Presentations

Forthcoming presentations

Centre for the Study of Higher Education, University College Dublin, Ireland, 31 January 2023

Rachel will give an online talk about the Eurostudents project, with a particular focus on the various national differences in conceptualisations of students that emerge through a focus on students and time.

CRADLE Research Centre, Deakin University, Australia, 21 February 2023

Rachel will give an in-person talk about some key findings from the project, focussing on some of the dominant conceptualisations of students across Europe.

Past presentations

Society for Research into Higher Education, December 2022

Rachel presented the team’s work on student timescapes across Europe during the SRHE annual conference.

Seminar, Harvard University, 21 September 2022

Rachel gave a talk about some of the key findings from the project at an online seminar.

European Conference on Educational Research, Yerevan, 23-25 August 2022

Rachel presented a paper entitled ‘Higher Education Timescapes: Temporal Understandings of Students and Learning’, drawing on data from all six countries.

IMISCOE, Oslo, 28 June-1 July 2022

Rachel took part in a panel on ‘Superdiversity and Student Mobility in Higher Education’, drawing on some key themes from the Eurostudent project.

Seminar at University of Copenhagen, 16 June 2022

Rachel presented some of the key findings of the project, as they pertain to Denmark, in her talk ‘Conceptualising the Danish higher education student’ – and joined a plenary discussion. These were part of an event on ‘Being a student in Denmark today’ hosted by the Department of Sociology and the Department of Science Education at the University of Copenhagen.

Workshop at University of Southampton, 16 June 2022

Achala gave a talk about the construction of students as ‘in transition’ at a meeting of the Leadership, Educational Effectiveness and Policy Research Centre in the Southampton Education School (University of Southampton).

Early career workshop on comparative and international higher education, University of Surrey, 26 May 2022

Anu presented an analysis of the project’s TV and film data, entitled ‘Independent learner as the ideal – representation of the HE learner in film and television drama across Europe’.

Departmental seminar, University of Surrey, 18 May 2022

Jihyun and Rachel gave a talk about student belonging in higher education, discussing the different communities they belong to, and what influences their sense of belonging.

Seminar at Humboldt University, Berlin, 4 February 2022

Rachel gave a talk about students timescapes across Europe and the extent to which they differ by national context.

Symposium at Society for Research into Higher Education annual conference, 6-10 December 2021

Rachel, Anu, Sazana and Achala gave papers as part of this symposium, outlining four of the key constructions of higher education students that emerged from the project (as in transition, enthusiastic learners, stressed, and threat and object of criticism).

University of Ireland seminar, 8 October 2021

Rachel gave an overview of some of the key findings from the Eurostudents project at an online seminar run by the University of Ireland. She focused particularly on perspectives from about about Irish students.

BERA Annual Conference, 13-16 September 2021

Achala discussed students’ views on the purpose of higher education in Denmark, England, Germany, Ireland, Poland, and Spain.

European Conference on Educational Research, 6-9 September 2021

Sazana presented a paper titled, ‘Has Marketisation of Higher Education Impacted the Student Experience? The Curious Case of Spain’. In addition, Achala drew on various strands of the Eurostudents project to present key findings on the construction of students as ‘in-transition’ – she compared how this construction varies across European countries.

Royal Geographical Society-Institute of British Geographers’ Annual Conference, 31 August to 3 September 2021

Sazana presented a paper titled, ‘Paradise lost or created? How higher education staff perceive the impact of policy on students,’ in a session on ‘Neoliberalization and marketization of education and alternative narratives or practices’.

15th European Sociological Association conference, 31 August – 3 September 2021

Achala presented  on ‘Aspiration, choice and selection’, where she drew on the student strand of the project to show how students’ aspirations for their post-university lives are differentiated, to some extent at least, by national context, institutional setting and subject of study.

27th International Conference of Europeanists,  21-25 June, 2021

Predrag, Achala, Sazana, Rachel and Anu all presented papers as part of a panel convened by the Eurostudents team entitled ‘Constructing the higher education student across Europe’. The papers focused on the following topics: (i) national and institutional variation in online constructions of students (Predrag); (ii) the extent to which students are seen as political actors by policy influencers, staff, and students themselves  (Achala); (iii) staff members’ perceptions about the impact of higher education policy on student experience (Sazana); (iv) the extent to which the idea of Europe constitutes an important ‘spatial imaginary’ for policymakers (Rachel); and (v) media and policy representations of students as family members (Anu).

