Dissensus, Street Art and School Change

Abstract

This article draws upon Rancière’s concepts of the ‘distribution of the sensible’ and ‘dissensus’ in order to explore some of the tensions and processes at work in a multi‐year school change project that sought to transform a school through the ‘urban arts’. Building on student interest in extracurricular Hip‐Hop and street art programming, the school tried to integrate the urban arts across the curriculum through a partnership with local arts organisations and university researchers. While there were a number of project successes, the project also faced significant resistance, which in Rancière’s terms might be inevitable since the project tried to transform the dominant ways of doing and making in the school, displacing those who no longer saw themselves reflected. We understand the tensions in light of the disruptive power of street art and Hip‐Hop culture, but also as manifestations of antiblackness in education. Using data from a three‐year critical ethnography, we share a series of narrative vignettes which unpack the role of the visual arts in challenging the distribution of the sensible at the school, and offer insight into how teachers might have been better invited in as participants in dissensus.