Critical intersections of health, vulnerability, and discomfort in education: touching the students’ lives with arts-based autobiography to build a caring university community

Research project description

For the last five years, we have been experimenting with the writing of autobiographical accounts with the university students enrolled in the Socio-Cultural Gender Studies Degree (UAB). Through the reconstruction of their previous experiences in education: family, primary and secondary school, friends and lovers, non-formal education and leisure, several experiences of pain, abuse, discrimination, and violence have been shared. Recently, we approached to these narratives from intersectionality to understand how they inhabit and resist the multiple oppressions coming from the educational field –in terms of social class, gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, and health– with the aim of developing feminist inclusive pedagogies. The excavation and socialization of the pre-university biographies promote a caring university community while reflecting on pedagogy from gender theories. 

Methodologically, biographical narrative inquiry serves to analyze the contexts of education and to stop the abusive, unequal, and unhealthy relations (Foradada & López, 2022; Hernández & Rifà, 2011). Using arts-based methods (Chamorro & Rifà, 2023), we explore a diversity of languages (poetry, visual arts, music, performance) that do not contribute to revictimize the students and train them as future professionals. We have already detected some topics in the narratives: the fragile identities of youth and children; roles, stereotypes, and expectations; decolonizing knowledges and pedagogical relations; non-normative bodies and neurodiversity; feminist education against violences (sexism, homophobia, racism); school harassment; and gender identity and sexuality.

This research interprets the experiences and offers a more systematized space to bring some strategies to transform discomfort and vulnerability in a pedagogy of affects in higher education.

Furthermore, the research will contribute to the skills of teachers, counsellors, and gender units to achieve more inclusive universities. 

Academic background / Skills

Candidates must hold a degree that allows admission to the official doctoral programme at UAB.  

Additional requirements for a stronger application are: 

Training requirements: 

• University Master’s Degree in Research in Education, Social Psychology or Social Sciences 
• University degree in Education, Psychology, Anthropology, Gender Studies or related areas 

• Gender perspective in research 
• English Advanced (C1) 

Experience that will be valued: 

• Participation in community projects  
• Previous experience in vulnerability and well-being 
• Training in inclusive pedagogies and narrative research 

Skills required: 

• Mediation and active listening 
• Systematic study and critical analysis 
• Team work habilities, flexibility and problem-solving skills 

Research group/s description

The interdisciplinary research group ATLAS – Critical Intersections in Education focuses on the analysis of the inequalities, interdependencies, and experiences of the subjects in education (children, young people, families, education professionals…).

From a critical perspective, we propose an educational transformation, based on equity and agency, to resist and contest the multiple forms of discrimination and exclusion collectively.