Link to ethical action plan here
Tutor feedback
Ethical Action Plan feedback
Stephen – thanks for getting this together. It’s good to see your thinking starting to materialise.
There are some big concepts being brought together here, and I wonder if a little filtering out might be required in order to keep a tight and feasible focus. For example, you raise widening participation and the awarding gap alongside inclusive learning strategies and decolonising the curriculum. All of these are linked of course, but for the purposes of your project, which ultimately requires tangible change in (only) your own practice, it would be more pragmatic to hone in on one or two theoretical principles. From our conversations in class it seems that decolonising typography is the overarching aim. And it is a necessary one. My advice is to stick with this, and treat the rest of your yr3 classes this term as a petri dish for trying smaller activities that stretch your teaching of typography towards this noble goal.
Re your proposed method of survey – it may be worth considering the inherent normativity of surveys. How they design answers. How they preclude additional thought. And the constraints provided by the design elements of small boxes, exercises of ticking and leaving blank. Are there other ways of asking your students and peers about how typography needs to change? Of course. Lean into your designerly self and allow the possibility of design research methods to enter how you conduct the primary research part of this.
We talked about them creating a provisional typeface that speak of their identity/heritage. This is a great idea – it might just be a quick class activity rather than a huge part of the brief. Photograph the results. Visually analyse them. Use them as the basis for a recorded discussion.
Given what you plan to do, I think you might need to think about how you seek consent (in terms of using data generated). Take a look at the template Participant Consent Form andInformation Sheet in the Ethics folder (under Week 1) on Moodle.
Remember – nothing needs to fix anything, so relieve yourself of that burden. But anything you do should genuinely be in the pursuit of change. That’s all we ask!
Looking forward to hearing about how it goes. Would also like to hear about what you have been reading on decol and whether you’ve found anything on decolonising typography.