Inclusion, Democracy and the Pedagogised other in Art and Design Higher Education

Abstract

This article draws on Bernstein's model of democratic education to explore the experiences of post-Access students who enter higher education within the subject area of art and design. It considers areas of difficulty in relation to enhancement, inclusion and participation among non-traditional students who perceive themselves as being in the minority on an art and design degree alongside ‘traditional students’ who have come through school/college rather than Access. It argues that post-Access students are constructed as the ‘pedagogised other’ through the signature pedagogies of art and design and the horizontal discourses of the studio. It can also be seen that their presence upsets the mythological solidarities based on age and creativity. The discussion focuses on an understanding of democracy with a stress on the importance of political action by marginalised ‘others’ in order to construct new educational orders that consider their needs. The narratives of post-Access students suggest that they do not always feel included on their course and they also do not have the confidence to call for change or participate in political action.

Keywords:

• access
• democracy
• pedagogy
• inclusion
• art and design

Introduction

This article seeks to apply some of Basil Bernstein's ideas on democracy and education to the field of art and design in higher education (HE). As is well known, Bernstein's work included a concern with disadvantage and underachievement within a predominantly middle-class pedagogy. In this article there is a focus on mature students who were determined to follow art and design in HE but to achieve this they had to complete an appropriate Access course. The experiences of two students on such an Access course are drawn upon here to illustrate some of the difficulties Access students face in achieving inclusion and a democratic experience as envisioned by Bernstein. The article begins with an account of art and design in HE and the introduction of Access provision before outlining and commenting upon Bernstein's key ideas on inclusion and democracy. It then argues that post-Access students could be positioned as ‘other’ through the discourses of the art and design studio. The second part of the article uses extracts from two students who were involved in the research undertaken.

The art and design HE field includes the main subject areas of fine art, design studies, cinematic and photographic studies (Vaughan & Yorke 2009). The crafts are also an important part of the creative arts, but even though multidisciplinary programmes are flourishing there is a decline in the numbers of specialist degrees in areas such as ceramics or jewellery (Yair 2012, p9).

Art and design teaching can take place in many different kinds of spaces but open plan studios, where students often have designated work areas, are most commonly found. Traditionally entry for students into art and design HE is through the Foundation Diploma sometimes called the Pre-BA Foundation Course, which ‘diagnoses’ students' suitability for particular areas of art and design interest while preparing them academically for entry into the creative arts (Hudson 2009). However, more recently broader pre-entry qualifications to art and design have become common, with fewer students coming through the Foundation Diploma route. Today more come directly from A level and extended diplomas (Vaughan & Yorke 2009, p18). Conventionally, part of the application process includes an interview where a student talks about their portfolio of work (Bhagat & O’Neill 2011, p47). For mature students who wish to study art and design but do not have the necessary qualifications an Access to HE Diploma is a means of achieving their aim. This Access route gives students a broad introduction to art and design skills at level 3, which is the required standard for entry to HE and enables them to develop a portfolio of work for their submission through the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS). Access to HE courses are monitored by validating agencies (AVAs) such as the Open College Network (OCN) and Ascentis. The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) licenses the AVAs to ensure they are fit for purpose.

The students considered in this paper have already achieved an Access to HE Diploma, but it is their experiences as post-Access students that are the subject of this inquiry. Case studies conducted about two post-Access students are used for illustrative purposes. A cohort of students who had completed an Access course before moving to art and design degree courses was contacted in 2011. There were nine students in the sample initially, of whom eight completed three interviews with the researcher over a period of two years. This article explores data from two students only because the study was intended to show the breadth and depth of the experience and, in particular, how issues reoccurred. The two students selected had both done the same Access diploma in order to get on their degree courses, but had come from different backgrounds.

