Celebrating Languages in schools and communities

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I am a PhD candidate at Nottingham Trent University and I am additionally supported by University of Nottingham and ChalleNGe Cultural Education Partnership through the Universities for Nottingham Collaboratory programme. 

My PhD project is on safeguarding, celebrating and engaging Nottingham’s communities with their living culture, specifically the city’s many language heritages and dialects. My research interests include identity, community, wellbeing, sustainability and power structures. Before starting my PhD, my research focused on Russian, Polish and Translation Studies, with a particular emphasis on mixed-languages and minority communities. I am also a practicing artist from Nottingham. As a musician, I have composed, performed and exhibited nationally and internationally with other artists.

What I hope to learn and why:

· My PHD project will develop and evaluate approaches to supporting the city’s language heritages, including multilingualism

· I aim to provide new insights and potential strategies that can build positive, equitable and sustainable outcomes for the city and it’s residents.  

· Existing research shows that language heritage plays a large role in individual and community identities. Celebrations of living culture have the potential to improve feelings of belonging, support community cohesion and create a more diverse, inclusive society. 

What, how and when?

My project and practice is influenced by bottom-up approaches such as the UNESCO 2003 convention of Intangible Cultural Heritage and community asset-based approaches. 

Across 2025-2026, I aim to collaborate with 2 primary schools, 2 cultural organisations and 2 grassroots-community organisations. 

Firstly, I will find out about the existing motivations and needs of each school and organisation; shaping research methods together so that engagement tools and celebratory moments feed into existing initiatives. 

On-site observations, interviews and focus groups will give me a first-hand perspective of a range of views about the importance of safeguarding and celebrating living culture and how this can be strengthened.  

Finally, I will analyse and reflect on these findings; sharing insights with ChalleNGe cultural education partners and networks via the website, newsletters and events.  Together, we will champion ways in which Nottingham’s cultural, grassroots and education sectors can lead on safeguarding and celebrating living culture and language heritages. 

What do you think?

I would love to hear from you about your experiences with celebrating languages, dialects and other forms of living culture. Have you and your communities found ways to celebrate your culture and heritages? Has this become part of any regular or annual events? Perhaps you have seen interesting and innovative ways that practitioners, institutions or policy makers have worked with and for communities to support engagement with culture and heritage. 

One of the core fundamentals to this PhD project is the bringing together of communities to support and celebrate the culture and heritages they already own – we are all co-producers of living knowledge and culture that have the right to be recognised and celebrated alongside things such as castles, renaissance paintings and epic novels. As Nottingham communities, let’s find out how to make this happen.

If you have any questions or would like to continue the conversation, please send an email to jack.benjamin2023@my.ntu.ac.uk