‘Religion, Belief and Faith identities in learning and teaching’
The ‘Religion, Belief and Faith identity in learning and teaching’ at University of the arts website is a source I have not explored before. I often look for material from the UAL Moodle platform, mainly from academic support and for specific policy information. I work as an Associate Lecturer for the courses ‘Fashion styling and production’ and ‘Hair and Make-up for fashion’ and there are at least a couple of students every term that focus their projects on their own religious identity or themes relating to religion in different ways. I frequently undertake some independent research to obtain sources to support students who need extra guidance or direction with themes around faith, identity and associated representations. This undertaking also helps me to center my feedback about their work and interests in the most effective way I can. The ‘Religion, Belief and Faith identities’ site is not as developed as the ‘The Shades of Noir’ platform for instance, nevertheless I found the subject matter included to be wide-ranging. Perhaps if more staff became aware of this resource and could share it with students, it too could grow, be updated and strengthened with additional contributions. I do appreciate how this resource focuses on both students’ and staff’s practice in this subject area. It is important students can see their own ideas and that their religious beliefs can have value, and they are able to contribute insightfully into contemporary debates on the subjects that matter most to them. The website also demonstrates how a university project (Sara Shamsavari) or a personal passion project (OOMK) can grow and help spearhead change and can be a vanguard in creating positive visibility for groups that have been marginalized by a mainstream narrative. Religion-related themes are not in truth discussed fully or embedded into the course content I work on in any significant way. Related religious themes could be included when discussing ideas relating to ‘Beauty’ and ‘Diversity’ for instance, or when we are looking at ‘Representation’ and ‘Cultural appropriation’ but religion would not be the principal topic under review. The ‘Stimulus’ paper made me reflect on why this might be the case. It affirms that Universities lack ‘religious literacy’ and because of this are ill equipped for the needs of individual and groups in terms of faith and spiritual beliefs. In the ‘Minorities Identities’ section of the Stimulus paper it affirms, “Many decision makers in Britain today are ‘illiterate’ when it comes to people of faith and their motivations and symbolic worlds(pg12, Modood and Calhoun 2015)”. As a result of this I would say in my own experience of working at UAL, religion and religious identities are not being as contextualized or considered as gender, race and class identities for instance are at this time.
As of the start of the last academic year the courses I worked on began to embed diversity as part of its projects. One of the key sources of research that students had to engage with on the ‘Hair and Make-up for fashion’ course was ‘Shades of Noir’. This was actually the first time many staff had utilized this resource themselves. ‘Shades of Noir’ provided the students with a wealth of insight into discussing and considering topics relating to diversity and for others it was the catalyst for their entire creative fashion projects. Many students would not have considered a project relating to diversity if it were not mandatory, and I would say that I thought the work that was produced was thoughtful, energizing, and had such contemporary relevance. The feedback about the project was positive. I would like to consider if the ‘Religious, Belief and Faith’ website could be utilized in a similar way to open up debate for staff and students alike and to give faith and inclusion much more consideration.
Religion and Identity…Kwame Anthony Appiah’s Reith lecture on ‘Creed’
It was interesting to listen to Kwame Anthony Appiah’s Reith lecture on ‘Creed’ and to consider the bias that we all may hold towards certain religions. I do not adhere to a religious identity and often my knowledge and consideration of religious ideas and practice is filtered through the kind of media I consume. Appiah’s lecture really made me consider the dominant narratives that circulate about religious identities and to what extent I seek to understand fully or challenge them. I think that the fundamentalist end of religious identity and doctrine tend to dominate in the British media and less room is given over to challenging one-directional narratives. Even though I recognise this is happening, I am not seeking out alternative stories that can contextualize religious identities quite enough, the way I do for other topics. I think that Appiah’s lecture drew attention to the downsides of this kind of inertia and lack of enquiry. If we do not try to seek insight and challenge essentialist religious beliefs and dominant narratives, as he puts it the “truth fallacies”, then prejudice is what is promoted. This is damaging and does not serve the people of that, another or no belief well, making assimilation and community solidarity harder to achieve. Prejudice and personal bias based on stereotypes and narrow understandings causing fear and mistrust and the possibility for engagement is lost and Appiah points out, “…conversation across difference is important to open up the conversation”. Appiah’s lecture talks richly about the similarities that are embedded throughout religions, and how these so-called differences are really often just a matter of interpretation. I especially enjoyed hearing him discuss his own family connections and religion and how this is all about bringing a sense of belonging, family and community together. This lecture made me think about how religion and religious identities are continually in flux, being reshaped and interpreted by a multitude of voices and how we do them and their followers a disservice to treat them as relics.
