Monthly Archives: June 2022

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

29th June 2022My Projectdata, diversity, equality, higher education, inclusion, research, working class studentsFelicity Roles

This week I’ve been reading the last 7 years worth of equality, diversity and inclusion reports for UAL. I was perhaps naively, expecting to see some sort of significant change over the years… a huge difference in the demographic of the student populations across each arm of UAL.

What I didn’t expect to see was barely any change, especially in the numbers of students who come from what are classed as lower income areas and those who are considered working class. Whilst there has been a small increase, UAL are still below the targets that they have set for themselves and CSM has the lowest number of students from working class backgrounds out of all the colleges that form UAL. Of the 14,760 undergraduate students across UAL, only 35% of home undergraduate students come from the working classes. At Central Saint Martins only 28% of home undergraduate students are from working class backgrounds (around 4132 students), compared to 40% at LCC.

These statistics aren’t broken down into genders so I have emailed the author of the most recent report, asking if by any chance this was a data point that he had collected but wasn’t considered pertinent to the report overall. I am curious as to whether there are more female, male or non binary students from the working classes… and if anyone actually knows! The fact that the data hasn’t been disaggregated is very interesting in and of itself – we don’t know how many students come from what is considered to be a less privileged background and have dependants, or how many are working almost full time hours to be able to attend university. I feel like there is some data missing and the fact that it possibly hasn’t been collected is interesting. Why was it not considered important to split this data into genders or break it down even further?

Another problem I noticed with these reports is that they only cover undergraduate students. I have been unable to find similar reports for postgraduate students which I am finding frustrating. After talking to Zuleika, I am reminded that it is often assumed that master’s students are well off financially, because of how expensive the courses are. Of course, assumptions are often incorrect but I wonder if this is why no data was collected for postgraduate students. If so, I think it is irresponsible for a large university such as UAL to make such a sweeping assumption.

I have been in touch with the SU at UAL and received an email pointing me in the direction of the OFS Action and Participation Plan, which again is only targeting undergraduate students. I suppose that by trying to get a more diverse undergraduate student body one could expect them to carry on to postgraduate study. However I feel that this is again assuming something without providing data to back it up.

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*A few weeks later*

I have come across a report by The Office for Students which has the most recent data for the demographic of students at English universities. The socio-economic background of students is only taken account for those students 21 and under, and yet again there is no data around the socio-economic background of postgraduate students. The Office for Students report pointed me in the direction of HESA, who collect all sorts of data for university students within the UK.

I found this table very interesting. It breaks down the socio-economic background that undergraduate students are entering higher education from. In the context of my research, I would consider working class to encompass semi-routine occupations, routine occupations and never worked/long term unemployed. Overall, the data hasn’t changed much over the last 5 years, for any of these socio-economic backgrounds. To me, this indicates that nothing is changing within higher education, particularly within undergraduate study. I have no data around postgraduate study so I can’t speak to if anything is changing there.

References:

https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/sb262/figure-6

https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/media/79a7bb57-83cf-4c50-a358-6bcfe80f165c/ofs2022_29.pdf

https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0021/40629/UAL-Equality-Diversity-and-Inclusion-Report-2016-4mb.pdf

https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0025/325267/Student-Equality-Diversity-and-Inclusion-Report-2021.pdf

https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/144474/190206_EDI-Report-2018.pdf

https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/40610/UAL-Equality,-Diversity-and-Inclusion-Report-2017-Students.pdf

https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0013/40630/UAL-Equality-and-Diversity-Progress-Report-2015-FINAL.pdfPosted on

Why My First Intervention Failed But Also Succeeded

22nd June 2022Interventions, My Projectanalysis, community, data, instagram, intervention, my project, researchFelicity Roles

It’s been a few days since the tutorial where I presented my first intervention and I’ve had plenty of time to absorb the feedback and to realise for myself why it wasn’t a good intervention.

Firstly, it didn’t answer my research question. And that’s kind of the point! A student creating a community of support for other working class students isn’t the university supporting those students. And whilst a support network is potentially needed, this isn’t the way to do it. If I wanted to progress down this road, I would need to change my research question. And right now I’m very happy with my question and it’s something that resonates with me.

Secondly, anonymity is important. If students need a safe place to vent, Instagram isn’t the place to do it. Somewhere like Reddit or The Student Room, or even the anonymous feature in Facebook groups is much more successful for this. This isn’t to say that Instagram couldn’t be used in this context, but I don’t see that it could be used as a safe space to be open about experiences and feelings.

