Neil Harrison

Cultural distance, mindfulness and passive xenophobia: using Integrated Threat Theory to explore home higher education students’ perspectives on ‘internationalisation at home’

This paper addresses the question of interaction between home and international students using qualitative data from 100 home students at two ‘teaching intensive’ universities in the southwest of England. Stephan and Stephan’s Integrated Threat Theory is used to analyse the data, finding evidence for all four types of threat that they predict when outgroups interact. It is found that home students perceive threats to their academic success and group identity from the presence of international students on the campus and in the classroom. These are linked to anxieties around ‘mindful’ forms of interaction and a taboo around the discussion of difference, leading to a ‘passive xenophobia’ for the majority. The paper concludes that Integrated Threat Theory is a useful tool in critiquing the ‘internationalisation at home’ agenda, making suggestions for policies and practices that may alleviate perceived threats, thereby improving the quality and outcomes of intercultural interaction.

It's So Much Easier to Go With What's Easy: "Mindfulness" and the Discourse Between Home and International Students in the United Kingdom

A recent aspect of U.K. higher education has been the internationalisation of university campuses, driven by a rapid increase in student numbers from overseas and growing pressure to prepare all students for global careers. It is often assumed by policy makers that the benefits of an internationalised university will include opportunities for enhancing cultural awareness and capability among U.K. students, with contact with other cultures helping to foster a sense of global citizenship and responsibility. This article reports initial findings from two English universities which suggests that U.K. students instinctively take a strategic approach to cross-cultural interaction based on perceptions of cultural proximity and comfort. Although U.K. students do appear to identify some of the gains predicted by policy-makers, these are often low level, incidental, and unconnected to wider learning. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that data collection and analysis has been hindered by a strong taboo around discussions of diversity.

The Impact of Negative Experiences, Dissatisfaction and Attachment on First Year Undergraduate Withdrawal.

This paper reports the results of a telephone survey of 151 undergraduates who withdrew in their first year of study at a post‐1992 institution. It focuses on the negative experiences which they reported during their time at the university and the ultimate reasons for leaving, exploring in particular issues around choice of course, academic experience, socialization and financial support. From these data and from demographic information held by the university, distinct groupings of similar cases emerge, going some way to illuminating which students leave, when and why. The paper concludes with a discussion around the relationship between dissatisfaction, attachment and student retention, proposing that negative stimuli only go part of the way to explaining withdrawal decisions.

Have the Changes Introduced by the 2004 Higher Education Act Made Higher Education Admissions in England Wider and Fairer

‘Widening participation’ and ‘fair access’ have been contested policy areas in English higher education since at least the early 1990s. They were key facets of the 2003 White Paper – The Future of Higher Education – and the subsequent 2004 Higher Education Act, with stated objectives that the reach of higher education should be wider and fairer. In particular, there has been considerable concern about admissions to ‘top universities’, which have remained socially as well as academically exclusive. The principal policy tools used by the Act were the introduction of variable tuition fees, expanded student grants, discretionary bursaries and the new Office for Fair Access (OFFA). This paper draws on publicly available statistics to assess whether the changes implemented by the 2004 Act have indeed made access to English higher education wider and fairer in relation to young people progressing from state schools and colleges and from lower socio‐economic groups. It concludes that, while there is some evidence for modest improvements, these have been concentrated outside the ‘top universities’, which have seen slippage relative to the rest of the sector. The paper concludes with a discussion of the reasons why financial inducements appear to be a flawed and naive approach to influencing student demand.

Expensive and failing? The role of student bursaries in widening participation and fair access in England

English universities currently spend £355m each year on bursaries to student groups who are under-represented in higher education. However, there is little evidence to suggest that this investment has had any meaningful impact on patterns of student demand. This article examines the policy objectives of the 2004 Higher Education Act in the context of one of the policy tools that the Act implemented: an effectively mandatory bursary system operated locally by individual universities, designed to widen participation in higher education among students from lower socio-economic groups and ensure fair access to the highest status universities. It reviews evidence suggesting that students targeted for bursaries are unresponsive to financial inducements, and place a high priority on provision that is local and socially comfortable. It concludes that this is a fatal flaw in bursaries as a policy tool, contributing to slow progress on the widening participation and fair access agendas.

Towards a Typology of Debt Attitudes among Contemporary Young UK Undergraduates.

