Multi-directional creative transfer between practice-based arts education and work

Abstract

In this article we examine how 19 students in creative arts disciplines in two universities experience work in not-for-profit and public sectors. We explore the notion of transfer from university education and suggest that ‘creative transfer’ is taking place, often in more than one direction. Students draw on their life-wide experiences as they deem appropriate in new situations and also vicarious learning from university settings. The extent to which creative transfer happens is, we suggest, tempered by relational affordances between the individual, the people they encounter, the opportunities they perceive in new situations and the value or reward perceived in the new work environment. These findings have implications for supporting students in practice-based learning and work settings and we provide some recommendations for maximising the potential for multi-directional transfer.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the project team, Charlotte Betts, Norman Jackson, Kirsten Hardie, Silvia Sovic, Angeliki Triantafyllaki and Jennie Willis, together with all students and staff at the institutions mentioned in the paper who participated. The anonymous referees provided very helpful and insightful comments on earlier versions of the paper.