11 questions and suggestions to consider when creating a Code of Conduct

Here you will find some important questions and suggestions to consider when codifying behaviour or making accountability frameworks for shared spaces. Are you making a map? A user’s manual? A toolkit? A script? Is it lore? Is it re-wilding? Or is your Code of Conduct a guidance document?

Inspiring Students to Learn and Grow: How Do We Build A Safe Environment for Learning?

This text contains questions and suggestions that we invite you to consider when codifying behaviour or making accountability frameworks for shared spaces. Our intention is to help identify blind spots and biases, which will make it easier to build resilient tools that allow us to share spaces.

A Code of Conduct is one form a document can take which aims to define how users of a space or participants in a community are expected to behave. I use this term because much of this research has taken place in arts institutions, so it is a name which carries a particular institutional flavour. In this text, I refer to Codes of Conduct or documents.

I encourage you to think about what terminology best suits the needs of your space. Are you making a map? A user’s manual? A toolkit? A script? Is it lore? Is it re-wilding? Or is it a guidance document? Start by considering what your needs are, and choose a form, whether metaphorical or formal, which addresses these needs.

While the suggestions here are focused on making accountable spaces for university level education, they can be applied to a broad range of spaces in which affected parties are able to give consent and are able to understand the language used. Accountable spaces for children or people with highly specific physical or cognitive needs will necessitate different degrees of individual or shared responsibility, but many of the same considerations we introduce will still apply.

Download the print version of these 11 questions and suggestions here

Something Living and Growing

Throughout this text you are encouraged to consider asymmetries as a way of bringing together questions of access and power. Asymmetries can include racialised, gendered, classed, aged, or abled differences in access to education, support, social stability, employment, justice, space, time, leisure, health, and many other conditions which visibly or invisibly impact on someone's life and capacity for participating in society. They may also include differences in capacity or access based on personal histories, learning opportunities, trauma, physiology, or psychology.

Like biases and blind spots, asymmetries are experienced differently depending on which side you fall. Multiple overlapping asymmetries may be affecting a conversation or situation at any one time. Much of the work that consciously codifying behaviour within a space should aim to do is in minimising the impact of asymmetries and making it possible to discuss them in a secure and impartial way.

Most of the research informing this toolkit took place in art schools or non-academic arts spaces that focus on learning. The experiences of members of art schools has brought a particular attention on using the codification of behaviour as an opportunity to map the institution, to make clear the power and support structures that exist in your space, and to illustrate how to access and speak to them.

We want to encourage the idea that the purpose any guidance document serves will change as the individual participants in your space change and the broader political conversation in society moves. Define how your document stays relevant. How and when it will be changed to accommodate different urgencies or social needs?

In a setting such as an art school, for example, each year brings in a new group and a new set of specific concerns and needs. Think of yourselves as making a living document—something that can change and adapt, can grow, and which requires nurture and care like all living things.

Above all, the process of codifying behaviour within a space needs transparency.

So, some below are 11 questions you could consider when creating a code of conduct. Have fun!

11 questions you could consider when creating a code of conduct

1. Who is your guidance document for?

Make clear who is included in the document you are producing.

Is it departmental?

Is it for staff?

Does it include administrators?

Does it include students?

It should be specific to the activities that go on in the space you are making it for and the people occupying that space.

Specific activities may require specific guidance—e.g., banning touch between staff and students will impact learning sport, performance, and music because touch is part of the teaching process. Instead consider how to discuss touch consent.

It should be easily available to participants in the space. Would a physically printed copy in a prominent place be useful?

Should it be publicly available (on your website, for example) so that prospective visitors/guest teachers/students/members can see it?

Can different levels of support exist within one document? I.e., if a group, such as a tutor group, has people with specific needs, should there be space to introduce these needs for that group only?

Should it be written? How could you make your document accessible for people with language or reading difficulties? Consider formal ways to inspire the conversation, not just words on paper: media, design, videos, talks, or art works, may be useful access tools.

