Picturing Diversity: A Resource for Student Police Officers

This paper will discuss the recently completed ‘Picturing Diversity’ project. ‘Picturing Diversity’ is a learning resource, primarily for student police officers who study the Foundation Degree in Police Studies at the University of Huddersfield. It enables members of diverse communities to talk about their experiences of equality and diversity issues, linked to the different strands of diversity.

Currently student police officers perceive that the ‘Equality, Diversity and Rights’ module gives them the tools with which to consider issues of equality and diversity, but there is little scope for experiential learning. The idea behind Picturing Diversity is that students get an insight into the authentic, “lived experiences” of community members via short video interviews. It also aims to highlight good practice and the promotion of social justice around the police service’s engagement with communities, which is particularly significant in the context of the move towards Neighbourhood Policing Teams (NPT).

The paper will discuss the rationale behind developing this resource, and how it will enhance learning and teaching on the ‘Equality, Diversity and Rights’ module. It will articulate some of the challenges and rewards involved in engaging student police officers in diversity issues, in a context where many of the available video resources focus exclusively on negative police practice. It will also outline our strategies for including members of diverse communities in the development of this resource and address some of the methodological issues encountered.