Jacqueline Stevenson

Possible Selves: Students Orientating Themselves towards the Future through Extracurricular Activity.

This paper explores the under‐researched area of extracurricular activity undertaken by students through the lens of the possible selves literature, which has largely been developed in the North American context. In the UK the employability agenda assumes an orientation towards the future and employers are increasingly expecting students to display capacities beyond those of simply achieving a degree. Extracurricular activity is one site where students might be able to develop these additional capacities towards their future imagined selves. Our case study, based on in‐depth interviews with 61 students, found different orientations towards the future, with only some displaying future selves attuned to employability. Other students were more firmly orientated to the present and developing student identities or unable to elaborate or act on imaged futures because of the contingencies of the present. We conclude that paying attention to differing temporalities and to the insights derived from the possible se...

The aspiration and access to higher education of teenage refugees in the UK

Refugee1 young people are an educationally diverse group. However, unlike groups such as Gypsy/Roma and Travellers, in the UK they do not attract targeted educational funding. In addition, neither the UK integration or refugee educational strategies nor the Higher Education Funding Council for Englands strategic plan refer to higher education as a progression route for young refugees, as distinct from other minority ethnic young people. Our research with young refugees has shown that many have specific issues affecting their educational achievements, including interrupted education, experience of trauma, concerns about status and English language difficulties. Our findings also show that that despite these multiple disadvantages many view higher education as a route out of poverty and discrimination and are highly aspirational and motivated. We argue that homogenizing the support needs of young refugees along with those of other minority ethnic students is both inappropriate and insufficient and the continued failure to focus on them as a specific widening participation group will perpetuate their continued absence from the UK higher education system.

The Interview Reconsidered: Context, Genre, Reflexivity and Interpretation in Sociological Approaches to Interviews in Higher Education Research.

The paper makes a number of arguments about the research interview and maintains that, despite the near ubiquity of the method in higher education research, the interview remains under-theorised and mis-described. We argue that by virtue of being ‘insider’, higher education research involves a form of tacit ethnography where multiple sources of data impact on the interpretation of events. The ‘interview’ therefore needs to be understood in its rich contextual setting. The paper critiques the genre of journal writing and the tendency to under-describe methodology, with a reliance on a description solely of method. Papers that challenge this practice are discussed as offering alternative ways of writing research. Finally the paper analyses the role of reflexivity in interviews, both the researchers and the researched. It points to the contradictions involved when the forms of reflexivity evoked are tied to the very policies and practices (for example, ‘employability’) we are attempting to critique. The paper concludes that we need a much richer understanding of our methodologies and of knowledge making.

Who cares? Gender dynamics in the valuing of extra-curricular activities in higher education

Despite the assertion that higher education is becoming increasingly ‘feminised’ and that male students are the relative losers, gendered meanings continue to permeate higher education in ways that mean that the recognition of womens experiences are frequently marginalised. Our paper reports on research designed to explore student participation in extra-curricular activity from a perspective informed by a broader conceptualisation of the extra-curricular as a site of gendered, raced, and class practices intimately tied to the development of an employable self. We found that women frequently undervalue their participation and are more likely to be dismissive of extra-curricular activity as of value to their employability than men and that they rarely consider caring to be a form of capital which can be utilised or invested in to support their future employment. We argue that higher education institutions need to support students, in particular women, to recognise the value of their participation.

An analysis of gendered attitudes and responses to employability training

Training programmes for unemployed people are often designed to meet the identified vocational skill needs of businesses. We describe research across a number of projects in Leeds (United Kingdom) providing training to unemployed and marginalised adults. The focus was on those with multiple barriers to accessing and sustaining training and employment (including disability, mental illness, homelessness, substance abuse, refugee or immigration status, language, religion and culture). We found substantial gender differences in attitudes towards (un)employment, training and education, including ‘employability’ skills training. Women in our study were more likely to explain their unemployment in terms of ‘self’ or intrinsic failures: inadequacy, weakness or lack of requisite skills. For men, unemployment was seen as a consequence of extrinsic circumstances: bad luck, the failure of others or lack of support. Women were more likely to cite their barriers to training as social, personal or attitudinal, compared with men who saw them predominantly as structural and practical. Men most valued the acquisition of ‘hard’ skills, while women valued gains in confidence, reflective learning and teamwork. These results have implications for the design and delivery of employability training, particularly the need to support women to develop the requisite self‐competencies that create individual autonomy.

‘Teaching Excellence’ in the Context of Frailty

The global HE sector is being profoundly reshaped by global neoliberalism, driven by economic imperatives to develop ‘global, entrepreneurial, corporate, commercialised universities’ (Morley, 2011: 224). Within this neoliberal context policy discourses are increasingly being driven by world league tables, market competition, and the dominance of prestige culture with increasing pressure for universities to position themselves as ‘world-class’.

Possible selves and higher education : new interdisciplinary insights

Drawing together example studies from international contexts, this edited collection provides a new and cross-disciplinary perspective on the concept of the possible self, exploring its theoretical, methodological and empirical uses with regards to Higher Education. Building on research which examines the ways in which possible selves are constructed through inequalities of class, race and gender, the book interrogates the role of imagined futures in student, professional and academic lives, augmenting the concept of possible selves, with its origins in psychology, with sociological approaches to educational inequalities and exclusionary practices.

Translating close-up research into action: a critical reflection

Abstract This paper argues that simple dissemination models do not work. One of the strengths of close-up research, with its emphasis on depth and understanding, is that it can identify why things are as they are and, by extension, when we identify wrongs seek to challenge them. The paper suggests, however, that making a difference is fraught with contradictions and that the translation from research to action is far from straightforward. We illustrate these tensions by reflecting on our experiences of conducting two projects for the UK Higher Education Academy. At the same time as exploring the slippages of translation and loss of criticality, however, we want to defend notion of praxis as theoretically informed change for critical social purposes. This involves a view of making a difference and research that moves beyond thinking of research as a discrete act and invokes the significance of corporate agency and the possibilities of acting collectively.

A Sustainable Higher Education Sector: The Place for Mature and Part-Time Students?

UK higher education continues to see a decline in the number of part-time, mature students. Much of the blame for the decline is attributed to a lack of financial support with many students unwilling to add to their existing financial commitments at a time of significantly declining employer sponsorship. These changes represent a profound social challenge when sustainable UK economic performance needs to be addressed through a boost in productivity, which in turn requires a highly educated workforce. Part-time study provides an invaluable route into higher education for many individuals. However, fitting study around other commitments makes it difficult for many students to fully participate or integrate. In this chapter, we chart the rise and fall of mature and part-time student provision across UK higher education before drawing on our own research to evidence the challenges facing institutions in helping them to develop a sense of belonging, fundamental to student retention and success. In doing so, we highlight the need for greater consideration of both individual academic and social needs at an institutional level to support the determination and high levels of motivation the students demonstrate. We end this chapter by positing a set of practical recommendations designed to support institutions working to support both mature and part-time students and, as a result, a more sustainable higher education sector.

Marketisation, Institutional Stratification and Differentiated Pedagogic Approaches

Drawing on research with over 350 staff across 11 English higher education institutions this chapter draws attention to how ‘widening participation’ is being, differently, conceptualised within institutional discourses; how concerns, or not, to widen participation relate to pedagogy and how this differs across different types of institution. In particular we evidence how accounts of pedagogy seem to have become detached from considerations of social in/equalities, causing WP issues to be sidelined, and how the processes of marketisation appear to be deflecting resources from WP and related social justice activities. We conclude by arguing that the practices associated with marketisation and differentiation have significant implications for equity and equality.