Tag: #ethical action plan

Background to study:

A critical incident observed during a presentation workshop illustrated for me a lack of inclusivity endemic within the university. There were seven home students and one Chinese. The Chinese student sat alone at the front, so I asked the student to sit with the others so that she could participate in group work. However, the home students worked together and still excluded the Chinese student (Holmes, 2025a). The refusal of the home students to be inclusive inspired me devise a translanguaging intervention to optimize the potential for multicultural communication (Garcia, 2009, p.140). This activity involved students to handwriting in their own language on a whiteboard and then building a discussion around this, which also aims to focus attention away from the digitally mediated space and into the classroom space, and responds to discussions I had with PG Diploma Fashion course leader Tim Williams regarding strategies to develop an approach to (machine) translation (see IP blog post: Holmes 2025a)

Research Question:

How do students’ expressions of attitudes and feelings about participating in a multilingual translation intervention act as indicators of the underlying *doxa and habitus that facilitate or constrain the development of a transformative and inclusive multilingual identity and learning environment?

• *Doxa – taken-for-granted assumptions of the social world that typically conceal power relations’ (Bourdieu, 1993)
• *Habitus – habits of perception, classification, appreciation, feeling, and action (Bourdieu, 1977)

Objectives

To evaluate the validity of using the ‘multilingual backgrounds of students (and *tutors) as a pedagogic resource and as a legitimate part of classroom and creative practice’ (Odeniyi, 2022, p. 73).

Develop a transformative and multilingual identity and learning environment at UAL.

*the first action research cycles focuses on student participants – however the future cycle will also include educators.

Contents of ARP blog:

1. Research Question/ Objectives/ Ethical Action Plan/ Action Plan (+ Contents)
2. Methods #1: A view from the swamp
3. Methods #2: Guerilla research
4. Rationale for making languages visible
5. Methods #3: A reflexive view (from higher ground) both above and below the waterline.
6. Noticing #1: Flipping the classroom
7. Noticing #2: Narration of learner/noticer
8. So what: What now? (+ Master Reference List).

DATA REDUCTION:

Coding #1 – Survey Qual *NB: Initially a metalinguistic analysis although a thematic analysis was used for the study- this focused on a content analysis approach which was then developed as a discourse analysis approach following a critical realist frame. The final presentation of the data reduction illustrates the CR frame and possible implications (see presentation in blog post 8).

Coding #2 Aggregate of codes_ sub themes

Data Reduction_ Sub themes_ Themes:

Here is a link to the Ethical Action Plan Document for the action research project:

Ian Holmes_Ethical Action Plan 2025-26.docx

Here is a copy of the annotated version – addressing points raised by tutor John O’Reilly:

Here is an example consent form for interviews:

Here is a link to the anonymous survey/ questionnaire MS form which was sent via Moodle to 3 x PG Marketing, MA FDM, MA FEI, PG Dip FM at LCF:

Action Research Project – Making Languages Visible in the Language Development Classroom  – Fill in form

(487 words)

References:

García, Ofelia (2009). ‘Education, multilingualism and translanguaging in the 21st century.’ In: Ajit Mohanty, Minati  Panda, Robert  Phillipson and Tove Skutnabb-Kangas (eds). Multilingual Education for Social Justice: Globalising the local. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, pp. 128-145

Holmes, I. (2025a) IP Unit_ Reflective Report. Available at: https://pgcertianholmes2025.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2025/07/15/intervention-reflective-report_-fostering-inclusivity-in-the-international-multi-lingual-multi-cultural-university-space/ (Accessed 12 December 2025)