Conference Agenda

Against the backdrop of the erosion of foundational democratic values as well as increasing societal polarization and extremism, teachers are given an important role in enhancing the democratic competences of students. Due to the passing of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) seven years ago (UN, 2016), this perspective has gained even more importance – now also in a global dimension: with regard to SDG 4.7, education shall “ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development” (UN, 2021). In a selection of European countries, this perspective meanwhile has been included into the national curricula, so teachers have to be qualified to meet this perspective in their educational work.

The interpretation of global citizenship varies largely among practitioners as well as researchers). Among the different interpretations: open global citizenship that emphasizes the interdependency in the global world and the possibilities it offers for cultural diversity; moral global citizenship based on moral categories like equality and human rights, that recognises responsibility for the global as a whole; social political global citizenship aimed at changing political power relations towards more equality and in the appreciation of cultural diversity (Veugelers 2011). A well-known categorization of global citizenship education (GCED) relates to the difference between soft and critical GCED (Andreotti 2006; 2016). Researchers warn that education needs to take into account issues of power, culture and economics, as a tool to understand and further develop ideas about GCED. As such, preparing teachers to facilitate GCED requires engaging with socially and politically loaded subjects globally. Nevertheless, the literature notes that teachers refrain from emphasizing the socio-political context while focusing on the moral aspect (Veugelers 2011). In order to assist teachers in overcoming their reluctance, “the pedagogical and didactical approaches should focus on dialogue; time and space must be devoted to conversations with students about the global world that surrounds them, to jointly reflect on it, and to explore the bigger framework. Paying attention to the personal signification process of every individual is necessary. Gaining knowledge, explorative thinking and acting, and development of attitudes, these all deserve attention” (Veugelers 2011:482). Through our research focusing on professionalization processes in the course of international student-teachers’ dialogues, we expect to contribute to the incipient literature on the acquisition of professional global competencies of teachers (cf. Ortloff et al., 2015; Bergmüller et al., 2021; Vare et al., 2019).

The University of the West of Scotland’s School of Education & Social Sciences currently delivers a full-time Master of Education postgraduate taught degree at London campus, titled MEd Education Studies, with bracketed specialisms in Inclusion, Leadership, and Early Years Pedagogy. The degree has three intakes per year; one per term.

In the current 22/23 session, the cohort size is above 150. While these recruitment figures represent a significant success for the University, the School has identified challenges with the student experience and academic design of the programme that it proposes to address through a redesign of the programme. The programme largely resembles the part-time MEd delivered from our Scottish campuses, and therefore responds to the priorities and imperatives around Scottish teacher education. The London MEd is catering to a global cohort of educators rather than contributing to Scottish teacher educator development, so the focus of the London programme should be better directed to the priorities of the distinctive student cohort on London campus. Many graduates choose to stay in the UK and would thus benefit from a programme with a broader European context; however, with a focus on intercultural perspectives, students who choose to return to their home countries will have had the opportunity to learn how different types of pedagogy and practice can be applied to their context.

The London MEd attracts a global cohort of scholars, all of whom are international students from East Asian, Southeast Asian, and African countries. This classroom diversity should be a huge strength, but the programme as it is currently designed does not make a feature of this. Through a commitment to social justice and inclusion principles, the redesigned MEd programme aims to include the diverse experiences of the international cohort into the teaching, learning, and research contexts. All courses will be designed through a critical intercultural lens that allows for the discussion and research of diverse perspectives around issues of education.

The London MEd team have undertaken extensive consultation with current and past students and community partners to ensure the redesigned programme addresses the priorities of its key participants. We have drawn on the diverse range of expertise to inform the proposed programme redesign. Underpinning the entire process has been a detailed engagement with the UWS Curriculum Framework. The resulting programme is a hybrid focus with some on-class modules with online content, as well as fully online modules. The process has highlighted the need for more authentic assessment, with less emphasis on written essays. In addition, seminars have been designed to be more engaging and relevant for our diverse cohorts. We are also offering an alternative to the traditional dissertation so that students can draw on their experience as educators and create proposals for teaching practice and pedagogy that reflect the social justice and inclusive principles embedded in the programme. Finally, we have been developing relationships with external social justice organisations around London to offer students a chance to learn about the history of their communities in and around London and to potentially engage in research projects. We believe that this personal connection to their culture will help further their inclusive education practice.

