The educator: gatekeeper or enabler

The educator - gatekeeper or enabler? Working towards a practical toolset for understanding barriers and seizing opportunities to activate expanded fashion practice in education. Students and educators are waking up to the social, cultural, political and environmental impacts of fashion. They aim to challenge the status quo, traditional practices, value systems in fashion and transcend the current capitalist paradigm. However there are often barriers (institutional and individual) that inhibit the agency of educators to, with their students, expand the fashion field. The aim of this workshop is to create a safe space for discussing barriers faced in teaching progressive fashion and approaches already created to overcome them. This workshop serves as a first step towards creating a shared practical toolset for enabling educational change.