Higher Education Equity Literature Database

  • They give us homework! Transition to higher education: the case of initial teacher training

    Date: 2010

    Author: Murtagh, L.

    Location: United Kingdom

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    Context: Many students who drop out of university do so within the first year, as it is generally understood as a time of substantial and significant change and adjustment. Often expectations for students to be self-regulatory and motivated produce feelings of anxiety and stress within students. This particular university emphasises 'independent learning and learner autonomy. Learner autonomy is primarily concerned with decision-making on the part of the learner, with the locus of control and responsibility lying in their hands (Pierson 1996)' (406). However, students are often underprepared with 'little idea of what to expect and little understanding of how the university environment can affect their lives' (406). The move to modularization programmes to aid students' progress through credit accumulation has been implemented more widely since the 1990s, but the effect is a summative assessment that does not happen until the end of the module, leaving little room for tutoring and student engagement with formative assessment or feedback.
    Aim: To examine the significance of 'preparedness' with specific reference to assessment and to ascertain any potential transitional issues and therefore any areas for development in Year 1 programmes at a modern university in England to aid student progress and enhance retention (retention was a particularly fraught topic at the time of the study due to a turbulent economic climate in the UK) (405). Specific research questions were: 'How are our students prepared for study and, with particular reference to this article, for assessment in HE? And similarly, how prepared are we as lecturers and as assessors of our student body?' (407).
    Theoretical frame: N/A
    Methodology: Qualitative - semi-structured questionnaires distributed to Year 1 initial teacher training students and their lecturers and focused conversations with a small group of students.
    Findings: Independent study and assessment processes pose challenges for students in their first year at university, who generally consider independent study as akin to 'homework'. Students indicated that they were insufficiently prepared for the independent aspects of HE study particularly because they were 'hand-held' in pre-uni educational venues. Lecturers noted lack of confidence and need for significant guidance with regards to composing independent assignments. Students generally believe it is the responsibility of pre-HE institutions to prepare them.
    Core argument: Further consideration needs to be given to the notion of independent learning, particularly there is 'a need for university lecturers to clarify the curriculum of their programmes such that requirements are made explicit and the teaching, learning and assessment strategies are used to build independent learning as students progress from Level 4 to Level 6. Furthermore, there is evidently a need for students to have a clear notion of what independent learning is and how they can manage this themselves prior to entry to programmes' (414). Overall, the author suggests transparency in assignments - both in assessment and expectations - at the pre-programme stage.

  • They Have Different Information about What Is Going On: Emotion in the Transition to University

    Date: 2014

    Author: McMillan, W.

    Location: South Africa

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    Context: First year dentistry course in South African university. Argues that 'non-traditional' students = most vulnerable in transitioning to higher education
    Aim: To examine intersections of "emotional commentary and classed locations", and to identify "aspects of the university's material and cultural environments which shape students' emotional responses and which consequently are implicated in the perpetuation of class-based differential life chances. (p. 1123)
    Theoretical frame: Archer's (2002) concept of realism and agency: emotions = commentaries about 'competing concerns' (2002: 16; cited on p.1124). Archer argues that emotions emerge from 3 competing concerns: physical, performative, self-worth. These competing concerns = hierarchy and what is privileged by an individual = identity. Capital, including 'emotional capital' (Reay, 2000) = classed: middle class students are more tempered because there is less risk, fear, shame and guilt (see p.1124). Reay (2005) argues that f-in-f students in particular pay a higher 'emotional cost'
    Methodology: [Presumably qualitative]. Study = focus groups with first year dentistry class with students in Academic Literacy core module [n=15] to explore experiences of transition. Author notes 'classed post-apartheid social reality'; categorized students into broad middle class (Group 1) and working class (Group 2) groups plus a third group comprising friends who elected to participate together (mostly working class). Interviews = 3rd month of Year 1. Two broad questions asked: 'What was it like coming to university' and 'What does being a dentist/oral hygienist mean to you?'. Emotions = not apriori theme but emerged in process of transcription = signaled either paralinguistically or through word choice + grounded theory. All 15 students = re-interviewed in Year 2
    Findings:
    Funding - managing finances = common theme but differences noted between 'classes'; middle class students= more about staying within budget/ not overspending (with parents' anger the factor to be avoided) = project of 'becoming an adult'. For working class students, 'managing finances' = about making enough money to keep studying (impacting on when, what and where students studied). Travelling = major cost: "The working-class students, thus, experienced the emotional cost of being different (Reay, 2005) - of not being able to produce, financially, that which universities assume to be in place" (p.1128).
    Access - sense of inevitability about going to university for middle class students; no data to suggest emotional element to choice of whether to attend university. Analysis = middle class students had emotional capital to weather the risk: "middle-class students had access to resources which potentially alleviated feelings of risk and fear" (p.1128). For working class students = desire to go to university = impacted by assumptions about what was possible (relating to cultural capital/ familiarity with system and norms. Argues that middle class students' data suggest that they had access to more information about university because of parents' capital, whereas working class students did not have parents' grapevine/ archive of experience to draw on [no ref to Ball & Vincent, 1998], resulting in emotional responses: "Bewilderment and frustration were evident for these students. In a tone of desperation, Siviwe declared, 'I didn't know what to do!'" (p.1130).
    Academic preparedness -middle class students' talk suggests that they had been primed/ prepared at home for the idea of university (e.g. prep for independent study) and purchase of equipment and school explicated expectations/ standards: "Success in the academic challenges of school, and recognition that the challenges at university were similar, allowed these students to assume that they had the resources to meet the challenges of university and to perform successfully" (p.1130). Working class students = less likely to develop same set of resources and dispositions, and as a consequence they were less prepared for the academic environment of higher education. Author cites one student who described "university as a 'new world'" (p.1131). Emotions evident in phrasing such as 'feeling lost', 'foreignness', and perception of others having 'insider information'. "Disappointment and grief at not being able to perform the tasks pre-requisite for university success - tasks that other students appeared to perform so effortlessly that they gave the impression of having insider information - was implicit in accounts that constructed the self as 'nothing'" (p.1131).
    Becoming a dentist - Role performance = emotional because of projection onto future = saturated with hopes and fears. Middle class students more likely to talk about course in terms of personal project and active choice. Less likely to be talked about as active choice by working class students; rather = framed as giving back to community. "Privileging the project of university student, rather than that of dentist/oral hygienist, suggests an emotional and energy investment related to 'getting into' university" (p.1133).
    Core argument: Differences in ways that middle and working class students experience transition to university and analysis of their emotional responses = explores students' inner worlds.
    Context: First year dentistry course in South African university. Argues that 'non-traditional' students = most vulnerable in transitioning to higher education
    Aim: To examine intersections of "emotional commentary and classed locations", and to identify "aspects of the university's material and cultural environments which shape students' emotional responses and which consequently are implicated in the perpetuation of class-based differential life chances. (p. 1123)
    Theoretical frame: Archer's (2002) concept of realism and agency: emotions = commentaries about 'competing concerns' (2002: 16; cited on p.1124). Archer argues that emotions emerge from 3 competing concerns: physical, performative, self-worth. These competing concerns = hierarchy and what is privileged by an individual = identity. Capital, including 'emotional capital' (Reay, 2000) = classed: middle class students are more tempered because there is less risk, fear, shame and guilt (see p.1124). Reay (2005) argues that f-in-f students in particular pay a higher 'emotional cost'
    Methodology: [Presumably qualitative]. Study = focus groups with first year dentistry class with students in Academic Literacy core module [n=15] to explore experiences of transition. Author notes 'classed post-apartheid social reality'; categorized students into broad middle class (Group 1) and working class (Group 2) groups plus a third group comprising friends who elected to participate together (mostly working class). Interviews = 3rd month of Year 1. Two broad questions asked: 'What was it like coming to university' and 'What does being a dentist/oral hygienist mean to you?'. Emotions = not apriori theme but emerged in process of transcription = signaled either paralinguistically or through word choice + grounded theory. All 15 students = re-interviewed in Year 2
    Findings:
    Funding - managing finances = common theme but differences noted between 'classes'; middle class students= more about staying within budget/ not overspending (with parents' anger the factor to be avoided) = project of 'becoming an adult'. For working class students, 'managing finances' = about making enough money to keep studying (impacting on when, what and where students studied). Travelling = major cost: "The working-class students, thus, experienced the emotional cost of being different (Reay, 2005) - of not being able to produce, financially, that which universities assume to be in place" (p.1128).
    Access - sense of inevitability about going to university for middle class students; no data to suggest emotional element to choice of whether to attend university. Analysis = middle class students had emotional capital to weather the risk: "middle-class students had access to resources which potentially alleviated feelings of risk and fear" (p.1128). For working class students = desire to go to university = impacted by assumptions about what was possible (relating to cultural capital/ familiarity with system and norms. Argues that middle class students' data suggest that they had access to more information about university because of parents' capital, whereas working class students did not have parents' grapevine/ archive of experience to draw on [no ref to Ball & Vincent, 1998], resulting in emotional responses: "Bewilderment and frustration were evident for these students. In a tone of desperation, Siviwe declared, 'I didn't know what to do!'" (p.1130).
    Academic preparedness -middle class students' talk suggests that they had been primed/ prepared at home for the idea of university (e.g. prep for independent study) and purchase of equipment and school explicated expectations/ standards: "Success in the academic challenges of school, and recognition that the challenges at university were similar, allowed these students to assume that they had the resources to meet the challenges of university and to perform successfully" (p.1130). Working class students = less likely to develop same set of resources and dispositions, and as a consequence they were less prepared for the academic environment of higher education. Author cites one student who described "university as a 'new world'" (p.1131). Emotions evident in phrasing such as 'feeling lost', 'foreignness', and perception of others having 'insider information'. "Disappointment and grief at not being able to perform the tasks pre-requisite for university success - tasks that other students appeared to perform so effortlessly that they gave the impression of having insider information - was implicit in accounts that constructed the self as 'nothing'" (p.1131).
    Becoming a dentist - Role performance = emotional because of projection onto future = saturated with hopes and fears. Middle class students more likely to talk about course in terms of personal project and active choice. Less likely to be talked about as active choice by working class students; rather = framed as giving back to community. "Privileging the project of university student, rather than that of dentist/oral hygienist, suggests an emotional and energy investment related to 'getting into' university" (p.1133).
    Core argument: Differences in ways that middle and working class students experience transition to university and analysis of their emotional responses = explores students' inner worlds.