With over 600,000 non-EU students undertaking postgraduate degrees in the UK, it will be vital for universities to understand the intersection of identities of international students and provide evidence-based opportunities to enhance their practice in relation to their own context, rather than solely focusing on the UK context. Through our example of redesigning a programme to better serve culturally diverse students, we hope to share our successes and challenges with other universities engaging in similar work.

Stories in mainstream media are important because they shape ideas about different cultures (Adichie, 2009; Gatson and Reid, 2012). The ways in which popular culture represents people and issues both reflect and shape dominant ideologies and stereotypes (Giroux, 2004; Rossing, 2015; Wright and Wright, 2015). Popular media narratives privilege the experiences of some groups and exclude countless others. This plays a powerful role in influencing how people – from both dominant and marginalised groups – think about themselves and others. At the same time, while media can reify existing ideologies, people can also challenge them. There is no monolithic experience of engaging with cultural texts, especially ones which are shared globally across different contexts (Savage, 2013).

This paper draws on my PhD project to explore how fan podcasts act as informal sites of public pedagogy, specifically focusing on how these spaces offer opportunities for fans to express and access intersectional perspectives. I developed a research/fan podcast called Marginally Fannish where my co-participants and I used the fictional framework of popular media to co-create an alternative site of education. Popular media provided a communal context to explore our various intersections and interpretations of race and ethnicity, gender and gender diversity, social class, sexuality, religion, geographic origin, physical and mental disability, and age. Fans from diverse cultures – both marginalised and dominant in different contexts – use globally popular media as a shared language to learn about each other’s real-world experiences. By explicitly making connections between fictional worlds and real-life structures, fans explore the limitations and possibilities of both.

The feminist theory of intersectionality investigates how multiple and complex social privileges and inequalities interact with each other (Cho et al., 2013; Choo and Ferree, 2010; Collins, 2015; Davis, 2008; Jordan-Zachery, 2007; Romero, 2018). The internet has played a significant role in popularising the concept of intersectionality in non-academic spaces (Hancock, 2016; Kanai, 2019). In online spaces, people bring their diverse intersectional identities and experiences with them.

In the case of globally popular media, the diversity of fans present in online fan communities means that fans encounter ideas which they may otherwise not have considered. Fans engage in a collaborative learning process where knowledge is negotiated together and people contribute different forms of expertise (Sandlin et al., 2017; Savage, 2010). In these public pedagogical spaces, people's interactions can help challenge default social, cultural, political and educational scripts (Burdick and Sandlin, 2010).

The paper examines how conversations among fans from diverse backgrounds bring together multiple knowledges and diverse priorities. Through their analyses and critiques about how diverse cultures are represented in their favourite media, fan podcast episodes create knowledge about intersectional identities and promote alternative viewpoints about different experiences (Dittmar and Annas, 2017). This intersectional literacy can challenge and expand mainstream norms and representations, resulting in a more complex and nuanced understanding of different identities.

Fan conversations use fictional characters, themes and events as a cultural shorthand to articulate arguments about diverse identities and real-world social, political and economic structures. Parallels from popular media can draw attention to these issues in new contexts. Since popular media tend to attract fans from a diverse range of backgrounds, these elements can speak to a wide range of interests. By bringing diverse priorities and perspectives to the forefront, such conversations allow others to learn about different cultures and contexts as well as other ways of being in the world.

The paper proposes that whereas many people’s imaginations are formatively influenced by mainstream media and society, collective and public discussions in the context of fan podcasts can reshape the architecture of these imaginations.