White spaces as part of an exclusionary pedagogy? The Creative Arts University

Broadhead, Samantha ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9469-1233 and da Costa, Laura (2026) White spaces as part of an exclusionary pedagogy? The Creative Arts University. In: Living Black at University. Manchester University Press, Manchester, pp. 1-20. (Submitted)

Abstract

Despite the biggest increase in entry rate to higher education across all ethnic groups over the last two decades (Department for Education, 2025), significant inequities remain in the UK university experience of Black students. Degree awarding differentials and university accommodation have represented key fora for exploring the scale of disparities (Universities UK, 2022; Halpin, 2022), and their impact on everyday lived experiences across a range of higher education institutions. In this chapter, Broadhead and da Costa focus specifically on space within the context of the creative arts university. They begin by arguing that space is integral to the signature pedagogies associated with creative arts higher education, which can elicit disparate student experiences based on race. The authors next employ an exploratory spatial survey, examining interactions with spaces by ethnicity and the role these spaces have traditionally played in creative arts higher education. Having explored space within the creative arts university in theoretical, pedagogical and socio-spatial terms, Black students’ own reflections on navigating these spaces are considered, contributing insight into the everyday experiences that can accumulate to produce observed awarding gaps. The chapter concludes that creative arts universities must engage with the transformation of spaces if they are to become inclusive.

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