I’ve always been interested in how the construction of the international student category at college connects language and racialisation processes. For example, it’s very common for US or students from Western Europe who are fluent in English are seen as outside that category. The university frames “international students” as a racialised term through their dehumanisation as a source of cash and funding for courses, or to be blunter, our dehumanisation. This characterization seems completely unmoved by generations of incredibly successful art careers led by international students at college. Students describe how they feel that they succeeded against the expectations and dismissiveness of some of their tutors. It’s common to hear academic and administrative staff refer to those students in a generalised pejorative way. For example, I’ve been to a training about name pronunciations that began with a 5 min Zoom open mic chat between the facilitator and a staff member in attendance discussing how international students bring the standards down and how the only reason we have them in our classes is because the university wants their money. This is also an example of how the dehumanization of racialised students is echoed in the dehumanization of racialised international staff in general, which were present in the call.(Garrett, 2025) The session then went on to explain to us how name pronunciation was essential because of the university’s decolonisation aims…On an anti-racist mandatory training, a member of staff raised the issue of how uncomfortable he felt about the way some of his team members spoke and treated Chinese students, only to be told that this was not a race issue that could be discussed in the session.
“The low expectations of the English-language learners are established right at the very start of their school careers, and stay with them through their seven years in primary school, solidified in the data which tracks them as they progress.” (Bradbury, 2020)
Low expectations are the key words here. The testing of EAL (English as Additional Language) learners English learners has parallels with the patronising expectations against international students at UAL, more specifically but not restricted to Chinese and brown students, who are evaluated in relation to British art education paradigms. Those paradigms are established through the foundations courses and are thus expanded to working-class black and brown students who come straight from 6th form. Expectations of ‘experimentalism’ (which is usually a gimmick and has a specific aesthetic and methodological form), the valuing of conceptual uses of mediums over commitment and development of the skill specificities of the medium, the overvaluation of discursive justification and contextualisation of the work through crits, the extreme work the term ‘criticality’ is expected to do, etc. These paradigms ignore the different art pedagogies that exist not just all over the world, but also in the different art worlds that exist in different communities in the UK, and the multiplicity of ways to make and think about art in the contemporary art world. Instead of treating diversity and abundance as a wealth of intellectual and aesthetic opportunities, the art school becomes a place of kinship making over pedagogy. (O’Brien, 28 June 2023) A place where to reify the ‘supremacy’ of an implied racialised British art school tradition.
Bibliography
Bradbury, A. (2020) ‘A critical race theory framework for education policy analysis: the case of bilingual learners and assessment policy in England’, Race Ethnicity and Education, 23(2), pp. 241–260. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2019.1599338.
Garrett, R. (2025) ‘Racism shapes careers: career trajectories and imagined futures of racialised minority PhDs in UK higher education’, Globalisation, Societies and Education, 23(3), pp. 683–697. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/14767724.2024.2307886.
O’Brien, D. (no date) ‘The Fall and Rise of the English Upper Class – Houses, Kinship and Capital Since 1945’. (New Books in Critical Theory). Available at: https://newbooksnetwork.com/the-fall-and-rise-of-the-english-upper-class (Accessed: 22 June 2025).
Andrea. Well done for finishing your third blog post!
You always bring an unexpected yet authentic perspective. You really hit the nail on the head with this one.
Some tutors believe they’re not being racist because they’re comfortable with students of colour, yet at the same time, they express prejudice against Chinese students.
I can relate to your point. In my case, several staff members have made remarks about Chinese students being “cash cows”. Even more disappointingly, I’ve also heard comments from both current and former students suggesting that course standards are being lowered because the programme is accepting “rich and talentless” Chinese students.
It’s a deeply troubling and narrow-minded view. These individuals are overlooking the talent, stories, and cultural and artistic richness that diversity brings. They completely disregard the individual. As Sadiq says in his TED Talk: Everyone is an individual. Everyone has a unique identity.
They’re missing out on alternative perspectives that could genuinely enrich the learning environment and their student experience. And their lives.
I suppose racism comes with a kind of selective favouritism, but it is still racism.
A few years ago, there was a social media study conducted in Slovenia exploring how open and tolerant young Slovenians are. One of the questions asked was along the lines of: Are you racist? Would you be comfortable living next door to a person of colour? To my surprise most participants responded that they had no issues with people of colour (interpreted to mean Black and Brown individuals) and would be happy to have them as neighbours.
But then came the follow-up question: What about the “Gypsies” (Roma people)? To which nearly everyone replied that they wouldn’t live next to a Roma person, citing the belief that they are all thieves.
Note: Slovenia faces serious challenges with the discrimination and exclusion of the Roma community from many spheres of life. There are only around 200 people of colour living in the country, which also highlights how limited exposure can contribute to harmful stereotypes.
Hello Both
Do you know this graphic novel: The Roles We Play – by Sabba Khan?
https://ethicalshop.org/the-roles-we-play-by-sabba-khan.html
I highly recommend it!
Sabba Khan is a British Pakistani woman that studied BA Architecture at Central Saint Martins. The book is beautifully illustrated, and the recollection of her UAL experience, from from recruitment, through to Art Foundation and BA Architecture course are very revealing of this “racialised British Art School tradition”. I recognise some of my colleagues and managers in the descriptions, although she mentions no names. It made me cringe.
I can lend you my book. A great excuse to meet you and have a coffee at some point in the summer.
Well done with completing your last post. I was so late with mine. I want to quickly comment about how some staff see asian students, especially commenting on ‘students bring the standards down and how the only reason we have them in our classes is because the university wants their money’. I have also heard this commentary with some staff (the hallways talk in UAL). I do find it very concerning, either UAL is not conscious about the bias space that it lives in or its completely ignoring it. I raised something similar in my blog about the 2021 Sewell Report and UAL not challenging its notion that there was no systemic racism. Stuff like this allows people to make commentary thinking its fine but not realising they have unconscious racist rhetoric. Something I have to be conscious of.