Discourses of Difference
Foundations Seminar | Facilitated by Lisa Arrastia
Discourses of Difference is the foundational seminar in The Ed Factory’s seminar series. Grounded in audioethnography and layered storytelling, it introduces practices for listening closely to language as a way of understanding how people are trying to make sense of American cultural values, norms, and beliefs in their everyday lives and within broader social, political, and economic conditions.
Participants work with recorded speech, image, and text while learning to attend carefully to language. Interviews, listening sessions, and narrative remix are used to examine how cultural discourses circulate, settle, and shape perception within the institutions and systems that produce them.
Discourses of Difference provides 37.5 hours of live instruction and approximately 6.25 hours of structured work outside the seminar. A syllabus and supporting documentation can be provided for institutional approval or professional learning credit if needed.
Young People’s Archive & Hearing Collective
Oral history remixes and pocket films produced by participants during Discourses of Difference may become part of the Young People’s Archive, a digital collection of collaborative media—audio, images, text, and video—that examines and reframes American experience through the voices of everyday people. The seminar culminates in a public Hearing Collective where narrators and participants listen together and reflect on what the work reveals.
Listen to samples from the seminar.
Seminar Origins
The Discourses of Difference seminar was originally designed by Lisa Arrastia and first taught in the Program of Writing and Critical Inquiry at the University at Albany (2015–2018). It later became a required graduate-level teaching licensure course taught in Massachusetts from 2020 to 2025.
Discourses of Difference
A live, online seminar
Apply now for the Spring 2027 Cohort. Tuition discounts for early registration, payment plans, as well as full and partial fellowships are available.
Spring 2027 Schedule
ALL TIMES EASTERN.
16-17 January / 12:00-5:00pm ET30-31 January / 12:00-5:00pm ET20-21 February / 12:00-5:00pm ET27 February / 11am-4pm ET28 February / 12:30-3:00pm ET
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Featuring a live oral history interview with XYZ, and special guest poets from The Worker Writers School, author of Coronavirus Haiku.
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Description:
Discourses of Difference is a live, online listening seminar unfolding across four intensive weekends. Grounded in audioethnography (oral history remix), layered storytelling, and critical study, the seminar examines how race, power, and history shape the stories people tell about themselves and others. It asks participants to consider how American cultural values, norms, and beliefs sustain the social, economic, and political systems that shape perceptions of self, other, and difference.
The seminar is not only for those already fluent in these conversations, but also for those who want to deepen how they listen across difference, think carefully, and enter difficult work with integrity, humility, and dignity.
Participants examine how power constructs and depends on whiteness, masculinity, and notions of difference in order to sustain itself.
Format:
Through writing, close listening, critical study, digital remixing, and creative production, participants move between lived narrative and broader historical and structural contexts. The seminar includes oral history interviewing, guided work with recorded speech, a live interview conducted by the facilitator with a special guest, small- and full-group discussion, independent work time with active support, and instruction in editing and remix. It culminates in a public Hearing Collective.
Experience:
Neither prior technical experience nor experience engaging critically with notions of difference is required.
Graduate-Level Extension Credit:
GLEC is available for 1-3.5 units at an additional fee of $79 per unit, payable directly to the University of San Diego. See details below under “Tuition + Graduate-Level Extension Credit.” -
LISA ARRASTIA, PHD Founding Director, The Ed Factory
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Discourses of Difference is for those willing to study how race, power, and history shape the stories people tell about themselves and others.
This seminar may be especially meaningful for educators working inside and outside schools, writers, artists, researchers, community practitioners, and others drawn to narrative inquiry, listening, and creative production.
No prior experience is required. Participants should be prepared for close listening, sustained attention to language, writing as a way of processing thinking, critical study, and creative work.
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Participants will need:
A quiet place to join the seminar on Zoom
A smartphone with basic voice and video recording capability
Access to Google Drive
A laptop or desktop computer
Audio editing instruction will be provided for both Mac and Windows users. A list of free audio and video editing tools will be shared during the seminar.
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Live, online via Zoom
Tuesday, 12 January 2027, 6:00-7:00pm ET
Tutorial registration deadline: Friday, 8 January 2027, 11:59 pm ET.
Sign up for Low-Tech Basics here.
Description
For those who want to become more comfortable with basic tech or are new to Zoom, Google Drive, or working online, a live online tutorial will be offered before the seminar begins. The session will cover the basics needed to participate comfortably, including joining Zoom, sharing your screen, accessing shared files, and other simple tools used in the seminar.
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Tuition
Standard tuition: $550 after 31 December 2026
Discounted tuition by 31 December 2026: $450
Partial fellowship: $225
Full fellowship: full tuition
What Does Tuition Support?
Tuition supports seminar instruction, a field guide, guest honoraria, and the sustained guidance required for interviews, editing, and listening sessions.
Texts are provided at no cost. Tuition and fellowships do not cover seminar materials, books, or required tech (smartphone and computer).
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Graduate-Level Extension Credit
GLEC is available through the University of San Diego Credit Validation Program for 1–3.5 units (for an additional $79/unit, paid directly to USD).
USD Enrollment Deadline: 28 March 2027.
Details: Please refer to the USD PCE Credit Guide to learn how to earn graduate-level credit.
USD Registration for DOD: Click here.
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Two partial fellowships remain for this seminar, reducing tuition to $100. Applications will be reviewed as received until both fellowships have been awarded. Complete this short application to be considered.
Additional reduced-rate access may be available when cost is a barrier. Please reach out through Connect if you would like to discuss options.
Notes from Past Cohorts
The following reflections are drawn from emails, written observations, and notes shared by some of our past cohorts—a community of practitioners that includes many different kinds of people: Pre-K-12 educators and school administrators, kids, college students, community organizers and parents, nurses, domestic workers, artists, and US military veterans. Discourses of Difference is accountable to the people whose lives and words have shaped it. Their words remain our guides and our charge.
“This approach is one I would recommend in organizations looking to improve their culture and create more compassionate, kind, and connected environments.”
“Thank you for seeing us. Thank you for seeing me.”
“It felt like a gift to better understand myself through others and helped me heal the parts of my brain that were so angry and aggrieved by the actions of others.””
“It is wonderful to feel heard, especially when you weren’t even hearing yourself.”
“Coming from the background of the Marines, you are taught that being vulnerable is a weakness. This seminar helped me realize that I am better than acting like a still body, strong on the outside, and hiding my vulnerability. I choose to be a vessel of good and compassion. My vulnerability does not make me weak; it makes me stronger.”
“What I have learned about listening across difference will stay with me forever. I want it to be my mission.”
“I think your work is really brilliant and strongly support your program. It is one of the only approaches I’ve seen creating the conditions for a respectful, equitable, democratic civil society that seems like it might actually produce real change.”
“I learned one of possibly the most valuable skills I will ever have—listening. Really truly listening.”
“This seminar has sown the seed of what I want my future to be. I cannot wait to continue this journey.”
“Our learning led us to ‘un-learn’ how we know ourselves in relationship to American society and to question the notion of a ‘common’ perception.”
“I liked the transparency and self-efficacy inherent in the way the seminar was structured and assessed. It felt like a great balance between the individual and the collaborative, and, as a teacher, I KNOW that is a hard balance to strike!”
“This seminar allowed me to do some self-reflection in community with others, and I am grateful for that. As bell hooks argues, there is healing in being in discussion with others, and that was a clear message learned in this class.”
“I felt like I grew as a human being and opened my mind to see things from different perspectives. I feel like I have a new lens on when I look at the world and I feel more empowered to make change and fight for what is right.”