Professionalisation and identification in UK higher arts education

This chapter frames the relationship between UK Higher Arts Education (HAE), government policy, and the emergence and maintenance of professional pedagogies in creative education. Its focus is on art schools and artists’ experiences and views of their fine art education and professional curricula. This has been developed from my 2021 study Artists and The Art School which investigated a 30-year period between 1986–2016 in London art schooling. In section one, I discuss the socio-political history of UK art schools, focussing on significant cultural and higher educational policy that shaped the adoption of professionalisation in creative pedagogical activity alongside the institutionalisation of art schooling. In section two, I define the parameters of the arts as professions and artists as professionals, situating the role of professionalisation in UK HAE today. Finally, section three details artists’ experiences and views of skilling and professional development, as well as considering how artists’ form professional identities through/against this