Eurostudents conference, University of Surrey, 17-18 June 2021

The team (current and past members) gave a panel presentation together, discussing some of the key constructions of higher education students across Europe.

Seminar at INCHER (International Centre for Higher Education Research), University of Kassel, 19 May 2021

Rachel gave a talk entitled ‘European higher education students: contested constructions’. This drew on the plasticine models produced by the students in our focus groups.

Centre for Global and Higher Education Annual Conference, 11 May 2021

Rachel drew on Eurostudents data to inform her remarks as part of the panel on ‘Remaking Higher Education’ that opened the conference. You can view the panel here.

Research afternoon, Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, 5 May 2021

Rachel gave a short paper focussing on ‘What is a student? Evidence of diversity from across Europe’ as part of the research afternoon.

Annual Conference of the Comparative and International Education Society, April-May 2021

The team gave a number of papers: Sazana considered the extent to which Spanish students can be viewed as ‘customers’; Achala explored students’ views of the purpose of education; and Rachel examined the similarities and differences in understandings of students across Europe.

Life Patterns Research Team, University of Melbourne, Australia, 21 April 2021

Rachel gave a presentation about higher education timescapes and students’ temporal approaches to learning, drawing on our data from students, staff and policy actors.

British Sociological Association’s annual conference, 13-16 April 2021. 

Various team members gave papers from the project. Achala talked about students’ aspirations for their post-university lives; Sazana explored staff perceptions of the impact of policy on students; Anu examined the construction of students as ‘at risk’, and their positionings as family members (two papers); and Rachel discussed the ways in which students represented their identities through the plasticine models they made.

Education and Social Research Institute, Manchester Metropolitan University, 24th March 2021

Rachel gave a talk as part of the Institute’s ‘Hard Times, Challenging Futures: Confronting Educational Inequalities’ seminar series, exploring how student diversity was conceptualised by the policymakers in our study.

Bristol Conversations in Education Research Seminar Series, 10th March 2021

Rachel talked about ‘student timescapes’ across Europe, drawing on Eurostudents data. You can view the recording of the presentation here.

CAQDAS webinar, 3rd March, 4pm

Rachel gave a talk discussing how NVivo has been used by the project team to manage a complex, multi-method and cross-national project. You can watch the recording of the presentation here.

Departmental seminar, Department of Sociology, Trinity College Dublin, 10th February 2021.

Rachel’s talk was entitled ‘Young people within European higher education systems: contested constructions’. Further details can be found here.

Centre for Global Higher Education webinar, 2nd February 2021, 2-3pm

Rachel gave a talk called ‘European Higher Education Students: Contested Constructions. A recording of this can be viewed here.

The Academic Profession in Knowledge-Based Societies annual conference (online), 8th December 2020

Rachel gave a keynote talk, drawing on some of the Eurostudents data, at this virtual event. A recording of the talk can be found here.

Centre for Global and Higher Education, University of Oxford and UCL Institute of Education, 10th September 2020 (Webinar)

Achala drew on the student strand of the project, to give a webinar entitled, ‘Students’ aspirations and the perceived value of a university degree in Europe’. The recording of the event is here.

UACES (University Association for Contemporary European Studies Annual Conference (online), 7th September 2020

Rachel gave a paper entitled ‘Europe As ‘Spatial Imaginary’? Narratives From Higher Education Policymakers Across The Continent’.

European Educational Research Association Network 22 (Research in Higher Education) event (online), 27th August 2020

The team gave two presentations: Achala examined students’ understanding of the purpose of higher education and explored its implications for staff, policymakers and society at large; and Rachel  analysed the plasticine models produced by focus group participants to represent how they saw themselves as students.

European Sociological Association RN10 (Sociology of Education) Mid-Term Conference (virtual conference, organised by Trinity College Dublin), 20th-21st August 2020

Achala gave a paper entitled ‘Construction of HE students through the lens of social characteristics: staff and students’ perspectives in contemporary Europe’. This explored the extent to which students and staff, across Europe, believed that higher education access and experiences are differentiated by social characteristics (such as class/family background, race/ethnicity/migration background, gender and age).

Centre for Global and Higher Education, University College London, 4th June 2020

Rachel gave a seminar entitled ‘Asserting the nation: the dominance of national narratives in policy influencers’ constructions of higher education students’. You can watch a recording of the presentation here.

Centre for Higher Education Studies, University College London, 12th February 2020

Rachel’s talk was entitled ‘Young people within European higher education systems: contested constructions’.

