Art for a few: exclusions and misrecognitions in art and design

This report presents the key issues emerging from research funded by the National Arts Learning Network. The focus of the research was on art and design admissions practices in the context of widening participation policy, addressing national and institutional concerns to create inclusive, equitable and anti-discriminatory practices in art and design admissions. The research was conducted in five case study art and design higher education institutions and involved analysis of policy texts on admissions and institutional admissions statements, prospectuses, websites and other marketing information; interviews with admissions tutors and seventy observations of actual selection interviews. The analysis drew on the theoretical insights of Bourdieu’s (1984) concepts of habitus, cultural capital and field to develop a clearer understanding of how subtle inequalities and exclusions might take place despite a commitment to fair and transparent admissions practices. The analysis closely examines the processes of selection that the admissions tutors engage in, drawing on the concepts of recognition and misrecognition, which are central to judgments about who has, and who does not have, ‘potential’ and ‘ability’.