Black African students and the art and design education space: Narratives of journeys to Higher Education art and design Sylvia Theuri School of Arts and Media College of Arts and Social Sciences The University of Salford, Salford UK Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of doctor of philosophy, 2016 Table of Contents LIST OF TABLES AND ILLUSTRATIONS .1 Rationale for study .4 Outline of thesis .5 Definition of key terms.2 Historical, cultural and contextual circumstances affecting Black African communities in Britain 12 2.3 Engagement and Participation in art and design .1 Cultural diversity strategies in the art and design sector in the UK .2 Art and Black communities.3 Filling ‘gaps-between worlds’ .4 Art and design; an African Perspective .4 Black African Student participation in and experience of Higher Education .1 Rates and patterns of participation .2 Factors affecting student choice .3 Output and Attainment (outcomes) .5 Black African Student participation in and experience of Higher Education art and design 46 2.1 Rates and patterns of participation .2 Factors affecting student choice .3 Interview and admissions process.4 Student experiences of HE art and design .5 Output and attainment (outcomes) .6 Art and design Widening Participation strategies .7 Conclusion to Literature review .2 Theory of cultural reproduction .3 Critical Race Theory.4 Culture as understood within a theory of Multiculturalism .6 A Post-Black theory .7 Conclusion to Theoretical Frameworks. 82 4 METHODS AND METHODOLOGY .2 Research background, aims and research questions .3 Epistemological and ontological positions .4 Why a Qualitative Research Design? .1 Focused on understanding experiences and amplifying marginalised voices .2 Emphasis on subjectivity and the researcher’s place in the research .5 What is Narrative inquiry? .6 Utilising a narrative inquiry methodology .1 Personal journey: ‘I felt as though I did not belong’.2 Accessing the field .3 Recruiting Interview participants .6 Approach to participants .10 Analytical approach – narrative analysis .3 Dialogical/Performative Analysis .1 Thinking through the presentation of narratives .2 Analysis and presentation of data – the process undertaken .3 Techniques for enhancing the quality of analysis .4 The credibility of the researcher .13 Methodological limitations of the study .2 Journey as a metaphor .4 An undeviating journey .5 An arduous journey .6 Conclusion to participants’ narratives. 147 6 IMPEDING BARRIERS TO PARTICIPATION IN AND EXPERIENCES OF HE ART AND DESIGN .2 Master Narrative: art and design is not seen as part of the African culture (individual and familial) .1 Low status afforded to art and design practices and art and design education .2 The art and design space as a ‘white’ space .3 Limited engagement, discussion and viewing of art and design work (individual and familial) 163 6.1 Art and design not seen as a viable option given societal inequalities (familial) .2 Differing outlooks on life between parent and child (individual and familial) .1 Eurocentric nature of the art and design curriculum .2 Lack of support, advice and encouragement from art and design teachers and tutors 195 6. 204 7 STRATEGIES WHICH HAVE FACILITATED PARTICIPATION IN AND NAVIGATION WITHIN HE ART AND DESIGN.2 Overcoming barriers through Individual Aspiration, Resistance and Self-efficacy .1 Overcoming familial based barriers.2 Overcoming Institutional based barriers .3 Parental Support and Encouragement to pursue an art and design education (familial) .1 Pedagogies of the home - instilling aspirations and providing positive support .2 Pedagogies of the home - art and design practices in the home.4 Individual and familial knowledge and understanding of routes into HE art and design .1 Support and encouragement from art and design teachers and tutors .2 Participating in ‘Widening Participation’ .3 Diverse art and design education .6 Art and design from an African perspective (individual and familial).1 Barriers impeding participation in and experiences of HE art and design .2 Strategies facilitating participation in and navigation within HE art and design .3 Suitability of advice and strategies for participation and progression in HE art and design 275 8.4 Contribution to previous literature.
284 vi LIST OF TABLES AND ILLUSTRATIONS Table 1: Barriers experienced by participants……………………………………………………………………………….151 Table 2: Facilitating strategies experienced by participants……………………………………………………………209 APPENDICES 1 Participant Demographics……………………………………………………………………………………………………….306 3 Sample Interview Guides…………………………………………………………………………………………………….307-315 4 Black African Student HE participation Statistics and Pie Chart…………………………………………….316-317 5 Participant Narratives …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………318 6 Toyin Analysis…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….345-347 vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am thankful to God for guiding me, giving me the confidence and strength, and helping me to conclude my PhD studies. To Him are the thanks and the glory. I dedicate this work to my husband Eustus Theuri whose love, support and continuous encouragement kept me going even during the hardest of times. I also dedicate this work to my mother Dr Mary Andhoga who has always inspired me to aim for the best and has always seen my potential and abilities even when I could not.