The first account is from ‘Vince’, who is an example of an older working-class man with a background in industry, his previous participation in academic education had not always been positive but he passionately wanted to become an artist. Vince aimed to do this by undertaking a full-time degree in art and design. In contrast to Vince's story is that of ‘Elisa’, a black professional woman with a long history of educational successes. She wanted to return to study textiles on a part-time basis in the hope of eventually making a career change. Although Vince and Elisa have both achieved their Access course entry to HE art and design, they have gone on to study at two different HE institutions. Their narratives demonstrate different aspects of the lack of a democratic education that they might have expected. Two case-study narratives were chosen to show the temporal element of their experiences rather than disconnected snippets from all the potential case studies.

Introducing the work of Basil Bernstein

The work of Basil Bernstein provides an important model for exploring the experiences of post-Access students on their art and design degrees. Bernstein's work included a concern with the waste of working-class potential (Bernstein 1961, p308). He demonstrated how power and control could operate through pedagogy and the curriculum in ways which excluded many people (Bernstein 1973, pp202–227). He also outlined how changes in education were driven by a change from a ‘mechanistic society’ with general skills to an ‘organic’ one where people increasingly needed more specialised and interdependent skills in the work place (Bernstein 1973, p225). His theory of the pedagogic code through classification and framing showed how power and control operated in the curriculum (Bernstein 1973). Class, Codes and Control, I–V, represent a continuous development and refinement of his theory. His work is still relevant today for two main reasons. First, some of the problems around unequal access and acquisition of a good education are still being reproduced. Second, he provided theoretical models with which empirical research could be carried out into a wide range of educational contexts. Although he used exemplars for illustrative purposes as in the analysis of progressive education movement as an invisible pedagogy (Bernstein 2003); the actual theory can be applied to other areas of education because:

In the case of hierarchical knowledge structures, development is seen as the development of theory, which is more general, more integrating, than previous theory. (Bernstein 1999, p163)

Within the area of art and design Bernstein's general theories of classification and framing have been applied to a primary-school context showing how the format of artwork displays indicated the teachers' approach to controlling the curriculum (Daniels 2001, pp160–173). Jeanne Gamble (in Davies et al. 2004, pp189–203) has explored Bernstein's description of craft pedagogy as a horizontal knowledge structure with a weak grammar and a tacit transmission. However, Bernstein's work can also be considered within the context of art and design higher education. Bernstein's model of democratic education is a useful means of evaluating the experience of the post-Access students and will be fully explored within the next section of this article (Bernstein 2000, ppxx–xxi). Frank Coffield has developed Bernstein's democratic model to critique current British educational policy and practice (Coffield 2006, Coffield & Williamson 2011). Biesta (2010) has continued and developed work around education and democracy and like Coffield has highlighted the experiences of students from underrepresented groups.

Key terms in Bernstein's work

Horizontal solidarities, a Durkheimian term developed by Bernstein (Sadovnik 2001, p2), refers to those solidarities constructed by educational institutions through mythical discourses about cohorts of students having similar characteristics. This functions as a way of disguising any social inequalities between students that impede some groups from achieving their educational potential. Bernstein (1999) described how horizontal solidarities function to selectively distribute knowledge through the day-to-day contact in families, communities and, in particular, student cohorts. Horizontal discourse is ‘oral, local, context dependent and specific, tacit, multi-layered and contradictory across but not within contexts’ (Bernstein 1999, p159). It is organised segmentally according to the sites where it is realised (for example the HE art and design studio). Most importantly, just because the discourse is horizontally organised does not mean that all segments or sites have equal importance.

A vertical discourse by contrast is a ‘coherent, explicit and systematically principled structure, hierarchically organised, as in the sciences or takes its form from specialised languages with specialised modes of interrogation and specialised criteria for the production and circulation of texts, as in the social sciences and humanities’ (Bernstein 1999, p159). It could be argued that it is actually the horizontal discourses occurring in the art and design studio that prevents some students from gaining access to the horizontal and vertical knowledge related to their subject. Because the distributive rules of horizontal discourse ‘structure and specialise social relations, practices and their contexts’ (Bernstein 1999, p159) both Vince and Elisa are positioned by staff and students in a particular way due to everyday social relations in the studio. Both vertical and horizontal discourses are likely to set up positions of defence and challenge. If people are isolated and excluded within their working space they are not able to take part in exchanges of shared strategies, procedures and knowledge (Bernstein 1999, p160). In other words students who are marginalised find it more difficult to draw upon the reservoir of strategies for success available in their learning community (Bernstein 1999, p160). This can impact on the individual students because:

The structuring of social relationships generates the forms of discourse but the discourse in turn is structuring a form of consciousness, its contextual mode of orientation and realisation, and motivates modes of social solidarity. (Bernstein 1999, p160)

In Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity (2000) Bernstein described three institutional rights (enhancement, inclusion and participation) as being an essential part of a democratic education where students had a stake on a political level in their education.