‘Religion in Britain: Challenges for Higher Education’ Stimulus paper (Modood & Calhoun, 2015)
MULTICULTURALISM///MINORITY IDENTITIES///CHANGES IN RELIGIOUS DEMOGRAPHY
The section on Multiculturalism outlines a new approach to thinking through the term and considers how minorities groups can become more visual and explicitly accommodated in the public sphere. It argues at times the law should change and even enforce positive discrimination for this to happen. It also reasons that for ‘post-immigration’ integration to be fully effective, more needs to be done than just turning over the powerless position of marginalization and a new narrative and reality of what it means to be a British Citizen is needed. This new approach to thinking through Multiculturalism is all about minority groups envisaging a British identity for themselves that feels inclusive, creates a sense of belonging and of being worthy of equality and respect. I feel like this short piece connects well with Appiah’s Reith lecture where both are asking to some extent for a greater understanding, for respect and accomadation of difference. This is not asking that ‘difference’ be something that is tolerated or needs to conform to the attitudes of a majority but that cultural difference in all of its complexities and richness be embraced, supported, encouraged and above all valued. ‘Changes in religious demography’ and ‘Minority identities’ set the scene of the changing landscape of religion and religious identities in the United Kingdom. These articles demonstrate the decline of religious identity mainly by white groups. Increasingly many white Christians define themselves having ‘belief without belonging’, and align with a ‘spirituality’ and concepts of a ‘soul’ rather than affiliating to organized religious groups. Religious identity within the post-immigration minority groups however increased and flourishes today, strengthened by a sense of spiritual solidarity, community and belonging. This change in the religious landscape does not come without its issues and many white groups who define themselves as ‘Culturally’ Christian are sensitive and we could say perhaps threatened by the change in British values, beliefs and notions of a stable identity as they historically understand them. I think you can see this align quite strongly with Brexit campaigns and its general narrative of ‘taking the country back’, not just from the EU but the fear of immigrant and how it is changing Britain. Right wing Nationalist narratives like these create a sense of fear and it has been widely reported that a divisive political environment regularly result in hate crimes against minority and religious groups. The Guardian newspaper reported in 2019 that Muslim communities throughout the UK experience just under half of all hate crimes reported. ‘Changes in Religious Demography’ interestingly says that expressions of religious commitment and identity have risen in the young, perhaps partly as a strengthening bought about as a push back against discrimination. The idea that religion is a marginal concern in the UK does not hold together and thinking about religion, and the idea that the UK is a ‘Christian country’, needs to be redefined and understood, as the ‘Minority Identities’ research suggests “…multi-faith inclusion into a broad and moderate secularism(pg11, Modood and Calhoun 2015)”, that can reflect the reality of Britain today. The Stimulus paper points out that universities have to do more to address and engage with the changing religious landscape. To my surprise, the paper states that the majority of university students describe themselves as having religious beliefs. In the ‘Minority Identities’ section it says that universities have historically been at worst negligent and derisive towards religions and as a result are poorly equipped to understand the importance of religion and its structures amongst their students. Many university students have identities that are not only understood in the context of religion but can be intersectional. This paper argues that universities need ‘religious literacy’ if they want to really tackle the challenges of racism and discrimination that minority groups can face and for proper inclusion and diversity to succeed within university institutions.
Questions/ Provocations
1…If the majority of university students describe themselves as religious, why do we see so few projects on this subject when so many units are connected to identity eg. Race, sexuality, class, gender etc.?
