Who am I?Matt Jacobs - Director

info@kmjaperspectives.comwww.kmjaperspectives.com

Identity, Culture, Deprivation & The Classroom – Understanding the Dynamics

Teaching and Learningin

Deprived Communities

Identity, Culture, Community

“A man finds his identity by identifying. A man's identity is not best thought of as the way in which he is separated from his fellows but the way

in which he is united with them.”

Robert Terwilliger

What does ‘Community’ mean?

• Geography• Ethnicity• Nationality• Religion• Wealth• Education• Health

•Organization• Cultural and history• Interest – hobby, disability,

political, etc• Age•Gender• Sexuality

How do you belong?

• Do individuals belong to or identify with only one community?

• Do people shed the traits of one community identity as they move from its context to another?

• 15 of the 21 sub areas are in the top 10% nationally for crime and disorder

• Only 50% of children achieved Level 4 in English and Maths at Key Stage 2

• Only 30% of children achieved A* - C at GCSE inc English and Maths at Key Stage 4

Issues the community is facing

• There are high rates of coronary heart disease mortality and 40% of children are obese or over-weight in year 6

• 25% of the Working Age Population receive Out of Work Benefits

• Lawrence Hill has the highest unemployment rate in Bristol – 9.7% compared to a Bristol average of 4.1%

Where do people live• 30% Social Housing tenants (Bristol as a whole 11%)

• 35% low income workers in terraced housing (Bristol as a whole 10%)

• 28% Young people renting flats in high density social housing (Bristol as a whole 6%)

• Low income families occupying poor quality older terraces 10% (Bristol as a whole 3%)

• 50% of the population say that there are Health and Safety risks in their homes

Who are the population?• Ashley, Easton and Lawrence Hill have BME populations of 35.5%, 38%

and 55.2% respectively.

• 51 – 37% White British Working Class

• Low levels of Professional and Higher level Managerial occupations – 13%, 8%, and 7.2% respectively. ( Affluent areas have 25%+)

• Point of Interest – 14%, 11%, 7.8% employed in Education (Affluent areas have 12-14%)

• High numbers of Refugees and Asylum Seekers

• 20% of over 16s do not have any qualifications; 42% of over 16s have a Level 2 as their highest qualification

• On average 50% of children are income deprived – live in poverty. However, in some areas this is as high as 80% e.g., Barton Hill Road

• 16% of households comprise lone parents

• The area has the highest rate of free school meals in Bristol at 40%

• 80% of pupils in Lawrence Hill are from a BME background

• 50% of pupils do not have English as their first language

Numbers of parents in ESOL classesLevel Number of CAB parents Number of parents from

feeder schoolsPre Entry 1 2

Entry 1 4 16

Entry 2 4 14

Entry 3 4 10

Level 1 3 2

Of the 87 students we have, 60 are parents of young people from this school and its feeder schools.

Rich and Vibrant Cultural Life

Cultural Diversity• Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Sikh, atheist and more.

• 33 nationalities from outside of Europe – Afghan, Armenia, Burundi, Cameroon, Cuba, China, DR Congo, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Iraq, Nepal, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Thailand, UAE, Zimbabwe…..

• and 14 from within East and West Europe – Romania, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Albania……

• Coffee shops, restaurants, take-aways, markets, clothes shops, fruit & veg, butchers.

• Pubs, music venues, sports facilities, parks and playgrounds

Cultural Identity

“Unlike a drop of water which loses its identity when it joins the ocean, man does not lose his being in the society in which he lives.”

- B. R. Ambedkar

Historically Evolved Cultural Traditions

• Social norms• Rules of engagement• Roles and responsibilities• Mediating artefacts• Paradigm• How do we understand the impact of this on

identity, development/learning and agency?

Cultural Historical Activity Theory

Institutions of Life

Family

Community

Peer Group

School

Cultural Clash

• Family Community Peer Group School Family

• Mediated Identity

Multiple Interacting Activity Systems

RulesCommunity

SubjectObject

Division of Labour

Mediating Artefacts

RulesCommunity

SubjectObject

Division of Labour

Outcome

Mediating Artefacts

Rules Community

Subject Object

Division of Labour

Mediating Artefacts

Rules Community

Subject Object

Division of Labour

Mediating Artefacts

HOME PEER GROUP

SCHOOL COMMUNITY

LEARNING & DEVELOPMENT

Barriers to learning

British Education System

Multiple Cultural Paradigms

It’s all about quality

• What impact does the quality of the school have on learning?

• But• What is ‘quality’? How is it defined? Who

defines it?

Review• Our identities are influenced by our identifying and uniting

with others in our ‘communities’.• How we identify and unite is conditioned by our cultural

heritage and our environments.• Our cultural identity is manifest in our activities including

how we learn.• Young people living in areas of deprivation face significant

challenges to their learning• Young people from BME and White Working Class cultural

backgrounds face further challenges due to a cultural misalliance in the classroom

• The use of a critical Cultural Historical Activity Theory process is required to align teaching with learning and subsequently quality measures with both

“One cannot expect positive results from an educational or political action program which fails to respect the particular view of the world held by the people. Such a program constitutes cultural invasion, good intentions notwithstanding.”

Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Matt Jacobs - Director

info@kmjaperspectives.comwww.kmjaperspectives.com