Enhancement, Bernstein argued, was a condition for experiencing boundaries (social, intellectual, and personal) not as prisons or stereotypes but as tension points between the past and possible futures. It was not simply about being more intellectually, socially, personally or materially able, but about having critical understanding and access to new possibilities. The condition for the right of enhancement is confidence and this acts on an individual level. Most importantly, Bernstein argued that without confidence it is difficult for teachers and students to act.

The second right is to be included socially, intellectually, culturally and personally. Bernstein (2000) made it clear that to be included did not mean a student should be assimilated or absorbed into the dominant culture of the school. He argued that to be included could also be the right to be autonomous and separate – to be different. Inclusion is the condition of Communitas, which operates at a social level.

The third right is the right to participate, which for Bernstein was about discourse, practice and outcomes. This meant that students participated in procedures that constructed maintained and changed the order in the institution. Participation is the condition for civic practice and operates at a political level.

Bernstein then stated that this model could be used to discover if students achieved these rights (2000, pxxi). He pointed out that unequal distribution of images, knowledges, possibilities and resources would affect the rights of participation, inclusion and individual enhancement (Bernstein 2000, pxxii). Those who do not receive these rights often come from those social groups that are treated unequally outside of education. Any potential conflict between groups are reduced by creating a mythological discourse that emphasise what groups share; this could be seen as a way of constructing horizontal solidarities that blur inequalities between groups of students. We now consider how inequalities affect the provision of democracy in classrooms through a brief consideration of ideas from Coffield, Biesta and Bernstein.

Myths of hierarchy

Bernstein (2000, pxxiv) argued that the institution stratifies its students based on age, which appears to be non-arbitrary, whereas gender, class, race, religion and region are apparently arbitrary means of stratification, thus different groups within the school experience different treatment based on seniority. Therefore, age groups form hierarchical banding of horizontal solidarity that can be used legitimate the temporal progression of students. Success and failure of students within a cohort threatens the horizontal solidarity. Success and failure is distanced from outside social inequalities and ineffective teaching by placing deficiencies in the students. These deficiencies may appear to lie in individual cognitive and affective attributes or in cultural failings of the family background. Diane Reay (in Ball 2004, p32) talked about the way students from working-class backgrounds are pathologised by the education system where any failure is the due to the ‘lack’ in the student rather than in the institution.

Professor Frank Coffield has continued to work with and adapt Bernstein's ideas of democracy. In Coffield (2006) he refers to effective democracy as one where all students have three interrelated pedagogic rights. The conditions for democratic rights include confidence, community and civic practice (Coffield & Williamson 2011, p53). The polemical argument is that the market model that has been applied to education has turned schools and universities into exam factories and further-education colleges into skills factories where managerialism has led to a focus on targets rather than teaching and learning. From this perspective teachers teach students to pass tests rather than to think for themselves; students focus on grades rather than the content of what is being learned. They propose an alternative future for education that comprises communities of discovery, where the collective creativity of students and educators are released through democracy (Coffield & Williamson 2011, p11). They point out that democracy cannot only exist within the realm of education. Society as a whole needs to address inequalities:

Otherwise education will be helping to form active citizens who will only have a thin façade of democracy in which to live learn and work. (Coffield & Williamson 2011, p64)

The wider context can impact on the democratic nature of a particular course. In fact, if the institution or the nation-state in which the course is situated does not facilitate and act on these pedagogic rights of students then democracy on the course will be shallow and partial, a point supported by Bernstein (2000, pxxii) in his discussion of access where he argued that the institution needed to be set within a framework where there was adequate pre-school, medical, social and vocational provision for all.

