Corby, Vanessa ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4019-9195 (2024) Art, prejudice and privilege: disciplinary elitism, students from poor and working-class communities and epistemic justice. In: Meredith, Margaret ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4541-3821, (ed.) Knowing better: Universities and epistemic justice in a plural world. Knowing better: Universities and epistemic justice in a plural world . Springer

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Abstract

This Chapter illuminates the challenges of studying art at university for students from poor and working-class communities. In the UK art is simultaneously perceived as a cultural enhancement in the service of the elite, and a skills-based discipline unworthy of an honour’s degree. This combination of privilege and prejudice is toxic for undergraduates from lower socio-economic backgrounds. At university, Contextual Studies curricula seek to correct the misapprehension of art’s non-academic standing by inculcating students into highly complex conceptual discourses. Young people from disadvantaged communities in the UK are unprepared for this new pedagogical environment because they have been steered towards art by an education system that writes both them and art off as academically lacking.

This Chapter critiques the credibility deficit of art and class by mobilising examples of contemporary practice in conjunction with the relational pedagogical strategy devised for York St John University’s Contextual Studies programme. This curriculum rejects the presumption that studying art is a process of cultural assimilation and transformation, a thinly veiled means of self-aggrandising social mobility. Instead, its pedagogical approach introduces students to the history of art while drawing on what that they bring to campus, enabling them to build the epistemic confidence to produce creative outputs that voice the felt experience of class in a space where they know it will be heard, and valued.

Item Type:	Book Section
Status:	Published
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races L Education > LB Theory and practice of education L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB1025-1050.75 Teaching (Principles and practice) L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB2300 Higher Education N Fine Arts > N Visual arts (General) For photography, see TR > N0061-72 Theory. Philosophy. Aesthetics of the visual arts N Fine Arts > N Visual arts (General) For photography, see TR > N0081-390 Study and teaching. Research N Fine Arts > N Visual arts (General) For photography, see TR > N8350-8356 Art as a profession. Artists N Fine Arts > NX Arts in general N Fine Arts > NX Arts in general > NX280-410 Study and teaching. Research N Fine Arts > NX Arts in general > NX440-632 History of the arts N Fine Arts > NX Arts in general > NX456.5.P38 Performance Art
School/Department:	School of the Arts
URI:	https://ray.yorksj.ac.uk/id/eprint/8018

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