Editorial – Volume 2 (2)
Introduction
Welcome to the fourth issue of Exchanges: the Warwick Research Journal.
This issue completes the second volume of the journal and continues in
promoting cross-disciplinary research through the publication of high quality
articles. This issue includes articles from a range of disciplines including
sociology, education, classics and ancient history, literature, history, film
and nanoscience.
This issue coincides with the
celebration of University of Warwick's 50th anniversary year 2015. The
University of Warwick first opened its doors in 1965, with the first intake of
students to its campus in October that year. In its first 50 years, the
University has undergone enormous change, with the continual development of
buildings, courses and its international research profile.
To mark this important milestone, the
University is hosting a number of events throughout the year, such as the 1965
intake reunion, the festival of the imagination and the Warwick music festival.
The Institute of Advanced Study at the University of Warwick is making a
significant contribution to mark the 50th anniversary through its oral history
project, 'Voices
of the University: Memories of Warwick, 1965-2015'. So far, over 200
hundred people who have studied and worked at the University or lived nearby
have shared their memories of the University charting its life over the last
half century.
Exchange,
debate, and dialogue
To make our contribution to the 50th
anniversary celebrations, we have interviews with University of Warwick alumna
and world-renown children's author, Anne Fine and University of Warwick's
rising star, Dr Michael Scott, Associate Professor in Classics and Ancient
History.
Philip Gaydon who's currently studying
for a PhD in philosophy and literature at the University of Warwick takes the
opportunity to discuss with Anne Fine her views on the role literature plays in
the education of children. Fine talks candidly about her experience as
Children's Laureate and her writing process where she discusses her motivations
and inspirations.
Dr Ersin Hussein, who has recently
completed her PhD in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Warwick,
talks to Dr Michael Scott about his passion for ancient history and archaeology.
In their conversation, they cover a number of topics such as the concept of
space and the importance of interdisciplinarity to the field. They also discuss
his numerous radio and TV series, such as his BBC Radio 4 documentary, Spin the Globe, where Michael Scott
talks about how these projects came about.
Featured
section: Inequality in Teaching – Innovation in Methods
Demonstrating the forward thinking
approach that the University of Warwick fosters, two PhD students, Siobhan
Dytham and Carli Ria Rowell organised a two-day conference (November 2014) with
the support of the ERSC Doctoral Training Centre, which sought to bring together
researchers who investigate alternative ways of researching inequality in
education. The huge success of this event has been documented by bringing
together a collection of articles that reflect the research presented at the
event.
Opening this featured section, Inequality in Education – Innovation in
Methods, Dytham and Rowell chart the background and development of the
conference, and introduce the articles we have featured in this issue. Their
introductory comments are followed by contributions from the two keynote
speakers, Dr Nicola Ingram and Professor Melanie Nind, who discuss their own
research in this field. The conference explored three main themes: innovative
research methods, disability, and race and class. The articles featured in this
special section, written by postgraduate students, represent each of these
themes.
In Farhat Syyeda's article, 'A Picture
is Worth a Thousand Words: Examining learners’ illustrations to understand
Attitudes towards Mathematics' she presents a case study, which explores the
attitudes of secondary school children (ages 11 and 15) towards Mathematics. In
promoting innovative research methods, she discusses her use of encouraging
students to draw pictures as an alternative medium of communication to the
standard verbal approach. Syyeda argues that this enables students greater
opportunity to express themselves, which can provide greater insight into their
emotional and cognitive responses to mathematics, helping us to better
understand their attitudes.
On the theme of disability, Jacqui
Shepherd in her article ‘Interrupted Interviews’: listening to young people
with autism in transition to college', discusses innovative methods to improve access
to important data on attitudes of students with autism to their move from secondary
education to further education colleges. Her research project focused on the
lived experiences of young people with autism as they made the transition from
special schools to mainstream colleges of Further Education. Shepherd makes a
convincing case that in conducting research in the sociology of education, it
is essential to include visual and embodied methods for capturing the attitudes
of participants, in this case, making use of photographs alongside tours with
the participants.
With specific focus on the issue of class,
Jessica Faye Heal in 'Research with School Students: Four Innovative Methods
Used to Explore Effective Teaching' outlines four research methods to enhance
how students from low-income backgrounds engage in research exploring effective
teaching. These methods include semi-structured interviews, child-led classroom
tours and a creative ‘draw and tell’ approach. Heal argues for the need to
disrupt the researcher-participant power imbalance in order to successfully
research certain groups of students.
