Co-producing ideas, leaders and learning – teaching participatory activism in Stoke-on-Trent

Abstract

This paper will critically analyse a University-funded Centre of Learning and Pedagogic Practice (SCoLPP) project. The project was designed to integrate the co-produced learning from the Action on Poverty and Hardship Degree steering group, which was made up of local and national Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) leaders and low-income students on the course. The project was directly aligned with the University Academic Strategy, designed to integrate academic integrity into innovative curriculum design. This article will critically discuss how the project, in its co-produced place-based approach, aligned its curriculum design to external engagement within Stoke-on-Trent. The Action on Poverty and Hardship Degree team worked over the course of 18 months with a steering group of local and national voluntary sector employers to actively recruit and support students from low-income backgrounds to become engaged in anti-poverty activism. This article will critically discuss how the voices of students with lived experience of poverty engaged to co-produce learning with local and national voluntary sector leaders. The paper will critically reflect on best practice in co-produced curriculum development.