Introduction
This rethinking disadvantage ‘research in a box’ tackles one of society’s major problems: the radical inequalities which prevent young people from accessing, and taking advantage of, opportunities to further their, and their communities’, interests.
The ‘box’ contains a series of electronic resources, including PowerPoint decks, associated videos and a PDF reading stimulus, intended to enable teachers to run a university-style five week module on the subject.
These workshops stimulate students to examine the part played by social, political and economic processes in the shaping of their family’s circumstances. This reflexive process is intended to assist students to understand the ways in which they may be disadvantaged by historical events and to consider means of dealing with disadvantage, particularly through participation in Higher Education.
The resources use stimulus video material taken from ‘A Cross-Cultural Working Group on “Good Culture” and Precariousness’, a project involving community participants from Ashington, Northumberland and Aboriginal communities around Brisbane, Australia. While these groups experience particular forms of disadvantage, their cases can help students consider their own circumstances.
The ‘box’ has an associated YouTube archive containing a range of relevant video content:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFYnoCKbEDJAliUeJgBhQ1g/videos
These videos, which are searchable within the project channel, can be used by teachers to examine issues of disadvantage. Teachers can amend the PowerPoint slides to better fit the interests of their students or their learning objectives by substituting videos and revising text. All YouTube videos can be embedded using embed codes.
The materials are hosted on Lancaster University’s designated Rethinking Disadvantage Open Learning site:
https://openlearning.lancs.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=166
Subject areas
This series of workshops is applicable to a number of different subject areas, such as Politics; Sociology; Geography (Human); History; Citizenship Studies and Media Studies. However, it is specifically aimed at the Widening Participation agenda and can be deployed outside of subject area sessions.
Requirements
• A projector and PC for the PowerPoint decks
• Unrestricted access to YouTube and Facebook
• A printer to print out materials, such as the Daily Mail article on accentism
Participants
There is no minimum or maximum number of students, but a group of at least six will ensure meaningful discussion.
Teachers/facilitators
At least one teacher will be required to lead the sessions.
Students will also need to speak to family members with regard to their family histories in order to complete their homework.
Activity duration
The materials support facilitation of five sessions of two hours in duration spread over five weeks.
Resources
Each PowerPoint deck facilitates one two-hour workshop. It is intended that one workshop should be held per week over five consecutive weeks.
The decks contain a combination of teaching slides to introduce issues and tasks to enable individual and group work. Individual or group tasks should lead to class discussions, with links drawn between different contributions. Scope has been intentionally created for flexibility in how group discussions are organised in order to enable teachers to teach in ways which suit their classes.
Credits
This module was created by:
Dr Matthew Johnson, Lancaster University
Dr Myfanwy Williams, Lancaster University
Laurenz Gerger, Lancaster University
Rosie Mutton, Lancaster University
Victoria Gallagher, Community Organisers
Mary Graham, Murri Mura Aboriginal Corporation
Roger Appleton, Brightmoon Media
Harry Johnson, Brightmoon Media
Molly Navey, Graduate Mentor, Thorp Academy