This includes involvement in political structures, but might also cover collective action based on cooperation rather than competition. Collective action may be locally focused for example, at village or neighbourhood level or institutional, such as national networks or the United Nations.
For my project I am talking about maybe the first and third types of empowerment more particularly. Unless students consider themselves to be in a relationship of sorts with their university, which doesn’t seem likely.
From searching for articles about empowerment in journals, I have observed that a lot of them are focused towards empowering women in the workplace or in society in general. These articles have been dated as far back as the 1990s so the topic of empowerment clearly isn’t just a current issue.
Rowlands, J. (1995). Empowerment examined. Development in Practice, 5(2), pp.101–107. doi:10.1080/0961452951000157074.
I will be the first person to admit that it’s been too long since my last intervention but with David’s help I’ve figured out what I want to do. My last intervention I asked a very small group of stakeholders what ‘working class’ means to them and I was struggling to see what the next iteration would be.
But… Now I have a plan.
Before I conduct interviews that I am going to *hopefully* video, I plan to make a video using quotes from the interviews I’ve already done. I didn’t record the interviews visually, but I do have direct quotes from the stakeholders I’ve spoken to. I plan to hold an online viewing party for this video, just to gauge if that works. This viewing party will be on October 21st and I have sent an invite to 10 stakeholders that I’ve already spoken to.
Why video?
Well, my background is in photography and I could take photos and make an exhibition. But something about letting my stakeholders words be heard feels right to me and I think that if I’m talking to all of these women then I should help their voices be heard. A lot of the stakeholders I’ve spoken to so far have spoken about how they feel invisible and a video is a way to overcome that, potentially. I think that this intervention will help me figure out how exactly my question needs to change/pivot.
Today I went into my tutorial with a question – albeit a slightly stupid one in hindsight. I asked David how to present my research at the festival in a way that utilises my background in photography….
Just writing that makes me realise how badly I was tying my brain in knots trying to avoid the obvious answer. However David challenged me to branch out into video, and I think that this is challenge I am going to embrace. Having arranged interviews with stakeholders in the coming weeks, I plan to ask if I can video them. And then compile the interviews into a short film to which I can ask both stakeholders and experts to react. We spoke about how exhibitions are an intervention as long as you’re asking for feedback on it, and how this goes for anything. I know what makes an intervention, but sometimes I confuse myself or overthink it.
Action points:
Conduct interviews that I have arranged, and arrange some more ✔️
Teach myself the basics of video editing (or find someone who can teach me) ✔️
Reach out to more universities to learn about their outreach
Rethink my question – I know it needs to evolve but I can’t figure out how yet. ✔️
Look at short films that are comprised of interviews for inspiration ✔️
Write blog post summing up what I’ve learnt about the outreach approach from arts universities and non arts based schools. What are the main differences/similarities?
As we approach a new semester, I have asked for further feedback from my intervention in the form of statements about participating and any suggestions my stakeholders have for moving forwards with my project.
“Taking part in this activity, I thought I wouldn’t gain anything from it and that it was pointless. But I was so wrong. I learnt that how I feel about being working class isn’t unique to just me. I learnt that I am not as alone as I feel when I’m at university and I’ve kept in contact with the other girls who attended this online event. Felicity made us feel comfortable and I could tell that she could relate to the terms that we were all sharing.” Jess
“I had never thought about what the word ‘working class’ meant to me before. I’ve always refered to myself as working class but had never thought about what it meant to me. Taking part in this gave me the opportunity to really think about it, and I came to realise that there’s not just one definition for it. I learnt a lot from taking part and I’m intrigued by where your project is going to go next.” Mary
“I don’t know how you would take this forwards but I do know that it was nice to meet other students who feel the same way I do. I wish that UAL knew how I feel and what it is like being poor and out of place here.” L
“I think it would be useful for you to research if you can the demographics of the working class students here. Eg how many of them are disabled, have multiple jobs, have children and see if there is a common denominator. Maybe even their gender identity or sexuality? I’m not sure if that would be too invasive. But I think it could be interesting and might redirect your research.” S
From this feedback, I think I have an idea of what direction I need to take my secondary research in order to inform further interventions. Especially the last quote, where she suggested things that I could research.
This quote is one I used in my first intervention, and came from a casual conversation I had with a student at UAL. I spoke to her further about it, and she told me that she has often joined dating apps for the purpose of finding someone to buy her dinner when she is struggling. It makes her feel guilty for using people that way but she can’t ask her family for financial help. She told me that her family would help but then they would have to go without something.
Later in the conversation we spoke about how hard it is to look around at UAL and see students in designer clothes covered in paint when she could only dream of owning something so expensive. I asked her if she was jealous, and she said yes. But also she wished that people would be less oblivious to the fact that not everyone can afford such luxurious items.
After reflecting on this conversation, I think that this could be a common misconception about students who come from less fortunate backgrounds. Yes, they might be jealous about not having money to buy fancy items with but that is not the sole factor in feeling inferior to their fellow students. This could echo back to the article I read about uncomfortable interactions with fellow students.(https://felicityyvette.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/07/21/uncomfortable-interactions/)
As referenced in my previous post, working class people are often on your tv screens. But is it in a positive or negative way?