Drawing on the work of Young (2000), Biesta (2010, p112) discussed the tensions between the unequal distribution of democratic rights and inclusion, pointing out that Athenian democracy was anything but inclusive. He described two models of democracy the aggregative and the deliberative. The aggregative version of democracy means that decisions are made based on majority interests. When transferring this idea to the context of education it can be seen that the interests of non-traditional students are in danger of not being considered where they differ from the majority of traditional students. The deliberative form of democracy stresses the participation of people in collective decision making based on argument and agreement on the best reasons for action. This is not dissimilar to Bernstein's third pedagogic right of participation as a condition of civic practice. Indeed, Biesta (2010, p44) argued that in a democratic society education was not taken as a given but a topic for constant deliberation and discussion, and not just by interested parties but society as a whole. Although the deliberative mode of democracy has the potential to include the interests of the whole group there are problems for non-traditional students. Bernstein, when discussing his first pedagogic right of enhancement, stated that the condition for this was confidence, without confidence it is difficult to act (Bernstein 2000, pxi). Not everyone may have the confidence or the resources to participate, to act, to discuss and to deliberate. When considering non-traditional students Diane Reay (in Ball 2004, p40) has said working-class students in particular have the fear of ‘being found out’ of not having anything to contribute and this can undermine confidence. We now move to consider the experiences of two post-Access students on their Access courses and how far they experienced inclusion and democracy as outlined here.

Post-Access students in higher education as the pedagogised other

During the 1980s there was an expansion of ‘non-conventional students’ into HE, which coincided with an increase in Access courses (Wakeford 1993, Osborne et al. 1997). The Access route was seen as the ‘third’ way for students to enter university (Department of Education and Science [DES] 1987). Parry (1996, p11) claimed that Access courses were set up for those students who were ‘excluded, delayed or otherwise deterred by a need to qualify for (university) entry in more conventional ways’. In 2011/2012 there were 42,150 students studying on Access to HE courses and 6% of UCAS applicants accepted onto a higher education course held an Access qualification (Quality Assurance Agency [QAA] 2013, p12). There was a 22% drop in numbers of these programmes specialising in art and design from the previous year (QAA 2013, p3). Recently a report has shown that since 2010 the introduction of the £9000 fees regime has had a serious and damaging impact on ‘second-chance’ students. There has been a 15.4% drop in applications to HE from people over 25 (Independent Commission on Fees 2013).

Mature HE students with an Access to HE Diploma tended to be a diverse group of people (Broadhead & Garland 2012, Busher et al. 2012). James (1995, p453) has shown how mature students in HE have been described in terms of what they have in common as a group and of how they differ from traditional-age-at-entrance students. Wilson (1997, p362) made a very good point about the inconsistency between the status assigned to them by the institution and their age. Mature students with Access backgrounds tended to be in a different stage in their life and it could be argued that they are not typical students who have studied A levels and the pre-BA Foundation course (Penketh & Goddard 2008, p316). HE institutions present and promote degree courses and university life through open days and programme materials that assume:

[T]he normative ‘middle class’ construction of students emphasises the opportunity of leaving home (to a protected environment and in gradual stages), meeting new friends (who might become a bedrock of friends for life) and going to new places – a formative experience that broadens horizons. (Christie et al. 2005)

This image projected by institutions did not represent post-Access students, who tended to stay at home, having established lives, jobs, families and responsibilities. They may have had working-class or middle-class backgrounds, but due to their age they are not always represented through the images colleges and universities project. Bernstein (2000) has said this can mean those unrepresented students are less likely to be included or to participate. There is also a danger that by describing Access students as non-traditional or untypical, they were being addressed in a pejorative manner. Some researchers in lifelong learning believe that education is now viewed by mature students in a more instrumental way linked to employment rather than personal development (Tedder & Biesta 2008, p1) and as a result the profile of Access students is actually becoming younger and more career focused (Busher et al. 2012). Wakeford (1993) argued that Access students have few, but rarely no, previous qualifications. Bowl (2001) made a similar point where she said that mature students had often attempted to participate in education before but had been frustrated by various barriers so did not always succeed. One way of explaining why ‘non-traditional’ students are frustrated in formal education is to consider how they are positioned as the ‘other’ by dominant pedagogical discourses and practices.

