Journal of Academic Development and Education JADE Issue 10 | Page 94

ARTICLE #7 | 95
94 | JADE
MARIA FLOOD
THE CHALLENGES OF A DIVERSE CURRICULUM: A CASE STUDY FROM THE HUMANITIES
a diverse curriculum is not always easy to implement. Below I outline
a series of challenges that have been identified in implementing a
diverse curriculum.
to their racial and ethnic background in their interpretation
of texts, students in Keele are less inclined to bring their own
identities to bear on the topic in a group discussion. Disgust and
anger may be expressed at the material presented in the films,
which may examine social injustice and inequality and can be a
difficult and sometimes eye-opening experience for students,
leading to the kinds of ‘emotional crisis’ Kumashiro references.
They may also feel hostility towards these texts, because of the
negative or uncomfortable feelings that arise. They may also
have to challenge their own prejudices or discover that they
have prejudices in the first place, ‘influencing not only how they
think and feel and relate to others, but also how they think and
feel about themselves’ (Kumashiro, 2002, p. 70).
Challenges
1.
Relatability and relevance: Following on from the previous point,
works by minority artists can seem distant from the student’s
personal experience. They may struggle to identify with the
characters or to see the relevance of the topic to their own lives.
While I in no way wish to suggest that relatability is a necessary
or even desirable characteristic in an object of study, the fact
remains that works that appear to be immediately relevant to
the student’s already constituted frameworks of knowledge can
be more easily communicated. A number of theorists argue
that barriers to learning around relatability and relevance are
inevitable: students like texts that they understand quickly and
they are invested in their thoughts and beliefs about the world,
and it is easier when these values are repeated in the texts that
they study (Britzman, 1998; Felman, 1995; Luhmann, 1998).
2. Cultural and historical context: Works that examine non-
normative topics and individuals can require greater historical,
social or political contextualization and knowledge in order for
the student to fully engage with work. For example, teaching
Stephen Daldy’s film Billy Elliot to a group of students in Keele
requires very little cultural explanation: the film is about a young
boy who grows up to be a ballet dancer, and it is set against the
backdrop of the miner’s strike of 1984-85. Most, if not all, British
students have studied the strike in secondary school, and many
have personal anecdotes to tell and can comment on the class
structures in the past and the present in the UK. By contrast, a
film like Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers, a film about the
bloody decolonization of Algeria from the French in the 1950s
and 1960s, necessitates a historical overview of colonialism (in
general and in Algeria), the war, and the terrorist tactics of the
Algerians in order for the film to be fully understood.
3. Emotional challenges: Teaching diverse curricula can pose
emotional challenges to both students and teachers. Feelings
of discomfort and vulnerability may arise: minority students
may feel they are put in the position of spokesperson or ‘expert’
because of their identity, and that they are pressured to speak,
or indeed, not to speak. Non-minority students may feel that
these topics are ‘not for them’, and may feel unwilling to voice
opinions on issues that do not touch them directly. In contrast
to students in Cornell, who felt comfortable drawing attention
4. Accessibility: Some films made in non-Western cultural contexts
can be expensive and tricky to source or find in libraries. They can
also be troublesome to watch online, and nowadays, students
often expect material to be easily accessible for purchase or
streaming on the internet.
5.
Desire to study the canon: Many students, irrespective of their
own race or gender, are used to studying canonical works,
the majority of which are created by Euro-American men.
This is because these works are more easily legible, because
they are part of a dominant cultural language, and they often
confirm ideas students already have about the world they live
in and the identities they encounter. Texts by minority artists or
authors can be perceived as ‘minor’, and not ‘worthy’ of study.
Moreover, there is a risk that particular diverse texts in a core or
general curriculum can be perceived as distractions from the
more ‘culturally significant’, i.e. normative, works of the ‘canon’.
However, increasing diversity in HE and a number of student
groups such as the ‘decolonizing the curriculum’ movement
actively call for a re-thinking of the canon. Moreover, depending
on the institution, the canon as a concept may not exist for
certain students. Keele, as a university with a 94.5% intake from
comprehensive schools, has a high number of students who
have not been formed with a clear idea of ‘normative’ curricula.
What constitutes the ‘canon’ in this case may simply be what
they are taught. For example, I was surprised when only two
out of forty in a second year group of film students has seen an
Alfred Hitchcock film. My reaction betrayed my own repetition
of what I assumed a canon was, and what I assumed students
‘should’ have seen before coming to university. Indeed, with
the increasing relevance of Netflix and the Internet to students
viewing habits, the very notion of a pre-formed canon is rapidly
deteriorating. Students may have seen and been influenced by