UAL Creative Mindsets: Developing Growth Mindsets to Address Attainment Inequalities in Art and Design Higher Education

This paper highlights key areas of the UAL Creative Mindsets project that were explored during a Mobile Thematic Session at ELIA Biennial 2018 as part of the Art & Social Cohesion strand. UAL Creative Mindsets42 is a research intervention project that involves both staff and students to address attainment differentials by developing growth mindsets to reduce the self-limiting effects of stereotype threat (Osbourne & Walker, 2006) and implicit bias (Staats, 2014; Devine et al.,2012). Based upon Dweck’s research on implicit theories of intelligence, a growth mindset is the belief that ability can be developed through effort and by embracing challenge. Through subject-specific workshop design and inclusive pedagogy, UAL Creative Mindsets aims to tackle the inequitable outcomes in student experience, progression, academic attainment, and employability experienced by students studying art and design in higher education in the United Kingdom.