Hatton (2012) has argued that the values, beliefs and positions of an institution always take central stage. She described how the term ‘pedagogised’ implied something that is done to the student by the institution. Drawing on Atkinson (2002), she showed how pedagogised identities of students and courses develop from signature learning and teaching practices. Within the area of art and design, signature pedagogies include the studio critique, open briefs and studio practice. Shreeve (2011) pointed out that art and design practitioners use ‘pedagogies of uncertainty’ as a means of facilitating creativity. Bernstein would describe these pedagogies as invisible because the relationship between the transmitter (tutor) and acquirer (student) is not explicit, nor are the pacing and sequencing rules of the activity and the criteria for legitimate activity, while known to the transmitter, are not necessarily known the acquirer. It is the invisible pedagogy that has significance for the arts where it is:

[M]ore likely to be middle class that are more likely to come to understand that the heart of discourse is not order but disorder, not coherence but incoherence, not clarity but ambiguity, and that the heart of discourse is the possibility of new realities. (Bernstein 2003, p205)

These practices are represented as the norm. Burke and McManus (2011) have shown how ‘worthy’ art and design students are recruited on to degree programmes because they demonstrated risk taking and invention and their portfolios represented middle-class notions of taste. Bernstein would say that recruiting students with a similar age, and who also conform to normative art and design practices, would help to create a sense of horizontal solidarity within the student body. Hatton (2012, p39) developed her argument further to point out that the legitimating power of tutors and institutions leads to the normalisation of certain ways of learning, which could marginalise some students who do not ‘fit’ in. These students can be positioned as the pedagogised ‘other’, those who are different to the norm. Othering language and curriculum used in institutions constructs a person or a group of people as being outside the realm of hegemonic normalcy by suggesting a them/us binary opposition (Gorski 2009, p313). Pedagogic practices and discourses were also shown by Bernstein, throughout his work, to reproduce social inequalities. In particular, he sought to link, ‘microprocesses (language, transmission, and pedagogy) to macroforms – to how cultural and educational codes and the content and process of education are related to social class and power relations’ (Alan Sadovnik in Moore et al. 2006, p202). Access students who have come from a ‘non-traditional’ route (Hudson 2009) may look visibly different due to age, race, gender, disability; may act differently due to social class, religious backgrounds or previous experiences; are usually in the minority within an art and design programme; are at risk of being ‘othered’ by art and design pedagogic discourses and practices as well as the horizontal discourses within the studio.

The case studies

The next section illustrates some of the arguments presented in Bernstein's generalised theory about horizontal solidarity, discourse and democracy by considering the comments that two post-Access students made about their experiences on their art and design degree courses.

Vince's experiences

Vince was studying for his BA (Hons) in Interdisciplinary Art and Design. He was in his 50s and had left a long career in the refrigeration industry to follow his dream to go to art college. Earlier in his life he had been discouraged from studying art by his parents; they had wanted him to get a trade that would give him financial security. This next section is based on three meetings carried out with the researcher and Vince during the first two years of his degree, his reflections on his academic progress were recorded and transcribed.

First meeting at the end of the first semester

The dynamic between other people has been very interesting – a lot of the things I'd heard before from other people and are a bit true, like the age thing – it does hit you – it changes as times gone on. The young people start to accept you. You get odd comments and things but then you just brush it off as a laugh kind of thing. They do the same so you don't take it seriously.