  • Thinking-feeling-imagining futures through creative arts-based participatory research,

    Date: 2020

    Author: Gannon, S.; Naidoo, L.

    Location: Australia

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    Context: Young women's aspirations for higher education in single-sex high school in Sydney; aspiration and higher education + outreach funded by HEPPP. Authors argue that an expansive view of aspirations that resists "the naive optical metaphor of the radar screen" (p.114) needs "subtle and innovative methods of investigation, which may themselves provide opportunities for capacitation" (p.114), so as to develop students' imaginaries
    Aims:
    Theoretical frame: Gender as performance (Butler, 1990; see Gannon's other work) "Gender is thus a dynamic, elaborate, continuous, contingent on recognition and repetition of behaviours, desires and ways of being in the world" (p.117); gendered aspirations; authors note the research on young men + aspiration
    Methodology: Collaborative participatory research with arts-based methods (creating 'aspiration artefacts') because they offer "subtle ways to explore the affective, material, imaginative and relational labour of aspirations" (p.114). Research design "entailed students creating 'aspiration artefacts' of their imagined futures, with varying resources made available for them to think and feel themselves into the future" (p.115). Participant/co-researchers = Year 9 girls, 72% of whom are CALD. In this article, authors profile 3 students who fit low, mid and high SES profiles, as identified by teachers and authors argue that they need to maintain a critical distance from these categories. Each wrote a letter from the future: "Their hopes, desires, dreams and memories are articulated in the interviews, and their letters from the future describe the anticipated navigational pathways that would take them to those futures" (p.118). Creation of aspiration artefact = PowerPoint; slide 1 = image of student as future self + digitally embedded interview; slide 2 = image from letter from the future. Students interviewed each other (rather than researchers conducting interviews) but questions = written by researchers. All components of artefacts = co-constructed/created.
    Findings: Discussion of aspiration artefacts of Aria (high SES - wants to be a cosmetic dermatologist, invokes neoliberal discourses of hard work at school to get to university to do more hard work); Betty (mid SES - wants to be a tattoo artist, doesn't have clear sense of how school helps suggesting she has a "haphazard and meandering" navigational map, p.122); Connie (low SES -wants to be an airline hostess, but talks about wanting to marry Justin Bieber in the interview - authors question why students would automatically reply in serious terms to these questions).
    Authors are clear that they do not intend to generalise
    Core argument: Arts-based methods "provided scope for the young people to mobilise their imaginations" (p.124). Ideally these are used to open conversations, not as an end point.

  • Three Dimensions of Equity of Access to Higher Education

    Date: 2015

    Author: McCowan, T.

    Location: United Kingdom

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    Context: Compares initial access/equity policies of England, Brazil and Kenya = all three are significantly different countries but all have implemented expansion of HE systems and access to university, resulting in increased stratification (quality and prestige). Heart of problem = expansion doesn't mean recognitive distribution of places/ proportional distribution. Lists dichotomies that characterise tension: "tensions between equity and efficiency, public versus private, academic versus vocational and views on human ability and potential" (p.2). Author makes conceptual distinction between equity and equality (p.4)
    Aim: To contribute "the 'bare bones' of a common understanding of equity (p.2) - but acknowledges heterogeneity of global picture (uneven resources). Questions 'sufficientarianism' in that is it ok for everyone "to have access some form of higher education... but for significant inequality to be allowed in relation to the nature of the higher education?" (p.5) - explored through analysis of benefits each form offers (intrinsic, instrumental, positional). Discusses notion of 'affirmative action' for ameliorating positional disadvantage in terms of access/admissions (e.g. bonus points if student comes from low SES area) = example of tension between procedural and social justices. Also discusses epistemological access (access doesn't necessarily translate into meaningful engagement and curricula privilege particular ways of knowing/knowledges - see Clegg 2011 and Wheelahan 2007).
    McCowan rejects a universalist position (aka all people should go to university) on grounds of desire and ability. "Access to higher education institutions then should be based on criteria, not competitive allocation of a fixed (and small) number of places" and higher education systems are not fair if they restrict certain individuals and groups to institutions and experiences that confer less positional advantage (p.8).
    Theoretical frame: Explores notion of equity (position taken akin to 'fairness') and underpinning approaches: (egalitarianism and sufficientarianism). Egalitarianism = 'equal' distribution of resources/ opportunities; sufficientarianism = "a minimal level to which all people should be raised, but that inequality beyond that point is acceptable" (p.4), which means not inadvertently disadvantaging those with most talent/ putting in most effort. Social justice requires egalitarian approach.
    Methodology: Case study of 3 counties (high income-long established HE system; middle-income, rapidly expanding HE system; low-income, expanding but limited ((to age)) HE system). They have enrolment rates of approximately 49%, 15% and 4%, respectively (p.10)
    Findings: Three countries have developed "diverse policy responses" to equity agenda (p.3).
    Entry to HE = academic performance (e.g. = end of school exams v. entrance tests) and payment of fees. Availability of places = extremely diverse across world and related to national wealth.
    Description of England - public system, highly stratified, universal loan system
    Description of Brazil - public (state-run, totally free - access dependent on competitive exams) and private (direct fees to students) universities. Most prestigious universities in public sector (exception of Catholic universities). Expansion in 1990s - privatisation = more private HEIs and rapid growth in student numbers. Access for low SES students "severely limited" (p.12) because of connections with prior educational experience (impact on ability to pass entrance test). Therefore, fees are a major deterrent for low SES students in private unis. Since 2002 (Workers' Party governance), student places have grown - mostly through tax breaks for private universities to offer free places to low SES students. BUT = lower prestige HEIs = lower value on employment market. Also discusses policy of quotas (e.g. for students from gov schools/ African Brazilians = "having a significant impact on the composition of students in the high-prestige public universities, although in the context of limited expansion of the overall number of free-of-charge places" (p.12-3)
    Description of Kenya - 22 public and 21 private universities in Kenya. Access is very limited (only 4% gross enrolment ratio) - low rates of female participation and regional areas. Public = entrance tests; private = fees; "competitive exams for public universities and fees for private universities ensure that lower-income students have access to neither" (p.13). However, students who don't pass entrance test to prestigious public unis can pay high fees for place - but there is no distinction in qualification (aka employers don't know who got in on merit and who got in by paying). Model of expansion = limit free places but allow for expansion of fee-paying places in both public and private universities.
    Core argument: Proposes three principles for understanding equity: availability, accessibility and horizontality. All 3 countries have sought to increase availability but this is not always accompanied by increases in accessibility (because of competitive exams and fees). Two examples of policy to address this: student loans in England and scholarships in Brazil; also see affirmative action (racial quotas) in Brazil. However, equity issues persist for students who have lower/less access to resources. Instead, McCowan suggests horizontality to address stratification of HE: "the characteristic of even prestige and quality
    across the system" so that "this diversity should exist in the context of consistently high quality and recognition of diplomas in the broader society" (p.15). A horizontal system would not mean uniformity in HEIs; rather it would allow less privileged students into more elite institutions. It would "not preclude differentiation in study type or outcome" and could allow for "highly specialised forms of training and subsequent work". More work needs to be done on variability of fees that contributes to stratified system (e.g. Brazilian system). Affirmative action can address access and horizontality but not availability. Academic preparation (minimum level) = one selection criterion that address all 3 principles - but requires a whole-of-system approach (and free of charge preparation should be offered for students whose schools are resource-poor) and there should be easy re-entry points for students who take a non-linear pathway (p.17).

