| Paper 2 |
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Diversity
and group work.
Author: Gareth White, Goldsmiths College, email: drp01gw@gold.ac.uk
This essay discusses some of the ethical issues arising in practical group work. Working in groups will bring to the fore differences between students, between students and teachers, and between students and the assumptions of particular disciplines. The context of the recent Special Educational Needs and Disability, and Race Relations (Amendment) Acts and the drive for wider participation makes these issues pressing for teachers in higher education.
Conceiving practical work as a learning model that places the discipline at the centre rather than either the student or the teacher allows us to consider the encounter between each individual and the discipline as the crucial relationship. This process is one of praxis: of the discipline and the student developing together in a process of re-invention, allowing learning to be driven by difference rather than hindered by it. Nevertheless there are implications where diverse groups are involved, and implications for the teachers' relationship with their discipline. I propose here that well-managed group work will balance this individual encounter with awareness of group maintenance, and reflection on the wider disciplinary context.
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Select Reading List
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