In what ways does in the museum context provide a safe space to ask difficult questions around culture and race?

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Project summaryThe study focuses on work being undertaken by the Schools and Teachers team at Tate in London who have been working to improve access to and participation in programme activity by Black and minority ethnic teachers, and raise awareness of race and culture with teachers more widely in response to issues they have encountered through their training programmes. The study seeks to understand: a) how teachers' particular experiences, beliefs and attitudes operate as the starting point in using a teaching resource designed to open up their knowledge and thinking around race, racism and cultural difference through art, b) how shifts in these beliefs, attitudes and a sensitivity with regard to the use of language and reference might impact on students as learners, c) whether an art intervention can lead to a more informed understanding of the range, relevance and contribution of Black British and international Black art/artists to the world of art and equip teachers with the language to be able to address issues of culture and difference in the classroom.The study uses critical theory and qualitative methodologies (focus groups and interviews) and practice based research to explore in depth with art teachers with varied subject specialisms and artists, their perspectives as to the factors which facilitate and/or inhibit teacher and student discussions (informed by race, ethnicity and culture) about art in museums; the type of language used to broach difficult questions around race and culture; the extent to which art discussions around culture and race can lead to museums being viewed as more inclusive spaces for teachers, artists and students; and what can be done to enhance inclusive teacher practice.Discourse analysis and critical theory will also be used to: i) understand dominant discourses/representations of Black British and international Black art/artists, including but not exclusive to the Black British art movement of the 1970s and 1980s, prevalent in education and wider society; ii) understand how dominant discourses are reproduced and resisted by pre and in-service teachers;iii) understand how pre and in-service teacher perspectives/understandings of Black British and international Black art/artists, and the Black British art can be challenged through a Tate art classroom intervention.Such an approach will assist in identifying which discourses of Black British and international Black art/artists are produced through student/teacher interactions with art, the art curriculum in school and BME artists, how dominant discourses of British and International BME art practices interact with pre and in-service teachers' identity backgrounds (e.g. class, ethnicity, age, gender), and how Tate interventions can be used to support ethnically diverse pre and in-service teachers (with and without backgrounds in art) to engage in 'difficult' art conversations around race and culture with children in the gallery and classroom.