Creative engagement: using creative practice to engage vocational learners in American studies outreach
Academic outreach in UK further education (FE) colleges tends to focus on students on the main academic pathways. The reasons for this are both legitimate and pragmatic: fostering interest and engagement among 16–19-year-old A-level students provides a feeder into undergraduate degrees, and can support widening access to university study. However, focusing on recruitment as an outreach goal means that opportunities for wider engagement within post-16 education can be missed, falling victim to narrow disciplinary definitions and traditional modes of academic engagement. As a satellite activity to an American studies conference at the University of Leeds, we wanted to go beyond traditional A-level outreach to take a more creative approach to engagement. We worked to design an art practice project for post-16 vocational art and design students which explored the conference’s theme of radical print cultures of the US South. We used artmaking to facilitate research into American protest movements and political activism using primary print culture materials found in open-access digital archives. This article offers a critical reflection on the project and will show that in exploring the connections between print practice and activism learners were able to use their art practice as a way to understand complex historical and contemporary events. We evaluate the impact of interdisciplinary, research-focused artmaking on learners’ critical thinking, political and historical knowledge and research and design skills, and we assess the value of using creative practice in post-16 outreach work.