Can participatory arts empower young people?

A School of Education study, working with young minority ethnic women in Rotherham, has challenged education policy on identity and citizenship. In contemporary Britain, young people are adopting a number of identities that can be compatible with each other, and young people choose the best of each. The study especially found that having roots and valuing personal history gives young people a stronger foundation to develop a self-identity that they are comfortable with.

‘Britishness’ and citizenship

In recent years, there have been heated debates about ‘Britishness’; this has led to policy changes that colonize our education system and drive an oppressive curriculum in to our schools, without engaging the opinions of the minority students that are themselves impacted by it. We have been bombarded with education policies around cohesion, integration and multiculturalism over last few decades, yet multiculturalism and diversity now seem to be words of the past, with a shift in current policy towards creating a single unified citizen.

Zanib Rasool, partner of the project and chair of Rotherham Central and Park View Children’s Centre works with some of the most challenging young people who may not fit in with the current narratives of British citizen, but are nevertheless British.

She commented, “We have Youth Parliaments, Youth Cabinets, and School Councils and so on, but how many of them are truly representative and include voices of young people from minority backgrounds on the perimeters, who are not your A star students? The ones who are disruptive and cannot engage with the education system: who listens to them? Those young people are seen as problematic and yet they have a strong identity whether it is through a certain style of clothing, music or sport. They are still British Citizens and celebrate as much as anyone else every time a British athlete won a medal at the Rio Olympics, or whenever England next wins the world cup. Policy makers have been far too descriptive in their representation of British identity without leaving much scope or personal freedom for young people to create their own British identity.

Self-identity is important to young people: being forced to assimilate leads to the disappearance of their own ethnic and racial distinction, and cultural and social differences. Such education policy is unethical and unjust; it disempowers minority children, leaving them feeling inferior, as there is nothing of relevance in the curriculum to their own religious and cultural frame of reference. Sadly, in British schools the curriculum forced on minority children is one which gives them no grounding of their own identity and leaves them rootless.”

Engaging the voice of marginalised young people

Zanib conducted a small-scale research project (funded by AHRC’s Connected Communities Festival 2016), which created a platform for minority ethnic young women’s voices, engaging them through the use of art and poetry. The study is a small part of the wider Imagine project, a five-year programme of research on the theme of imagining better futures and making them happen.

Young women and girls, of Pakistani and Roma Slovak heritage aged 11 to 19 living in two multiple deprived areas of Rotherham, met in a community library to read poetry, such as ‘I come from’ by Robert Seatter. The girls took inspiration this poem and explored their identity and citizenship, linking their past family and community history to create a more positive and empowering future for them. Writing poetry became a channel for them to articulate their feelings at a time when there is a rise in Islamophobia across Europe and racism further increased by the recent referendum on Europe. Zanib believes educators need to look beyond the school experience to see the resilience of young people in negotiating their everyday experience at home and in their communities. Art-based research can open up a window of opportunity to work with young people in a creative way to explore identity and culture.

One participant could not meet her friend in town as there was a Far-Right March that Saturday; she sat in her garden that day and wrote down her frustration.

EDL don’t belong in Rotherham

Rotherham is my home and I like living here and every time the ‘Amy of Hate’ visits us they leave our community feeling vulnerable, the police have enough to deal with, without this unnecessarily pressure added.

The’ EDL’s motto is ‘Not racist, not violent, and no longer silent.’ Does anybody else see the irony in this? ‘Not racist’ EDL is a fascist group who are clearly Islamophobic; they are not silent when they are hurling racial abuse. Most Muslims in Rotherham respect the law and want to live peacefully if EDL allow us.

I write this sitting at home as EDL have disrupted another Saturday and created tension between communities long after they are gone, which hardly seems fair

My street is a very long street. It is very multi-cultural

On my street live English, Irish, Pakistanis, Scottish, Indian, African, Afghans, Italian, Polish, Slovakians and Spanish

It’s good to meet and mix with other people, and learn about each other,

We all get on with each other. We don’t argue. We accept everyone. My street is the best street in Rotherham.

Our Union Jack

The girls art group decided to make a large Union Jack of Pink, Purple and Blue and add to it all the things that represented Great Britain.

Although the Union Jack was visible during Far Right marches in Rotherham, they did not associate it with racism unlike many older people from their community. An Asian girl said the “Union Jack represents Britain, where I live”. The girls did mention however, lots of Far Right marches and increase in racism in their town. Football and cricket were associated with England along with drinking tea: “we are a nation of tea drinkers” they joked.

The group also wanted some images of their own heritage included, as identifiers of who they are and where their roots were; the flags of Slovakia and Pakistan were included in the art work, along with an image of a Mosque and girls wearing the hijab. Henna appeared to be a cross-cultural symbol, which is integrated in to Britishness and symbolised ‘Multicultural Britain’. They drew hands with lots of different henna designs and placed them on the flag.

Common ground

Whilst talking about henna and sharing beauty tips, the girls noticed that some of the words were similar in Roma language as in Punjabi. It was explained that some of the Roma community, like the Pakistani community, originated from India; this led to the girls connecting and becoming friendlier towards one another.

A better future

Based on the findings of her study, Zanib has a number of recommendations for improving education policy:

• Create more opportunities that enable young people to express their views on identity, faith, culture, history and heritage, holding student debating groups at lunch time or after school
• Utilise creative arts methods to engage the voice of marginalised young people (drama, dance, music, writing, graffiti art)
• Bring in artists and writers from diverse communities to do workshops and enrich the school curriculum
• Incorporate the history of the ‘Other’ into the citizen curriculum modules, rather than doing something ‘one-off’ to celebrate diversity, such as organising an Eid party or and African dance workshop during Black History Month: this is not enough and feels tokenistic
• Encourage minority ethnic parents to bring in cultural artefacts and objects and share their stories with students

The young women in the study saw a multi-cultural Britain, one that would recognise and accept their faith, culture, traditions and histories. To encourage such a view, educationalists need to value young people’s views in the debate on citizenship, and deliver a more diversely rich curriculum.

Our Research

Zanib Rasool is currently studying for a PhD in Literacy and Language in the School of Education. Her dissertation will be on multilingualism and community knowledge.

She has worked most of her life in the voluntary community sector, and currently employed as Development and Partnership Manager with Rotherham United Community Sports Trust. She also holds a number of other positions including Chair of Rotherham Central Park View Children Centre, Governor of Thornhill Primary School, Chair of Rotherham Independent Hate Crime Panel, and Director of GROW (women’s organisation).

Zanib’s project builds on previous relationships and knowledge from the Imagine project’s work. To learn more about the Imagine Project, and our work in imagining how communities might be different, please visit the website.