There have been times when I still struggle with my academic stuff. I'd like to be a lot better and I'm making a determined effort to do that. Because once the creative side of, yeah, that – you need to be fully relaxed and dreamlike to come up with ideas – you are kind of balanced with that. Then there's another side, the academic side. I struggle with that, with structuring of essays, with spelling and the grammar anything on that side. (Vince 2011)

Vince was aware of his ‘difference’ and this seemed to pray on his mind. It was also apparent that his age was part of the horizontal discourse that he had with others in his class. His attitude to risk was interesting as he had taken a massive financial risk in giving up a stable job which he had done for over 20 years in order to become an artist. However, he was not always comfortable with his own decisions. It is interesting that he viewed being creative as relaxed yet attempting to be academic created anxiety. Vince does not have the condition of confidence that Bernstein (2000) thought was an important pedagogic right. Part of this was due to him seeing himself as weak in the theoretical part of his studies. This could be seen as a result of the education he had previously received where thinking and doing were represented as separate and therefore a choice had to be made between academic and vocational educational routes. Bernstein (2003) said that vocationalism appeared to provide an appropriate education for the working classes but it actually closed down future possibilities for students. It could be argued that Vince had internalised the message from his earlier educational experiences that he was a ‘doer’ rather than a ‘thinker’.

Second meeting at the end of the first year

Here Vince continued to discuss his age and his regrets at not studying art earlier in his life with younger students. He is being offered a strategy by the younger student to live in the moment rather than thinking about the past.

There is difficulty, from the point of view of young and old, the age gap. We've said this before, we're probably heard other people talk about it. ‘I wish I done this years ago’ and that kind of thing but then again had I have done this years ago I wouldn't perhaps have this perspective I'm talking about now to you. I'd have just been going out having a drink on a night and trying to pull girls and that's it. There's two ways of looking at it really – maybe I would have, maybe I've got to a point where I get more out of it now than I would have when I was younger. I don't know, it's one of those, would I, could I, should I? It's a bit silly talking like that now in fact. I had this conversation with one of the younger guys and he said – Andrew it was – and really out of the mouths of babes – he says, ‘Well you keep going on about that you wish you'd done that years ago. You're doing it now and really that's it, you know, time starts now’. So I've got that in my head now, that's it. I'm not going to talk about all that wish I'd done it years ago, yeah. (Vince 2012)

Similar themes continue to appear in Vince's account at the end of his first year on his degree. Vince chooses to recount the conversations he is having with younger people on the course where he is concerned by differences in age. Bernstein comments about the ways in which social relationships construct consciousness seem relevant here. Vince is both exploring and reinforcing his difference in relation to the younger students in the class through the day-to-day discourse in the studio. This also shows how Vince has internalised the belief that there are age-appropriate stages within education and it is this that causes him to feel out of step with his peer group. Vince's discussions in some ways upset the mythical horizontal group solidarity that the institution seeks to construct in the studio/classroom (Bernstein 2000, pxxiv).

Third interview half way through the second year

His sense of being different from others was now connected with failure; he imagined that somehow the younger students were somehow better than him. He perceived himself to be the other.

I kind of compare myself to those who have just left school so they're used to writing loads of stuff, the essays and that kind of thing, yeah. I'm better organised that I was. I wished I'd done more writing stuff on my Access and I hated essays then.

What I can say – sometimes when I get reading about things I actually enjoy it, you know, but I hate this anxiety of deadlines, you know, I'm slow at that kind of thing. (Vince 2013)

Vince continued not to have the condition of confidence. He still constructed himself as a doer rather than a thinker. He did not conceive that his problems were to do with the way education was structured within society where people were encouraged to study either vocational/practical subjects or professional/academic ones. His lack of confidence means it is difficult for Vince to act (Bernstein 2000); it is hard for him to begin reading and writing. He ended in a more positive light that there is potential for his enjoyment in academic study. Vince seems to be a long way from participating politically to change his education because he sees the difficulties he is having as being due to his own lack of ability.

Elisa's experiences

Elisa was a black student and in her early fifties when the study began. She had a demanding professional job as a career adviser so she needed to study her degree in textiles on a part-time basis. This meant that she had different practical needs from the other full-time students. For example, she needed to plan her schedule well in advance so it was important she had accurate, timely, information about deadlines. Elisa's experiences seemed to revolve around her being treated in a dismissive manner by staff who didn't understand her needs as a part-time student.