2…Are consumer culture and the internet eroding the contemporary relevance and traditional ideas of religion in the white population in favour of more occult forms of belief ie spirituality, magic and mysticism?
Shades of Noir… The Little Book of Big Case Studies: Faith.
This case study reminds us of the need for safe spaces and greater cultural understanding and sensitivity. Safe spaces are where everyone can have the opportunity to explore and share an aspect of their individual identity, lived experience and perspective in a way that can empower and expand understanding for everyone. Aalimah, the female Irainian Muslim student this case study profiles, reveals the serious consequences that take place when a safe space and cultural awareness is not established. In this scenario, Aalimah, her peers, and the tutor encounter a dialogical space that disconnects and excludes Aalimah’s Muslim faith and her authentic mode of expression. The tutor in this example allows her own personal perspectives and world-view of being non-religious to dictate, and any shifts in consciousness to identify outside of her own value system are prohibited. The teacher has allowed a space to be created that completely lacks any criticality or diversity competence, and a racist, anti-Muslim bias is allowed to surface and take over the whole session. Aalimah is left with very little room to explore her Muslim identity and any sense of feeling safe is shattered and she is left to navigate an environment that is unsupportive and hostile. In the process, any chance to create a community that could bring the group together and a sense of belonging is broken. The case study reveals how discrimination and an unequal environment can grow if a lack of intellectual curiosity is allowed to manifest. In this kind of environment where ignorance has taken hold, Aalimah is left exposed with the unfair weight of being the expert, and left also with the emotional burden that this encounter has created; exposure, misunderstanding, vulnerability and lack of trust. This booklet is such a valuable teaching aid and provides many helpful ideas and questions to help with de-biasing the teaching and learning environment. If reflected on, students like Aalimah would have a much better chance of having a more democratic student experience that would deliver the means, the freedom and the confidence to talk and reason from their own cultural background. To create an atmosphere of equality, sensitivity and trust in the classroom, I find this advice quoted in John Smyth’s book on the teacher student relationship helpful, it says, “ Students try not to learn from teachers who don’t authentically care about them, for the self-evident reason that ‘students don’t care what you know until they know you care” (Andrade cited in Smyth, pg11-12).
Bibliography…
Beltran, M.J. (2021) Empowerment through art with Sara Shamsavari. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/study-at-ual/short-courses/stories/empowering-the-disempowered-with-sara-shamsavari (Accessed: 05 June 2021).
Quinn, B (2019) ‘Hate Crimes Double in Five Years in England and Wales’, The Guardian, 15 October. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/oct/15/hate-crimes-double-england-wales (Accessed: 15 May 2021).
Modood, T and Calhoun, C (2015) ‘Religion in Britain: Challenges for Higher Education’. United Kingdom: Leadership Foundation for Higher Education. Avaliable at: http://www.tariqmodood.com/uploads/1/2/3/9/12392325/6379_lfhe_stimulus_paper_-_modood_calhoun_32pp.pdf
OOMK Zine (2021) [Facebook]. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/oomkZine (Accessed: 15 May 2021).
Shades of Noir (2017) Higher Power: Religion, Faith, Spirituality and Belief. Avaliable at: https://issuu.com/shadesofnoir/docs/higher_power (Accessed date: 20 May 2021).
Shades of Noir (2017) The Little Book of Big Case Studies: Faith. Available at: https://www.shadesofnoir.org.uk/education/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Shades-of-Noir-Case-Study-Faith-WEB.pdf(Accessed: 21 May 2021).
Smyth, J. (2011) ‘CRITICAL PEDAGOGY FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE’. New York: Continuum.
The Reith Lectures: Creed (2016) BBC Radio 4, 22 October 22.15. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07z43ds (Accessed: 10 May 2021).
UAL (2021) Religion, Belief and Faith Identities in Learning and Teaching at UAL. Available at: https://religiousliteracy.myblog.arts.ac.uk (Accessed: 05 May 2021).