Black African students and the art and design education space : narratives of journeys to higher education art and design
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 populationResearch 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.
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