module specification

This module introduces the latest theories and best practice for community engagement using socially-engaged art methods and creative co-production in ‘New Commons’ thinking. The module asks you to critically engage with issues of social justice and care and to question engagement models that are conventionally municipal and managerial.

A key aim of this module is to learn how to engage to empower beneficiaries and stakeholders to have influence rather than simply to consult. Whilst the former is about enabling a shift in systems the latter is utilised to maintain a system. The module is delivered through a series of lectures encompassing a range of disciplines and community engagement methods in citizenship, socially-engaged art and design and theory of change. The seminars and workshops that follow the lectures put the theories learned into practice. This can be a challenge to professional students who may not have such projects at hand at which point we can place you in a project at the start of the module. Within the workshops you will discuss and design your role, methods of collaboration and co-production and your relationship with potential partners and institutions. You will be encouraged to publicly present your methods in real-world scenarios.

You will be asked to visualise your methods through appropriate media to communicate key findings in the engagement process. As your projects will be embedded in social contexts you will learn about ethical dilemmas and the ethics of care. Readings on social psychology and concepts of inclusion will support an understanding of how to design situated and specific engagement methods. You will develop skills for cooperative and collaborative working that can lead to social impact inside and outside the classroom. You will be taught to assess impact through simple monitoring and evaluation methods. The final conceptualistion of community engagement and its impact analysis is done through the framework of the New Commons.

The module’s aim is to enable you to deliver community engagement for organisations that may range from private companies to public and third sector organisations. The community engagement methods can also be applied within teams at work situations. Community engagement is a craft that is individual in style and is perfected the more it is practised, reflected on and improved.

Workshops, seminars and lectures will include:

Empowering community engagement methods in urban contexts (LO1-6);

Best practice for facilitation and co-production mapped against power relationships (LO1);

Qualitative and quantitative methods to deliver inclusion (LO6);

Social impact and social value critical analysis methods (LO2, 3, 6);

Constructing the commons (LO5);

Impactful socially-engaged art and design projects (LO2, 3);

Socialisation and crowd psychology in construction of values (LO5).

All lecture material will be accessible online and lectures will be video recorded enabling remote learning.

You will be offered a combination of lectures, seminars and workshops where tutors will work directly with you on your chosen projects/case studies.

Independent learning includes:

Peer review and critiques

You will be asked to critique each other’s analytical work. There will be group activities in developing your analysis of institutional design or systems you chose as case study and you will be asked to present your analysis to relevant external bodies including your own place of work or others offered through the course;

Public Presentations

These enable you to have alternative and real-life input into your ongoing analysis work through which you will also learn the presentation skills appropriate to your unique project and character: the public nature of the presentations will provide platform for debate and engagement in the wider world;

Self-directed study

This is core to the module and used as the preparation for discussions, seminars and workshops, planning your studies and reviewing your personal development as an ongoing process.

On successful completion of the module, to the standard expected at Level 7, you will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding

1. Demonstrate a knowledge of practice models for community engagement in urban contexts; 

2. Explain the empowering role of art and design in urban practices;

Cognitive Intellectual Abilities

3. Assess the level of impact empowering projects have on society and the planet; 

Transferable Skills

4. Understand and apply the role of art and design practices in creating empowering and engaged projects;

Subject-Specific Practical Skills

5. Construct parameters for inclusive leadership and advocacy for care-based practices;

Professionalism and Values

6. Apply inclusive delivery methods.

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