There are gathering national and global initiatives to develop further understanding of the experiences of undergraduate students, as they transition into their studies at university. This book is the first to present research on how arts methods integrated in taught curriculum and extra-curricular arts practice assist transitions into belonging in university cultures. Underrepresented groups can have particularly difficult times and experience anxiety and culture shock that affect their levels of confidence and participation.
In 2016 I started researching how arts methods could assist transitional experiences in UK universities. I questioned how participating in arts practice could enable greater bonding with study programmes, peer groups and environments. I wanted to find out how arts practice could increase self-representation and support the wellbeing of undergraduate students.
In Arts Methods for the Self-Representation of Undergraduate Students, a central argument is that all transitions into university cultures are sensory transitions, that involve adjustments to the types of sounds, accents, visual discourses, aesthetics and tastes and material presences of what it is like to be at university. When acknowledging the significance of sensory responses, university faculty need to consider whether learning and social spaces can offer welcoming, homing experiences. The architectural grandeur that celebrates traditions of knowledge, often has cultural subtexts of oppression that may be materially present in stone effigies. This cold, stone presence can impact the present day experiences of underrepresented students.
When talking about underrepresented groups, there is a focus on groups who are in minorities in higher education. However it must be remembered that students in racialised minorities and first-generation students are actually in global majorities. Mature students, parents, carers, and care-leavers, students with disabilities and non-binary students are also in minorities at university. The combined social oppressions associated with each of these identifications can add to the difficulties experienced when starting out in university cultures. This is where theories of intersectionality, that centralise the marginalised experiences of women of colour are particularly significant, and need to be centralised in our discussions of students’ experiences.
The feminist theories of Kimberlé Crenshaw, Patricia Hill Collins, bell hooks, Jennifer Nash and Gloria Ladson-Billings are centralised in my book. This book also connects with the diasporic cultural theory of Stuart Hall, and Paul Dash – for a relation to learning about the lived experiences of black people and people of colour. The multi-modal approach of this research approaches each university as a ‘pluriversity’ in which, as one of the participants says, ‘Every minority experience is probably different.’
Posthumanist theories of assemblage and affect are currently very significant for reflections on how university environments can become more responsive to the different needs of students, and more conscious of their impacts upon the environment. Universities assemble a vast range of diverse interests and specialist knowledges. They can also form caring and inclusive networks that respond to the sometimes preconscious ‘affective’ reactions of students who are affected by their feelings of difference.
In my book I present a reflexive accountability for my own whiteness as a researcher, with an inter-racial family. My parents did go to university, however they separated and my mother chose to work in the community, to be among the political grass-roots initiatives that were very important to her. As a young person I was therefore in close proximity to the experiences of people in racialised minorities and working-class people. My family has included black people and people of colour since I was a teenager. My mixed-race niece who was born in 1990, was the first in her African-Caribbean family to go to university, and is now a thriving, professional woman.
In addition to centralising the experiences of people of colour, UK HEIs are also called upon to address the experiences of mixed and white first-generation students, some of whom are more comfortable in urban and working-class communities, and are commuting into campus.
When exploring how arts methods can assist sensory transitions the historical contexts and cultural differences of the four nations of the UK need to be included in the discussion. There is an economic North-South divide in England, in Wales the rural white working-classes often have Welsh as their first language, in Scotland there is a significant class divide between students who take the Scottish Higher qualifications and those who can only take the Standards; this divide relates to the academic-vocational divide in England where A Levels are the traditional route to university. In Northern Ireland the legacy of ‘The Troubles’ still affects first-generation students.
These are some of the issues that lecturers working with arts methods are aware of and attempting to address. To justify the inclusion of arts methods, lecturers in subjects such as education, human geography, anthropology, psychology, sociology and English literature have had to argue for the inclusion of arts methods as they help students to achieve well in assessment.
Yet, the presence of arts practice has a far more extensive significance. My book documents how experiences of arts practice are enabling inclusivity, lateral social connectivity, collaboration, creative action and student leadership. There are significant differences of value for arts practice in UK HEIs; this book shows how an active value for arts practice can support flourishing inclusive university cultures that encompass many worlds of familiarity and difference.
Arts Methods for the Self-Representation of Undergraduate Students was published by Routledge in April 2023. You can find out more about this book here.
www.routledge.com/9781032265438
Dr. Miranda Matthews is an artist, writer, arts educator and researcher. Miranda researches issues of self-representation, agency and inclusivity for students and practitioners. She also researches inclusive voice in ecological practice research. Miranda worked as an artist and then as a teacher of art, working in schools and colleges for ten years (2004-14). Miranda has a PhD in Educational Studies (2012, Goldsmiths, University of London). She has taught in Higher Education in the UK since 2011, and became a member of Goldsmiths Educational Studies Faculty in 2016. Miranda Matthews is currently Head of the Centre for Arts and Learning at Goldsmiths, University of London (2019- ); she is also Associate Head of School for Student Experience in Professional Studies, Science and Technology (2023-2025).
Email: m.matthews@gold.ac.uk
Twitter: https://twitter.com/randamaths
https://twitter.com/artsNlearning
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/miranda-matthews-b6bb4088
Instagram: