The topic of my research is novel foods and how the emotion of disgust plays a role in mediating our interactions with these foods. I am particularly interested in novel proteins that are more environmentally sustainable and nutritious than conventionally consumed meats. Protein sources such as insects and cultured meat are often rejected by Western consumers as they are perceived as disgusting. The aim of my research is to first understand this food rejection and second, to investigate the usefulness of social and educational interventions to overcome the disgust response so that these sustainable sources of protein become more widely consumed.
Search results for: “ai in education”
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NCRM: Using Creative Research Methods
This course will outline creative research methods and show you how to use them appropriately at every stage of the research process. The course assumes that you have a good working knowledge of conventional research methods, and builds on that knowledge by introducing arts-based methods, research using technology, mixed methods, and transformative research frameworks such as participatory and activist research. Any or all of these techniques can be used alongside more conventional research methods and are often particularly useful when addressing more complex research questions. In the afternoon you will have the opportunity to try applying these methods in practice. Attention will be paid to ethical issues throughout. The day will include plenty of practical advice and tips on using creative methods in research.
The course covers:- Arts-based methods
- Research using technology
- Mixed methods
- Transformative research frameworks
By the end of the course participants will:
- Have a good level of knowledge of creative research methods
- Understand how to use creative methods alongside more traditional methods
- Understand when to use creative methods in research
- Know how creative methods can add value to funding bids
This course will be relevant for researchers from the third sector, public services (e.g. health, criminal justice, social care, education, local or national government), and those who work in independent research organisations or academia. It is an intermediate level course and attendees will need a good working knowledge of traditional research methods.
Preparatory Reading
Although not required participants may wish to purchase the book on which the course is based: Creative Research Methods in the Social Sciences: A Practical Guide, by the trainer, published by Policy Press. NB: if participants sign up for the monthly e-newsletter produced by Policy Press, they will receive a substantial discount on the book.
Cost
The fee per teaching day is:
• £30 per day for UK/EU registered students
• £60 per day for staff at UK/EU academic institutions, UK/EU Research Councils researchers, UK/EU public sector staff and staff at UK/EU registered charity organisations and recognised UK/EU research institutions.
• £220 per day for all other participantsAll fees include event materials, lunch, morning and afternoon tea. They do not include travel and accommodation costs.
A full refund is available two weeks prior to the course. NO refund is available after this date.
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New ways of being together
A co-produced mindfulness 8-week course and ‘a little book of wisdom’
An Impact Project by Chloe Asker
It was wonderful, as usual. I always feel so, so much better when I finish these sessions, it’s lovely
(Flora1, participant during a workshop, 15/11/2018)What the project entailed
The SWDTP’s Impact Fund provided me with the resource to develop a grassroots impact project that brought direct benefits to those involved. The project was an 8-week co-produced and participatory mindfulness course developed with a group of participants, out of which we collated a book/zine2 entitled ‘a little book of wisdom’. I combined money awarded from the Impact Fund along with my RTSG, this suited the intention for it to be a research-led form of impact inspired by Pain et al.’s (2016) work on ‘Mapping Alternative Impact’. By offering reflections on the project, I hope to demonstrate the importance of this impact work in developing ‘new ways of being together’ (Conradson, 2011, p. 454) orientated around care, emotional reciprocity and community.
Undertaking the project
During May and June 2018 I undertook some autoethnographic research on an 8-week mindfulness course, where I met a group of people who, once the course had concluded, were eager to continue their exploration into mindfulness. Our group was unique because many mindfulness courses do not facilitate sustainable group dynamics post the 8-week course (Shannon, 2010). Often this can lead to individuals not maintaining regular practice as it is no longer supported by others or by a community. The project was an opportunity for us then to maintain our relationship in order to support each other with our practice, and our lives more generally.
The sessions ran once-a-week for 8 weeks, beginning in October, for 2 hours on a Thursday evening at St. David’s Community Centre in Exeter. We designed the course using a participatory framework, meaning that the workshops were to be designed and run together. We felt it was useful to have the sessions combine themes that were important to us – to create a bespoke course that spoke directly to our needs. Although, logistically, I took charge on the booking of the rooms at the Community Centre and liaising with the mindfulness teacher.