Bologna Process Researchers’ Conference, Bucharest, Romania, 29th-31st January 2020

Rachel gave a presentation, on behalf of the team, entitled ‘Access to and experiences of higher education across Europe: the impact of social characteristics’. The paper is available here.

Centre for Global Higher Education seminar series: Making sense of the ‘international’ and ‘global’ in research on HE, Oxford and London, November 2019-January 2020

Rachel drew on some of her work for the project in her contributions to this seminar series. She gave a presentation on 16th January 2020, and took part in a panel discussion on 22nd January. (Podcasts of both events are available.)

Centre for Higher Education Research, Innovation and Impact, University of Wollongong, Australia, 6th December 2019

Rachel gave a presentation entitled ‘ What do students understand as the purpose of higher education? Implications for staff, policymakers and society at large’

Youth Studies conference, Newcastle University, Australia, 2nd-4th December 2019

Rachel gave a keynote address, drawing on Eurostudents data, entitled ‘Young people within European higher education systems: contested constructions’.

Higher Education Policy and Practice Seminar Series, Dasein Leadership Development, Somerville College, Oxford, 30th October 2019

Rachel gave a presentation about the project to Chinese university leaders.

Seminar on ‘Educational perspectives from London, Shanghai and Beyond’ with East China Normal University at UCL Institute of Education, 13th September 2019

Achala gave a paper about dominant constructions of Spanish higher education students as part of this event.

European Conference on Educational Research, Hamburg University, 3rd-6th September 2019

Achala and Sazana gave a paper on ‘Higher education students as political actors? Evidence from a six-nation European comparative study’.

Royal Geographical Society-Institute of British Geographers’ Annual Conference, London, 28th-30th August 2019

Sazana and Achala gave two papers from the project: (i) Higher education as a route to social mobility? Using plasticine modelling to tease out students’ aspirations and hopes across six different European countries; and (ii) Higher education students as political actors? Evidence of spatial variation across Europe.

European Sociological Association conference, University of Manchester, 20th-23rd August 2019

Sazana and Achala gave two papers at this conference: (i) ‘Constructing Youth As Political Actors: A Comparative Study Across Higher Educational Institutions In Europe’ – as part of the Youth and Generation Research Network, and (ii) ‘Constructing The Spanish Higher Education Student: Evidence From A Six-Nation Comparative Study’ in the Regional Network on Southern European Societies.

Students in Changing Higher Education Landscapes Conference, University of Surrey, 14th June 2019

We gave two presentations from the project at this conference, along with a brief summary of some of the key findings to date. Predrag gave a paper entitled ‘Images and constructions of higher education students on university websites in Europe’, and Sazana, Achala and Anu discussed some of the Spanish data in a presentation entitled ‘Constructing contemporary higher education students in Spain’.

British Sociological Association annual conference, Glasgow Caledonian University, 26th April 2019

Predrag, Jessie, Anu and Rachel gave three papers from the project, as part of a special event. They focused on: (i) online constructions of students (drawing on analysis of university websites in all six countries); (ii) the extent to which students should be conceptualised as consumers (drawing on newspaper articles and student focus groups in Denmark and England); and (iii) how policymakers discuss diversity within the student body (drawing on interviews with policymakers and policy documents in all six countries).

Transforming Mobility and Immobility: Brexit and Beyond, University of Sheffield, 29th March 2019

Rachel gave a paper entitled ‘Higher education mobilities: a cross-national European comparison’ as part of this conference on migration.

University College London, Department of Social Science, 29th January 2019

Rachel gave a paper drawing on her analysis of policies across Europe. She examined dominant constructions of students within higher education policies, identifying similarities and differences across nation-states.

Festival of Research, Faculty of Arts and Social Science, University of Surrey, 24th January 2019

Rachel gave a short talk about the Eurostudents project and her experience of applying to the European Research Council at the FASS Festival of Research.

Society for Research into Higher Education Early Career Researchers’ conference, Newport, Wales, 4th December 2018

Rachel gave a keynote address at the Early Career Researchers’ conference, which discussed student mobilities across Europe. You can watch a film of the talk here.

Society for Research into Higher Education annual conference, Newport, Wales, 5th-7th December 2018

Rachel, Anu and Jessie all gave papers. Anu and Jessie’s was called ‘Students: Being and Becoming Consumers of Higher Education?’, and drew on our student focus groups and analyses of newspaper articles, while Rachel’s paper – called ‘The construction of higher education students within national policy: a cross-European comparison’ – drew on higher education policy documents from all six countries involved in the project.