How can you make the document welcoming? Humour, for example, can be a powerful tool. This document can tell a story about your collective space and who you are together.

How do you include unanticipated but legitimate users of the space (i.e,. new positions, guests, etc.)?

2. What is it for?
Determine the purpose of your Guidance Document and make it explicitly clear.

Is the code for protection or guidance? Protection of who from whom?

Is your code focused on community building or on regulating behaviour? This distinction may benefit from a different approach to language and accountability. Community building can be supported by positively describing what behaviour is desirable, whereas codifying to regulate behaviour should include clear definitions of what behaviour is unacceptable and clear consequences for transgressions.

Identify what contexts can be expected. Does your department run according to one-to-one tutorials or only group activities, for example? Define them.

Is the name Code of Conduct too strict? What name or title would better describe a document for building your community?

This document should not be expected to have legal standing, but it can be helpful to include guidance on how to approach legal systems for support if needed. This may be the police, lawyers, or people in your organisation responsible for reporting rule-breaking (confidentiality advisors, for example).

Who you give information on here should be reflective of the needs and risks that legal institutions may bring in (i.e. are you working with people with irregular immigration or vulnerable positions for whom a police encounter may be scary or dangerous?) Can you describe how to access an intermediary with knowledge of the specific needs of your community? 

3. Are you seeking institutional acknowledgment?

Top-down and bottom-up approaches foster different conversations. Seeking support from your institution can legitimise and support codes, but doing so can also diminish the possibility of dealing with specific needs and dialogue.

Should you encourage administration to be interested in supporting a code?

Is it possible to make decisions at classroom or department levels, and if so, how can those spaces engage with existing institutional support and care?

Some institutions and some departments are more vertically structured than others. Specific languages and roles can and should be defined depending on the structure you are working within. Be clear about what elements of the space participants can influence.

4. How do you define behaviour? How do you guide it, and how do you make accountability available?

Warm up for the conversation by trying to make two separate lists: What you as a community do and what you are. Take the list of what you are and attempt to define verbs that describe what it means to be active in this way of being—i.e., if you describe yourselves as students, this could be learning.

By describing what to expect from relationships, you are designing your culture as an academy, a group, or a space.

Introducing standard procedures minimises the workload on individuals and builds community resilience.

All groups will contain different backgrounds and experiences of behaviour.

Referring to norms, normal behaviour, or socially acceptable behaviour is meaningless as guidance and can be highly exclusionary. What is normal for one person or group may not be to another, and people with different backgrounds and cognitive positions will not share a framework for normal behaviour.

What behaviour is desirable and what is undesirable?

It is easier to define the positive behaviour you consider would build the space you need, than to comprehensively include all possible negative acts that could damage it.

Giving guidance on how to share space may be more concretely applicable than how not to. For example, when someone is making a mess in the studio can be highly subjective. Giving guidance on how to establish working space boundaries and processes for clean-up responsibility might be simpler and help manage the risk of conflict.

Think about procedure: describe clear steps, not just ideals, and concepts of being together.

How can a document that defines behaviour include clear guides for people applying it?

For example, a session leader can reserve two minutes for everyone to write their pronouns at the start of a (video) class.

Making this standard procedure takes pressure off individuals and normalises in a very simple way respecting gender identity.

Another example: do a check in and check out at the beginning and ending of a session as an opportunity to briefly reflect on needs for the day ahead.

Structured check-in and check-outs take the pressure off individuals for asking for time or help. They also take reduce staff workload because they create time outside of classes to meet and discuss needs.

Emphasise that it is possible to make mistakes and learn from them.

There is a big difference between principle and application. Any document is only useful in as much as it gives guidance on how to apply the principles of the group it defines. Think about how to make your ideas procedural—i.e., rather than stating ‘we support freedom of expression and critique’ consider how to support freedom of expression and critique and be specific.