  • Threshold practices: becoming a student through academic literacies

    Date: 2009

    Author: Gourlay, L.

    Location: United Kingdom

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    Context: Set in context of students' transitions [note deliberate use of plural] into university with regard to identity/ies and challenges. Scopes literature on models of transition and writing; resists 'apprenticeship' from more traditional model of higher education and argues that with more diverse student body, "students cannot be assumed to learn practices and adopt new identities simply through exposure to the environment" (p.182). Notes literacies/ writing research and critiques 'remedial, extra-curricular' study skills support. Skirts literacy event/ practice. Also scopes Lave & Wenger's community of practice - notes Mary Lea's concern with application of CoP to student writing because students and staff do not necessarily share enterprises, and students = positioned 'permanent novices' (2005, 193). Scopes literature on emotion in transformation of identities and literature on language practices, writing and identities
    Aim: To argue:
    "(i) that commonly-applied models of transition, in particular the notion of 'communities of practice' do not adequately account for new students' experiences of academic writing;
    (ii) that confusion, indeterminacy and emotional destabilization may be seen as 'normal' features of the student transition; and that
    (iii) writing plays an role in student identity formation.
    It will then analyse first year journal and interview data focused on transition experiences and academic writing" and will argue for 'liminality analysis' and argue for academic literacies as 'threshold practices' (p.181).
    Theoretical frame: Liminality and threshold practices; academic literacies; CoP
    Methodology: Qualitative/ longitudinal: study of new students (n=9) in post-1992 university in UK. Methods = journaling, 3x semi-structured interviews in first year based on themes from journals
    Findings:
    Indeterminacy and emotions around academic writing: reactions to feedback, not knowing requirements: "all the students report worry, fear, anger or a combination of these as a result of their confusion surrounding academic writing requirements" (p.185)
    Status ambiguity: all students described feeling "tentative and ambivalent" about student status in first semester + "fragile sense of legitimacy and a troubled 'in-between' status" evident in students' journals and visual representations (see e.g. of Mico = low SES, first-in-family student, p.186-7)
    Turning points, thresholds and literacy practices: friendships and social dimension emerged as significant for feeling of belonging; feeling more confident = connected to receiving good marks and getting good feedback on writing (p.187) - leading to idea that academic writing requirements = tantamount to 'threshold practices' - but not linear: "There is a danger that the metaphor can lead to an oversimplified notion of a clear transition point; unlike in social ritual where the theory was developed, the notion of the 'threshold' cannot stand here for a clear temporal moment or observable set of rites. Although the students in the data seemed to report a sense of breakthrough, they will face new challenges. Instead it may be more useful to use the notion as one means of understanding aspects of a messy and complex process of learning and transformation over time" (p.189).
    Core argument: Liminality and notion of academic literacies as 'threshold practices' = very useful for unpacking emotional dimension of becoming a student and "could open up discussion of tacit practices" (p.189). Ultimately, it could help to 'normalise' the messy, emotional struggle of transition and help to move away from deficit perspectives.

  • Thriving in transition: A model for student support in the transition to Australian higher education: Final Report.

    Date: 2014

    Author: Harris, M.; Barnett, T.

    Location: Australia

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    Context: Transition to higher education in English HE. Argues that most literature focuses on full time students
    Aim: To describe "an innovative, staged and cyclic approach to the transition to tertiary study"
    Theoretical frame: 5 major themes around transition identified by authors:
    1) Transition is cyclical
    2) Support should be provided over Year 1 and then the duration of their course
    3) Early interventions are preferable to crisis support
    4) 'Front-loading' (giving information to students before they have started) is not effective because it "provides material not needed (or recognised as needed) by students at that point of time" (p.5)
    5) Successful transition programs are embedded into courses/ disciplines, rather than add-on
    Methodology: Mixed methods
    Findings:
    From observations of students participating in workshops (all p.5-6):
    1) Students who need help the most are least likely to seek support
    2) High-achieving students may eschew institutional supports for fear of being seen as a failure
    3) Students need to be coached on support-seeking
    4) Early signs of potential issues = not submitting assessable work, not attending classes, declining grades. These need to be identified by algorithms and follow-up automated
    5) Teaching and learning activities need to adjust in order to support students with transition via curricula (essentially, more contact -either in person or via the phone -is needed)
    6) Informal supports are potentially as useful as institutional/ formal supports
    7) Students are likely to face crises at several points and support should be available on an individual basis/ organisational responses need to be clearly communicated
    8) Certain 'trigger points' can be identified and responses pre-designed
    9) Universities should develop supports for throughout the lifecourse of a degree (pre-entry to post-graduation)
    10) Pastoral work of support should be recognised as work: "Such work can be difficult to measure and can exert a greater demand on time than the amount (often notionally) allocated" (p.6).
    11) Common first year approaches may better facilitate transition-related activities
    12) Generic notion of first year fails to recognise students' biographies/ backgrounds: " Finer filters are required to better understand the commonalities that certain groups possess to allow timely and effective interventions to be applied" (p.6)

  • Time

    Date: 2006

    Author: Adam, B.

    Location: United Kingdom

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    Context: Sociology of time in the context of increasingly technological/ geospatial change
    Aim: To argue that the notions of transcendence, tracking, transformation, and trading with relation to time are what make us human.
    Theoretical frame: Sociology of time/ sociohistorical account of time
    Methodology: Essay
    Discussion:
    Transcendence: "Culture is inescapably tied to the human relationship to time: to death and the boundedness of human existence, to change, transience, ephemerality and contingence, and to the rhythmicity of the physical and living environment" (p.120). Human relationship to the finitude of life resulted in creation of cultural practices and rituals to create a sense of permanence (burial, worship etc.): "With the production of artefacts knowledge was not just objectified and externalized but it survived into the following generations, thus loosening the dependence on co-presence for knowledge to circulate" (p.120). Moreover, through religious and cultural practices, humans have attempted to make time stand still (through the preservation of artefacts/ artwork) as a method of fixing/ stabilizing beliefs, the present. All these practices/ myths/ beliefs = attempts to "transcend the times of earthly existence" (p.121)
    Tracking time: "tracking of time involved the vast time scales of gods and the cosmos, the life-span of beings and things, seasonal patterns, even subdivisions of the day and very short time spans such as the beat of a human heart" (p.121). Tracking of time = often connected to need to identify patterns so as to be able to predict: "The ability to count, name, number and quantify change processes and repetitions facilitates predictability of the seemingly unpredictable" (p.121). However, many of the early attempts to integrate different times have been dismissed with the advent and dominance of clock time: "With clock-time the tie with temporality, contextuality and variation has been severed and contingent rhythmicity replaced with a decontextualized, invariable machine-time" (p.123).
    Transforming time: clock time = "no longer tracks and synthesizes time of the natural and social environment but produces instead a time that is independent from those processes: clock-time is applicable anywhere, any time" (p.123). It is decontextualized and rationalist.
    Trading time: the association between clock time and money (via production) "has become the precondition
    for industrialization and capitalist development, which today constitutes both promise and curse for non-industrialized cultures as well as societies structured and organized on the basis of different temporal principles" (p.123-4). Commodification of time = fastest throughput and shortest possible capital outlay (Marx) - speed = valorized above all other modes of time. These ideas about the value of time = globally spread (colonization) and hegemonic, so that "Cultural resistance to this norm is equated with backwardness" (p.124). Non-workers (elderly, children, unemployed) "inhabit the shadowlands of un- and undervalued time" (p.124). Technologies have compressed our perception and practices of time.
    Traversing futures: decisions about future ('trades') are often put off by the present focus - see p,125.
    Core argument: Our time relations and practices speak to human beings' relationship with non-existence/ non-permanence: "the transcendence, tracking and trading of time have smoothed some of the edges of the terror of non-existence. These strategies have provided a semblance of individual and collective control: continuity in the face of finitude, permanence in the face of transience and ephemerality, certainty and security in the face of indeterminacy" (p.124) - consequently clock time (its dominance and colonizing power) = "ultimate tool for social control" (p.124)

