“It is impossible to think of education without thinking of power…the question…is not to get power, but to reinvent power.” [1] ~ Paul Freire
SoN, as a student resource represents a point of contextualisation for students either at odds with their educational experiences, or in search of feedback that aligns with their experiences and subsequent outputs — see. ‘Safe(r) Space Crits’ (because no crit is truly safe). As a catalogue of student progression, the platform demonstrates both learning and professional pathways for students. Personal stories allow other students to ‘see it and be it’.
It creates space for multi-layered narratives and wider diasporic experiences—and an appreciation of the distance and tension between presumption and understanding. The Teaching Within prospectus promises to challenge ‘courses serious about proactive academic progression intervention’, and could be a resource for fellow practitioners across the bandwidth of my GDC programme to ‘respond directly to the under-representation of academics of colour in the higher education sector.’ [2]
Strategies for recruitment, retention & wider support
Freire argues that a student’s identity needs to be taken into account in all educational settings. They should not be approached as if everyone in the classroom, including the teacher, is starting from the same place in terms of social status and identity. [3]
‘Retention and attainment in the disciplines: Art and Design (4.2 Art & Design Pedagogies suggests that pedagogy within the Art and Design discipline of project-centred learning creates a sense of agency for students, determining that “Students see the studio as being concerned with divergent learning and self-direction and the opening up of possibilities. Therefore, it could be said that Art and Design already caters for difference and focuses on identity work.” [4]
I would question the differences in capacity and the identity of whom[?], as notions of ‘difference’ and ‘identity’ are often determined at the recruitment phase, as discussed by Burke and McManus (2012) in their seminal work ‘Art for a Few’ and admission practices within the context of widening participation policy.
Their findings show that the processes of selection admissions tutors engage in, and draw on concepts of recognition and misrecognition, which are central to judgments about who has ‘potential’ and ‘ability’ — ideas that fly in the face of ‘widened participation’ policies.
Bhagat and O’Neill (2011a) discuss how the concept of cultural capital is pervasive in art education within the field of widening participation ‘where the disciplines of Art and Design as ‘creative subjects’ see themselves focusing on ‘talent’ rather than privilege’ (Bhagat and O’Neil 2011a, p.20), which I read as a continuation of an inherently privileged status quo.
“Not only [does] class works as a barrier, but…socioeconomic privilege works to thicken and complicate the barriers of age, disability, gender, race and sexuality. ~ (Bhagat and O’Neil 2011a, p. 21)
In an interview with a Senior Academic, “White Academia: Does This Affect You?” speaks to the correlation between “predominantly White middle-classed men and women” that constitute her immediate and wider team, the lack of consideration for intersectional identities as part of that “monocultured” team, and the creation of an inclusive and supportive environment devoid of any meaningful interaction with students to learn about and understand the multiple identities and lived experience[s].
In catering for students lacking confidence in the specificity of their ideas and a sense of ‘place’, as defined by their worldview and the relationship to a research task and its social and political context (Foote & Bartell 2011, Savin-Baden & Major, 2013 and Rowe, 2014), I have developed a Personal Positioning exercise using a subject most people have a position on—a love of music. This exercise is not defined by the choice of music, but rather by an understanding of proximity to wider cultural tastes and depth of insight—insight that calls on and celebrates ‘difference’ as taste, tacit knowledge and experience of cultural movements that readily position ‘youth’ as an identifiable superpower.
As a means of developing this teaching method, I would consider the contact hypothesis (Allport 1954), where individuals identifying with particular groups in conflict interact with one another in a positively structured environment, thus having an opportunity to reevaluate their relations with one another such that one-time enemies can become acquaintances or even allies. [5]
This system which requires two subgroups be given a common chore, necessitated their cooperation (in line with the research of the Robbers Cave experiment (Sherif et al. 1988). Having had many a heated discussion over music in uni cafeterias, I realise that music is the ‘football discussion’ of the artistically inclined, this could be a playful of examining musical and cultural tropes, to determine earnest ways of promoting or championing genre, sub-genres and the audiences associated with these cultural spaces.
