Interrogating Artist-Teacher Identity Transformation in Adult Community Learning

This research analyses how the experience of artist-teachers in ACL differs from that of artist-teachers in other educational sectors, and the impact of this difference on artist-teachers in ACL. This responds to the gap in the published literature on the role of artist-teachers working in FE generally and ACL more specifically. There is significant published research on artist-teachers in secondary and higher education within the UK and North America, where they are defined, and their role and experience delineated. However, the artist-teacher in Adult Community Learning (ACL), in the UK, has been overlooked. There is no data on the number or demographic of artist-teachers in this sector, with no acknowledgment in government data, or published research. Indeed, there is no comprehensive list of ACL centres in the UK or extant data on how many ACL centres are operating and offering adult art courses.

This research defines artist-teachers in ACL in the UK as a distinctive sub-section of artist-teachers by providing a sector-specific definition co-created with artistteachers in ACL participants. The definition is supported by visual models of the artist-teacher, the Network of Enterprises (Wallace and Gruber, 1989; Daichendt, 2009), and the Artist-Teacher Likert Scale.

The research employs a mixed QUAL-qual methodology, not previously seen in this area of study, and was carried out in the context of local authority-delivered ACL art provisions in the UK. Storytelling becomes the golden thread of the research, allowing the stories of my participants, and me, to be told. The research developed a constructed substantive theory of artist-teachers in ACL identity transformation using second-generation and constructivist grounded theory approaches. This methodology chronicles how an artist-teacher in ACL comes to be. Additionally, autoethnography is used throughout to position my lived experiences with those of the participants, through vignettes based on memory work, while collaborative autoethnography is used to create composite characters and stories which bring to life the constructed substantive theory.

The constructed substantive theory posited in the thesis shows three different groups of artist-teachers in ACL, separated across generations. Each group of artist-teachers in ACL encounter a series of basic social processes which have helped them transform into the identity they hold today. Additionally, the theory draws attention to three themes for the artist-teacher in ACL: motivations, conflicts, and values. The research is the first of its kind in providing an in-depth interrogation of the artist-teacher in ACL in the UK.