  • Time as the Fourth Dimension in the Globalisation of Higher Education

    Date: 2009

    Author: Walker, J.

    Location: Canada

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    Context: Globalisation = trying to outsmart time (rather than trying to control time as per modernist capitalism), particularly as a result of technological development. Three other dimensions (in addition to time) in globalisation are space, movement, place. In the context of higher education, temporal impacts of globalisation are often backgrounded by the prominence of knowledge economy theories (academic capitalism, Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004). Author considers the role of time in capitalism, and the role of time in globalisation (global time)
    Aim: To argue for time as an essential component of the theory of academic capitalism; to add to existing 3 dimensions of academic capitalism
    Theoretical frame: Global time = relative and situated; time-space compression = hallmark of globalisation (see Bauman's thesis of liquid modernity and Beck's thesis of risk society); academic capitalism (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004): three dimensions 1) new flow of knowledge; 2) existence of interstitial/ intermediating organisations; 3) managerialism. Author proposes 4) time
    Methodology: Essay
    Findings:
    Universities = increasingly active participants in globalisation processes/ global market
    "Academia is one of the most visible sites of globalization in at least five ways: first, there are large flows of information, ideas, people and courses, and growing numbers of net works formed between people and between institutions; second, it is the home to numerous global cosmopolitan elites who "know no bounds" (Bauman, 2001); third, it can be seen as the birthplace of many new technologies; fourth, it works within and outside the confines of national policy; and, lastly, globalization is evident in academia in the numerous cross-country and cross-campus interactions" (p.491)
    Universities = marketization and commercialization of knowledge = intensified dramatically. Although viewed as businesses, they are generally considered poor businesses (bloated administration, generally staff with little corporate experience)
    Author notes the disciplinary variation in exposure to/ adherence to globalizing/ marketising forces (e.g. Business/ Marketing = more subjected to demands of business-like environment than Philosophy; p.496)
    - Impacts on individuals: no time - time is accelerated, leaving students/ staff feeling like they are rushed. For staff, time gets compressed: "everything has become more time-sensitive-to absorb more information in a limited amount of time; to publish more; to serve on more committees-all while maintaining a nominally strong research record, serving the public, teaching, and being a public intellectual" (p.497). Time = precious resource, and much is spent on technologies (which is also the case for students studying online). There is a gendered dimension (see Menzies & Newton, 2007)
    - Efficiency: "single-mindedly devoted to truth for its own sake" (p. 464) However, both institutions and individuals are encouraged to use cost-benefit analysis to determine how they should use their time in the most efficient way. Being efficient means managing one's time well: it means doing more with less" (p.498). Efficiency = coupled with a need to perform and produce (""do it yourself scheduling" (Urry, 2004), p.499 and self-governance, Foucault, 1977)
    - Moral imperative not to waste time: "With greater tools for productivity come greater expectations. In the academy we must constantly justify our use of time to ourselves and others. Furthermore, how we use time is tied to merit. We are seen as deserving, and accordingly will be rewarded, if we can mange our time well" (p.499) - competence is demonstrated through production - but there is not enough time for everyone to be successful (because it's a competition).
    - Global consortia: author gives example of U21 Global (international consortia offering distance learning) + discussion of casualised staff
    - Globalisation = expansion Globalisation = offers more flexibility to work more leading to over-stretched institutions, staff, students: "In academia, the disciplining of time and the commercializing of the academy have fundamentally changed the way academia is run, leaving us with feelings of anxiety and of having less control" (p.503-4)
    Core argument: Time = essential aspect of academic capitalism: "academic capitalism depends on people holding and acting out certain ideas about time. Academic capitalism re quires both the reification of time and an internalization of the importance of managing time in a demonstrably efficient manner" (p.484). "Quintessentially, academic capitalism is premised on faculty and students both justifying their use of time and seeking to outsmart it" (p.485)
    Time and academic capitalism: "integrating a temporal dimension to our analyses also allows us to examine the fundamental role time plays in the new circuits of knowledge, the emerging interstitial and intermediating organizations and in the expansion of managerial capacity" (p.494)
    "While academic capitalism and globalization intersect and shape higher education institutions, pre-modern time, clock-time, and global time are all present and interact with each other in conflicting and disharmonious ways" (p.505)

  • Time for inclusion?

    Date: 2019

    Author: Thomas, M.K.E.; Whitburn, B.J.

    Location: Australia

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    Context: Situated in a context where 'international policy directives for the development of inclusion in and through education (UNESCO 2005) signal important social changes away from deficit-centric responses to diverse learner needs' (p. 159). However, authors argue that practice rarely meets inclusive ideology (Moore & Slee, 2012).
    Aim: 'To explore how notions of temporality operate as decisive forces in the lives of educators in both the compulsory and post-compulsory sectors' (p. 159).
    Theoretical frame: Not specified in study.
    Methodology: Essay.
    Findings: 1)(Re)Conceptualising inclusive education over time - beginnings of inclusive education: accompanied the introduction of UNESCO's Salamanca Statement (UNESCO, 1994); the Salamanca Statement viewed 'diagnosed need' as 'special', consequently offering the political context for inclusive education to be perceived in 'delineated terms' (p. 162); In 2005: UNESCO redefined inclusion in education - a broad 'process of addressing & responding to the diversity of needs of all learners through increasing participation in learning, cultures & communities, and reducing exclusion within and from education' (UNESCO, 2005, p. 13); UNESCO thus highlights that the concern of inclusive education is on 'how to transform education systems in order to respond to the diversity of learners' (2005, p. 15); Problems with evolving definitions of inclusive education: distortion of the 'clarity of purpose', with 'divergent positions taken through UNESCO policy' (p. 163); competing pressures often hinder the 'latter ideals' (p. 163) regarding inclusive education; Despite UNESCO's (2005) inclusive education policy, the passing of time shows evidence of the continuous increase in special education practices which separate some students from the rest (Armstrong, 2002; Slee, 2011; Tomlinson, 2012); Authors argue that educators often experience time constraints, lack responsibility, but are accountable for students' educational outcomes, in a 'temporal spiral of performance achievement', while the influence of UNESCO is lost under similar 'marginalising conditions' (p. 163); 2)Temporal productions in initial teacher education - Barton (2003) argues for a 'rejection of exclusionary forms' (p. 17) and highlights the need for 'significant changes' (p. 23) in current teacher education, as well as education in general; Authors argue that the influence of neoliberal policies on the field of ITE in Australia has resulted in teacher education programmes which are 'expertly conditioned to operate within limited industrialised conceptions of western clock time' (p. 164); Central argument: the 'aggressive positioning of pre-service teachers who are 'imbued with Marxist resonances of time and labour value' (Lingard and Thompson 2017, 1) fundamentally detracts from learning the significance of considered pedagogical practices which foster relationships' (p. 164); authors therefore content that inclusivity in ITE necessitates a 'longer-term temporality than vogue policy imperatives, since 'schools are full of students who do not fit neatly into tidy boxes, but who are interesting, multi-faceted, often unpredictable, and transcend traditional groups of learners' (Jones, Fauske, & Carr, 2011, p. 10) (p. 166); 3)Temporal mediation of inclusive practices in schools - 'the ideology that inclusive education is the provision of equitable participation in learning for all students irrespective of any diversities - as per the UNESCO (2005) statement - falls well short of expectations in many schools' (p. 166); Done & Murphy (2016) - a 'new responsibilisation of teachers': 'a two-fold process' which conditions teachers to 'optimise school performance', while 'having to act ethically' (p. 166) simultaneously, in order to ensure that all learners can have equal educational outcomes; Ainscow et al. (2012) & Slee (2011) - inclusive schooling should be viewed as 'much more than a mere competing policy imperative' (p. 166); McKnight & Whitburn (2018) - the 'obsession with evidence' (Hattie, 2008, p. 237) of neoliberal policies often hinders opportunities for the practice of inclusiveness; 4) Towards a diffraction in time - A diffraction in time coupled with thoughtful integration of relational pedagogies is distorted when 'it is preferable to see inclusiveness as a process that takes place over time' (Reid, 2012, p. 13); Authors argue that 'time is a luxury not afforded to the classroom teacher, nor deliberated by the teacher educator' (p. 168); inclusiveness is therefore argued to remain 'illusory', and socially just practices are only 'in name' (p. 168), which is 'ominous' to the practice of inclusive education; central argument: the concept of inclusion in schools have become 'confused, shallow & dispersed' (p. 168); Diffraction - 'provides a disruptive metaphor and has been taken up by many who seek to pursue non-representational research agendas' (Lynch et al., 2016, p. 4) by providing a 'way of thinking with materials' (Pacini-Ketchabaw, Kind & Kocher, 2016, p. 14); Embracing a diffraction in time will enable a focus on 'the relational in education between the pedagogue and the student (McGrath & Van Bergen, 2017).
    Core argument: Promoting new ways of acknowledging the development of inclusive education could be 'made possible through the diffraction of time' (p. 169). It is therefore crucial that 'diffractions in time are realised to ensure the democratisation of educational practices against a tide of pathologising which wants to 'use categories that are fictions' (Bhaskar, Danermark, and Price, 2017, p. 95) (p. 170), which group students into socially constructed groups that only exacerbate their marginalisation.

