'Oldham is for Everybody': Exploring identity and community cohesion through creativity

Centre for Urban Education

Creative Practitioners use drama-based processes, techniques and photography to support young people from three schools to explore their individual and collective sense of identity and community. A values-based enquiry of public spaces in the local urban environment.

Pupils first met for three days in December 2009. Initial work took place at the City Learning Centre at South Chadderton High School for drama activities and training in photography techniques, and then again for editing and some initial analysis of photographic outcomes and project impact. Oldham town centre was the outside location for their photoshoot.

The drama activities enabled pupils to explore their own reality and other alternate possibilities from within their own imagination or the experience and imagination of others.

The photography project enabled them to explore locations of "inclusion" and "exclusion" of people from "different backgrounds" (age, religion, gender, wealth etc), and to stimulate discussion of what might constitute and encourage or discourage "meaningful interaction" between "different" people.

Much of this latter phase of reflection and discussion took place in an event which brought some of the original participants together again in June 2010 for an evaluation afternoon.

Young people were initially consulted through three focus group interviews (one in each school, with groups of four pupils) to identify their personal geographies (places where they go/don't go) to help identify locations for the photoshoot. They then took part in a series of drama-activities (12 pupils from each school) which aimed to explore notions of identity, values and "place", and a photoshoot in Oldham town centre. Finally some of the participants (four pupils from each school) met up again to reflect on their photographs and experiences of working together as a contribution to evaluating the work done so far.

Deputy-head teachers at each of the three schools (as designated co-ordinators for the Creative Partnerships programme) took a central role in planning throughout the project, setting objectives, helping to shape activities, and taking key decisions about numbers of pupils to be involved and time questions (e.g. when? how long?).

Project objectives

Perceived benefits (outcomes requested by teachers) was for pupils to spend enjoyable time with other young people who they did not know.

Further to this was the hope that pupils might begin to develop a more complex understanding of "identity" (their own and that of other people) as fluid and plural rather than fixed and monolithic, and also that they might begin to reflect on the idea of "community" as being grounded in the sharing of values in a certain location (eg. Oldham town centre).

Who was involved?

Two creative agents: Richard Shotton & Noah Rose
(research, planning, co-ordination, management)

Three Schools:

• Breeze Hill High School (12 pupils)
• Grange High school (12 pupils)
• South Chadderton High School (12 pupils)

One cultural organisation: Peshkar Theatre Ltd - design and delivery of drama-based activities

Two evidence gatherers:

• David Eaton & team (photographer) - design and delivery of photographic activities
• Ray Baxter (Turning Tides Ltd) - design and delivery of values-based reflective activities

Impact

The impact of this programme includes:

For the pupils: To spend time together and form positive relationship. Pupils spoke of how the need for teamwork in the shared tasks (photography and drama) ensured that there was "meaningful interaction".

Pupils also developed photo skills, through which they gained a new awareness of Oldham, looking at the town in a "more mature" way, no longer "like kids playing in the park", not thinking about the world around them, but now curious about what the park means and represents, why they like going there, and why any of this matters.

The project saw the beginnings of an awareness amongst pupils of the notion of "public space", a wider appreciation of diversity (not only as an ethnic issue but also to include age, gender, upbringing, and wealth). Through their own photography and reflection pupils began to understand how certain locations are more (or less) inclusive than others, either welcoming everybody, just some or only a select few. Pupils recognised that places they thought of as "public" (such as the town centre shopping mall) are in fact private, set up primarily to serve the private commercial interests of their owners rather than the public. Pupils recognised this in the mall's policy against the homeless (barred entry to the building because they have no money to spend) and against the taking of photographs (ownership of commercial rights).

Pupils also spent time discussing what makes for (or hinders) "meaningful interaction" between diverse people, and showed a strong understanding of their own fears (they would generally only talk to unfamiliar young people if they could "predict" how those people might react), and the problem of who should take the first risky step forward to extend trust.

For the professional practitioners: Learning through this project that creativity (drama/photography) successfully provides the freedom for young people to explore identity from new/different perspectives, and developing confidence that the approach works, based on sound research and methodology. There are some challenges, however, hopefully to resolve during the next project phases. Perhaps the most important is the issue of scale: we have worked with just 36 pupils from three schools so far, compared to the thousands who will experience either a school merger of relocation in the near future. We want to scale up our successful project and test delivery on a larger/wider scale.

Results

Several thousand photographs, available in a range of edited packages (computer-based or print format - photos were sent to India to form part of an exhibition); events were captured on video, available in a 5- and 10-minute edit.

The project will continue through 2010-11, with plans to extend involvement to larger numbers of pupils and schools, and to make greater use of new media and ICT through existing and additional partners as we seek to engage with the wider community. These ideas emerged from a consultation exercise with teachers, potential creative partners and local authority representatives in March 2010. A similar consultation with young people has been proposed for late 2010.

The project forms the focus of a PhD study being conducted by Richard Shotton. The findings will be presented at a CUE event, taking place at The Lowry, UK on 8 July 2010, and also at an international conference in Iran on "Multiculturalism and diversity in an age of globalisation" in late July 2010. It is likely to feature in further conference presentations and published articles next year.