Initial Challenges
In the beginning session we found the participatory framework challenging, participants were not sure about what they wanted from the sessions and felt like they needed to be given a structure. There was a shared feeling that they were still fairly new to the subject and practice, and therefore did not have the competency to make these decisions. However, they did identify themes that they found interesting – especially delving deeper into Buddhist understandings of mindfulness and meditation. Something which secular 8-week courses do not tend to touch on.
The first four sessions were fairly tricky, the group was going through a process of transformation – each assuming new roles, including myself. And this became apparent particularly when I led a couple of the sessions, something that felt somewhat uncomfortable! In addition to this, a member of the group was no longer able to attend the sessions due to difficult travel arrangements. This event caused a lot of worry for everyone involved; we were concerned for their wellbeing but also for the future sustainability of the group.
The Zine
However, by the fourth session, people began to find their voice. From this point we planned the remaining sessions around the themes of acceptance, compassion, suffering and gratitude. This was around the time that we began the zine.
One of the members of the group had been coming across ‘little bits of wisdom’, as she put it: quotes, poems and messages from books, YouTube videos and podcasts. We decided to collectively collate these resources together – providing a reminder of the work we had done together. This process was mindful in its fruition, as the etymology of mindful is to remember, to take care. And through this process of documentation we were reminding ourselves of our practice and the importance of care, both for ourselves and the people around us.
The zine was organised together: we laid out the materials on the floor, arranged them thematically and ordered them to be collated into the book. Making the zine was emotional and visceral, provoking reflection and meditation on relationships both past and present. One poem in particular made a participant weep, symbolising the relationship between herself and her daughter:
We agreed that I would go away and type them up. I formatted the booklet on a design website called Canva, and sent it off to be printed. We met again as a group in the New Year where I handed out the book. Upon receiving the printed copy there were gasps of delight and surprise – the group was overwhelmed by the work, requesting more copies be printed, they wanted to hand them to friends, colleagues, relatives, loved ones.
Reflections on the project
I learned valuable lessons about the challenges and messiness of participatory ways of working, but also found how fulfilling and surprising it can be. I discovered how much it meant to my participants that they had this space to come to, and experienced first-hand the importance of benefice in research. The project enabled us to strengthen the group bond and dynamic through cultivating our inter-personal relationships as well as our relationship to mindfulness practice. We were thus challenging the ‘cookie-cutter’, stand-alone mindfulness 8-week programmes, which have little sense of community or sustainability. Those that are often dubbed as ‘McMindfulness’ (Hyland, 2017; Neale, 2011; Purser and Loy, 2013), complicit in the commoditised therapeutics of late capitalism.
Our time together demonstrated how research and impact are not separate from people’s lives but intimately entangled within them, and thus become extremely meaningful to them. This was evident throughout, but particularly at the end of the workshops when one participant handed out gifts to the group: a mindfulness mug. It was a memento for our time together, she said: “I want you to have a cup of whatever you have, and just remember our mind[fulness], [and] all our sort of things we’ve talked about and have been so helpful, and just have your cup of tea. As I say I’ve got one too!”
The kindness of this gift caused waves of gratitude to wash over me. Our time together had taught me a lot about the porosity of emotional life when we’re imbricated with others. Particularly when stories participants told caused me to be overcome with emotion, and when conversations with them sparked forgotten memories, thoughts and dreams. It is clear that emotions matter in research and impact.
This work highlighted the importance of an ethics of care, and practices of caring-with (Askins and Blazek, 2017) – both outside the University and during fieldwork, but also within our institutions – that facilitate ‘new ways of being together’ (Conradson, 2011, p. 454). Overall, the Impact Fund was a fantastic way to experiment with and to explore further social/community mindfulness as a new way of being together.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to the wonderful participants who took part in this research and impact. Also a big thank you to the SWDTP student representatives who supported the funding application.
Notes
1 Participants have been given pseudonyms to maintain their anonymity.
2 The idea of producing a zine/book was inspired by Jen Bagelman’s (Bagelman et al., 2017; Bagelman and Bagelman, 2016) activist cookbook zines.