We conclude the featured section with
'Reflections and considerations' from the two conference organisers, Siobhan
Dytham and Carli Ria Rowell. In addition to drawing out dominant themes that
emerged from the conference, they also discuss the possibilities that
innovative methods offer in terms of including a wider range of participants in
research and increasing opportunities for participants to be involved with the
research process and communicate effectively. The article ends with some
ethical considerations in relation to new and innovative research methods
before drawing to a conclusion.
Creativity
in research and teaching
Reflecting on the articles published
in this issue, the central theme that unites all of the articles is creativity.
An important aspect of both teaching and research. Creativity in teaching is an
essential part of providing a good education, enabling students to think for
themselves and develop crucial transferable skills. And, of course, creativity
in research is essential in making those break-throughs; to make discoveries,
we need to find a way of moving into new territory.
But how do we cultivate and develop
such creativity? This is the question addressed by Monica Murgia's article,
'Teaching Synaesthesia as a Gateway to Creativity'. Here, she describes her
innovative approach to teaching fashion by cultivating and developing students'
creativity. By encouraging her students to investigate cross-modal responses to
stimuli, this pushed the students beyond their default responses to consider
the depth and breadth of possible response, which Murgia found led to greater
creative output. Murgia also describes how this innovative approach to teaching
has informed her own practice as an artist, showing the benefit for both
student and teaching in research-led teaching.
Innovative
approaches at the University of Warwick
In
addition to our featured section on
'Inequality in Education, Innovation in Methods', this issue also
includes two
further reflections on innovative, interdisciplinary conferences that
have
recently taken place at the University of Warwick, economic historian
Karolina
Hutkova's 'The Global Trade of Textiles and Clothing in the Early
Modern
Period: Exchange, Meaning and Materialities' and
nano-scientists Robin and Davies' 'Emerging Nanomaterials for
Healthcare'.
In Karolina Hutkova's article, she
reflects on the event, 'The
Global Trade of Textiles and Clothing in the Early Modern Period: Exchange,
Meaning and Materialities', which took place November 2014 at the University of
Warwick. This event brought together early career researchers investigating aspects
of textile history, including production, consumption, trade, fashion, and
design. Hutkova discuss the success of the event in drawing broader conclusions
about the role of textiles and clothing in the development of societies,
cultures and economies.
Robin and Davies, both research
fellows at the Institute of Advanced study, reflect on their one-day conference
“Emerging Nanomaterials for
Healthcare”, which was held at the University of Warwick on 28 November 2014. In
this critical reflection, Robin and Davies provide an overview of the event
which aimed to provide an interdisciplinary forum to discuss research towards
solving current problems in healthcare using “smart” treatments based on
nanomaterials. They reflect on evidence of successful applications of
nanomaterials in providing solutions to issues in healthcare that emerged from
the conference, as well as considering future directions for this important
area of research.
Finally, in the article,
'Interrogating Practices of Gender, Religion and Nationalism in the
Representation of Muslim Women in Bollywood: Contexts of Change, Sites of
Continuity' by Sociology PhD students at the University of Warwick, Nazia
Hussein and Saba Hussain, further demonstrates the excellent interdisciplinary
and innovative work being undertaken at the university.
In this article, the authors analyse four
recent Bollywood films to show the role Bollywood plays in the creation
of hierarchical identities in the Indian society. The article focuses on
the representation of Muslim heroines in these films. The authors argue that
the nature of the recent deployment of Muslim heroines in Bollywood
reinforce the hierarchy between genders, communities and nations.
Thanks
Many thanks for your continued support
of the journal; our readers play an important part in the life of the journal. We
hope you find this issue as stimulating as we have and that the connections
that emerge, not just between the articles but also with your own research,
will lead to exciting avenues for the future of our disciplines. We also remind
you to join in the discussion with our new Disqus
function, which allows you to share your thoughts or ask questions about
the individual articles.
Finally, we want all of the peer
reviewers who volunteered their time to read each of our submissions carefully
and provide helpful, constructive comments for our authors. We also want to
thank Yvonne Budden, Scholarly Communications Manager, University of Warwick
Library, for her continued support and assistance with the development of the
journal.
We look forward to the next issue,
which is due to be published in October 2015 and will feature an interview with
Professor Michael Levitt.
The
Editors
Melina Dritsaki / Warwick Medical School
Ersin Hussein / Classics and Ancient
History
Elisa Lopez-Lucia / Politics and
International Studies
Misato Matsuoka / Politics and
International Studies
Karen Simecek / Philosophy and
Literature