“Thinking carefully about how the themes of equality and diversity are integrated into our modules more extensively, can potentially lead to greater student engagement”.
Dr Ben Turner, School of Politics and International Relations, reflects on his experience of reviewing and diversifying the reading list for his modules
Diversity Mark is a collaborative project between the Academic Liaison Service, Student Success, Kent Union and Diversity Mark Work-Study students, and the respective participating academic schools and convenors. The award recognises the role of convenors who undergo a process of review and reflection with their students, to ensure they have considered authors and perspectives from divergent backgrounds.
The project involves a process where staff and students engage in a partnership, a power-sharing relationship to explore the extent to which the content, concepts and context of reading lists are representative of diverse knowledge systems. In the context of an increasingly diverse student body, it is vital to ensure reading lists are representative of our societal and institutional demographic to ensure a sense of belonging in the curriculum and wider University.
The School of Politics and International Relations became involved in the Diversity Mark Project in 2020, and since then the reading list of 10 of the school modules have been reviewed, and outcomes of the review shared and discussed with convenors in the school at the beginning of the 2020-21 academic year. The initiative has been supported by the EDI committee in the School of Politics, led by Dr. Andrea den Boer, with the support of the Student Success Central Team and the Diversity Mark Officers recruited through the University of Kent Work Study Scheme.
As part of the Diversity Mark Project in this school and the review of some of his modules, Dr. Ben Turner has made a number of changes to increase the diversity in the reading list, and has engaged in a meaningful dialogue with his students through a focus group facilitated by Morenike Lana, the Work Study Diversity Mark Officer. We have asked Ben to share his journey in the Diversity Mark Project, hoping that his story will inspire other convenors across the University of Kent to learn from and engage in conversations about diversifying reading lists.
How did you became familiar with the diversifying the reading list agenda? And why did you start thinking about it for your modules?
I became aware of work to diversify the curriculum via the Diversity Mark project when results of a reading list review were presented to the School of Pol-IR in September of this academic year. I had already begun thinking about diversifying the content of my modules before the presentation, primarily because my specialism, Political Theory, is typically a very white, male discipline. Very few of the key thinkers that come to mind when most people think of Political Theory, such as Hobbes, Locke, Kant, and Marx, fall outside of the European perspective.
Following work on decolonising the political theory curriculum by Simon Choat at Kingston University (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0263395720957543), I was inspired to make changes to the curriculum of my first year module, ‘Introduction to Political Thought.’ In particular, I wanted to better represent the range of lesser known work in political thought, and give a wider perspective on the discipline than is found in most textbooks.
Following the presentation by the Diversity Mark Officer (a Work Study Scheme Intern) back in September, what was your reflection about the outcomes of the reading list review presented by the student?
I had a revised my module before this presentation, however it solidified my view that this action was necessary, and that it would be an ongoing project. Of eleven core readings taken from a textbook, three were by women and one was by an author of BAME background. This did not represent the image of Political Theory that I wanted to present to my students going forward. The findings of the presentation came after my initial changes to the module and reinforced my view that it is important to push the boundaries of political thought in order to incorporate the diversity of less visible work in the discipline into the undergraduate curriculum.
You have recently undertaken changes in the reading list of one of your modules, can you describe the process and the challenges you found in adding more diverse sources in your reading list? And what do you want to achieve by doing this?
The key challenge I have found with respect to diversifying the curriculum of ‘Introduction to Political Thought’ was the use of a textbook. I was taught this way, and I inherited the module in a way that was set up for textbook teaching. As a result I was caught between the assumption that students need a textbook to scaffold their learning and an awareness that this restricted the diversity of authors and themes presented within the module. Both lectures and recommended readings had to reflect the content of the textbook to present a coherent scaffold for learning, and consequently my attempts to include diverse authors and perspectives were peripheral to the main content that students would engage with.
It was the pandemic that gave me the push to change this situation. As a school we decided to make core texts available online due to the switch to blended learning, but it was not possible to use my usual textbook. I had the choice of choosing a new textbook or making a more substantial change to the module by setting primary readings as the core readings each week. The latter option allowed me the freedom to choose core readings that suited the version of the discipline that I wanted to present to my students, and to integrate a diverse range of themes and readings into the lectures and the primary content that all students would engage with.
At the end of this process the work of a diverse range of authors are now part of the main content of the module and are discussed in both the lectures and the seminars. Key parts of the canon remain, but they are situated with respect to critical accounts of the themes they tackle. To take just two examples, Isaiah Berlin’s classic account of liberty is situated with respect to colonialism, and students are familiarised with challenges to the work of John Locke on the social contract and John Rawls on justice with respect to issues of gender and race in their work. These latter debates are often restricted to single weeks on race or gender, or not included at all. Instead, these issues are now incorporated throughout the module rather than being covered in one reading or week.
And finally, having gone through the process, what do you think might encourage other convenors to embark on the journey of diversifying their reading list?
I think that time is a big factor. Part of what led me to make changes this year where I hadn’t before, is the need to make changes to the module because of the unavailability of my usual textbook. So, I decided to spend this time organising the module in a way that I wanted to rather than the way that a textbook dictated. I hadn’t done this previously because I had been on temporary contracts, and because I am an early career researcher with a heavy teaching load I needed to allocate my time strategically. I don’t mean to suggest that diversifying the curriculum isn’t important, but that there are many competing demands on convenor’s time that often impede this process, particularly when many are on temporary contracts, or are having to establish themselves as ECRs.
I also think it’s worth highlighting that, in my case, it’s possible that the changes made a positive impact on the students’ experience of the module. End of term feedback this year was the best I’ve ever received in four years of convening ‘Introduction to Political Thought’. This suggests to me that thinking carefully about how the themes of equality and diversity are integrated into our modules more extensively can potentially lead to greater student engagement.