City of Glasgow College – External review 24 August 2012
Sector-leading practice
Embracing Diversity Competition
The college has enhanced its approaches to equality and diversity by means of a
competition open to all learners, entitled Embracing Diversity. This has developed
from an earlier initiative in one of the legacy colleges. The competition’s aim is to
raise awareness of equality and diversity by integrating them within learning and
teaching. Several programme areas have incorporated the competition into projects
which demand creative exploration and positive promotion of complex and
challenging themes including social justice, legislative compliance and cultural
diversity. Learners have freedom to express their ideas in a format of their choice,
for example a painting, photograph, T Shirt, poem, cooking project, business idea or
film. Entries can be either individual or group pieces of work. Judging at the
competition is carried out in an objective way by representatives from external
equality organisations and key college staff with prizes awarded to winning entries.
The Diversity and Equalities Working Group provides very effective support to the
learners and staff undertaking the competition. This includes presentations to
groups of learners exploring equality and diversity themes. Teaching staff then
support learners to develop their own ideas and be creative in their approach to the
themes. Learners present their work to their peers at different stages of
development which helps them to articulate their ideas, justify their viewpoints and
participate in constructive and respectful discussions. Learners are encouraged and
motivated by this part of the process which helps to develop positive, cooperative
working relationships with their peers. The project is also helping teaching staff to
widen their awareness of how to contextualise equality and diversity within the
curriculum in a natural way. This fits very well with aspects of Curriculum for
Excellence. All learners involved in the competition have valued the experience very
much and stated that it is a ‘fun way to learn about such serious topics’.
The awards ceremony and winning entries have a very high profile in college life. In
previous years, winning entries have been used in college campaigns and publicity
material. This raises awareness of equality and diversity across the college, from
the learner perspective. The standard of entries is very high and demonstrates a
wide range of imaginative approaches to equality and diversity.