I would like to express my sincerest and deepest thanks and immense gratitude to Dr Jacques Rangasamy my main supervisor who believed in my research from the very beginning and whose constant support and critical guidance helped me to progress even when I thought it was impossible. I would also like to wholeheartedly thank my co- supervisor Dr Gaynor Bagnall for her guidance, suggestions and valuable and constructive feedback on this thesis. I am exceptionally grateful to all the participants who willingly and unsparingly gave of their time, their perspectives and their perceptions and who made this research possible. Finally I extend my thanks all my dear friends and family who supported me and encouraged me throughout this PhD journey.
I am truly blessed to have you all in my life. viii ABSTRACT This qualitative research, with a narrative inquiry approach, focuses on the Black African sector of our community and explores how Black African students access, enter and progress through HE Art and Design and what facilitates this progress. It also questions what limiting barriers are visible in the art and design educational journeys of the participants in the study and to what extent these barriers have had an impact on the participants’ educational journeys. As a result, this study has included both students and graduates who studied art and design at Higher Education (HE) as well those who considered studying art and design at HE but chose not to.
Within this research I will define ‘Black African’ as all those who would situate their heritage as being sub-Saharan African as opposed to Caribbean. This study has analysed a range of narratives given by 14 participants of Black African heritage in regards to their experiences of access and entry to and progression in HE Art and Design. This is a small scale research project in which the focus is on depth of understanding and the production of rich data with thick descriptions. This research does not look to generalise to all Black African students, but to provide theoretical insight into the experiences of a small group of this population Research on Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) HE art and design students overall and specifically Black African HE art and design students in the UK in terms of access, entry, progression, and overall HE experience is currently lacking in the field (Okon 2005), therefore this specific group is considered in order to bring it out of its anonymity within the field of HE Art and Design.
1 1 INTRODUCTION This thesis is focused on understanding Black African students’ participation in and experiences of HE art and design. Currently there is existing research looking at participation in and experiences of HE art and design for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) students collectively, but none looking specifically at Black African students. The research has looked at this specific group as opposed to the wider BAME communities in order to bring it out of its anonymity within the field of Higher Education (HE) art and design. I would argue that this group deserves a more focused investigation than is generally offered to them, one that is sensitive to their cultural conditioning as well as their aspirations.
This study is a qualitative investigation into the educational experiences of a selected group of Black African art and design students and graduates (described throughout as students), who studied in a range of institutions across England. A total of 14 participants were interviewed and within this sample; 10 participants studied art and design up to Higher Education (HE), 2 participants studied art and design up to post-16, and 2 participants studied art and design up to GCSE (please see appendix 1 for participant demographics). All participants had experienced studying art and design in the UK in at least one of three levels of education; secondary, tertiary or HE (at HE the focus was on undergraduate level not postgraduate level).This research is a focused interpretation of participant voices and the experiences of unique individuals. There are limited generalisations to draw from this study; however there are recommendations that deserve consideration and interpretation.
My personal motivation for undertaking the research comes partly from having studied art and design at GCSE and A Level, and then completed an art and design foundation course and a degree in History of Art. It comes partly from having completed a PGCE in art and design and taught art and design at secondary school level for two years. I am therefore a Black African woman who has received an art and design education (my educational journey is discussed further on pg 100), and who has educated others in art and design. I was therefore very interested in hearing the educational experiences of Black African art and design students.
In my art and design teaching journey I have seen and experienced the 2 challenges of working towards creating a more inclusive and diverse art and design educational experience for students. I recall during my PGCE year attempting to incorporate art and design from a diverse range of cultures into schemes of work. On the PGCE course we were encouraged and trained to challenge the pattern of largely ‘dead white males’ that were consistently taught in many art and design classrooms. One training school I was placed in appeared, on the surface, to be open to this, however in practice it proved much more difficult to deliver.
This school had schemes of work that were predominantly Eurocentric in focus and the teachers were largely uncomfortable at the changes and interventions I wanted to make, preferring instead to continue to use their existing resources. This made it very difficult for me as a trainee teacher to include art and design from other cultures outside of the West, and instead I found myself consistently teaching only Western art and design to classes which had large numbers of BAME students. Despite wanting to challenge a Eurocentric curriculum I found myself adding to the educational experiences that these students could talk about, where their cultures were not recognised in the art and design classroom. At the start of this research process, I anticipated that I would recruit research participants predominantly through emailing educational institutions (specifically art and design course leaders and subject tutors, student unions and Afro-Caribbean societies).
I hoped to gain a large enough number of responses from at least one institution in order to do a case study. It was deemed practical and sensible to access my research sample from the universities where Black African art and design students were most likely to be studying (Bhopal 2010b). Therefore in the first instance when searching for participants, several HEIs which had been identified through HESA statistics as having large numbers of Black African art and design students consistently since 2006i, were selected, contacted and asked to forward my research call for participants to their current students and alumni. However using this strategy revealed barriers to my research; in particular a refusal of access to potential participants.