Abstract

As a lecturer I introduced visits to art galleries, use of TV, movies and music in theory modules. This led to co-creation in assessment where students chose their own sources that were meaningful to their identities. The importance of enabling them to find ways to connect personally to sources without necessarily having to make personal or ideological disclosures proved effective. Most chose to work with visual sources over and above all others and the impact was considerable. When teaching post structural theorists, I connected theory with their own chosen movies. Their work became deeply interpretive, theoretical, and critical. They skilfully theorised race, gender, class, nationality and sexuality. This teaching approach created a learning environment where the most intensely personal aspects of identity were analysed. This experience led to my professional collaboration with community arts and creation of interdisciplinary sociological and participatory arts conferences. This innovation also led to interdisciplinary conference on Visual Methods on learning and Teaching and then further community engagement with ESRC Festivals of Social Science interdisciplinary conferences entitled Parenting: Nature Nurture Future which brought together environmentalists, artists, sociologists’ film theorists and historians. This interdisciplinary community engagement was held in collaboration with a local arts project called Thought-Foundation. The event achieved considerable reach out and was featured on a Participatory Arts radio. The feedback has been from wide ranging practitioners, for example in Child and Language development, environmentalists, artists and educators lead me to seek further discussion with sociologists about power of the visual.