References
Askins, K., Blazek, M., 2017. Feeling our way: academia, emotions and a politics of care. Social & Cultural Geography 18, 1086–1105.
Conradson, D., 2011. Care and Caring, in: Del Casino, V.J. (Ed.), A Companion to Social Geography, Wiley-Blackwell Companions to Geography. Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester, pp. 454–471.
Hyland, T., 2017. McDonaldizing Spirituality: Mindfulness, Education, and Consumerism. Journal of Transformative Education 15, 334–356.
Neale, M., 2011. McMindfulness and Frozen Yoga: Rediscovering the Essential Teachings of Ethics and Wisdom [WWW Document]. URL http://www.milesneale.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/McMindfulness.pdf (accessed 9.11.17).
Pain, R., Askins, K., Banks, S., Cook, T., Crawford, G., Crookes, L., Darby, S., Heslop, J., Holden, A., Houston, M., Jeffes, J., 2016. Mapping Alternative Impact: Alternative approaches to impact from co-produced research (Project Report). Durham University, Durham.
Purser, R., Loy, D., 2013. Beyond McMindfulness [WWW Document]. Huffington Post. URL https://www.huffingtonpost.com/ron-purser/beyond-mcmindfulness_b_3519289.html (accessed 11.9.17).
Shannon, H.W., 2010. Meditation as Medicine: A Critique. CrossCurrents 60, 168–184.
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Conference on co-production and creative methods with young people
Communities Centre at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Confirmed Speakers include Michelle Fine, Distinguished Professor of Critical Psychology, Women’s Studies, American Studies and Urban Education from The Graduate Centre, CUNY, Margaret Somerville, Professor of Education from Western Sydney University and Julie McCarthy, Great Place Project Manager, Greater Manchester Combined Authority.
This is one of the first international multidisciplinary conferences to be held in the UK with a focus on co-production and creative methods that welcomes academics and community partners into a shared space. Co-production has become more mainstream recently within a number of disciplines and contexts across the social sciences and arts and humanities. This conference will address methods and ideas in the broad area of co-production with a focus on making change happen. Our interest is on sharing ideas, inspiration and experiences around co-production with children and young people. The conference will explore participatory and creative methods. We welcome contributions in a variety of formats, including but not limited to; presentations, workshops, exhibitions, films, posters, experiential events or happenings across the following themes:
- Creative methods and co-production – ways of knowing, doing, learning together
- Young people as leaders in co-produced projects – learning from experience
- Academics and communities co-researching – practice and theory
- Transforming communities through co-produced projects
- Interdisciplinary work on co-produced projects.
- Places, space and co-production
Full Delegate Rate – Full conference: £250.00
Full Delegate Rate – One day: £170.00
Subsidised Rate* – Full conference: £130.00
Subsidised Rate* – One day £95.00
*Subsidised rate applies to post graduates, charitable organisations and community groups.
Registration closes Monday 13th May
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SWDTP Student Conference 2018 Keynote Profiles
“Get your cards right: The research-driven collaboration behind the XL-LAN (literacy & numeracy) project”
Kaydee Owen & Nicole Ilott
Nicole Ilott (project manager at charity XLP) and Kaydee Owen (Bangor University) will discuss the process of their collaboration on research on the XL-LAN project.
Kaydee Owen is a PhD researcher at Bangor University, investigating how precision teaching methods can help “at risk” learners to improve their basic maths skill fluency. This project utilises evidence-based strategies such as Say-All-Fast-Minute-Every-Day-Shuffled (SAFMEDS). Through collaboration with the regional school effectiveness agency for North Wales (GwE), Kaydee has been able to conduct this research in 63 schools across the region; aiming to gain further insight into how teacher training and support can affect the outcomes of a fluency-based numeracy programme. Alongside her PhD, Kaydee has been involved with the XL-LAN (XLP literacy and numeracy) project; supporting the use of SAFMEDS with young people in London.