First meeting at the end of the first semester

Doing the assignments was a bit of a nightmare because I wasn't sure what I was doing – I was given work the same as full-time so it was very confusing and I'd say, ‘Well how much?’ ‘We don't expect you to do as much work.’ But ‘What work do I need to do?’ So it was a bit frustrating.

There are three of us who are part-time and it's just the same – make sure you give us the part-time brief so we know what's clear. I think its things like that the other two ladies who are part-time don't question. I say, ‘So alright, ok, but hold on a minute’ I can see that is going to be a sort of an issue. From my understanding the staff are used to needy teenagers or something like that. (Elisa 2011)

Elisa was uncertain and constantly questioning about the art and design briefs that were written for full-time students. She sought clarity about the work load but staff gave her ambivalent answers to her questions. The assumption being that materials addressed to full time students would also make sense to those studying part time. This uncertainty did not inspire creative action (Shreeve 2011) but frustration. Elisa perceived herself as being different to the other two part-time students as she had the confidence to question the tutors, however, this did not lead to change in her situation. The feeling of being excluded from knowing important things about her course continued throughout her first year as can be seen by the next interview.

Second meeting at the end of the first year

I just felt, well I don't know what I'm doing. I'm having to fit in but nobody's actually explaining anything properly or finding out stuff I should know. Found out about using their Moodle, for instance. They say to book on there but they don't put anything on it. I don't know where anything is in order to put anything in and there's been a few times when – me being me – I have to have a conversation with various tutors, ‘What's going on, don't know anything about this?’

The ‘Design your Future’ which is a module that just happened, and again, I'm a career adviser, so I was picking holes in it. We do this work for the ‘Society of Textiles’ programme and we also do an external exhibition which is some of your own work. So the tutor went round everybody's workspace and of course, as usual, I was left to the last two minutes so again it wasn't equal time given. So when she looked through my work she said, ‘I suppose you can put something in for next year', so I said, ‘What does that mean?’ ‘I don't think you've got enough here’, so I said, ‘Surely there must be something that I can work on that I can submit?’ (Elisa 2012)

Elisa still hadn't got a grip of the way systems and procedures worked within her institution. The lack of information that she trusted could ultimately lead to an erosion of confidence. She was not able to fully take part in the horizontal discourses of the textile studio where knowledge was shared between staff and students. Bernstein (1999, p60) made the point that ‘Clearly the more members are isolated or excluded from each other, the weaker the social base for the development of either repertoire or reservoir’. Elisa had fewer opportunities to develop a repertoire of strategies to enable her to meet her potential. She also did not get fair access to the tutor's time and expertise due to always been given the last tutorial slot. Bernstein argued that unequal distribution of resources could impact on enhancement, inclusion and participation (Bernstein 2000, pxxii). This was demonstrated by the fact that Elisa didn't have enough work to submit to the textile exhibition which again led to further exclusion. Most worryingly, Elisa wasn't given the chance to work on something so she could submit. Perhaps the tutor believed that as Elisa was part time she would have another chance to participate next year, but this wasn't made explicit in the conversation, nor framed in positive terms.

Third interview half way through the second year

It's outrageous! And there's the tour to Milan and Venice and I thought right – what's happening in February so I arranged everything at work; someone to do my teaching; someone to take over my job – things like that. While I was away last week before the end of term, we were told the dates had changed! So I'd already paid my deposit and I said well I can't go (What do you mean you can't go?), ‘because’, I said, ‘You gave me these dates and these are the dates I'm going on holiday from work – so I'm really sorry I want my money back, I can't go. (Elisa 2013)

Elisa had missed out on the trip even though she had taken the time to plan her leave from work so she could go to Milan with the other students. This was yet another form of exclusion, due to Elisa not having access to accurate information and staff not considering the needs of part-time mature students. Again Elisa's experiences reveal the mythical nature of horizontal solidarities constructed within a cohort of students where they are addressed through assignments and activities as if they are all the same with similar amounts of flexible free time. The students who do go on the trip will gain more opportunities for enhancement than Elisa.

