Jessica Dowd

During my time with the Borderscapes programme I designed a workshop based on language and identity across social borders. I had a great time with this concept and the designing of my workshop as it allowed me to look through other people's eyes and see how the way they communicate allows them to move across several different social borders and spaces.

Through the workshop I was also able to use the way people communicate to open up the floor to conversations about xenophobia and accent racism; by talking about these things with students I was able to destigmatise false narratives about Liverpudlians that had personally had negative impacts on my own life.

Through this I was able to connect with students who had felt negative stigmas from biases used against their own social borders and help them break down any stigmas they may have had. Through running the workshop at three separate schools – two same sex and one mixed school – I found that the students in each institution took to the workshop differently.

The co-ed school took to the program the best with the majority of students happily engaging, then the all-boys school due to it being a smaller group and then finally the all-girls school. Each school had students coming from a range of backgrounds and cultures and all participated wonderfully however if this workshop was to be carried out further, I would suggest that it is up to the convener to assess how likely the students are to take to some of the activities.

If I could give any tips to teachers, it would be to make the workshop as light-hearted as possible, I found using anecdotes from my own life or that of my friends to make the students engage more in the discussion. The workshop is important, so as much as I delivered it with a jovial tone and disposition, I also made sure to home in on the real-life consequences of the separation of social borders.

A further note for teachers, I ran this workshop in Liverpool so many of my resources are aimed towards this city, I would personalise the workshop for your hometown for the best results!