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Increasing use is made of both creative and visual methods in social research. Nevertheless, to date there has been very little discussion of the extent to which such methods can be used in comparative research. This seminar will explore some of the challenges of using these methods cross-nationally, examining the different cultural associations that may be brought to bear in different national contexts, and how these are accounted for in research design, data collection and analysis. It will also draw on the experiences of researchers working in this area, to explore how such challenges can most effectively be addressed.

The seminar features two parallel streams of exciting papers speaking to these themes alongside keynote papers from:

Agata Lisiak (Bard College, Berlin) and Rita Chawla-Duggan (University of Bath)

Full programme can be accessed here

The seminar is taking place at the University of Surrey on Friday 15th June 2018 from 9:30am – 5pm followed by a wine reception.

The event is free and lunch and refreshments will be provided.

Limited places are available so do register early.

Our project is exploring the way in which higher education students are understood across six different countries, in policy documents and by policymakers, in the media, by higher education staff and their institutions, and by students themselves. In this post, however, we focus on just one small slice of the data – documents from a range of English policy actors – to examine dominant constructions of the student in England.

Students as consumers?

A common view, held by many academic staff in general (as well as those who research higher education) is that students are now seen by key stakeholders, such as the government and senior university management, as consumers – and that this has had a significant effect on how students are treated and, increasingly, the way in which students themselves behave. For example, Molesworth et al. have written about how students have become more passive in their approach to learning. Our analysis of recent policy documents from the government, staff and student unions and organisations representing graduate employers, and of ministerial speeches, highlights a rather different picture, however.

Within the government documents, the consumer discourse is certainly strong. The ‘investment’ students make in their education is emphasised frequently, the concept of ‘value for money’ is regularly invoked, and ‘student choice’ is mentioned repeatedly. Moreover, assumptions are made throughout the government documents, and also those produced by graduate employer organisations, that simply providing more relevant information to prospective students, and increasing the number of providers from which they can choose, will inevitably result in ‘better choices’ and a more efficient functioning of the market.

But vulnerable and child-like consumers….

However, alongside such statements are others which construct the student, not as empowered by consumer choice, but as vulnerable in the face of not-fully-formed markets. Indeed, the vulnerability of students is a theme that pervades many of the speeches given by the Minister of State for Universities and Science, and the Green and White Papers published in 2015-16.  The examples below are illustrative.

For too long we have been overly tolerant of the fact that some providers have significantly and materially higher drop-out rates than others with very similar intakes in terms of demographics and prior attainment …. it represents thousands of life opportunities wasted, of young dreams unfulfilled, all because of teaching that was not as good as it should have been, or because students were recruited who were not capable of benefitting from higher education. (Department of Business, Innovation and Skills, 2016, p.46)

… insufficient, inconsistent and inadequate information about the quality of teaching, means it is hard for prospective students to form a coherent picture of where excellence can be found within and between our higher education providers. (Department of Business, Education and Skills, 2015, p.19)

… teaching has regrettably been allowed to become something of a poor cousin to research in parts of our system. I hear this when I talk to worried parents, such as the physics teacher whose son dropped out at the start of year two of a humanities programme at a prestigious London university, having barely set eyes on his tutor. (Speech by Minister of State for Universities and Science, 2015)

The reference to students as ‘children’ in the speech above (‘Inspiring academics…are the people who will change our children’s lives’) further emphasises this construction of them as vulnerable dependents, rather than independent and powerful consumers. Students are positioned as vulnerable to ‘producer interests’ in particular, in which higher education staff allegedly devote insufficient attention to teaching, because of their preoccupation with their own research. The Minister of State for Universities and Science describes this as a ‘disengagement contract’, which ‘goes along the lines of “I don’t want to have to set and mark much by way of essays and assignments which would be a distraction from my research, and you don’t want to do coursework that would distract you from partying: so we’ll award you the degree as the hoped-for job ticket in return for compliance with minimal academic requirements and due receipt of fees”’. Students from disadvantaged backgrounds are portrayed as particularly vulnerable because of the supposed failure, on the part of many higher education institutions (HEIs), to take widening participation seriously. The proposed requirement for HEIs to publish their statistics on student admissions, progression and attainment by gender, ethnicity and social class (what is termed the ‘transparency duty’ in the government documents) is indicative of the government’s view that social mobility is being impeded by the actions of HEIs, rather than employers, the government or wider social structures.