Conclusion

In the two case studies above it can be seen that it was hard to construct and maintain studio-based horizontal solidarities between students based on age-related interests (Bernstein 2000). The presence of students in their forties and fifties disrupted the mythical discourse constructed by education institutions where the curriculum (through briefs, activities, timetables, deadlines) is represented as if all students are the same. Advancement in education based on seniority (Bernstein 2000) is also open to question where older students may feel less skilled and able than some of the younger members of the cohort.

When considering the pedagogic right of enhancement it can be seen that Vince did not have the condition of confidence. As Bernstein (2000) has said without confidence it is difficult to act (in terms of acquisition and also in the sense of political action). Vince did not feel he could access the vertical discourse of academia and continuously constructed himself as someone who was weak in understanding theory but stronger in the practical elements of art and design. This idea had been fixed during his previous educational experiences. Bernstein's (2003) comments about vocational education closing down options for the working classes seem very significant in Vince's case. What perhaps is surprising was the fact that Elisa, who started out being very confident through her previous exposure to the vertical discourses of education, was actually beginning to lose confidence. This was because the lack of face-to-face contact with the peer group and tutors in the studio was isolating her, this meant she had less opportunity to develop her repertoire of strategies for success. Pedagogic devices used on her programme of study were addressed only to full-time students as if part-students did not exist and this confused Elisa. Neither of the students described an increase in confidence during the three interviews.

Horizontal discourses in the studio not only decreased confidence but led to the students being excluded from learning activities. The art and design signature pedagogies based on risk taking and ambiguity ‘othered’ the post-Access students. Elisa in particular needed clarity and certainty due to her other commitments and her part-time mode of study. The day-to-day discussions she had with her tutors never seemed to give her the information she wanted and often appeared ambivalent. Not being included in the external exhibition and not fully understanding why is an instance where Elisa's part time status disadvantaged her. More overtly, she could not go on the trip in spite of reorganising her work pattern. This demonstrated how localised practices and miscommunication by the institution could unintentionally exclude ‘non-traditional’ students. Vince's' othering was perhaps more subtle. He constructed himself as different from the conversations he had with younger students in the studio, which led Vince to imagine them as being more able than himself. This indicates how horizontal discourses can become internalised, constructing a particular sense of self (Bernstein 1999, p160).

As the interviews were undertaken periodically over two years it revealed that similar issues came up repeatedly. Vince saw his perceived difficulties as his own weakness and did not question why for him theory and practice were seen in opposition and how this could be due to the restrictive vocational education he had experienced previously. Nor did he contemplate political participation as a means of improving his situation. Elisa did have a certain amount of confidence to question what was happening to her on her course, but this did not seem to lead to change in the way she was treated or addressed by her institution. The case studies demonstrate the point that Coffield (2006) made that the pedagogic rights of a democratic education are interrelated. Not being included can erode confidence and without confidence it is difficult to act politically. Also, as Biesta (2010) pointed out, democracy needs to be inclusive so that marginal voices are heard and taken into account. Coffield and Williamson (2011, p64) talked about the need for democratic rights within the wider social context because what happens outside education impacts on the student as demonstrated by the impact high fees has had on the drop in numbers of ‘second-chance’ students applying to HE (Independent Commission on Fees 2013). By only considering the three pedagogic rights within a course of study there is a sense that institutions could easily construct a veneer of democracy or a mythical discourse around democracy which actually doesn't lead to any meaningful improvement in some students' experiences. Tedder and Biesta (2008) and Coffield and Williamson (2011) all see that the contemporary dominant discourse of managerialism is what really drives curriculum change. The implications of this research for tutors are that even though students may look like senior members of a group they may still be very lacking in confidence. They need to be given opportunities to develop confidence as younger students would be. Both Vince and Elisa would benefit from being able to talk openly to staff about their needs. Improvement in their educational experiences cannot be solely down to the individuals' own tenacity and resolve but through a dialogue between transmitters and acquirers. A democratic education is not based on addressing only the majority but also by considering the needs of the minority. Information about deadlines need to be planned in advance and not subject to change as this disadvantages those with work and family commitments. Most importantly, the same person should not always have the last tutorial slot so they get less time than the others.