Positive representation of the working classes
The Netflix show On My Block is a great example of showing how young people from a less privileged background cope with the chaos around them and are active members of their community within giving into addictions or violence. Whilst it is based in America, I think that it is still relevant as a reference because of its availability on a mainstream streaming platform. This show is also good because it shows how multicultural the working class is, which again, is very relevant to the UK.
In The Long Run is a show that is set in the 1980s, and documents life on a council estate in London. It is loosely based on Idris Elba’s childhood and I think paints a realistic picture of what life would have been like for him. I believe he co-wrote this series, and while there are probably some instances of dramatic licence, it rings very true to life.
The Simpsons are a working class family who go through some of the same struggles as real life working class families eg. Homer needing to get a second job to pay for Christmas when his main job doesn’t give Christmas bonuses to the semi skilled workers.
Bob’s Burgers features Bob Belcher buying his family’s clothes secondhand and being embarrassed when a bank manager shows him what a good savings account should look like instead of his. But despite this, his family are happy and functional.
Golden Girls is a series about four widowed and divorced women living together. When watching this show I’ve never thought about them being working class, and I’m not entirely sure they are but when Rose loses her husband’s pension she says this: “You know, every morning when I leave the house, I see this bag lady going through the baggage over on 135th Street. She has everything she owns piled up in one of those old shopping carts. But the other day, for the first time, I noticed, she’s about our age. Oh, you know, you always feel sorry for someone like that, but I wondered, ‘What did she do to get herself into a fix like that?’ I thought, well, she must be lazy, or she must be pretty stupid to let something like this happen to her. But, the truth is, she’s me! God! What am I going to do?” This quote was memorable because it showed a character changing their mind about social class and almost having an epiphany. I think this is rather powerful and shows self awareness that is often lacking in fictional characters.
Negative representation of the working classes
Hyacinth Bucket in Keeping Up Appearances. A woman who has married into a middle class family and who flaunts her rich sister to whoever is listening, telling everyone about her pony and her swimming pool. But on the flip side, she hides and avoids her working class sisters and brother in law, even going so far as to climb over walls to avoid them.
Shameless – The both the US and UK versions focus on poor dysfunctional, working class families where the father is addicted to drugs or alcohol, leaving the children to fend for themselves. The showrunner of the US series said “We have a comedic tradition of making fun of the people in those worlds… The reality is that these people aren’t ‘the other’—they’re people who live four blocks down from you and two blocks over.” However, Shameless is still classed as a comedy series so are they not still making fun of the working classes? And I would still argue that they are pushing stereotypes about working class people, having fathers who are addicts and kids taking care of themselves.
The Jeremy Kyle Show. A classic mainstay of British television for a long time. And a reason that so many people were wary of so called ‘chavs’ and thought that anyone who was on benefits was a deadbeat. Two people sitting across from each other, making wild accusations and Jeremy Kyle himself stirring up the drama. I would argue that in British society, this show is a huge reason that the working classes are demonised still. A similar show to this in America is Judge Judy, however I think that there are slightly more positive interactions to counteract the stories of working class criminals and morally wrong behaviour. Judge Judy while globally popular, has still attracted a lot of criticism for exploiting people who can’t afford to take their cases to an actual court of law or pay legal fees.
Benefits Street – a documentary about a street in Birmingham where apparently 90% of the residents claim benefits. The show documented the residents committing crimes, demonstrated how to shoplift and portrayed a situation where no one was committed to finding regular employment and instead depended on their benefits to survive. This show generated a lot of backlash, rightly so in my opinion. From personal experience, having grown up with a parent on benefits and who was desperate to find a job, Benefits Street painted an unrealistic picture. Again, I would say that it fed into a lot of stereotypes that are held about people on benefits. Channel 4 were accused of making ‘poverty porn’ and Ofcom received hundreds of complaints. Even the participants of the show claimed that they were misled about what the show was about and misrepresented on screen.
I am unsure where soap operas would fall – the things that happen to those people are very unrealistic but do they show working class people in a bad light? Not having watched any I don’t think I can speak to this. There are articles online arguing that they are bad for showing working class people but others disagree.
From looking at these tv shows, it is very clear to me that it’s so much easier for tv shows to portray the working class in a negative manner and that people will watch it. For example Benefits Street had record numbers of people watching it, and I highly doubt it was because they identified with the people who appeared on the show. The working class appear to be an easy target to make entertainment out of, and this just perpetuates the negative stereotypes about people who come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.
So far in my project I have defined what working class means to me, but I think it is important to find out what it means to my stakeholders too. After all, they are the people that I am trying to help with my project!
So I invited 10 of my stakeholders to meet with me and describe what working class means to them; whether that was verbally, through art or in a written form. I met with 4 online and 6 in person.
From the verbal responses, these are the terms that I wrote down:
There were a lot of repeated words, which I was expecting. However I didn’t expect assumptions to come up as often as it did. I also thought that scapegoat was an interesting word, and it made me think of Chavs by Owen Jones, a book I read as part of my secondary research. This book talks a lot about how the working classes are often used as a political tool to illustrate what is wrong with British society and used as a pawn almost to sway the opinion of the public.
