Crafting professionals: exploring the spatial and social mediation of professional networks in craft higher education

Lauren England

Chapter 10 in A Modern Guide to Creative Economies, 2022, pp 164-180 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter addresses how spatial and social dynamics can influence the craft higher education (HE) experience and professional development of crafts students. It builds on literature on networks in creative career development and the role of place in educational contexts, and draws from interviews with crafts educators and students from four HE providers in England conducted between 2016-2018. Two key and connected mediators of networks within craft HE are presented - place and educators. Both opportunities and challenges for professional network development are discussed and it is argued that educators' role as network brokers and mediators, combined with geographical exposure, influences students' identification of potential career pathways. The chapter concludes with reflection on the role of networks in early craft career development and the implications of their spatial and social mediation, including the potential for regional socio-economic inequalities and barriers to accessing craft careers to be reinforced.

Keywords: Business and Management; Economics and Finance; Geography; Sociology and Social Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/view/edcoll/9781789905496/9781789905496.00020.xml (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:19188_10

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Darrel McCalla ().