Shared understanding of students as vulnerable

The construction of students as vulnerable also pervades the union documents. The cause of this vulnerability is not, however, attributed to ‘producer interests’ or the failure to instantiate fully-functioning markets. Instead, it is viewed as a direct result of the market reforms introduced by previous UK governments. For example, the National Union of Students argues that students are in a ‘disadvantaged and disempowered position on issues such as hidden course costs, variable international tuition fees, [and] mis-selling of courses’ (p.11). Moreover, the additional market reforms outlined in the government documents, particularly to make it easier for new providers (including those operating on a for-profit basis) to offer degrees, are presented as likely to further the vulnerability of students:

If commercial providers are allowed a quick, low-quality route into establishing and awarding degrees, those studying and working in the sector are seriously vulnerable to the threat from for-profit organisations looking to move into the market for financial gain rather than any desire to provide students with a high quality education and teaching experience. (University and College Union document, p.5)

Thus, while there is fundamental disagreement between the government and unions (both staff and student) about the impact of marketization, both discursively construct students as vulnerable and in need of protection; the absence of the ‘empowered consumer’ is notable across both sets of documents. While in many ways, this emphasis on students as dependent, in need of protection and even child-like reflects the findings of previous analyses of youth policy in the UK and elsewhere, it brings into question assumptions that are often made about higher education policy being predicated on the notion of the authoritative student-consumer.

Further details can be found in our article in the British Journal of Sociology of Education.

You can catch Jessie next week at the Society for Research into Higher Education conference in Newport (6th -8th December). She will be presenting a paper entitled: ‘‘There’s a lot of us, if we wanted to make a difference we could’: Exploring undergraduate students’ understandings of themselves as ‘political actors’ in England and Ireland’. The paper explores early findings from the focus groups and policy documents in England and Ireland.

Abstract

Whilst higher education (HE) students have historically been conceptualised as important ‘political actors’, arguably the extent to which they are able to have a voice in society is likely to differ in particular contexts and countries. In this paper we draw upon data collected from focus groups with HE students in England and Ireland alongside analysis of policy documents in each country to consider the extent to which students are constructed (and feel) like important political actors. Findings suggest that, contrary to perceptions that English and Irish students are largely similar, Irish students appeared more empowered than English students in relation to perceptions of themselves as influencing policy. Narratives present in the policy documents mirror these findings, with students in Ireland located as key political actors to a greater extent than in the English documents.

You can read the full outline paper here

Jessie will be presenting this paper as part of a symposium with colleagues:  Laura Bentley; Kirsty Finn; Adam Formby; Nicola Ingram; Vanda Papafilippou. The session is entitled: Political Identities and Generational Solidarities: Students and Graduates Negotiating Contemporary Crises and will take place on Friday 8th December at 9:00am. 

More information can be found in the conference programme 

Over the past year, the project team has set up a sociology of higher education reading group at the University of Surrey. See here for a list of the various articles we’ve talked about so far.

One of the four strands of our research focuses on analysing the ways in which students are constructed in the media in our six case study countries (England, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Poland, Spain). We will be analysing newspaper articles and also popular TV shows and films that feature higher education students in a prominent manner.

We are keen to put together a resource of relevant TV shows and films – for our own benefit, but hopefully it will be of use to others as well. Paul Greatrix has done a good job identifying some sources, that will be familiar to a UK audience, including a dozen which he thinks it’s best to avoid. However, we hope to include media from other European countries in our list.

If you have some suggestions, please do get in touch with us. We’ll compile all the nominated films and TV shows into one list, which we’ll post here in due course (and thank all those who have contributed). Many thanks!

We are very pleased that all members of the EuroStudents research team have now started work on the project. Here are some brief introductions to the researchers….

