Dr Will Grant

Qualifications:

BA (Hons); MA; MEd; PGCE; QTS; PGCAPP; EdD

Position:

Associate Director: Postgraduate Taught Studies

Department:

School of Arts

Telephone:

+441173283635

Email:

Will.Grant@uwe.ac.uk

Social media:

About me

I am Associate Director of Postgraduate Taught Studies in the School of Arts. Built on world-class industry partnerships, faculty research expertise, and the breadth of technical excellence available in the School of Arts, our postgraduate programmes represent an outstanding investment for future practitioners and leaders in the arts and cultural economies.

As a passionate proponent for postgraduate study in the arts, I am committed to continued expansion of the scale and diversity of our provision in this space. I view dialogue with stakeholders and dynamic curriculum innovation as central in ensuring contemporary and creative student experiences, working closely with a team of disciplinary experts to pursue coherent and collaborative outcomes. I argue for an arts education that might simultaneously extend learners' professional competencies, theoretical positionality, and practical sophistication, bridging the gap between undergraduate foundations and independent artistic mastery through activation of peer communities.

I am also Associate Professor in Arts Curriculum and Pedagogy. Given my professional experiences in teaching, my research interests are interleaved with public advocacy for high quality arts education in secondary schools. 

I studied my PGCE in Art and Design in 2011 and latterly led art and photography departments in London and Bristol secondary schools until joining UWE in 2019. I continue to be an active Council Member of the National Society of Education in Art and Design, a Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts. I am a long-serving, active trustee of the Roche Court Education Trust.

I am co-editor of the International Journal for Art and Design Education.

Area of expertise

My teaching draws on experience and empirical research in the classroom, including on issues of pedagogy, curricula, assessment, and inclusion. I have particular interest in equity and arts education, postmodern art education, preservice art teacher preperation, and notions of criticality and authenticity in arts curriculum and pedagogy.

Recent research has involved inspecting art education practices in relation to modernist tradition, charting curriculum conventions and teacher agency in English secondary school art departments, and evaluating educational programming at the National Gallery. My doctoral research at the University of Glasgow focused on the sustainability of prospective art educators' idealism when faced with technocratic rationale in the classroom.

I am currently engaged in drafting the National Curriculum for Art and Design in England, 2028.

Publications

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