Studio practice and first in family
students
Sam Broadhead:- sam.broadhead@leeds-art.ac.uk
First in the family within art and design higher education
• We need to tackle widening participation in Higher
Education
• - But also widening participation within the subject area
of art and design
• We also need to critically reflect on the elitist cultures
within a small specialist institution continue to be
reproduced.
• Context of first in the family in the art school
• My research
• Signature pedagogies
• Student’s response to studio practice
• Interventions
• Reflective comments
Low Participation Neighbourhoods
• http://www.hefce.ac.uk/analysis/yp/gaps/
Expected Attainment is the rate of participation in comparison
with their potential to progress; so attaining entry requirements
but not participating in HE.
http://www.hefce.ac.uk/analysis/yp/POLAR/Map,of,young,participation,areas/
Entry Tariff - Total Student and First in Family
starting study at Leeds College of Art
Entry Tariff - Total Student and First in Family
All Entry Students
First in Family
12/13
354.9
357.6
13/14
381.9
379.5
14/15
375.6
367.9
fif over last two years lower entry tariff in comparison with student cohort
Tarif average has increased then fallen off over the 3 yr period - as has the student UG entry population as a whole
Retention Summary - Total Student and First in Family at
Leeds College of Art
Retention Summary - Total Student and First in Family %'s
All Students
12/13
13/14
14/15
Average
ContQual
Non_HE
Transfer
ContQual
Non_HE
Transfer
92.2
7.0
0.9
93.4
6.6
0.0
92.7
6.8
0.5
92.1
7.9
0.0
93.8
5.4
0.7
92.7
6.1
1.1
92.9
6.4
0.7
92.8
6.9
0.4
Trend
StDev
fif over last two years higher non continuation rate
First in Family
0.7
0.7
Continuation fell off then improved over 3 yr period
Classification Summary - Total Student and First in Family
achieved by graduating students at Leeds College of Art
Classification Summary - Total Student and First in Family %'s
All Students
First in Family
Good
Lower
Good
Lower
73.2
26.8
70.5
29.5
% of fif good degrees rises then falls off over 3 yr period. Trend is more accentuated than with total cohort.
12/13
13/14
14/15
Average
75.5
24.5
79.0
21.0
73.3
26.7
68.1
31.9
74.0
26.0
72.1
27.9
Trend
StDev
fif for two of the years of the last three years shows a lower % of good degrees
1.1
4.7
All these trends link up with tariff band.
Methodology:
Longitudinal study from 2011 to
2014
All participants have previously
achieved an Access to HE Diploma
course in art and design.
9 students opted to take part, 3 men and 6
women
1 dropped out, 5 continued to study at the art
school 3 when to a local HEI.
Participants are given other names to protect
identities
Stories were collected at various points during
their degrees through narrative inquiry
(Clandinin and Connelly, 2004)
Signature pedagogies
• teaching and learning differs from discipline to discipline
has been identified through notions of ‘academic tribes
and territories‘ (Becher 1989, Becher and Parry 2005)
• different cultures have evolved for individual disciplines
•
distinct boundaries between the languages and social
practices which each discipline espouses.
Signature pedagogies
• not only are there differences in academic content and
language
• but in the ways that students learn the content of their
disciplines
•
particularly where these are related to professions
(Shulman 2005b).
Signature pedagogies of art and design
Visible pedagogies
Invisible pedagogies
Invisible Pedagogy – one means of reproducing class bias
It is as if this pedagogic practice creates a space in which the
acquirer can create his/her text under conditions of
apparently minimum external constraint and in a context and
social relationship which appears highly supportive of the
‘spontaneous’ text the acquirer offers. (Daniels, 1989;
Bernstein, 2003: 201)
Studio space – how to be creative?
Invisible Pedagogy
An invisible pedagogy…is likely to create a pedagogic code
intrinsically more difficult, initially at least, for disadvantaged
social groups (from the perspective of formal education) to
read and to control. (Bernstein, 2003: 207)
Invisible Pedagogy – communication skills
Middle class families could afford the
resources needed to facilitate invisible
pedagogy at home where acquirers were
controlled by sophisticated levels of
communication (Bernstein 2003, p.210).
As a result people from middle class families
were more likely to thrive when exposed to
an invisible pedagogy in an official site of
learning.
This method of education privileged those
middle class students whose employment
had a direct relation to the ‘field of symbolic
control and who work in specialized
agencies of symbolic control usually located
in the public sector. . . .’ (Bernstein 2003
p.204).
Invisible Pedagogy – surveillance
• The acquirer was active in their own acquisition any
intrusion from the transmitter was seen as potentially
dangerous as it subverted ‘natural’ development of
learning and discovery by imposing social rules (Bernstein,
2003 p.200).
• The space in which invisible pedagogies took place
enabled the surveillance of students where their learning
practices were open to public scrutiny.
• Tutors view the student as a text which can be ‘read’
• This meant there was a potential for tutors to misread the
students.
• Implicit control through communication
• Implicit control through surveillance
• Significance of time and space
Miscommunication and frustration
She was saying stuff, I was saying, ‘you’ll have to explain
what you mean by that, you’re going to have to explain to me
exactly what…’ I could see that she was getting frustrated; I
was getting frustrated. I kind of just thought that’s it! I don’t
want to hear any more. I don’t to do any more feedbacks.
And the last one we had to do, fortunately, I wasn’t there so
she couldn’t give me any feedback. (Eliza, November 2011)
Implicit , indirect control of learning process
It seemed like the tutors had taken a backward step. You
were left kind of on your own. That much I didn’t mind but it
caused a few problems in the beginning for me, particularly,
because it felt like your hand was being held and then
suddenly it’s been taken away. (Snake, June 2012)
Not aware of the ‘rules of the game’
‘Blowing in the wind’ - I feel a bit ‘blowing’ - I’m not sure
what I’m supposed to be doing; if I’m doing enough or doing
it the right way. They keep telling me there is no right way or
wrong way. I don’t like things being undefined.
(Joe, June 2012)
Not understanding the significance of space and time
[O]riginally I didn’t have a space I was the last one left. I had
to give my space up because this lass wanted to be with a
friend so I gave her my space and then I was just the last one
to have a space. (Jo, Nov 2011)
Interventions – increase self-worth
by Widening Participation and Progression team
Children’s art group – immersion into HEI/art college as a
place of belonging becoming part of the community
Interview practice – rehearsal of modes of communication
Summer schools – taster of higher education
Mature learners group – mentoring and buddying group
Interventions – increase self-worth
by Widening Participation team
Activities are targeted trying to reach through working with
Polar 3 schools (quintiles 1-2 lowest participation in HE) first
in family people. Low participation neighbourhoods, LPN
free school meals, English as an additional language EAL
These activities are about preparing students from different
backgrounds rather than changing the practices of art and
design HE.
Interventions - Typography
Interventions - Ceramics
Interventions – Drawing
Interventions - Animation
Interventions – Summer School
Some concluding reflections
Interventions are introducing students from a wide range of
backgrounds to the signature pedagogies of art and design,
but…
Is there ‘buy in’ from the academic staff generally, or are
these marginalised within the Widening Participation and
Progression team ?
Students need to fit into the culture of the art school rather
than the art school adapting and responding to other ways of
being.
Do these interventions reproduce the deficit model
associated with under-represented groups?
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