Unconscious bias — what does it mean
What does it take for the unconscious to become conscious? Melissa Ben (A View From The Ground, 2011) speaks of schooling as one of the key ways in which class identity is formed in modern Britain:
“It was striking how many of the middle class, happy to support ‘all-in’ primary schools, departed from local comprehensive education at secondary level, and how desperately they fought to secure, by whatever means lay open to them, the right school place for their child. ‘Place’ is a particularly apposite noun here, ranging in meaning from social station to locality, a suitable setting or occasion, high-rank or status, and finally job, post or position.”[6]
Josephine Kwhali’s ‘Witness: Unconscious Bias’ immediately challenges the term, arguing that social behaviour is largely influenced by unconscious associations and judgments (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). Kwhali references policy without efficacy and the institutional talking shop that is the conversation around race and racism in the UK,—a get-out clause for casual, conscious, and most importantly structural bias.
“Whiteness is as allusive as it is pervasive; we know it is everywhere yet it seems to lie ‘elsewhere’”. ~ Moreton-Robinson A. (Ed.). (2004)
Curriculum, culture and custom in Art and Design
When exploring “students’ higher education experience across a four-year period from different ethnic backgrounds”
Having spent several years working with the Graphic Design Communication degree course at Chelsea, I have witnessed the disillusionment of young Black working-class students—a distinct minority since having worked on the course. A number considered their place on the course, requiring student-specific interventions to help bring about a refocusing of their course objectives through a realignment with their cultural anchors—anchors that play an essential part in their work.
I have used Formative Assessments to interrogate a student’s field of personal interest, building out action plans for students to integrate those interests and insights into their creative processes and final outcomes. This proved necessary in situations for those who have found themselves at odds with an early course culture built around ‘Sagmeister sensibilities’ and Eurocentric type design. Eurocentric to the point of exclusion when considering the multitude of cultural signifiers that can determine work and community-based outcomes.
“Ansellll [sic]…more appreciative of your guidance on that course than I can explain, really gave me and the others a lot of fuel to get through that.” ~ Boyce, G., Chelsea GDC student
In these conversations, I discovered my students’ own ‘Rooms of Silence’, where what initial phases of validation and confirmation of thinking and processes were given short shrift, and the ubiquitous experience of Black students and ‘students of colour’, in which their stories were routinely dismissed in what is perceived as liberal creative spaces.
The Senior Academic’s perspective epitomises this centrality of Whiteness that excludes meaningful dialogue regarding ‘otherness’. Being asked, as is the case in this interview, to tally the concepts of diversity and social justice against behaviours that sit counter to the Senior Academic’s rudimentary understanding, brings me to Josephine Kwhali’s definition of consciousness as a deliberate act of awakening oneself—to becoming, as Kenneth V. Hardy, PhD states “intentional about naming, deconstructing, and dismantling whiteness is a precursor to responding effectively to the racial reckoning of our society[8].
The Senior Academic demonstrates the embodiment of casually pervasive ideology identified by Aisha (SoN), who encourages the subject to take their first and seemingly painful steps towards examining the presumptive effects on relationships with their students.
These steps are painful in any context. Because they need to be.
[1] Freire, P (2006). Pedagogies for the Non-Poor. Book (Fifth Edition) Orbis Books. Maryknoll NY.
[2] Shades Of Noir. (n.d.). Teaching Within. [online] Available at: https://shadesofnoir.org.uk/programmes/teaching-within/ [Accessed 23 Jan. 2024].
[3] SoN (2023). Sacred Spaces. [online] Shades Of Noir. Available at: https://shadesofnoir.org.uk/sacred-spaces/ [Accessed 24 Jan. 2023].
[4] CAMBERWELL COMMUNITY COUNCIL PROFILE. (n.d.). [online] Available at: https://www.southwark.gov.uk/assets/attach/1249/Camberwell-community-council-area-profile.pdf.
[5] Hahn Tapper, A.J. (2013). A Pedagogy of Social Justice Education: Social Identity Theory, Intersectionality, and Empowerment. Conflict Resolution Quarterly, 30(4), pp.411–445. doi:https://doi.org/10.1002/crq.21072.
[6] Benn, M. (2011). School Wars: The Battle for Britain’s Education. London: Verso. P. xii-xiii.
[7] Finnigan, T. (n.d.). Retention and attainment in the disciplines: Art and Design. [online] Available at: https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets.creode.advancehe-document-manager/documents/hea/private/ug_retention_and_attainment_in_art_and_design2_1568037344.pdf [Accessed 25 Jun. 2023].
[8] Hardy, K (2022). The Enduring, Invisible, and Ubiquitous Centrality of Whiteness. [online] Available at: https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324016908 [Accessed 29 Jan. 2023].