We are now advertising a studentship for three or four years to research  the learning that occurs in Nottingham Contemporary education programmes. 

The ad reads:

The place of learning: teachers, artists and young people at Nottingham Contemporary

The University of Nottingham and the Economic and Social Research Council’s (ESRC) Doctoral Training Centre (DTC) are offering a fully-funded PhD studentship in collaboration with Nottingham Contemporary.

Nottingham Contemporary has a strong commitment to ensuring that young people in the city, many of whom are from families struggling to get by, have access to meaningful visual art experiences and offers both formal and informal opportunities for learning, in the galleries, through public events, through family and young people’s programmes and through programmes in schools.

While there are regular evaluations conducted of the Nottingham Contemporary educational programmes, there has not yet been any in depth longitudinal research of the benefits that those engaged in school programmes get from their gallery engagements. The gallery is increasingly asked for evidence of the value of its programmes. This project will provide the first robust examination of the NC learning programmes and as such, it will inform future developments at Nottingham Contemporary, but will also be of significant interest to partner regional contemporary art galleries (the Plus Tate network).

First Supervisor: Professor Pat Thomson
Second Supervisor: Professor Christine Hall

The project examines the learning affordances of the Nottingham Contemporary Learning Programmes for teachers, students and artists. The researcher will be based in the school’s Centre for Research in Arts, Creativity and Literacy and will undertake an ethnographic study of the NC learning programme and examine the different ‘impacts’ of NC’s programmes for students aged 5-16, their teachers and the artists who work with them.

Specifically, the researcher will, over a nine-month period (a school year including school holidays), undertake ethnographic research in the gallery – observe young people, their teachers and artists who participate in school programmes; interview teachers and students in ten city schools; and administer a cultural participation survey to young people.

The full time studentship provides funding for three or four years (PhD/MA+PhD) to start on 1 October 2016. The award will cover full PhD fees and provide a tax-free stipend for UK candidates (£14,057 p.a. in 2015), or fees only for EU candidates.

Candidates should have a masters degree in Education, Anthropology, Sociology or a related Social Science or cognate discipline such as Art History or Fine Arts. Prior experience in qualitative research is highly desirable.

The application process and further information is online. 

Closing date: 21 February 2016 (noon).