5. How can you guide the management of conflict?

A code should not stifle conflict but rather create terms for healthy disagreement. It has to be non-static and include guidelines for clashes of values.

Make step by step guidelines for how to talk about complex topics or behaviour. Attempt to describe standard procedures for how to address topics that cause discomfort or conflict.

Make guidance for conflict aftercare.

Can you set a standard location for post-conflict management?

Can you appoint mediators and give guidance on how to mediate?

Allow post-conflict feedback on your procedures to refine them.

What procedures should be applied when your group meets another group?

Some non-violent communication suggestions:

Distinguish actions from actors. In other words, try to separate acting from being. Define behaviour as something someone does, not as something you think someone is. I.e., ‘you are saying something I believe is Xist,’ not ‘you are Xist.’ This is a learning environment and we need to be able to critique learned behaviour. Learnt behaviours are behaviour patterns which have been acquired and internalised as a result of experience. Much learned behaviour is interpreted as being essential, such as gendered behavioural differences, and is often unconsciously performed.

Own your feelings.

When discussing someone’s behaviour, retain your agency. Describe what you think or feel about what someone is doing. Do not describe how they make you feel.

6. What can someone expect to happen when they report a situation?

Standardisation is crucial.

Define procedure and time frame for a report to be investigated.

What will happen during an investigation.

What should the people involved do during an investigation? Who can be approached for mediation? For example, should all parties in a harassment investigation have a period when they can only be in contact via a mediator? Should they be denied access to the space for a fixed period? If these processes are not standardised, they are likely to be interpreted as unfair.

7. What access asymmetries do we need to consider?

Asymmetry is a useful term for recognising that a breadth of differences of power, authority, access, privilege, finances, etc., could exist in any context.

Asymmetries and the impact on access and stability they bring, have wide ranging and complex influences across immigration, class, gender, and other lines.

Asymmetries can be hard to predict and, as with biases and blind spots, are often invisible until someone experiences their negative impact. This being the case, how can you make a secure channel for asymmetries of access to be raised with organisers?

Broad social asymmetries in access will affect plans within any group. This may be recognisable as financial asymmetries which while small individually compound into large differences. For example, Dutch national students may have free train travel while international students do not, causing some students to have extra participation expenses that rapidly escalate if a project requires travel.

Social asymmetries may be temporary, such as some participants being in temporary accommodation. They may be long term structural inequalities.

Asymmetries, like all biases and privileges, can be hard see or predict unless they are experienced. Remain open to discussing asymmetries and their structural causes.

8. How will your document be navigated?

Organise your document by urgency.

Prioritise the use of your guidelines.

Give clear steps for managing a crisis at the start of your Code.

A lengthy preamble and principle-based document is unhelpful when managing emergencies. It is also resistant to people with cognitive or language-based access needs.

How will you format for navigation?

Could a flow chart or a diagram help to make access clear?

Include guidance for all parties in a situation and what process they can expect to experience.

I.e., include guidance for the person reporting transgression, for the mediator, and for the person accused of transgression.

9. How can you ensure language is inclusive, understandable and clear?

Access and ability in all languages varies. Try to remain sensitive to the ways that personal and cultural experience, cognitive differences, trauma, and learning affect access to language and write your document clearly and simply.  

Terminology which gathers many things under one-word (or blanket) terminology is open to interpretation can lead to conflict and irregularly applied protections.

Aim for clear language and offer explanations—e.g., what does the term ‘a stimulating environment’ mean? Or ‘safe’?

Address all users of the space.

Avoid terminology specific to one group of users (e.g., staff).

Contextualise situations. Is this applied to classrooms? To staff rooms?

What do you do with grey areas which fall outside of procedural guidance, for which conversation is the primary means?

E.g. Loose instructions such as 'adopt a listening attitude' are appealing but unhelpful. Instead, provide guidance. How to listen? Where to listen? Should a mediator be available?

