Establishing Professional Learning Communities to Support the Promotion of Equality and Celebration of Diversity: Reflections from a North-East Community Learning Teacher

Vicky Meaby

doi:10.5920/till.538

Abstract

This article presents findings from our collaborative Outstanding Teaching, Learning and Assessment (OTLA) project which employed an action research methodology to explore Equality and Diversity (E&D) practices within our settings. Identified issues included lack of staff confidence exploring E&D in the classroom; lesson observations reporting “tokenistic” or “strained” E&D work, and concerns that shared or collaborative E&D practice within or between educational settings rarely occurred. Our question therefore was how best to empower teaching and learning communities to effectively promote equality and celebrate diversity. We attempted to establish a Professional Learning Community (PLC) (Vescio et al, 2008), whilst simultaneously seeking to engage learners more actively in the design and development of their E&D work. These processes helped enable symbiotic knowledge exchange between staff, and between staff and learners, enriching teaching, learning, and assessment practices as collective E&D practices began to travel within and beyond the realms of our settings. Future endeavours include further exploration of the impact of our E&D PLC upon learning and assessment outcomes, with particular focus on further collaboration with learners, examination boards, and third sector partners to aid diversification of both internal and external assessment practices.

Highlights

The purpose of this article is to share our learning – what worked and what did not work – from our recent Equality and Diversity (E&D) action research project1, which posed the question how best to empower teaching and learning communities to effectively promote equality and celebrate diversity.Responding to Ofsted guidance, which states teaching and learning communities should ‘...reflect and value the diversity of learners’ experiences and provide learners with a comprehensive understanding of people and communities beyond their immediate experience’ (2016, p. 44), our project was established in response to local need as well as in relation to wider educational and political concerns relating to the importance of celebrating diversity and promoting equality within teaching and learning (Ofsted, 2016; DfE, 2013; Equality Act, 2010)
Staff and learners from our predominantly white British, semi-rural, working-class settings were sometimes reluctant to engage with E&D practices, reporting contextual detachment; a sense of feeling detached from what could be interpreted as national policy concerns (e.g. Prevent, 2015) or city issues
Recruited staff held varying degrees of managerial responsibility, held teaching and non-teaching roles, and had different subject specialisms. This set-up enabled us to explore our research question from multiple perspectives, as we considered how E&D practices operated across different settings and specialisms

Summary

Introduction

The purpose of this article is to share our learning – what worked and what did not work – from our recent Equality and Diversity (E&D) action research project, which posed the question how best to empower teaching and learning communities to effectively promote equality and celebrate diversity.Responding to Ofsted guidance, which states teaching and learning communities should ‘...reflect and value the diversity of learners’ experiences and provide learners with a comprehensive understanding of people and communities beyond their immediate experience’ (2016, p. 44), our project was established in response to local need as well as in relation to wider educational and political concerns relating to the importance of celebrating diversity and promoting equality within teaching and learning (Ofsted, 2016; DfE, 2013; Equality Act, 2010). The purpose of this article is to share our learning – what worked and what did not work – from our recent Equality and Diversity (E&D) action research project, which posed the question how best to empower teaching and learning communities to effectively promote equality and celebrate diversity. 44), our project was established in response to local need as well as in relation to wider educational and political concerns relating to the importance of celebrating diversity and promoting equality within teaching and learning (Ofsted, 2016; DfE, 2013; Equality Act, 2010). Recruited staff held varying degrees of managerial responsibility, held teaching and non-teaching roles, and had different subject specialisms. This set-up enabled us to explore our research question from multiple perspectives, as we considered how E&D practices operated across different settings and specialisms. We explored how our E&D practices operated within, and were affected by, the unique contextual underpinnings of our own settings (Kemmis et al, 2012)

Objectives

Conclusion