  • Time future - the dominant discourse of higher education

    Date: 2010

    Author: Clegg, S.

    Location: United Kingdom

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    Context: UK higher education. Argues that "temporality is coded as future time for the person, their achievements, and their employability" (p.345) = "Policy assumes a future in which students are projected as good, neoliberal, employable subjects" (p. 346) - discourses of individual social mobility.
    Aim: To present "a critique of the dominant temporality of higher education policy in the UK and globally" and explores "differing existential temporalities associated with different forms of reflexivity and explores the complex temporalities of personal development planning" (abstract). Argues that feminist scholarship resists the dichotomy of either/or with time, and instead recognizes embodied and contextual understandings of time. Time in higher education = generally speeding up, which makes conceptualizations of the future as open and empty difficult to envisage: "The timescapes of the academy are short term, fast and inimical to reflection about longer term ethical consequences" (p.347). The time and rhythms of academic life = co-constituents of 'enterprise university' (Marginson & Considine, 2000). Describes pervasiveness of employability discourses (orientations to future).
    Theoretical frame: Adam & Groves (2007): 'present future' = open and empty and 'subject to colonisation' (p.200; cited p.346). Clegg summarises Adam and Groves' work on thinking through the future as: "distinguish the ways historically futures have been 'told' (through divination), 'tamed' (for example through ritual), and 'traded' (as time becomes commodified)" (on p.347) . Archer (2007) - critical realism/ multiple forms of reflexivity - arguments for analytic dualism, "which recognizes the independent powers of society and persons" (p.353)
    Methodology: Essay
    Discussion: Pedagogical practices: Technologies of the self and forms of reflexivity
    Discusses Personal Development Planning (PDP) - pedagogical practice = self-regulation = "where the cultivation of personal dispositions towards the future, based on continuous self-improvement, self-surveillance and self-promotion, is most obviously enacted" (p.355). However, PDP = taken up differently by individuals (in recognition of multiple reflexivities). Clegg & Bradley (2006) "found that the timeframes of the student were fluid and did not correspond to the linear assumptions of a curriculum based on first-, second- and third-year progression" (p.357). PDP = inauthentic reflection and recording: "When students 'reflected', as required in the PDP curriculum, they often engaged in subterfuge producing retrospective and tidied up accounts of processes which at the time of their enactment were not planned, future orientated, or fixed on the present future. Rather their enactments were messy, fluid and looked to the past as well as the future" (p.357).
    Core argument: Higher education = "discursively valorizes only certain forms of reflexivity and limits the ways in which we might think about the future" (p.346)
    "The fast time of the academy and the 'empty future' of policy imply a very different conception of [assumed slow time practices in higher education" (p.358-9)

  • Time in education: Intertwined dimensions and theoretical possibilities

    Date: 2015

    Author: Compton-Lilly, C.

    Location: USA

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    Context: Temporal affordances and conceptions of time. Author argues that time = generally treated as 'backdrop to experience' and rarely considered to be a contextual dimension of meaning/sense making. Literature review = time is multidimensional and intersectional (Adam, 1989); author "challenge[s] the notion of time as a simple, singular, and linear contextual dimension of people's experiences" (p.576). Rather time = multiple and overlapping dimensions of sense making: Adam timescapes; Schatzki (2006) - physical time/ human or lived time. Author argues that time = historically understood as a resource in schooling (US focus).
    "Time encompasses all that people have lived and understood as well as the ways they make sense of themselves, their experiences, and their relationships" (p.578).
    Aim:
    Theoretical frame:
    Bourdieu (1990) - habitus, which "references how people's pasts are embodied in ways of being and knowing that accompany experience" (p.586)
    Bakhtin (1986) - chronotopes: "Bakhtin explained that when authors create worlds they are obliged to draw upon the organizing categories of the real world-specifically recognizable time/space relationships" (p.583) = chronotopic motifs... "chronotopes in school shape the meanings people construct about their lives and the lives of others. Failing to meet chronotopic expectations has real meanings and consequences for students in terms of their options (i.e. honors classes, special education placement, summer school) and their futures" (p.584.
    Lemke (2000) - timescales: "an ecological model that locates people within multiple, continuous, and simultaneous timescales ranging from the quick-moving microscopic changes to macro shifts of the universe... Lemke's notion of timescales challenges conventional models that conceptualize time as linear and cumulative, by arguing that people experience time in recursive and nonlinear ways as they draw on lived events and various texts across multiple timescales to make sense of their worlds" (p.580)
    Methodology: Draws on longitudinal study with one student (Marvin) and his family, who was followed over 10 years
    Core argument: "...expanded notions of time invite educators and scholars to think about inequity ''because time is largely taken for granted and therefore invisible, the social relations of time can continue to maintain existing inequalities and create new one in the globally constituted world'' (Adam, 2003b: 119) on p.591.

  • Time, Equity and Higher Education

    Themes:

    lensResearch
    lensOpen Access Bibliography
    lensHigher Education

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    This blog post is part of the Gonski Institute for Education’s open access annotated bibliography (OAAB) series, a project led by Dr Sally Baker. OAABs offer a snapshot of some of the available literature on a particular topic. The literature is curated by a collective of scholars who share an interest in equity in education. These resources are intended to be shared with the international community of researchers, students, educators and practitioners. The literature has been organised thematically according to patterns that have emerged from a deep and sustained engagement with the various fields.

  • Time, money, leisure and guilt - the gendered challenges of higher education for mature-age students

    Date: 2013

    Author: Stone, C.; O'Shea, S.

