7 ‘So You Want to Be an Academic?’ The Experiences of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Undergraduates in a UK Creative Arts University

This case study focuses on student conceptions of becoming an academic, and their perceptions of their institution’s role in supporting them, or creating barriers, on this journey. In-depth qualitative research was conducted with nine undergraduate Fine Art and Design students from a range of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) and White backgrounds, to understand the impact which tutor relationships; the curriculum; creative pedagogies; and the invisibility of diverse teaching staff might have on their journey through, and sense of belonging within, the academy. It is positioned amid the current BAME attainment gap in UK Higher Education (HE) and takes as its context, the discourse on the lack of BAME academics in UK universities: an issue more pronounced in the creative disciplines (ECU, 2017a:158). The aim of the study was to understand how institutional practices might support or hinder students returning to the academy as staff, using critical race theory, whiteness, and cultural capital frameworks to situate the research. The findings present an overwhelming interest among the students in teaching as a future career, and makes a case that students’ motivations and aspirations to teach, if fostered and supported, could partially remediate the current lack of BAME staff in HE.