The dance goes on forever? Art schools, class and UK higher education

Abstract

For most of the 20 th century, the UK 'art school' was widely seen as an accessible alternative to University. In Art into Pop (1987), Simon Frith and Howard Horne revealed how this state-funded art and design training, linked to manufacturing industries and backed by relatively low or informal entry requirements, offered the prospect of social and economic uplift for hitherto marginalised working-class youth. More recently, however, while enrolments have expanded, art schools have become absorbed into conventional universities and the class profile, at least at the more prestigious colleges, has changed significantly.Simultaneously, art schools, together with other forms of higher education (HE) have been yoked to a broader public policy agenda of the 'creative economy' -one that often marginalises working-class people. This paper takes the changing nature of the art school as its starting point for discussion of class, higher education and the creative economy workforce.

Cultural Capital: Arts Graduates, Spatial Inequality, and London’s Impact on Cultural Labor Markets

“…Indeed, even those who have argued most eloquently for the importance of the arts school as a route into the CCIs (e.g., Banks & Oakley, 2016;Childress & Gerber, 2015;Frith & Horne, 1987) have not done so on the grounds of credentialization, but of socialization. In the milieu of the art school in the 1970s and 1980s, the role of the institution was as much about commitment to a cultural practice and the creation of a "scene," as it was about formalized, targeted, or vocational education.…”

Against Meritocracy

“…Taking a longer historical view and a more specific sector-based focus, Kate Oakley and Mark Banks have examined how art schools offered an alternative space for working-class youth and a flourishing incubator for creative production in the post-war period. As these art schools have been cut back and incorporated into the traditional university sector, and as student grants and social security benefits have been slashed, this supportive context has unravelled, decimating an important space of expression for working-class youth (Banks and Oakley 2016).…”

Building soft skills in the creative economy: Creative intermediaries, business support and the ‘soft skills gap”

“…Both also note that social class has a huge impact on creatives' ability to be entrepreneurial. In an echo of Banks and Oakley, (2016) recent work, these participants stated that young people without 'family' money struggled considerably when starting out in the creative sector, because of the need to juggle skills development training, the upkeep and further development of their creative practice, and the practicalities of setting up a business.…”

“…High degrees of labour turnover and increased levels of second-jobbing are E. Munro Poetics 64 (2017) 14-25 presented as useful external economies". The oversupply of labour within the creative industries encourages creative workers to seek employment in sectors not traditionally considered 'creative' (Banks and Oakley, 2016). In this way, the oversupply of highly-skilled and flexible workers is understood as helping to stimulate innovation across the economy as a whole 4 (Bakhshi et al, 2013).…”

“…It is perceived as collaborative, fulfilling, unpredictable, 'fun', and as affording creatives an enviable degree of freedom compared to salaried 'desk jobs'. However as Warren and Jones (2015) and others (Banks and Oakley, 2016) show, recent research on the experience of working within the creative economy demonstrates that barriers to entry are considerable (according to the DCMS, over 40% of UK creative workers have degrees, compared to 16% in other sectors (DCMS 2006, cited in Warren andJones 2015: 2). Moreover creative work remains insecure and precarious, there is a culture of long hours, and an expectation that creatives will work for free in order to 'get a foot on the ladder', or in an attempt to secure further work (Schlesinger and Waelde 2012).…”