    Location: Australia

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    Context: Mature age students participating in regional universities in Australia; gender equity.
    Theoretical frame: Interpretivist/ narrative inquiry/ co-construction of interview data/ feminist studies
    Methodology: Narrative inquiry with first-in-family/ mature-age university students (n=37) from two studies (Study A: O'Shea followed female students; Study B: Stone followed mature age entering UG study via an enabling program). Interviews + reflective journals
    Findings: Women = particularly disadvantaged by care/ family responsibilities and minimal support. Themes: time,
    Time as gendered construct: perceived and used differently by participants in both studies. Women struggled to find time for study and for family, especially for children; only one male participant made reference to time challenges with relation to family, and no men mentioned housework. Only women mentioned childcare, and women generally developed strategies to fit their studies around family time/ schedules. In contrast, "the stories of the male participants indicated that study time was privileged, allocated special significance within the family and kept separate from other demands" (p.102).
    Leisure: recurrent theme of 'sacrificing' leisure activities to make space and time for studying; clear gendered differences, with men reporting that they protected some of their leisure activities (notable exception = 'John' on p.106).
    Money: financial pressure = experienced differently by participants along gender lines; men had "particularly difficult adjustment" because of traditional role as 'breadwinner'; single mothers in cohort were already proficient at managing on a tight budget, and found little encouragement from Centrelink for studying.
    Guilt: many participants described feeling guilty about how spending time/ focusing on studies impacted on their relationships with family and friends, particularly parents. Two different interpretations offered about being selfish: "For Bob, being selfish is about entitlement, whereas for Grace, being selfish is about not fulfilling one's duty to others, and therefore a cause for guilt. Bob's advice, however practical, is impossible to follow for women with family responsibilities and the gendered obligations that ensue" (p.110). Women participants tended to minimise their burdens, related to traditional/societal assumptions about caring.
    Core argument: "Understanding the gendered challenges which mature-age students face is an essential first step towards the development and implementation of social and institutional measures to encourage
    and support greater numbers of mature learners to enter, stay and succeed in higher education" (p.112).

  • To Aspire: A Systematic Reflection on Understanding Aspirations in Higher Edu

    Date: 2015

    Author: Gale, T.; Parker, S.

    Location: Australia

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    Context: Works from international focus on ("narrowly conceived" (p.141)) aspiration raising for low SES school children and seeks to engage in "intellectual craftsmanship" to create a more nuanced account of 'aspriations' as public issues/ private troubles. Work from notion of social neoliberal imaginary and how this drives/ constrains aspirations, and distils down to matter of 'cultural tastes', "which tend to reflect and reproduce our place in the world" (p.141)
    Aim: To draw on 4 "overlapping concept-clusters" (p.140) to build an understanding of aspiration that is not limited to the individual: social imaginary, taste/distinction, desire/ taste, archives of experience/ navigational capacity
    Theoretical frame: Mills (1959) - 'systematic reflection'
    Social imaginary: aspirations guided by social circumstances and beliefs about place in the world (Bourdieu referred to this as 'doxa': 'a state of immediate adherence' between habitus and field). Taylor (2004) coined the term 'social imaginary': common understanding that makes common practices legitimate (see p.141) - representing way that perceive ourselves as fitting together (or not) and normative expectations - how we imagine collective social life (p.142). Views about HE from social imaginary = what/who it is for - legitimises deficit discourses and concerns about slipping standards etc. Aspirations are thus influenced by self-perception and beliefs about social context ("how they read the futures that fit them" (p.142)). Current neoliberal imaginary limits aspirations to biographic-historic conditions (Zipin et al. 2015).
    Taste/Distinction: - Bourdieu= taste is differentiation between good and bad ('beautiful and ugly') within aesthetic fields - particular tastes connect with particular 'classes' and reflect particular "cultural dispositions" (p.143) - Essex girls (UK); bogans (Aus). From this conceptual standpoint, aspirations are located in a [cultural/epistemological/ valorised] hierarchy (some aspirations are better/ more tasteful than others). Aspirations also reflect structures and systems that perpetuate inequitable situations/ unequal distribution of 'tasteful' aspirations (see Burke, 2009). Anything less than aspiring to university = height of vulgarity.
    Desire/ Possibility: desire is about what we promise to ourselves about our futures (and is relational). Sellar (2013) = desire for HE is "a promised relationship between learning and earning" (p.254; on p.145). What is desirable and what is possible = not always the same. De-regulation of HE = increased possibility of participation in HE but it's not universally desired (see limited gains on proportional representation). Desires are not always about material possibilities - sometimes sociocultural factors impact on desire (e.g. jostling selves; incongruity with home/ uni selves). Not many marginalised students see themselves in HE (p.146).
    Navigational capacity: Appadurai's notion = archives of experience gained from previous navigations (self + family + community) - needs a sense of direction and immediate nodes. Disadvantaged have less nodes and weaker sense of direction/ unfamiliarity with destination. Also discusses tour and map knowledge (de Certeau) - gives example from data of students electing for university for jobs that don't require HE study.
    Methodology: Draws on analysis of data on 244 school students (13-15 years old) from low/low-mid SES backgrounds from 14 schools in regional Australia and their aspirations (participation in TASSA)
    Core argument: "Aspirations are not simply an array of all futures from which people pick and choose according to individual taste, even though this is how it is represented in much policy and practice" (p.141). Student aspirations are framed by all 4 concept-clusters (and other potential notions) = aka not residing only at level of individual aspirations

  • To care or not to care - Reflections on the ethics of blended learning in times of disruption

    Date: 2018

    Author: Swartz, B.; Gachago, D.; Belford, C.

    Location: South Africa

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    Context: South African higher education in context of Fees Must Fall protests + 'openness' of university learning through blended and online teaching. Study is based in a university of technology context (serving predominantly under-represented groups). During the protests, many universities turned to open learning to continue teaching while protests disrupted daily business. Authors consider ethics of online education (e.g. dominant focus on academic integrity, ethics with assessment, surveillance, confidentiality + anonymity, cultural practices, power dynamics
    Aim: To examine the ethics of moving learning online, given the uneven distribution of access to equipment/ resources. Authors offer these framing questions on p.50: "Was it fair to offer online learning to students who might or might not be able to afford it and might or might not have the digital literacies needed to engage in online learning? Should it be offered on a voluntary basis?"
    Theoretical frame: Tronto's Ethics of Care/ ethics as practice. Tronto argues that care is a political project/ ethical practice. Authors note Tronto's 5 moral elements of care (first four from 1993, final from 2013 - on p.51):
    1. Attentiveness (caring about): noticing unmet needs, suspending one's own judgements and being able to see the world from the perspective of the one in need.
    2. Responsibility (caring for): taking on the burden of responding to this need.
    3. Competence (care giving): being competent to care, which is always both a technical and a moral and political issue.
    4. Responsiveness (care receiving): listening to the response of the person/group that was cared for, sometimes resulting in new unmet needs.
    5. Solidarity (caring with): taking collective responsibility, to think of citizens as both receivers and givers of care, and to think seriously about the nature of caring needs in society.
    Methodology: Automethodological - interviews between/ reflections on authors' experience of being part of OER pilots in 2016
    Findings: Authors reflect using Tronto's 5 elements of care.
    Attentiveness: high level of attentiveness observed/ reported - negotiations with students about whether to defer exams or continue learning online when the protests began.
    Responsibility: lecturers took responsibility to adapt teaching when the protests started, related to personal relationships/ familiarity with students.
    Competence: both lecturers' and students' level of competence (to give care) were high [although authors seem to discuss competence in terms of familiarity in terms of ability to use/ navigate online systems].
    Responsiveness: lecturers listened to students and responded to feedback, e.g. using YouTube to help students stream course materials and avoid using up all their data. Lecturers also used Whatspp and a combination of platforms to complete the course.
    Solidarity: aka collective responsibility (but avoiding paternalism and parochialism) - questions about whether the lecturers ignored the concerns of the wider context (protests), and questions about continuing at a micro (course) level, thus again ignoring the broader socio-political context, so that their practices "were not in solidarity with the larger student movement" (p.61).
    Core argument: Following Tronto (2001): "good care is not something that we can ever achieve, but that we can strive towards" (p.611)
    Online learning (not only in crisis contexts) must consider two ethical elements: 1) parity of student access to resources, and 2) educators must see their practice as an ethical/ political act

  • To educate you to be smart': disaffected students and the purpose of school in the (not so clever) 'lucky country'

    Date: 2014

    Author: Graham,L.;Van Bergen, P.; Sweller, N.

