This HEA C-SAP funded project explores how social science students draw on their diverse backgrounds and community cultural capital in developing resilience within multicultural learning environments with a view to identifying curriculum and pedagogic practices which enable social science students to become future resilient thinkers in their lives and careers after university. Evidence from the literature suggests that whilst students value working in the ‘international classroom’ benefits from these cross-cultural encounters tend to be incidental in the absence of the conscious use of difference in the curriculum which is resilience-based and meaning-orientated. Thus the ultimate aim of the project is to identify curriculum and pedagogic practices that enable students to develop as ‘resilient thinkers’ through understanding the dynamics of difference and resilience.
The project was planned in four phases with phases one and two involving initial set-up literature review design of research tools securing ethical approval for the project and data collection via staff and student narrative interviews. Phases three and four have involved data analysis and interpretation the development of case studies and dissemination of outcomes.