As the UK sits on the verge of a major change in the financing of both universities and students, this study seeks to capture and analyse attitudes to money, borrowing and debt among contemporary young undergraduates. It reports findings from a qualitative study of 62 individuals in the second term of their first year at university, these being representatively sampled from volunteers across gender, social class, ethnicity and subject discipline. The semi-structured interview data was subjected to thematic analysis and this was used to derive a tentative typology of debt attitudes ranging from ‘debt-positive’ to ‘debt-angry’. The findings of this study suggest that student attitudes are more complex than assumed in some previous research and journalistic commentary, especially with respect to social class. Counterintuitively, many students from lower social-class backgrounds show a positivity about debt as a means of enabling them to access higher-level careers; this is consistent with admissions data following the 2006 increase in tuition fees and student indebtedness. More generally, the mainstream of student attitudes appears to fall between the ‘debt-savvy’ and ‘debt-resigned’ types, with students being relatively well-informed about repayment terms and accepting large-scale indebtedness as ‘normal’, with most students being ‘in the same boat’. The implications of these findings, the limitations of the study and future opportunities for research are discussed.

Practice, problems and power in ‘internationalisation at home’: critical reflections on recent research evidence

In a period when international flows of higher education students are rapidly increasing and diversifying, this paper reviews recent research evidence about the experiences of ‘home’ students – those who are not mobile and study in their home nation. This is situated within the concept of ‘internationalisation at home’, which asserts that these students should also receive an international educational experience: through interaction with international students, curriculum development and new pedagogic approaches. However, the evidence to date suggests that this is considerably more problematic than might be imagined. For example, home students across the world are often found to resist intercultural group work and generally to avoid contact with their international peers, leading to concerns about unequal access to transformative experiences and powerful knowledge. The conflict between ‘global worker’ and ‘global citizen’ approaches to internationalisation is discussed, as well as the increasingly hegemonic role of English.

Knowing the ‘unknowns’: investigating the students whose social class is not known at entry to higher education

This paper originates from the National Audit Offices 2008 report into widening participation policy in the United Kingdom. The report found that while there appeared to be modest improvements in the proportion of students coming from lower socio‐economic groups over the last ten years, reliable analysis was hampered by a high proportion of missing data. In the 2007/08 academic year, the proportion of entrants whose socio‐economic status was defined as ‘unknown’ was 26%, up from just 10% a decade earlier. This paper uses a random sample of 1000 such students, aged 18 or 19 on entry, to investigate why they have been designated as ‘unknown’ and what other information can be gleaned from their university application form. It was found that 46% of the sample could in fact be coded to a specific socio‐economic grouping from the parental information provided by the student and it was difficult to see why this had not happened. The social profile of these students was comparable to the national picture. A further 23% provided information which was too vague to be coded. The focus of the paper, however, was the 32% of students who either did not provide parental information or who stated that their parents were not working. These students were strongly and disproportionately drawn from areas of high deprivation and low participation in higher education; the precise target of widening participation initiatives, yet they are effectively not acknowledged. This finding causes difficulties for the reliability of official statistics on social class.

Opportunity knocks? The impact of bursary schemes on students from low‐income backgrounds

In England, the government target that 50% of young people should gain experience of higher education has prompted many initiatives to widen participation. National policies, however, are often implemented at institutional or local level. As a result, the impact upon the individual participants can vary according to the context in which the measures are enacted. The Opportunity Bursary scheme was first introduced in 2001, and institutions were allowed considerable discretion over the allocation of these awards. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data, this article reports differences in the ways in which two institutions administered their bursary schemes, and the effects on the students. At both institutions, bursary students were more likely to continue with their studies one year after entry than students from low‐income backgrounds who were not in receipt of financial assistance. The interview data suggests that bursary students are well motivated and determined to succeed, but it is unclear whether this is due to the additional financial support or to the process of conscious choice through which they have entered higher education.

Overactive, Overwrought or Overdrawn? The Role of Personality in Undergraduate Financial Knowledge, Decision-Making and Debt.

The financial situation of undergraduate students remains a high‐profile issue within the UK higher education sector, not least due to its perceived relationship with retention, well‐being and success. This article probes this question from a new direction, using concepts and approaches from the field of applied psychology to examine how students use various forms of credit and whether personality impacts on borrowing behaviour. The sample in this study comprised 604 undergraduate students at a large UK university. Data were collected by online questionnaire on demographic background, borrowing history, borrowing intentions, financial literacy, personality type and attitudes to money. Using a series of regression analyses, it was found that a tendency towards extraversion was particularly associated with the use of overdrafts and borrowing from family members and that this led to higher anticipated debts on graduation. Neuroticism was found not to have any significant relationship to borrowing behaviour, but it was a significant predictor for student anxiety about money management. The article also reports related findings concerning students’ learned borrowing behaviour; the acceleration of student use of commercial borrowing during their course of studies; and the construction and implications of financial literacy.