When my stakeholders were observing what each other had written, there was a lot of nodding and agreement. There was also a discussion about certain things, such as the piece of paper that talks about the assumption about not working. I find this very interesting as we were talking about the working class and working is in the name. But after thinking about it, there is an assumption in society that a lot of working class people rely on benefits so I can see why this came up. I think this points to a problem with the way the working classes are represented in popular culture and the way that this perpetuates stereotypes.
Because half of this intervention was online, I decided to send a survey to everyone who participated, with a list of all the responses (except the pictures, I now realise) and ask them to check the boxes next to the words that they connect with most. However, no one had responded to my survey at the time of writing this blog post! I regret not doing this in person as I would have received instant responses and would have gained more feedback which would inform the next intervention iteration. I plan to send follow up emails which will hopefully mean that I get some survey responses and therefore some more feedback and insight from my stakeholders.
Six of the participants of my intervention responded to my follow up survey and I found it very interesting that the words that all 6 of these people connected with the most was assumptions, closely followed by stereotyped, seen as lacking ambition, hardworking and underprivileged. I think moving forward I want to dive deeper into what assumptions are being made about these working class students specifically at university, and who is making these assumptions.
I decided to create an updated SWOT analysis for my project, as the last one I did was for my previous question. I found this quite useful as it allowed me to think about my project from a different angle and really interrogate my question and methodologies that I am using.
I feel sure that I will update this as my research project evolves even more and I come across more obstacles.
Today I met with *Jess, a student at UAl. She very kindly agreed to talk with me, on the understanding that I would change her name and not use any identifying details about her in my project.
I started off by telling Jess about my background and my life, in the hopes of establishing common ground between us. And I think it worked! After I spoke about myself, we started discussing how hard it is to be a working class student at such an elite university. Jess told me that no one knows how badly she struggles to pay rent and that when she runs out of hot water, she uses the shower at her gym. A gym that she was gifted the membership to and has no way to renew when it runs out. Jess told me that she has often googled how to sell photos of her feet to make money but has never gone through with it because it felt dirty. More than once she has downloaded dating apps in the hopes of someone buying her dinner that night.
And then we spoke about UAL.
Jess told me that her course expects her to buy a lot of materials and books, without understanding that not every student on every course has a lot of disposable income. She spoke in depth about how this has made her feel less worthy to be on her course and that she feels alone amongst her classmates. The lack of understanding from her course leaders has made her feel embarrassed about being working class and as though she is inferior to the students around her. Jess spoke about UAL as an organisation that is unfeeling and doesn’t care about the students that are underrepresented amongst the student body. When asked if she was aware of any support for students who are from lower income backgrounds, Jess just laughed. She went on to explain that she feels invisible when she is at uni and she feels ashamed of not being able to wear designer clothes every day or go to Michelin starred restaurants at the weekends.
We finished our conversation by Jess telling me that she wishes things were different, and that UAL could be inclusive to everyone. Not just to the people with big bank accounts.
Before publishing this blog post, I sent it to Jess to make sure I hadn’t misrepresented her comments or opinions in any way and that she was happy for me to post it, which she was.
“…it is also vital to ensure working-class students as well as ethnic and racial minority (BAME) students are adequately supported once they are at university. Widening access and participation, and the underlying meritocratic sentiments that underpin it, will never amount to more than empty rhetoric and token gestures until students from all class backgrounds feel at home in all higher education institutions”
This is a quote from the study that I was referencing in my previous post and one that has been resonating with me as I’ve been reading diversion and inclusion reports from multiple universities. This is something that I want to make sure is a pillar of my research – I want my interventions to be meaningful and not seen as token gestures.
In the abstract of a study by Genia M. Bettencourt, she says “Belonging was viewed as something that students themselves created rather than was facilitated by institutions. Moreover, while participants expressed varying degrees of support, connectedness, and belonging, they rarely felt valued by institutions that exploited their labor or tokenized their presence under the guise of supporting diversity.”
I find this to be concerning because students should be focusing on studying and having active social lives whilst at university, not relying on each other to set up support networks or being seen as the token working class students. I have to admit, this is something I have been worried about with my research – However unrealistic it may be, I am concerned that UAL could hijack my research and twist it to come across as diverse and inclusive. I think that this could be a possible challenge that I have to overcome and I need to be prepared for this. (Even though I might be overthinking it and it might not happen.). I also think that it is important that every student feels valued by the institution that they are paying thousands of pounds to attend. If you don’t feel valued, then what is the point of paying money to study there?
References:
Bettencourt, G.M. (2021). ‘I Belong Because It Wasn’t Made for Me’: Understanding Working-Class Students’ Sense of Belonging on Campus. The Journal of Higher Education, pp.1–24. doi:10.1080/00221546.2021.1872288.
Reay, D. (2021). The working classes and higher education: Meritocratic fallacies of upward mobility in the United Kingdom. European Journal of Education, 56(1). doi:10.1111/ejed.12438.