University of Surrey, Department of Sociology, 21st November 2018

Rachel and Anu drew out some of the key themes from the project so far at a departmental seminar.

University of Birmingham, School of Education, 8th November 2018

Rachel helped to launch the School of Education’s International Forum for Pedagogical Issues by giving a talk entitled ‘Students as “objects of criticism”? Variations in the construction of higher education students across six European countries’.

Rachel gave a talk to staff and students at Warsaw University of Technology. Her presentation was entitled ‘The construction of higher education students within national policy: a cross-European comparison’. You can watch a recording  here.

British Sociological Association Annual Conference 2018, Northumbria University, 10th-12th April 2018

Jessie gave 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 abstract and outline paper can be found here.

Centre for Higher Education Futures, Department for Education, Aarhus University, Denmark, 1st March 2018

Rachel gave a talk entitled ‘EuroStudents – Constructing the higher education student: a comparative study of six European countries’ – outlining the project’s aims and discussing some of our initial findings.

Lancaster University, Department of Educational Research Seminar, 24th January 2018

Jessie and Anu presented a paper entitled ‘Constructing the higher education student: a comparative study of six European countries’. The abstract can be found here.

Materialities and Mobilities in Education, University of Oxford, Oxford, 8th January 2018

Society of Research into Higher Education (SRHE) annual conference, Newport, Wales, 6th-8th December 2017

Jessie presented 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 abstract and outline paper can be found here.

Royal Geographical Society-Institute of British Geographers Annual Conference, London, UK, 29th August-1st September 2017

Rachel gave a paper entitled ‘The construction and spatial positioning of higher education students in English policy documents’ as part of the symposium we have organised. The abstract is available here.

European Sociological Association Conference, Athens, Greece, 29th August-1st September 2017

Anu, Jessie and Predrag gave papers from the project – one based on the analysis on institutional websites and the second on the English and Irish student focus groups.

Consortium of Higher Education Researchers, Jyväskylä, Finland, 28th-30th August 2017

Predrag presented some of the early findings from the cross-national analysis of university websites (from all of our six countries).

European Conference on Educational Research, Copenhagen, Denmark, 22nd-25th August 2017

Rachel and Predrag each gave a paper outlining some of the initial findings from the research. Rachel’s paper, entitled ‘The construction of higher education students in English policy documents’, drew on an analysis of documents from a range of policy actors (government, unions and business) while Predrag’s paper focused on findings from the cross-national analysis of higher education institution websites.

Departmental seminar, Department of Education, Brunel University, UK, 17th May 2017

Rachel explored some dominant constructions of HE students across Europe, considering differences both between and within nation-states. Her paper was entitled ‘Consumers, workers, family members or political actors? Conceptualising the European higher education student’ and the abstract can be found here.

The choices and aspirations of higher education students in England, BSA annual conference, Manchester, UK, 4th-6th April 2017

Jessie and Rachel gave a paper based on focus groups with English higher education students, and an analysis of English policy documents. This formed part of a symposium we organised on ‘Constructing the higher education student and graduate’. The abstract is available here.

Digging Deeper: Eurostudent Researchers’ Forum, Vilnius, Lithuania, 1st-2nd February 2017

In our paper at this conference, Jessie and Anu outlined the aims and objectives of our project (as well as our progress to date), with the intention of opening up space for discussion of the ways in which it can complement the quantitative data being collected as part of the Eurostudent survey.

Seminar, UCL Institute of Education, London, UK, 15th December 2016

We gave a paper entitled ‘Constructing the higher education student: comparisons across and within European nations’ as part of the Centre for Global Higher Education‘s lunchtime seminar series. You can download the slides and listen to an audio recording of the presentation here.

Society for Research into Higher Education annual conference, Newport, Wales, 7th-9th December 2016

We gave our first full-length paper from the project at the SRHE annual conference, exploring what we know from the extant literature about the ways in which higher education students are constructed across and within European nations. The presentation was entitled ‘Constructing the higher education student in Europe’.

Short introduction to the project, Launch seminar, University of Surrey, UK, 21st September 2016

Rachel gave a brief overview of the project as part of her introduction to the one-day seminar we held to launch the EuroStudents research. Further details about the event can be found here.

Departmental seminar, Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, UK, 20th April 2016

This was our first presentation about the EuroStudents research project. Rachel spoke about the aims and objectives of the research, and her experience of applying to the European Research Council.