Business schools around the world are facing growing impetus to nurture inclusion and equity, and to confront long-standing attainment gaps for minority students (OfS, 2022). Traditional curricula often fail to support diverse identities and cultures creating feelings of alienation leading to potential isolation and drop-out. This paper introduces the integration of structured creative activities as vehicles for self-discovery to cultivate safe, inclusive environments in business and management education where all students can thrive.

Cultivating “identity safety” through positive representations together with a creative and non-judgmental environment help to improve belonging (Lowe, 2020). Furthermore, facilitating students’ discovery and expression of their authentic self promotes the autonomy and competence that fosters motivation according to self-determination theory (Iftode et al., 2023; Deci & Ryan, 2008) .

Specifically, detail of a workshop entitled “Portrait of Your Future Self” held for a group of marginalised students at a UK Business School is provided. The four-hour session led student participants through introspective creation of personal artwork envisioning their desired future selves and goals. Following models of self-authorship from a liberal arts tradition, the activity emphasised openly exploring identity apart from external expectations. Detailed qualitative analysis reveals workshop themes of connection with one’s inner authentic self, relaxation through decompression and flow, hopefulness for the future, and non-judgment.

Interview data found the activity deeply impactful for fostering wellbeing and for envisioning deeper purpose (Sharma & Yukhymenko-Lescroart, 2018). Themes suggest the creative process allowed discovering and articulating students’ “true self” aside from daily pressures and constraints. In addition, sharing future self-portraits organically built empathy and community. Largely, the workshop activated the process of flow and through this a sense of inclusion by valuing participant’s inner lives and fostering optimism (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997). 

Overall, this arts-based approach is positioned as exemplifying a conscious pedagogy – a pedagogy where experiences are intentionally designed to meet neurobiological needs such as safety, belonging, love and joy which serve as  prerequisites to growth and learning. I argue a conscious pedagogy integrates critical and constructive paradigms with the potential for equity and repairing exclusion respectively (Macdonald & MacLeod, 2018).

Wider integration of self-authorship work may accelerate cultural shifts towards belonging for marginalised students and as such one must consider the scalability implications and limitations of the study. In addition, one can argue that brief interventions have limited impact without wider ecosystem cultivation. Creative sessions allow glimpses of alternate modes of learning but require support through resourcing, formal structures, and leadership messaging. Future research would involve longitudinal studies measuring identity safety and attainment after experiencing workshop interventions.

The paper poses the question: how may creative expression foster inclusion? It proposes a conceptual framework which positions the connection between the main emergent themes and how they mutually reinforce each other in a positive, virtuous cycle. Starting with a non-judgmental creative space, this enables connecting with one's authentic self. By reflecting on identity and values, individuals gained self-awareness.

This self-knowledge then gives hope and agency allowing envisioning of desired future states, fulfilling the third theme of feeling hopeful about the future. Achieving this hopeful view subsequently leads to outcomes depicted in the first theme - feeling relaxed and able to decompress. With optimism about goals and a clearer sense of identity, stress is reduced.

Finally, the lower stress and appreciation of the creative activity makes it more likely for participants to access and connect with their authentic self once more closing the reinforcing loop.

This paper proposes therefore that intentional use of emotive, imaginative pedagogies could help satisfy and motivate those discouraged and alienated by cognitive-heavy business curricula thus helping universities to address the attainment gap.

This exploratory qualitative study examined student experiences creating future self-portraits in a workshop and their reflections in focus groups afterwards. The workshop titled “Portraits of Your Future Self” was held in Spring 2022 within a UK business school involving 15 undergraduate student participants from marginalised communities. Students represented diverse ethnic, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. The 4-hour creative session was led by a professional artist who guided students through introspectively visualising their desired lives. The brief was: to imagine your future self and to create an artwork of your future self. The artwork brief was very much left open to their interpretation, and this was important so as not to dictate a response. After discussing self-concept influences and envisioning ideal future states, participants used art materials such as paint, fabrics, and magazines to craft representations of their future self-portraits. Open-ended self-expression was encouraged without evaluation. Students worked on their portraits for 2 hours and created them using the materials provided, afterwards they were provided with a frame so they could frame their work and take it home. In the week following the workshop, 3 focus groups were conducted, each with 5 students, to explore their learning experience. Semi-structured interviews with traditional qualitative probing lasted from 40-60 minutes. Discussions explored participants’ decision-making, the emergent meaning of visual choices, emotional reactions to the activity, and any new self-insights. Focus groups were facilitated by the author and a research assistant. Each session was recorded and fully transcribed. The purpose of these focus groups was to gain insights about students’ experiences and to gain insights into participants’ feelings and emotions and actions. Adhering to the guidelines of the thematic analysis approach (Braun & Clarke, 2006), the data was inductively analysed. The dataset from the focus groups transcripts were the focal point of the analysis. These transcripts were read, coded, and then re-read to identify conceptual categories emerging from the data (Miles & Huberman, 1984; Strauss and Corbin 1998). The coding process allowed the theoretical properties of the subcategories to be generated, which in turn, enabled the discovery of the ‘core categories’ (Glaser & Strauss, 2017) that underpin the proposed framework. Through this process, a good fit between empirical observations and the conceptual categories they indicate was guaranteed (Locke, 2000). This process enabled substantive theory to form.

This research explored integrating creative self-portraiture into business education as a pathway towards empowering and including marginalised student voices (Taylor & Robinson, 2009). Analysis of the future self-portrait workshop and focus groups reveals affirming psychological impacts across multiple themes. Students described the activity as restorative and motivating, helping visualise desired goals whilst at the same time appreciating peers’ uniqueness. The premise outlined in the proposed conceptual model reflect the outcomes - providing non-judgmental spaces for self-discovery assist activating students’ authentic identities and inherent motivations according to self-determination theory. Further, envisioning ideal future selves fosters hope and agency fuelling engagement (Schoem et al. 2023). By valuing often obscured student perspectives, traditionally alienating curricula can become springboards for realisation (Luckett & Shay, 2020). While this initial four-hour intervention showed promising results, longer-term immersive programmes may profoundly shift the culture towards equitable belonging and reconciliation (Jagers et al., 2019). Results here align with a liberal arts approach to leveraging creativity for purpose and meaning-making. Ongoing exposure across business courses could help satisfy psychosocial needs enabling academic success. However, mere exposure has limits without root-cause removal of systemic threats that undermine marginalised students. Creative sessions provide temporary respite from hierarchical dynamics endemic in higher education (Lee, 2022). Sustaining safe containers where all identities feel valued requires dismantling existing biases. In this light, consciousness-raising self-portraiture serves as a starting point for inclusion, not an endpoint. Representational workshops can introduce radical paradigm shifts that must contribute to new figurations of learning ecology. By spotlighting diverse self-concepts, this study takes some small steps towards equity. This offers hope that the future of business education can nurture success and growth for all, not just the majority.

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