Ted Fleming

Connecting Bourdieu, Winnicott, and Honneth: Understanding the experiences of non-traditional learners through an interdisciplinary lens

Abstract This paper connects Bourdieus concepts of habitus, dispositions and capital with a psychosocial analysis of how Winnicotts psychoanalysis and Honneths recognition theory can be of importance in understanding how and why non-traditional students remain in higher education. Understanding power relations in an interdisciplinary way makes connections—by highlighting intersubjectivity—between external social structures and subjective experiences in a biographical study of how non-traditional learner identities may be transformed through higher education in England and the Republic of Ireland.

A Critical Journey Towards Lifelong Learning: Including Non-Traditional Students in University

While a great deal of progress has been made towards increasing non-traditional students in Irish higher education (HE), this achievement is tempered by the very low base from which this task commenced. A once elite system of third-level education has evolved into an increasingly diver- sified and flexible network of institutions of mass education. The overall rate of admission has risen from 20% of school leavers in 1980 to 46% in 1998, to 55% in 2004 and to over 60% in 2007 (Byrne et al, 2008, p.33). The gov- ernment (HEA, 2008a) is committed to further increasing participation up to 2015 and in this way address a range of social issues and disadvantage (DES, 2000, 2001; NOEA, 2005, 2007, 2008; Skilbeck and O’Connell, 2000), and the HEA in 2008 set a key national target of 72% entry to higher education by 2020.

Towards a Conclusion

Widening access signifies a substantial change in the idea of the university. Over the past twenty years, research and policy have made the question of whether Irish HE is representative or democratic a live issue. The impact may not be what has been expected, targets may not have been met but there can be little doubt it carries with it in its more substantive iterations real democratic possibilities. Nevertheless, as we come to the end of our story of widening participation and increasing access of non-traditional students in Irish HE, it is not possible to leave with: “and they all lived happily ever after!” This is no fairy tale with a happy ending, after all even if traditional students are part of a Cinderella tale there is certainly no prince or princess.

Learning and Teaching and Non-traditional Students in Higher Education

This chapter explores the domains of teaching and learning (T&L) in relation to non-traditional students in two main ways. Firstly, we outline some of the major structural and institutional changes that have been occurring across HE generally. Secondly, we consider the nature of pedagogical encounters and practices and more specifically, how these might be re-constructed in a way that supports access and widening participation in a theoretically and critically informed manner.

Key Trends in Irish Higher Education and the Emergence and Development of Access

The story of the modernisation of Ireland is closely linked to, and in part depends on, the development and expansion of Irelands’ third level sector. Since the 1960s, there has been a firm emphasis in social policy and political discourse on ensuring economic growth and making Ireland more equal through the expansion of the education system. Widening access to HE for under-represented student groups is an important part of this larger narrative. This chapter presents the broad historical, political and policy contexts of this access story.

Routes in: Access Categories, Mechanisms and Processes

Our intention in this chapter is to map out the current routes into which are open to non-traditional students. Alongside this mapping exercise, we will also discuss some of the cognate issues around student finance which we touched on in Chapter 3. Although student finance is but one component of being a student, it is significant and particularly so for those from the “lower” socio-economic groups (SEGs) whom the state wishes to draw into HE. The economic recession, which began in 2008, affected the resource environment of Irish HE considerably. The “we can do more with less” has become the refrain of the past 8 years.

The Purpose of Access: Equality, Social Mobility and the Knowledge Economy

In following on from the groundwork done in Chapters 3 and 4, our intention here is to look at how the purpose of widening participation for non-traditional students is discussed in policy with a particular emphasis on the way equality and economic modernisation are viewed in relation to each other. Access policies – like social policy more generally – are not a unified set of ideas with a clear and defined purpose. It is far more accurate to describe access policies in Ireland as an evolving constellation of guidelines, proposals, assessment techniques and normative aspirations which has resulted in a relatively stable “access agenda” which now underpins major aspects of Higher Education Authority (HEA) policy and informs managerial strategies in HE.

Access and Widening Participation – Stories from the Policy Domain

In following on from Chapter 2 our intention here is to critically explore the dimension of widening participation mainly through the prism of “access” in two main regards: (1) participants and (2) processes. As we will return to a more detailed discussion of the different equity groups in Part II, our purpose here is to structure the Irish access story so far, around four broad but interlocking themes which will be explored in this and the next chapter: (1) the way access has been defined, (2) the evolution of the legislation and policy related to access (including significant departure points and shifts in emphasis in this story), (2) participation patterns, (3) access programmes and pathways and (4) the vexed issue of funding. As such we will focus our attention on the policy and practices concerning access and widening participation (WP), which has been typified over the past 20 years by a continually shifting topography.

Retention in Ireland’s Higher Education Institutions

As the access story unfolds, various plots and sub plots emerge in the narrative. But not all who gain access complete the journey. In this chapter we will discuss how retention is linked to access and equality, review what the research indicates about student retention, completion and persistence in general and then conclude with an outline of what the research says about retention and specific groups of non-traditional students.