'The industrious muse?' commodification and craft in further and higher education

Abstract

The place of subjects in curriculum is increasingly defined by their perceived contribution to student employability and economic competitiveness, with arts education repositioned as subordinate to creative industries. These issues are raised especially sharply in post-16 education, where discourses of practical activity and 'craft' appear favourable to creative subjects, yet these conform uneasily to norms of 'industry placement' in recent technical education reforms. On the basis of a series of research projects in post-16 education, it is argued that these developments reflect not outright hostility to the arts but their (the arts') complex relationship to the commodification of education and to greater inequality within this sector, across educational phases and in society. The arts, which provide insights and promote values that are a poor fit with much of the contemporary UK government agenda, have their own inequalities and relationship with social inequality. However, at a time of health, economic and climate emergencies, they also offer possibilities to rethink how the whole project of learning about work can contribute to a sustainable and socially just world.