Nicole Illott leads the literacy and numeracy project at XLP, a London based charity working to create positive futures for young people. XLP run a range of projects, including; educational support, mentoring, arts, sports and access to training and employment, all with the aim to see young people making positive choices. The literacy and numeracy project (XL-LAN) has been working collaboratively with Bangor University over the past 18-months, using the evidence-based SAFMEDS approach. The University’s expertise is helping the project thrive and young people in London make significant improvements in their literacy and numeracy skills.
“Working Collaboratively with Museums & Collections”
Nick Booth
Nick is Head of Collections at the SS Great Britain Trust. He has previously worked in University and Local Authority Museums, with diverse collections including Geology, Pathology, Archaeology, Social History and Art.
“Moving Beyond the Academic Article: Exploring the Potential of Visual and Creative Techniques for Engaging Diverse Audiences and Increasing Research Impact”
Dr Dawn Mannay
Dawn Mannay is a Senior Lecturer in Social Sciences (Psychology) at Cardiff University. Her research interests revolve around class, gender, education, identity and inequality; and she employs participatory, visual and creative methods in her work with communities. Dawn was the Principal Investigator on a Welsh Government funded project exploring the educational experiences and aspirations of children and young people who are care experienced in Wales. She is currently working on a project to establish a community of practice to improve the educational experiences of children and young people – ExChange: Care and Education. Dawn edited a collection for the University Wales Press (2016), ‘Our changing land: revisiting gender, class and identity in contemporary Wales’; and wrote the sole authored text for Routledge (2016), ‘Visual, narrative and creative research methods: application, reflection and ethics’. Her most recent book with Tracey Loughran was published by Emerald in 2018 – ‘Emotion and the researcher: sites, subjectivities, and relationships’.
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Warren Speed
Since 2014 all school in England are required to actively promote ‘fundamental British values’ in line with the Counter-terrorism and Security Act and Ofsted inspections. Previous research highlights that the introduction of these “values” has led uncertainty and uneasiness about how they might be actively promoted.My research will take a bricolage approach and will:
- Critically examine the values education discourse in its relation to delivering character and moral education in schools in England.
- Apply Goodlad’s Curriculum framework and empirically explore how schools interpret and implement ‘fundamental British values’.
- Apply a critical lens to the current values education agenda to highlight the complexity in enacting values in school system and the implications with Ofsted Inspections.
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Have Your Say with the 2018 Student Survey!
There’s only two weeks left to make your voice heard in our 2018 SWDTP Student Survey!This 20-minute survey is a really important part of building an SWDTP cohort. It is an opportunity for you to reflect on your own experiences and feedback to us about what is working well, what needs improving and any ideas you might have for the future direction of our community. Everyone’s view matters and the more responses we have, the more robust, detailed and valuable the feedback will be.
In the past, the survey has affected change in SWDTP procedures and initiatives. This year, we are keen to hold focus groups to give respondents more opportunity to delve deeper into the subjects about which they are passionate.
SWDTP students who complete the form will be entered into a prize draw to win one of three £25 Amazon Gift Vouchers! On top of that, the SWDTP will also donate £1 to Student Minds for every SWDTP student who completes the survey. The charity works with universities and individuals to promote mental well-being in the Higher Education sector. Next year, we will select a different student-focused charity. Of course, students who complete the survey can remain anonymous if they wish by skipping the About You section of the form.
If you wish to complete the survey, please use the link which was emailed to all students on April 27th. If you need the link to be re-sent then please don’t hesitate to get in touch with Jackson. The survey will close at midday on Thursday May 31st, so don’t miss your chance to make a difference.
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GW4 Workshop Large-Scale Data Analysis
This workshop, free to students who attend GW4 Institutions (Universities of Bath, Bristol and Exeter), focuses on the use of Large-Scale Data Assessments in the Social Sciences. The workshop aims to provide an overview of the theoretical framework and objectives of the large-scale assessments followed by the test and sample design, their implications for analysis, and the appropriate analysis methods.The second aim is to provide training for independent development and implementation of self-designed analyses, using the introduced software (IDB Analyzer).
The event is being run by our very own SWDTP student Kalyan Kumar and SWDTP Conference Committee Member Eliana Osorio.
