)
Professor Samantha Broadhead is the Head of Research at Leeds Arts University. Having studied Visual Arts at Lancaster and Art History at Leeds Metropolitan (now Beckett) University her teaching experience is wide-ranging. She has worked on further education, undergraduate and postgraduate art and design courses. She has been appointed to the role of external examiner at the University of Salford, the University of Sunderland, University of Edinburgh, Lancaster University, Aberystwyth University and Arts University, Plymouth. She has also extensive experience in examining research degrees in the area of creative arts education and arts-based methods. As part of her role, Broadhead is cultivating the Universityâs unique and flourishing research culture and environment.
Her research interests are related to widening participation, in particular the experiences of mature students and Access to HE education within a creative arts context. She is also interested in the scholarship related to the work of Basil Bernstein (1924-2000). This is a development of her previous research about phronesis (practical wisdom) that formed the basis of her doctoral study at the University of Sunderland.
She has led projects funded by the Learning and Skills Improvement Service that aimed to improve Access students' experiences of transition from further to higher education by the use of joint practice development. Other research includes the QAA Collaborative Enhancement Projects 2021 âBelonging Through Assessment: Pipelines of Compassionâ. She has completed a four-year project with Dr Laura da Costa that created communities of inquiry to investigate the experiences of minoritised ethnic students in their arts education. In addition to this work she has carried out evaluation and knowledge exchange activity for Creative Scene, an Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation. Currently she is working on, Learning Returns, an arts-based project that employs YouTube to capture the experiences of mature students studying art and design. From 2024 Broadhead has been a co-investigator focusing on widening access to the creative industries as part of the Yorkshire Policy Innovation Partnership (YPIP).
Broadhead has published 12 articles in various journals, written 2 books, edited 2 volumes, and has guest edited 4 special issues. She serves as a member on the Journal of Widening Participation and Lifelong Learningâs editorial board and has been a reviewer of funding proposals for arts socially engaged projects for YPIP and the Arts and Humanities Funding Council.
Books
Broadhead, S. (Ed.). (2022) The Industrialisation of Arts Education. Palgrave Macmillan.
Broadhead, S. (Ed.). (2022) Access and Widening Participation in Arts Higher Education: Practice and Research. Springer Nature.
Broadhead, S., Davies, R. and Hudson, A. (2019) Perspectives on Access to Higher Education: Practice and Research. Emerald Publishing.
Broadhead, S. and Gregson, M. (2018) Practical Wisdom and Democratic Education â Phronesis, Art and Non-traditional Students. London: Macmillan Palgrave.
Book Sections
Broadhead, S,. Hooper, S. Gonnet, H. (2025). Learning Returns: The limitations and benefits of âsnowballing recruitmentâ as a process when researching the learning journeys of adults returning to education. In: Change and continuity: Thirty years of FACE. FACE, Peterborough.
Broadhead, S. & Hooper, S. (2024) Learning Returns: Experiences of mature students in art and design captured through YouTube. Adult education in times of crisis and change: perspectives on access, learning careers and identities. Universidade do Algarve Editora , Faro. pp113-136.
Broadhead, S. (2022) John Constable Was My First Art Teacher: Construction of Desire in a Working-Class Artist/Academic. In: Reilly, I.B. (Ed.) The Lives of Working Class Academics, Emerald Publishing Limited, Bingley, pp. 135-153. [Ryan and Sackrey Award for Best Book by Writer(s) of Working-Class Origins or that Speaks to Issues of the Working-Class Academic Experience. Winner: The Lives of Working Class Academics: Getting Ideas Above Your Station, Emerald, 2022. Working-Class Studies Association Awards 2024.
Broadhead, S. (2022) Post-War Design Education and the Jewellery Industry in Yorkshire: Drawing on the Experience of Designer-Maker Ann OâDonnell. In: The Industrialisation of Arts Education, Palgrave Macmillan. 59-81.
Broadhead, S., Macleod, D. (2022). Accessing Art and Design Higher Education: A Comparative Study of Access Courses Delivered in Further and Higher Education. In: Broadhead, S. (eds) Access and Widening Participation in Arts Higher Education. The Arts in Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan.
Whittaker, Randall and Broadhead, Samantha (2022) Disaggregating the Black Student Experience. In: Access and Widening Participation in Arts Higher Education: Practice and Research. The Arts in Higher Education (AHE) . Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 51-72.
Broadhead, Samantha ORCID logo (2022) The Janus of the Access to HE Diploma: Rethinking qualifications, units, credits and levels. In: Widening Access to Higher Education in the UK: Developments and Approaches: Using Credit Accumulation and Transfer. Open University Press.
