This event was recorded as part of a live broadcast on 27 September 2022.
The modern educational system is designed around academic performance, university admissions and preparing students for their professional careers. But there is less emphasis on the promotion of the skills associated with facilitating inter-cultural dialogue, such as communication, listening, and openness. And this issue isn’t limited to school curricula; classrooms often lack in racial, gender, religious and sexual diversity.
Schools and universities represent ideal platforms to encourage the development of intercultural dialogue in society. Embracing different cultures in the classroom is crucial for uniting communities, developing an awareness of different cultural perspectives, and promoting open-mindedness, tolerance, and empathy.
This event brings together educators, academics, and non-profit leaders to explore how to enhance intercultural exchange in schools, universities, and curricula. Our discussion will focus on how we can devise a curriculum to produce a more well-rounded cultural education of our youth. We will look at how we can we bring together students of different cultural backgrounds to learn and exchange experiences together.
The Aspen Institute UK, in partnership with the Khalili Foundation, explore these pertinent questions. It is part of the wider World Festival of Cultural Diversity which, in association with UNESCO, is bringing together various intellectual and creative initiatives in collective celebration of our world’s cultures.
MODERATED BY:
James Westhead – James is Head of Engagement at Big Society Capital, responsible for building awareness and understanding of social impact investment and helping grow the social impact market. He leads the Engagement Group which includes investor engagement, social sector engagement and communications. Prior to joining Big Society Capital, for ten years James was part of the leadership team of the education charity Teach First and helped build it into the largest recruiter of graduates developing teachers and leaders for schools most in need. He previously worked as a BBC News Correspondent, specialising in education, health and social issues.
ON THE PANEL:
Victor Adebowale – Victor is a non-Executive Director of the Co-Operative Group, Collaborate CIC and Nuffield Health. He is the Chair and Co-Founder of Visionable and Founder of Leadership in Mind, and Chair of Social Enterprise UK and the NHS Confederation. Victor has recently stepped down as the CEO of Turning Point, a social enterprise providing health and social care interventions to approximately 100,000 people per year. He was awarded a CBE for services to the unemployed and homeless people, and became a crossbench peer in 2001. Victor is a visiting Professor and Chancellor at the University of Lincoln.
Faiqa Amreen – Faiqa is the Head of History and the Park View School and Professional Development Specialist at Lyfta. Over a decade of teaching history, Faiqa supported students by cultivating a decolonized classroom in secondary schools in New York City and London. Her own lived experience as a student in the New York City public school system and as a child of refugees is critical to her investigations of how stories are learned, taught and remembered. She has been a leader in developing new curriculum that uncovers the stories that are obscured by traditional pedagogy. Her current work focuses on oral history projects amongst South Asian communities in the UK.
Zulum Elumogo – Zulum Elumogo is a Special Advisor at Freuds Communications. He was General Secretary (President) and Chairman of the LSE Students’ Union from 2018 to 2020, making him the first black man to hold the position in the LSE’s 125-year history. He is on the Board of Directors for the Fair Education Alliance, Dance Umbrella and the Barbican Centre, Europe’s largest multi-arts venue.
Tariq Modood – Tariq is Professor of Sociology, Politics and Public Policy and founding Director of the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship at the University of Bristol and the co-founder of the journal, Ethnicities. He was appointed an MBE by the Queen for services to social sciences and ethnic relations in 2001, made a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (UK) in 2004 and elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2017. His latest books include ‘Essays on Secularism and Multiculturalism’, ‘Multiculturalism: A Civic Idea’; and as co-editor ‘Multiculturalism and Interculturalism’ and ‘The Problem of Religious Diversity: European Problems, Asian Challenges’.