Context: Examines experiences of EAL students (not specifically sfrb) in Social Work
Aim: To critically examine the notion of success in higher education (specifically social work education); to unpack how success is conceptualised in the literature with ref to international, refugee and Indigenous students and to discuss data collected from empirical study. RQ: "How do social work students who
speak EAL conceptualise success at university?" (p.5).
Methodology: Small scale appreciative inquiry/ qualitative study with 9 CALD students studying UG or PG Social Work. Appreciative Inquiry = focuses on positives/ future-focused; participants asked to conceptualise, experience and imagine success at university. Questions asked:
(1) What does success at university look or feel like to you?
(2) Share a time when you felt most successful in your university studies. Describe what was happening at the time.
(3) Imagine it is a year from now (mid-2014), and you are experiencing this same kind of success most of the time. What would be happening? What is needed to keep this experience alive? (p.6)
Discussion:
What constitutes success according to literature: western notions of performance = dominate (e.g. GPA, marks; to achieve academic benchmarks). Literature scoped = "shaped by unexamined assumptions (explicit and implicit) in which success is an externally (by the university or researcher) determined descriptor of the individual student" (p.3). CALD students offered treated as in deficit (draws on Smit, 2012) and success = hindered by 'problems' with English language. Cites work of Benzie (2010) = focus on English language proficiency contributes to 'othering' of CALD (particularly international) students. Scopes previous work (e.g. Wache & Zuffrey, 2012, 2013) which examined experience of African sfrb in social work - that work pointed to the lack of awareness of provision from T&L unit and instead preferred peer support; also, "Students reported a preference for
learning in a social environment and stressed that 'thinking ability' is not affected by having English as their second or subsequent language" (p.4). Scopes literature that offers alternative community-based notions of success (see p.5)
Conceptions of success offered by participants:
On surface = connects with individual performance agenda (GPA average); also, reference to feeling good about writing a good assignment (personal achievement/satisfaction + grades). For most students = about getting a better job
Being a good family member: meeting family expectations, role modeling for siblings/children, pleasing parents.
Success for community: formal recognition (means to paid work) as community worker; "success at university is entwined with students' identities as successful family and community members" (p.11).
Core argument: Notions of success = for CALD students, success = based on assimilationist understandings of success (adapting to criteria of host country) and broadly take an individual responsibility approach. "The implication for higher education, including social work education, is to find a way of acknowledging and building on these complex perspectives of success that will contribute to students' motivation to study" (p.12).
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