    Location: Australia

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    Context: Presents research with students in 'special' behaviour schools and aspirations for (further) education. Set in historical context of Australia struggling to deal with collapse of industrial sectors and youth unemployment - transitioning from 'the lucky country' to 'the clever country' as education increasingly moving towards investing in people, ideas and technology - human capital theory = particularly influential (i.e. people's knowledge and skills = contributes to national economy growth and competition). First focus = getting schools student to complete Yr 12 (Finn Review set target of 95% of all Australian children to complete Yr 12 by 2001) - which involved revising school curriculum to make it more relevant/ connect more with world of work. However, 24% of Australian teens still do not complete Yr 12 (Wierenga, 2011) - young men (15-19) from low SES backgrounds mostly likely to drop out and become unemployed. Dominant idea = these people (young people and families) lack aspirations and do not value education. NSW has 35 alternative schools for students whose behaviour has moved them out of mainstream schools/ who have rejected and become disaffected with mainstream schooling. Many students stay in these schools until they drop out or enter juvenile detention: "In so doing, these young people have come to embody the problem of educational failure, youth unemployment and social disorder about which successive Australian governments have been so concerned" (p.241).
    VET conceptualised as stepping stone between school and work. However, disconnections between TAFE and HE= prevented development of coherent set of pathways into further study, which have been further complicated by "tensions and contradictions" that exist in school sector (p.239). Triad of school-TAFE-university damaged by political devaluation of TAFE and privileging of school-university pathway = VET = "victim of status hierarchy" (p.239). Arguments made that Bradley review and marketization of TAFE made this worse, which impacts low SES most (in lower level certificate courses - see Wheelahan, 2009). Notes 'savage' destruction of TAFE through funding cuts and uncoordinated reforms. Reports research that has argued that TAFE has set higher entry requirements (completion of Yr 12) and are less willing to accept students with learning disabilities or disaffected early school leavers.
    Aim: to report on ARC-funded research; to explore "differences between three student groups with respect to the purpose of school and whether they see that purpose as consistent with their own aspirations" (p.243)
    Theoretical frame:
    Methodology: Cross-sectional mixed methods with students in mainstream/ alternative schools (aged between 9 -16): 33 students currently enroled in behaviour school, 21 students with history of disruptive behaviour, 42 school children with no history of disruptive behaviour. Semi-structured interviews (75 questions); responses to following questions analysed: (1) 'What is the purpose of school?' (2) 'Is that important to you?' (3) 'Do you enjoy schoolwork?' (4) 'Do you know what you want to do when you leave school?' (5) 'What do you want to be?'
    Findings:
    Contrary to popular opinion, these participants did aspire for post-school education and were able to see the value of it for "a secure, productive and fulfilled life", albeit not necessarily from university study (abstract). There was no significant difference between 3 groups in terms of perception of purpose of school/ education. Majority of mainstream students liked school work; opposite true for students with disruptive behavior
    11 dissenter students = none connected education with future employment, most did not enjoy schoolwork and that was primary reason for getting in trouble. 'Tediousness and irrelevance' of school = repetitive theme; appears to be perceived difference between education and 'learning' (with learning strongly connected to school); others distinguished between school and work learning. Identifies 'wicked problems'
    1) academic school curriculum = preoccupation with becoming clever country and getting students to achieve Yr 12 has led to lack of attention to exclusive school curriculum: Lifting student attainment and pushing towards university entrance "has been dominant leading to the privileging of academic knowledge, attainment and pathways over vocational knowledge, attainment and pathways" (p.251). TAFE = "deficit in parity of esteem" compared with university (p.251), so that TAFE = positioned as 'second rate'
    2) availability of 'coherent and viable' pathways for disaffected students =all dissenting students expressed a preference for 'practical' subjects taught at behavioural school - most began to experience issues in primary school; none made it to senior secondary school (where they could enrol in vocational subjects). 4/11 dissenters = TAFE was primary learning destination (signalling possibility of connections between behavioural schools and VET)
    Core argument: "Such indicators suggest that in privileging certain pathways, occupations and qualifications over others, the 'clever country' agenda has succeeded in privileging academic forms of knowledge over technical knowledge and expertise; a stance that may prove to be self-defeating" (p.253).
    None of the students interviewed said they wanted to become a criminal (!!) or nominate a career that does not exist - most interested in vocational/ hands-on education and pathways but with Australia focusing on driving 'traffic' to university, TAFE/vocational education pathways and options have been lost

  • Towards a national policy framework for care leavers in higher education

    Date: 2016

    Author: Harvey, A. McNamara, P.; Andrewartha, L.

    Location: Australia

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    Context: Approximately 40,000 children live in OOHC in Australia, with the number increasing every year over the past decade (AIHW, 2015). Individuals who spent time in OOHC prior to the age of 18 are referred to as care leavers when they transition out of the system. However, the post-transition outcomes of care leavers are often not well-documented. In Australia, there is a particular paucity in research related to the transition of care leavers to tertiary education. Nevertheless, the limited evidence suggests that care leavers are particularly under-represented in HE (Mendes et al., 2014; Murray and Goddard, 2014). HE is linked to lifetime advantages, included improved employment opportunities, earning potential (Lomax-Smith et al., 2011; Norton, 2012). This highlights the importance to examine the progression of care leavers into HE, nationally, and the possible factors that might increase aspirations, access and success at university.
    Aim: To develop a strategy for raising university access among care leavers by: i) exploring the nature, causes and extent of under-representation ii)by recommending policy reform within both the education and community service sectors.
    Methodology: The project involved four key stages. Stage One: Review of international & national research on the educational needs and outcomes of care leavers. Stage Two: Analysis of National and State Data Sources. Stage Three: A survey of universities about institutional policies and strategies for supporting care leavers - designed using Qualtrics online survey; senior equity staff at all 37 Australian public universities were invited for participation; 28 universities responded (76% response rate). Stage Four: Semi-structured interviews with 11 senior representatives from community service organizations across Australia. A mix of national, multi-state and single-state agencies was selected to ensure national coverage. An interpretative phenomenological approach was applied to data analysis (Smith et al., 2009).
    Findings: Stage One: [Review of the Literature] 1)UK: First major research project: By Degrees (Jackson et al., 20050) - followed 50 university care leavers/ year for three years. Recommendation: 'All higher education institutions should have a comprehensive policy for recruitment, retention and support of students from a care background' (p. xiv); Additions to legislation on care leavers' education in England & Wales: Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000 introduced the first statutory requirement for local authorities to support young people aged 16-24 years in education. The Children and Young Persons Act 2008 brought forward a statutory GBP2,000 local authority bursary for young care leavers at university. From April 2011, the Children Act 1989 Guidance and Regulations Volume 3: Planning Transition to Adulthood for Care Leavers implemented a suite of regulations and guidance around strengthening the planning of educational transitions (All-Party Parliamentary Group for Looked After Children and Care Leavers 2012). Impact: Increase in proportion of care leavers continuing HE in England: from approximately 1 per cent of 19-year-old care leavers in 2003 (Department for Business Innovation and Skills 2014) to 6-7 per cent of 19-21-year- old care leavers in 2014 (Department of Education 2014). 2)Continental Europe: Main research project: The YiPPEE research project (Young people from a public care background: pathways to education in Europe) examined the education pathways of care leavers across England, Denmark, Sweden, Hungary and Spain. Findings: Individuals in public care had similar experiences of severe educational disadvantage across all five countries; 'reliable statistical information is an essential basis for improving the educational opportunities for young people who have been in care' (Jackson & Cameron, 2012, p. 10). 3)USA: Two large-scale projects by Pecora et al. (2003; 2005): highlighted low college completion rates for people from foster care; Wolanin (2005): Of the 50% of young people in foster care who complete high school, and are therefore potentially college qualified, only about 20 per cent enrol in higher education compared to 60 per cent of their peers. 3 significant federal laws to increase access to HE for individuals from foster care (in 2008): Fostering Connections Act; College Cost Reduction Act; and the Higher Education Opportunity Act (Legal Center for Foster Care and Education 2008).
    4)Australia: No national-level data collection of school outcomes of people in care. Nevertheless, two large-scale studies by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) matched educational achievement data and community service data across multiple jurisdictions (AIHW 2007, 2011). Findings: Children on guardian- ship or custody orders, many of whom were in OHC, had poorer reading and numeracy test scores compared with their peers. In addition, care leavers do not constitute a distinct equity group in the Australian HE equity group framework, resulting in no data collected to monitor HE access, participation or retention rates. Several small, qualitative studies: Jurczyszyn and Tilbury (2012) interviewed 13 young people who were in care or leaving care in Queensland; Mendis et al. (2014) interviewed 18 university-educated women who had spent time in OHC; Michell et al. (2015) also published the stories of 14 care leavers who had transitioned to higher education. Stage Two: [Analysis of National and State Data Sources] 1) Australia: National data on the education of Australians in OOHC is limited. The Australian Bureau of Statistics collects a limited amount of national data on the educational outcomes of children in OHC through the National Census. Two major limitations of data collected: i) data are only collected on foster care and not the other types of OHC. ii) individuals under the age of 15 are regarded as foster children in the Census, while individuals over the age of 15 are only counted as foster children if they are living with a foster parent at the time of the Census (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2012). 2)UK: Reliable data on the educational outcomes of care leavers are publicly available in the UK, in contrast to Australia. a) Buttle UK Quality Mark programme: Collect data on care leavers enrolled within a HE institution b) Department of Education England: Releases an annual publicly available pack detailing the outcomes of all care leavers at 19-21 years of age. c) From 2014, all care leavers' data are collected from all HE institutions by the HE Statistics Agency using a care leaver identifier, allowing for 'improved analysis, research & evaluation' (p. 103) (Department for Business Innovation & Skills, 2014). Stage Three: [Survey of University Policies and Practices] Most frequent types of initiatives for care leavers: Specific admission policies ( five universities), relationships with OHC service providers ( five universities) and outreach programmes (four universities);Two universities had recruitment policies or guidelines for care leavers; Only one university offered scholarships targeted at care leavers; one university collected data about care leaver status; and one university tracked the progress of care leavers; None of the surveyed universities reported providing accommodation support for care leavers; Two universities had also taken recent steps to better support care leavers-one had advertised for a care coordinator, and another had established a working group to explore the needs of care leavers. Stage Four: [Interviews with Key Representatives from the Community Service Sector] Findings: i) community service organizations do not systematically track individual educational progress and do not collect aggregated data on the educational outcomes of young people in care. ii) higher education opportunities for care leavers were created by long-term, stable placements, which lead to continuity of primary and secondary schooling, committed advocates and caseworkers, financial support, housing support and being able to remain in a long-term foster home iii) barriers to HE transition: lack of confidence of care leavers, premature expectations of adult responsibility, mental health issues, early pregnancy, drug and alcohol misuse and family conflict.
    Core argument: 'There is an urgent need for a greater recognition of care leavers as an under-represented group within the HE sector' (p. 108). Although care leavers are often subsumed within and across 6 groups in the national student equity framework, the extent and nature of the disadvantage of care leavers in HE require tailored policies and targeted data collection.