What Are Anonymous Posts in Facebook Groups And How To Make Them - Online Group Success

And lastly, an Instagram account of this sort could be very emotionally harmful to the person or persons running the account. An inbox full of potentially shocking or emotional experiences is something that could be triggering to the account owner. I think for this to be something that wasn’t harmful each message would need a trigger or content warning. This would ensure that no one got triggered by submissions to the page and it would mean that everyone’s emotional wellbeing would be prioritised.

However, I learnt a lot from this short lived Instagram account.

I learnt that people need a place to vent, and that seeing other’s experiences makes people feel less alone. I learnt that Instagram accounts of this sort get a lot of inappropriate messages, of people wanting to question the truthfulness of people’s experiences and calling them liars, just because that thing hasn’t happened to them.

I also learnt that the experiences of female working class students, whilst obviously individual to each person, are largely the same. This leads me to believe that a systemic change is needed, so that these experiences aren’t being had by the majority of female students from the working classes.

Small First Intervention

21st June 2022Interventionsdata, instagram, intervention, researchFelicity Roles

Given that I changed my question so close to the deadline for our first intervention to be done, I decided to start super small.

As a result of surveys I conducted I found out that a lot of female students from working class backgrounds feel as though they are not part of a community. So I started an Instagram account – I wanted to see if this was a method of building a community that my stakeholders would engage with.

From conducting this intervention and receiving feedback, I realise that this doesn’t answer my research question. I am focusing on how universities themselves can better support students, not how students can support students. I also think Instagram isn’t a viable place to build this kind of community due to the lack of anonymity. If I were to move forward with building a community, it would need to be on a platform that can be more anonymous or a secure safe place. Maybe a private Instagram page or a closed Facebook group?

Either way, I think this was a successful intervention. Not in the way I wanted but I think the feedback I received gave me a kick to hone in on my question more for my next intervention. If one of my later interventions goes down the community building lines, then I think I have learnt how not to do it!

Research Question

9th June 2022My ProjectFelicity Roles

How can working class students be empowered to overcome imposter syndrome in a UK arts education environment?

Starting Over Vol. 2

8th June 2022Inspiration, My Projectdata, research, starting point, working class, working class students, working class womenFelicity Roles

Richard talked about learning ecologies in class and how we should bring our whole selves to our projects. I realised that I was going about my research all wrong. I was focusing on the wrong things and trying to change something that didn’t have my whole self in. So I needed to change. Quickly.

I wrote notes about the things I truly care about, and then I asked myself “Felicity, why did you apply to MAAI?”

I went back and read my personal statement/study proposal from when I applied to this course. Admittedly I wrote it at 7am when I was half asleep so there are a couple of spelling mistakes (I only noticed them after I submitted it) but I think writing it so early in the day allowed my true thoughts to come out without censoring myself or trying to appear impressive. I wrote about how people from lower socio-economic backgrounds struggle to make their way in the creative industries, and how they don’t feel that they have permission to express their creativity. I come from this background, so I know exactly what this feels like. And honestly, I feel like a fish out of water at CSM most of the time. There is no visible support for people who are here because they worked their butt off and gave up a lot of things to be able to even think about affording their course.

This is what, and who, I care about.

I care about the creative industries truly being inclusive, and I care about anyone being able to have a creative career, no matter where they come from or how they are perceived by others. 16% of people in the creative industries come from working class backgrounds, compared to 29% across all occupations. 13% difference doesn’t sound like a lot of people but it equates to thousands of people. Thousands of people who are stuck doing jobs they hate instead of doing what makes them happy. Is it fair to deprive people of what could be a wildly successful career just because of where they were born? Of course not.

Freedom.

It’s all about freedom.

And if I can help even one person feel more free, then I consider that a success.

So having said all that, my new question is…

“How can arts universities better support female students from working class backgrounds?”

Photography Interventions Without Photography?

1st June 2022My ProjectFelicity Roles

Yes, this seems like an oxymoron. But I shall explain. My first instinct is to create a series of interventions that are purely photography based. But your initial response to things is often the conditioned response, not always the right one. I don’t want to fall back on my photography background to create ‘a shiny new thing’ when actually I could create possibly more successful interventions without anyone picking up a camera.

In my tutorial this week, Zuleika asked why my proposed first intervention involves photography. And to my surprise, I didn’t have a good answer. In fact, I didn’t have an answer at all. So that is what I’ve been thinking about this week.

So I have been searching for examples of interventions in the photography industry that don’t involve photographs actually being made. It’s proving a challenge thus far..