Availability and Actualisation – Social and Emotional Learning Processes in Transitions to ‘Behind and Around the Scenes’ Performing Arts Education

This study examines artistic career decision processes and aspiratory narratives of art students who are studying for a future working life ‘behind and around the scenes’ (BAS). The analyses are based on data from 17 biographical interviews. The study found that the BAS programmes were ‘hidden’ in the context of the performing arts, where pre-education work engagements and networking were critical for making them available as a career choice. In the processes of actualising educational aspirations, the emotion of self-confidence was found to be central, due to the challenges involved in getting accepted and the risks and insecurities involved in aspiring to a career in the arts. Three sources of self-confidence are analysed: pursuing a meaningful (working) life; coping with rejection; and acknowledgement from significant others. Drawing on careership theory and sociology of emotions, the study interprets the students’ aspiratory trajectories as social and emotional learning processes in which the individual acted with bounded agency. Through the non-linear and processual character of the students’ transitions to artistic education, the study challenges understandings of artistic careers as predetermined by social structures, ‘talent’ or an inner ‘calling’. Furthermore, by emphasising emotions as critical for action and agency, the study offers resistance to a dominant position in critical research in which emotions are negatively interpreted as complicit in precarisation and self-exploitation in the world of art. Abstrakt Studiet undersøger kunstneriske karrievalg og aspirant narrativer blandt scenekunststuderende der uddanner sig til et fremtidigt arbejdsliv ’bag- og rundtom scenen’. Analyserne er baseret på data fra 17 biografiske interviews. Studiet fandt at uddannelserne var ‘skjulte’ i den scenekunstneriske kontekst, hvor praktisk arbejdslivserfaring og netværksdannelse inden uddannelsen spillede en væsentlig rolle i at gøre uddannelserne tilgængelige som mulige studie- og karrierevalg. I processen mod at aktualisere uddannelsesaspirationerne var følelsen af selvtillid central, grundet konkurrencen om uddannelsespladserne, samt mere overordnede usikkerheder forbundet med at aspirere til en karriere som kunstner. Tre kilder til selvtillid analyseres: at efterstræbe et meningsfuldt (arbejds)liv; at håndtere afvisning; samt anerkendelse fra signifikante andre. Baseret på careership teori og emotions sociologi, fortolker studiet de studerendes veje til uddannelse som sociale og emotionelle læreprocesser i hvilke individet handlede med begrænset aktørfrihed. Herigennem udfordrer studiet udbredte forståelser af kunstneriske karrierer som værende forudbestemt af sociale strukturer, ‘talent’ eller et indre ‘kald’. Ved at fremhæve følelser som væsentlige komponenter i individets mulighed for handling, yder studiet desuden modstand til en dominerende position i forskningen om kunstnerisk arbejde, hvor følelser ofte fortolkes negativt, som medvirkende til prekarisering og selvudnyttelse i den kreative sektor. Søgeord: Scenekunstuddannelse; careership teori; emotioner; uddannelsesovergange; biografiske interviews