Broadhead, S. (2020). What Eliza and Jake did next: Learning beyond access to HE art and design? Merrill, B.,Vieira, C.C., Galimberti, A. and Nizinska, A.(eds) Adult Education as a Resource for Resistance and Transformation: Voices, learning experiences, identities of student and adult educators. Coimbra, Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Coimbra, Portugal, Centre for the Research on Adult Education and Community Intervention (CEAD), University of Algarve, Portugal, ESREA - European Society for Research on the Education of Adults. pp. 167-174. ISBN 978-86-80712-40-6.
Broadhead. S. (2020) Non-traditional students and Practical Wisdom: a perspective from a practitioner-researcher. In: M. Gregson and P. Spedding, eds., Practice-Focused Research in Further Adult and Vocational Education: Shifting Horizons of Educational Practice, Theory and Research. Palgrave Macmillan.
Articles
Broadhead, S., Gonnet, H., & Tsionki, M. 2026. A Systematic Review of Arts Practice-Based Research Abstracts from Small and/or Specialist Institutions. Publications, 14(1), 13.
Broadhead, S., & Gonnet, H., (2025) Creative Dilemmas: Balancing open access and integrity. Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal, 12(3), 31-49.
Broadhead, S. J., & Hooper, S. (2024) How can arts-based methods support narrative inquiry into adult learning in the arts? A case study. European Journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults, 15(1), 63â80.
Broadhead, S. (2023) Make it Happen Summer School: Experiential learning to develop novice socially-engaged artists. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 24(21).
Broadhead, S. (2023) Viewing Daughters of Darkness through the lens of Queer Fear. Pride on the margins. Senses of Cinema, 106.
Broadhead, S., Tobias-Green, K., & Hooper, S. (2023) A Conversation about Ethics: A Deliberative and Practice-Based Approach to Ethics in Arts Education. Societies 13, no. 2: 39.
Broadhead, S. (2021). Exploring adult learning and its impact on wider communities through arts-based methods: an evaluation of narrative inquiry through filmmaking. Dyskursy MĹodych AndragogĂłw/Adult Education Discourses, (22), 41-59. Retrieved from www.dma.wpps.uz.zgora.pl/index.php?journal=DMA&page=article&op=view&path[]=594.
Broadhead, S., Bale, I., Case, K., Hussain, M. and Woolley, D. (2020) âExploring the black, Asian and ethnic minority (BAME) student experience using a Community of Inquiry approachâ, Journal of Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning, 22(1), pp. 112-131.
Broadhead, S. (2020) âMature students matter: the impact of the research development fellowship in accessing and design educationâ, Education Sciences, 10(2).
Conference Proceedings
Broadhead, S. 2024. Social justice through pedagogic rights, access and widening participation. Staying with the troublemakers: A celebration of research in FE. LSRN, AoC. pp.16-18.
Broadhead, S. and Bailey, M. 2024. Make It Happen: Developing Cultural Engagement Through University and Charity Collaboration, Different Temporalities and Rhythms. Angela larocchi (Ed). Applying Education in a Complex World: Teaching and Learning. AMPS Proceedings Series 33.2. ISSN 2398-9467. pp. 111-118.
Broadhead, S. (2021). âMature graduates and visual culture learning communities: Working through the covid-19 pandemicâ, Hongxia Shan and Cindy Hanson (eds.) Proceedings of Adult Education in Global Times, Vancouver, University of British Columbia: 92-97. ISBN: 978-0-920056-54-7.
Broadhead, S. (2020). âMature students matter in art and design educationâ, John P Egan (ed.) Proceedings of Adult Education in Global Times, Vancouver, University of British Columbia: pp. 75-81. ISBN 978-0-920056-53-0.
Broadhead, S. (2020) âMature students matter in art and design educationâ, In: Proceedings of Adult Education in Global Times: An International Research Conference. University of British Columbia, pp. 75-81. ISBN 9780920056530
Other Publications
Broadhead, S. 2025. Identity and connection sustained by artistic research values. In Caines, A. & Leach, S. (Eds) Educator, Artist, Researcher, special issue of AD (The National Society for Education in Art and Design magazine) Autumn 2025, Issue 44: 14-15.
Gonnet, H.& Broadhead, S. 2025. Creative arts researchers: Give them the credit! UK Serials Group (Connecting the knowledge community).
Broadhead, S. Gonnet, H. 2024. An accessible system for ethics approval.
Hooper, S., Gonnet, H. & Broadhead, S. 2024. Professional and Technical Staff supporting Open Research: Case Study 5, Practice-based arts research project. UKRN & JISC
Broadhead, S. 2021. Art, craft and design in prison education. In: AD (The National Society for Education in Art and Design magazine). Autumn 2021, Issue 32: 16-17.
Exhibitions
Broadhead, S. and Norton, F. (2017) Ann OâDonnell Modernist jeweller. Blenheim Walk Gallery, Leeds Arts University. 12 May â 27 July 2017.
Video
Broadhead, S. and Hooper, S. (2015) Spare rib and subversive stitching: feminist strategies to documentary film-making.