Becoming Students at UAL ‘Signing up to the intellectual project that is the course’?

This is the first of five reports of a five-year project exploring the experiences of undergraduate students from different ethnicities across UAL. The project, Students’ Identity and Experience of Attainment, draws on interviews with over 50 students through their undergraduate years and for a year beyond graduation. The project was commissioned to explain why black and minority ethnic students are around 20% less likely than white students to gain first or upper second class degrees.

This first report of findings from the project explores the interplay between students’ familial contexts and early motivations on the one hand, with the course environment on the other. This includes interpretations of briefs, emerging relationships with tutors and peers, course cultures, and feedback on work and assessment.