Tag Archives: my project

Case Study : LAMDA

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Today I saw that LAMDA (London Acadamy of Music and Dramatic Art) has installed QR codes around the school, where students and staff can report microaggressions that they experience in an anonymous way.

I think that something similar could be a viable intervention for my project when we are back on campus, and would be a way of my stakeholders talking about their experiences truly anonymously. Whilst my project is not about microaggressions as such, I think it would be useful to gather data around events that happen on campus that make my stakeholders feel uncomfortable or inferior to their peers. I especially like how LAMDA have asked the people filling this form in to say what they would like to be done about it. If I do a similar intervention then I think it would be interesting to see what my stakeholders would like to see from UAL in terms of things changing or just simply support. An intervention of this sort could also educate universities on why more support for working class students is needed.

I think another good thing about this prospective intervention is that if I asked the gender of the person clicking on the QR code, it would allow me to collect data that is split into genders, which so far has been impossible to find in regards to UAL. It would also allow me to see if one gender is reporting more than another and this could influence my research question.

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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/20/report-microaggressions-qr-codes-campus-lamda-students-told/

Second and Third Intervention

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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.

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Update 1st September 2022

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.

Swot Analysis

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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.

A Conversation

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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.

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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.

Glossary of Terms

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Working class student – a student who is the first in their immediate family to wish to study at university. Someone who has upward mobility and who has the desire to have a better life than their parents. A student who has to had to sacrifice a lot of things to be at university and able to complete their course.

Saviourism – using research or interventions as a way of ‘saving’ working class students from being working class. Showing them off as though they’re rare and meant to be stared at as an illustration of diversity.

Upward Social Mobility – the goal of wanting a better life than the one that your parents have had, especially in terms of the career you choose to enter into.

LPN – Low Participation Neighbourhood. Students who come from an area that has the least number of students entering higher education are referred to as coming from a LPN.

Imposter phenomenon/syndrome – Imposter syndrome, originally called imposter phenomenon, is the persistent inability to believe that one’s success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one’s own efforts or skills.

Arts education environment – a university which solely teaches creative subjects

Why My First Intervention Failed But Also Succeeded

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It’s been a few days since the tutorial where I presented my first intervention and I’ve had plenty of time to absorb the feedback and to realise for myself why it wasn’t a good intervention.

Firstly, it didn’t answer my research question. And that’s kind of the point! A student creating a community of support for other working class students isn’t the university supporting those students. And whilst a support network is potentially needed, this isn’t the way to do it. If I wanted to progress down this road, I would need to change my research question. And right now I’m very happy with my question and it’s something that resonates with me.

Secondly, anonymity is important. If students need a safe place to vent, Instagram isn’t the place to do it. Somewhere like Reddit or The Student Room, or even the anonymous feature in Facebook groups is much more successful for this. This isn’t to say that Instagram couldn’t be used in this context, but I don’t see that it could be used as a safe space to be open about experiences and feelings.

What Are Anonymous Posts in Facebook Groups And How To Make Them - Online Group Success

And lastly, an Instagram account of this sort could be very emotionally harmful to the person or persons running the account. An inbox full of potentially shocking or emotional experiences is something that could be triggering to the account owner. I think for this to be something that wasn’t harmful each message would need a trigger or content warning. This would ensure that no one got triggered by submissions to the page and it would mean that everyone’s emotional wellbeing would be prioritised.

However, I learnt a lot from this short lived Instagram account.

I learnt that people need a place to vent, and that seeing other’s experiences makes people feel less alone. I learnt that Instagram accounts of this sort get a lot of inappropriate messages, of people wanting to question the truthfulness of people’s experiences and calling them liars, just because that thing hasn’t happened to them.

I also learnt that the experiences of female working class students, whilst obviously individual to each person, are largely the same. This leads me to believe that a systemic change is needed, so that these experiences aren’t being had by the majority of female students from the working classes.