Procedural language is helpful, clear, and accessible, and chronological. Break a process down into clear steps and instructions.

How to do something.

Where to do it.

When to do it.

Who to involve

How to find them.

What kind of document are you making?

Does the name Code of Conduct sound too institutional? What name would best describe what you want your document to do? Should it be called something else? A Map, a user’s manual, a toolkit? Lore? A guidance document? A learning agreement?

Can your document be an educational tool?

Can you simplify your code as procedures and include details in secondary documents? e.g., as a glossary, definition of terms, reference list, or bibliography.

How can you make sure that references to other documents you use are transparent and accessible? (For online documents this can be managed with hyperlinking.) How to manage other references?

10. How can you map your institution or space?

A Code of Conduct can be considered like a map for navigating your institution. What do you need to navigate it? What tools give you access? Email? Phone? Keys?

Include clear responsibility roles, and be concrete about them.

Describe what institutional support exists, and procedures for approaching support and mediation personnel, with active links and contact details.

Where can you contact them?

How can you contact them?

When can you contact them?

What support can they be expected to offer?

How can you make these people seem more approachable? Sometimes a photograph can help to make them more approachable.

Is it helpful to think of other formats to present this information, like flow charts to demonstrate institutional relationships?

Are specific support positions available to different roles? Do you have specific support staff for Students, Staff, admin, guest tutors, exchange students, etc?

What other representatives, persons, offices, or roles would be useful to include? They could also be facilities personnel, psychiatric or care roles in the institution, external support, such as Mores.online
*
Mores.online is an independent office of confidential advisors who provide centralised, collective reportage of undesirable behaviour, supporting everyone working in the Dutch cultural and creative sectors.
or Engagements Arts NL in the Netherlands, or victim and survivor support charities where you are based.

How will your document accommodate updates in personnel and official roles? It may be helpful to think about how to update changes to personnel and contact details - Do you have a department contact list? Include a link to it.

Does the document provide clear procedures and guidelines on how to proceed and who to contact to support an accused aggressor?

Does the document provide clear procedures and guidelines on how to proceed and who to contact for a witness to undesirable or aggressive behaviour?

Consider how power structures affect us and our assumptions of who has responsibility and authority in a space.

Power structures are the inherited, assumed, or deliberately built systems which give some people or groups more access to decision making and more influence over social spaces than others.

Assumptions about access to authority are often unconscious and affect people differently.

Being unclear about addressing responsibility means that access to support will be more heavily affected by structural inequalities and the biases of existing power structures.

11. How to establish a routine for upkeeping the code?
Any document will mirror its time. The concerns and questions of a specific period will change in significance over time and future concerns are hard to predict.

Creating a living document.

How will you keep your document alive? What system will you implement for updating it?

Who has to approve amendments before they are implemented?

What request process is needed to accommodate urgent changes?

How will you schedule reviews of your document?

Define a clear rhythm for routine update and upkeep. Should review be annual? By semester? What routine fits your calendar and needs?

How can you make clear who has written and developed your document?

How can you make a history of the work you do and who did it?

How will new people in the context be introduced to your document?

I.e., is it included with the contract for temporary staff? For exchange students?

How is it introduced to the new students and guest faculty? Every semester? Every year?

Can individual relational spaces (tutor groups, student groups, initiatives) have their own space to make specific agreements/amendments within it?

What flexibility is needed for specific needs in smaller groups?

Have fun!

Remember: this is not a tool for punishing misbehaviour; it is a way to discuss how to act to encourage the values and ideals you share as a group of people. It is a culture-building tool. Ideally, it will provide a framework to prevent differences of opinion from becoming conflicts and will also help re-build connections if they do.

Discussing and defining how to behave together is crucial for accessibility and fairness. But it is also about learning to make tools for designing and re-designing social forms.

Download the print version of these 11 questions and suggestions here