  • Towards a Structural Inequality Framework for Student Retention and Success

    Date: 2020

    Author: Naylor, R.; Mifsud, N.

    Location: Australia

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    Context: University campuses are becoming increasingly diverse, indicated by the significant growth in student enrolments, but this has not translated to equitable outcomes for all students. While much attention has been focused on student retention and success, particularly for those from non-traditional backgrounds, dominant theoretical models rest on a limited notion of cultural capital that places undue responsibility on students themselves.
    Aim: To encourage greater consideration of specific factors that institutions can target to 'shape themselves, rather than their students' in their pursuit of becoming 'equitable places of learning' (p. 261).
    Theoretical frame: Structural inequality framework - Examines 'conditions in which groups of people are provided with unequal opportunities in terms of roles, rights, opportunities and decisions compared to others' (Archer & Leathwood, 2003) (p. 261). Types of inequalities examined: 'Vertical inequalities' - circumstances whereby people with particular characteristics or backgrounds (for example, but not limited to, low SES, Indigenous, or non-English speaking backgrounds) have fewer opportunities to access HE; 'Horizontal inequalities' - People with particular characteristics or backgrounds may also have fewer opportunities to access prestigious institutions or certain highly selective fields of study (eg: low SES students are over-represented in (arguably) low status fields such as nursing & education & under-represented in fields such as medicine & architecture); 'Internal inequalities' - People with particular characteristics or backgrounds may also be disadvantaged within the institution itself;
    Methodology: Systematised literature review (Grant & Booth, 2009); Primary database: Google Scholar. Following completion of the literature search, a critical synthetic approach was undertaken to develop a taxonomy of internal inequalities in HE institutions that impede retention.
    Findings: Framing social inclusion policy via cultural capital is unproductive for 2 primary reasons: 1)The typical usage of 'cultural capital' robs Bourdieu's original concept of its theoretical power & causes confusion with a simpler concept of 'cultural resources' (p. 266); 2)Attempting to assimilate non-traditional students into a traditional institutional structure may encourage problematic deficit & acculturation models; A structural inequality approach to WP and social inclusion provides 2 advantages: 1) three types of structural inequality presented here separate out barriers to access and participation more clearly than a cultural capital lens, which allows more focused policy solutions, and therefore increase the likelihood of effective change 2) More likely to be effective because policy change is located more fully within the locus of control of the institution (or other stakeholders); Non-exhaustive taxonomy of internal inequalities:
    Teaching
    _ In what ways does the institution prepare or offer professional development to staff for teaching diverse cohorts?
    _ Is there a focus on structural or implicit bias in teaching staff training?
    _ In what ways do teaching staff make clear to students their expectations around
    workloads, academic standards, grades, assessment deadlines, etc.?
    _ To what extent, and in what ways, do teaching staff explicitly engage with the structures of the academy (e.g., institutional policy requirements, course advice, career development) as part of their work with students? Are these requirements overtly contested, discussed or accepted by staff?
    _ What opportunities are teaching staff provided to influence relevant policy based on
    their interaction with students?
    Students
    _ What is distinctive about the institution's approach to helping equity students succeed compared with other higher education institutions?
    _ Are students made aware of the inherent requirements of their chosen course? Does it require proactive effort from students to discover these requirements, or are they promoted to students?
    _ How are students taught to act inclusively in their interactions with other students and staff?
    _ How do students perceive the institution in terms of equity?
    _ How do students perceive themselves as members of the university community (e.g.,
    as junior colleagues, as partners, as learners, or as consumers)?
    _ What opportunities are students provided to influence relevant policies, curricula
    and other aspects of university activity?
    Curriculum
    _ How is curricula made accessible and relevant to students from all backgrounds?
    _ Which aspects of assessment policies at the institution cater to equity students?
    _ How does the institution provide advice on course content, inherent requirements
    and selection to prospective students or current students?
    _ How is career advice integrated into the curriculum?
    Administration
    _ What help is provided to students to navigate the administrative side of the institution? What is done to make these processes accessible, transparent, flexible, and jargon-free?
    _ How well does the institution identify and respond to students facing difficult personal situations (e.g., homelessness, financial hardship, mental health)?
    _ How well does your institution accommodate part-time study, leaves of absence etc.?
    _ Does the institution collect and respond to data on why students have withdrawn from study?
    Campus life
    _ What are the accommodation options, including emergency housing, available to students?
    _ To what degree do students participate in the institution's broader life outside of
    classes? What kinds of experiences are available? How could these be developed?
    _ To what degree do students interact with the institution's support services? What kinds of services are available? How could these be developed?
    Physical environment
    _ How is the physical environment of the institution used to support or engage students with the institution or their educations (e.g., through community spaces, study spaces, wifi access etc.)?
    _ Does the institution collect data related to commuting? If so, how, and what kind of impact on the institution has it made?
    _ What impression do students have of the 'feel' of the campus?
    Core argument: Structural inequality is a productive framework for understanding and supporting the student experience in HE for because: 1) The three types of structural inequality identified - vertical, horizontal, and internal - clearly identifies and distinguishes barriers to access and participation, which allows more focused policy solutions, and therefore can increase the likelihood of effective change. 2) It frames the problem of social inclusion within the locus of control of the institution - much more likely to result in more efficient, more effective change. 3) The dominant framework in this area, cultural capital, is often conceptually and theoretically misused, and potentially leads to problematic discourses of acculturation or deficit models. A structural inequality approach therefore leads to different policy outcomes, as well as more focused responses.