The British Sociological Association

Co-creation in the Curriculum and adopting “A View from Within”: The Pedagogy, practice & possibilities of drawing from working-class background
Dr Carli-Ria Rowell (Senior Lecturer in Sociology and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy)

Influenced by critical pedagogues (Freire 1970 Giroux, 2011; hooks, 1994) and shaped by my working-class feminist pedagogy this paper explores the pioneering practice of adopting “a view from within”. That is the pedagogy of exploring class inequality from an intersectional working-class perspective. This paper focuses upon the module, ‘Class, Culture & Conflict: A view from within” which was co-created with working-class, first-generation university students and centered the role of autoethnography in its assessment as dual ways in which the module sought to dismantle and challenge deficit discourses of learners (especially working-class students). 

In this paper I draw upon data autoethnographic data, and that collected through focus groups & questionnaires with former students of the co-created module ‘Class, Culture & Conflict: A view from within” to consider the: 1- authors positionality (cis working-class women) as a driving force of co-creation & the experience and importance of co-creating the module with an intersectional group of working-class, first-generation students. 2- The role of intersectional non-academic material by working-class persons (rap, film, memoirs) in inclusive curriculums in recognition that “credible knowledge” does not solely confine itself to the ivory tower and as an act of resistance to elitism in knowledge production. 3 - The pedagogical ethics, benefits, challenges of adopting "a view from within” and autoethnography in assessment; and 4- The modules reception among the largely white, middle class student body before reflecting on the ways in which the module disrupted typical pattens of gendered, classed and raced dominance that emerges in the typical university classroom.

The paper provides insights & recommendations for those adopting the pedagogical practice of “a view from within” beyond the UK. It concludes by calling for the inclusion of intersectional working-class knowledges within curriculums as a way of challenging elitest conceptualizations of ‘credible knowledge’.

Doing Sociology in a Technological Era: Blogging and Podcasting as Pedagogical Tools

Rituparna Patgiri (Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati)

The digital has fundamentally altered many aspects of the social, including education. Educators have been compelled to rethink and reorient their pedagogies with the digital onslaught. This is particularly true in the context of the global south and a country like India, where there is acute inequity and digital divide. These issues are augmented by the attacks on public universities and social sciences - ranging from fund cuts to political recruitments. As such, digital tools like blogging and podcasting have emerged as pedagogical tools that aim to make knowledge accessible. As an educator myself, I have actively used these digital tools both inside and outside the classroom to disseminate knowledge since the pandemic. Pedagogy is no longer limited to conventional classroom teaching. It includes innovative ways in which learning can take place even outside the classrooms. Blogs and podcasts are freely accessible to everyone, not just students of a particular course.

In fact, this paper has emerged from my own involvement with Doing Sociology and New Books Network (NBN). Both are open-access platforms that make academic knowledge accessible to everyone. I wish to explore how blogging and podcasting have become pedagogies of hope, access and knowledge in a context which is heavily polarized, censored and surveilled. These platforms were responses to how academic knowledge is conventionally understood - restricted to a few specialized experts. A need was felt to alter our educational spaces and pedagogies to create more hope.