Jessie Abrahams is one of the post-doctoral research fellows on the project, working in particular on the student understandings strand. She is in the final stages of an ESRC-funded PhD at Cardiff University looking at the way in which the English secondary education system reproduces social class inequalities through its structures and practices. Prior to this, Jessie was a research assistant on the Leverhulme Trust-funded Paired Peers Project exploring the experiences of students from different social class backgrounds at the University of Bristol and UWE Bristol.

Predrag Lažetić is also a post-doctoral fellow on the project and he is responsible for the institutional perspectives strand of research. He is the final stages of his PhD work at the University of Bath investigating the institutional regime differences in the quality of jobs higher education graduates undertake in different European countries. Prior to this post he worked as the director of the Centre for Education Policy in Belgrade and as a researcher in the International Centre for Higher Education Research in Kassel, Germany, specialising in both posts in higher education research.

Anu Lainio is a postgraduate researcher on the project and is leading the media representations strand of work. Anu did her first master’s in education in University of Tampere. She studied her second master’s in Erasmus Mundus programme on Lifelong Learning: Policy and Management in Aarhus University (Copenhagen) and Deusto University (Bilbao). Anu also has a several years working experience in higher education administration and in international relations. Her research interests are in internationalisation of higher education, mobility, social justice and equality.

We’re really looking forward to the seminar to launch the EuroStudents project, which will be held next Wednesday at the University of Surrey. The final programme is posted below. If you aren’t able to come along, but would like to take part in the discussions, do follow the seminar on Twitter. We’ll be using the hashtag #HEstudents.

UNDERSTANDING THE CONTEMPORARY HIGHER EDUCATION STUDENT

Wednesday, 21st September 2016, University of Surrey, LTJ, Lecture Theatre Block

FINAL PROGRAMME

09.30-10.00: Coffee and registration

10.00-10.15: Welcome and overview of the ‘EuroStudents’ project, Rachel Brooks, University of Surrey

10.15-11.15: Keynote presentation: LTJ (Chair: Rachel Brooks)

Student Experience in Context: higher education policy and the changing value of university education, Michael Tomlinson, University of Southampton

11.15-11.30: Break

11.30-13.00: Parallel sessions

Session A: LTJ (Chair: Johanna Waters)

Spatial and social (im)mobilities through higher education,             Michael Donnelly, University of Bath

Students in cities – the everyday mobilities of contemporary UK students, Mark Holton, Plymouth University and Kirsty Finn, Lancaster University

‘Talent-spotting’? Inequality, cultural sorting and constructions of the ideal employable graduate, Nicola Ingram, Lancaster University and Kim Allen, University of Leeds

Session B: LTF (Chair: Steve Woodfield)

Her majesty the student: marketised higher education and the narcissistic (dis)satisfactions of the student-consumer, Elizabeth Nixon, Richard Scullion and Robert Hearn, University of Nottingham

The student-as-consumer versus the student-as-learner: some preliminary findings from the UK, Stefanie Sonnenberg, University of Portsmouth

Understanding the student experience, Rachel Spacey, University of Lincoln

13.00-14.00: Lunch

14.00-15.30: Parallel sessions

Session C: LTJ (Chair: Kim Allen)

Unreasonable rage, disobedient dissent: the social construction of student activists through media and institutional discourses in the United Kingdom, Jessica Gagnon, University of Portsmouth

‘It’s always a good decision to go to University because if you don’t you’ll end up becoming a cleaner or a supermarket worker’, Jessie Abrahams, University of Surrey/Cardiff University

The changing nature of students’ unions; young people as political actors?, Rachel Brooks, University of Surrey

Session D: LTF (Chair: Alex Seal)

How institutional doxa can shape choice within higher education, Jon Rainford, Staffordshire University

Contemporary students’ rights: a discursive strategy to overcome hysteresis in a post-92 HE setting, Karl Baker-Green and Cinnamon Bennett, Sheffield Hallam University

Paradoxes of the academisation process: a sociological exploration of the history of foreign and classical language education since 1864, Eric Lybeck, University of Exeter

15.30-15.45: Break

15.45-16.45: Keynote presentation: LTJ (Chair: Jessie Abrahams)

Biopolitics and the ‘making’ of the unexceptional student: some geographical reflections on education in East Asia, Johanna Waters, University of Oxford

16.45-17.00     Concluding comments