scholarly journals The unpredictable body, identity, and disclosure: Identifying the strategies of chronically ill students at university

2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise Toller ◽  
Hannah Farrimond
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
University Students ◽  
Chronically Ill ◽  
Chronic Illnesses ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Support Provision ◽  
Disability Support ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Uk Higher Education

The experiences of university students with chronic illnesses have been neglected in previous research, despite the fact that they make up the third largest disability category in the UK. The propensity of chronic illnesses to fluctuate unpredictably sets them apart from other forms of disability, yet little is known about how this inherent uncertainty impacts experiences in higher education, or the strategies students develop in order to simultaneously manage their illness and studies. This article presents a thematic analysis of episodic interviews with 13 current or recent UK university students with chronic illness. One student (Sophia)'s narrative is used as a case study through which the main themes are illustrated, with the stories of other students woven around this, building up a picture of uncertainty and unpredictability.The ill body was consistently experienced as a frustrating barrier around which life had to be reshaped. Utilising university disability support required disclosure and the acceptance of a disabled identity, yet also minimised the intrusion of illness by enabling students to work within their limitations, reducing the risk of symptom exacerbation or relapse.While participants did not struggle to be accepted as disabled or to access support, the fluctuating nature of their chronic illnesses failed to fit the narrower conceptualisations of disability that institutional systems were often created for. Participants felt that the support systems provided were not designed for liminal conditions, that standard support and adjustments were not always relevant to their needs, and that provision was inconsistent. In conclusion, this mismatch between the needs of chronically ill students and support provision demonstrates that gaps between equality policy and practice exist in UK higher education institutions. 

Doing it yourself: Coventry University Library’s streaming project

2009 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 21-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Gibbs
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Short Discussion ◽  
New Era ◽  
Future Developments ◽  
Levels Of Use ◽  
Streaming Service ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Uk Higher Education ◽  
The Impact

This case study provides an overview of the logistical aspects of introducing a DIY streaming service, from original idea to implementation, at Coventry University. The study includes reflection on practical problems such as the structuring of file names and complying with the terms and conditions of the ERA licence. It concludes with a short discussion of the impact of the new ERA+ licence on levels of use, together with possible future developments in streaming in the UK Higher Education sector.

scholarly journals Open Badges to Encourage Class Representatives’ Reflection and Achievement-Sharing: A Case Study from Edinburgh University Students’ Association (EUSA)

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanya Lubicz-Nawrocka
Keyword(s):  
University Students ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Pilot Project ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The University ◽  
Uk Higher Education ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Leadership And Change ◽  
Negotiation Problem

This case study describes how Edinburgh University Students’ Association (EUSA) worked in partnership with the University of Edinburgh’s Information Services division to implement one of the first Open Badge schemes used in the UK higher education sector. Based on student feedback, EUSA developed an effective Open Badge model to recognise and reward students’ work as Class Representatives. The paper describes EUSA’s model of badges, badge criteria and implementation, before focusing on qualitative examples of the positive impact of this pilot project for both individual students and for the Students’ Association. It provides examples of how students reflected thoughtfully about the impact of their work as Class Representatives to develop skills in negotiation, problem solving, diplomacy, leadership, and change management. EUSA’s Open Badge scheme now rewards students for sharing their achievements. In turn, students’ Open Badge blog posts have helped EUSA to gain more meaningful insights into the broad work of Class Representatives and how students benefit when they engage fully with the role.

scholarly journals Making connections and building resilience: Developing workshops with undergraduates

2017 ◽  
pp. 404-418
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Education Sector ◽  
High Achieving Students ◽  
Financial Pressure ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The University ◽  
Uk Higher Education

While defining resilience is recognised as complex with recent research highlighting the disparity of interpretations, there is however, a common appreciation of the wide range of contributory factors impacting on students’ resilience within the Higher Education sector. These can include but are not limited to, an increasingly competitive environment for graduate jobs, increased financial pressure from student tuition fees, alongside the more traditional concerns of moving away from home and transitioning towards greater independence. Building on previous research at the University of Surrey with high achieving students, this paper outlines the development and delivery of a student focused workshop designed to enable the participants to build their understanding of resilience using different but complementary pedagogic approaches: LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and Concept Mapping. The case study included within this paper demonstrates one student’s reflection of the workshop and previous experiences which have contributed to their own resilience. What has become apparent at the University of Surrey, and more broadly within the UK Higher Education sector, is that universities have a vital role to play in fostering positive mindsets amongst students and developing strong and resilient independent learners.

scholarly journals Re-imagining Diversity: Towards an Anthropology for Disruption in UK Higher Education

Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Alison Macdonald
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Diversity Training ◽  
Reference Points ◽  
Widening Participation ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Institutional Diversity ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Inclusive Learning ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Uk Higher Education

From Athena Swan accreditations to Access and Widening Participation agendas, diversity training and renewed pedagogic approaches to inclusive learning, the higher education landscape is now awash with the language of ‘diversity’ as policy and practice. The institutionalisation of ‘diversity’ is a welcome method of inclusion, yet it is often reproduced as ‘happy talk’ (Bell and Hartmann 2007) that pacifies the call for meaningful structural and institutional change, silencing and even reinforcing the inequality it seeks remedy (i.e. Ahmed, 2012; Alexander, 2005; Archer, Hutchings & Ross 2003; Kirton, Greene & Dean 2007; Mohanty, 2003; Puwar, 2004). Taking these paradoxical dimensions of diversity as ethnographic and conceptual points of departure, this special issue seeks to unravel some of the everyday experiences, practices and policies encoded in diversity ‘speak’ and ‘diversity work’ (Ahmed 2012) across anthropology departments in the UK. By giving credence to accounts of the daily graft of ‘diversity work’, together with embodied and lived experiences of what ‘being diverse’ entails on the ground, we strive to productively mobilise decentred ‘situated knowledges’ (Haraway, 1988) in order to displace the continued centrality of white / elite / heteronormative / ableist reference points at the heart of much higher education institutional diversity strategies and inclusion agendas (cf. also Puwar, 2004). For us, the term ‘re-imagining’ is a call for positive political transformation in which we hope the difficult, uncomfortable - but hopefully - fruitful questions and critiques posed by papers in this special issue galvanise a space for diverse-led action. It is thus against this backdrop that we try to re-imagine diversity in a new light: to bear witness to those who live its effects and thereby reveal the potential to democratically and holistically re-structure anthropology from the ground up.

scholarly journals Understanding of fraction and its application in unit conversions

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 53
Author(s):  
Aiping Xu ◽  
George Lenton
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
United States ◽  
University Students ◽  
Positive Feedback ◽  
The United States ◽  
Education Sector ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Uk Higher Education

Many British university students lack confidence in manipulating fractions. In this paper, we take a detailed look into the difficulties that students are experiencing across disciplines. We also introduce a method on how to effectively convert units via manipulating fraction operations. Though this approach to unit conversions is widespread in the United States, particularly in the discipline of Chemistry, it is not well documented or applied within the UK Higher Education sector to the authors’ knowledge. The method has been frequently used by the authors in Coventry's Mathematics Support Centre with very positive feedback. 

scholarly journals Rapid, remote and responsive research during COVID-19

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 205979912110085
Author(s):  
Jane Richardson ◽  
Barry Godfrey ◽  
Sandra Walklate
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Health Research ◽  
Applied Research ◽  
Data Gathering ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Research And Innovation ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Practical Recommendations

In March 2020, the UK Research and Innovation announced an emergency call for research to inform policy and practice responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. This call implicitly and explicitly required researchers to work rapidly, remotely and responsively. In this article, we briefly review how rapid response methods developed in health research can be used in other social science fields. After outlining the literature in this area, we use the early stages of our applied research into criminal justice responses to domestic abuse during COVID-19 as a case study to illustrate some of the practical challenges we faced in responding to this rapid funding call. We review our use of and experience with remote research methods and describe how we used and adapted these methods in our research, from data gathering through to transcription and analysis. We reflect on our experiences to date of what it means to be responsive in fast-changing research situations. Finally, we make some practical recommendations for conducting applied research in a ‘nimble’ way to meet the demands of working rapidly, remotely, responsively and, most importantly, responsibly.

scholarly journals Talking the Talk and Fitting In: Troubling the Practices of Speaking? ‘What you are Worth’ in Higher Education in the UK

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 27-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Addison ◽  
Victoria ◽  
G. Mountford
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
University Staff ◽  
Cultural Meanings ◽  
The North ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Fitting In ◽  
Uk Higher Education

In this article we raise questions about fitting in pertaining to various classed identities within two UK Higher Education Institutions (HEI). We discuss the pains and privileges attached to accent and ways of speaking worth: Who is able to mobilize and capitalize on inscribed values, as they come to be attached to ways of talking? Accents and ways of talking are part of embodied class identities and whilst some carry connotations of intelligence, other ways of talking are positioned as lacking value, as well as other cultural meanings ( Sayer 2002 ; Spencer, Clegg and Stackhouse 2013 ; Lawler 1999 ; Skeggs 1997 ; Southerton 2002 ; Taylor 2007 ; Macfarlane and Stuart-Smith 2012 ). In this article we discuss our empirical research carried out in two separate qualitative ESRC-funded research projects in the north of England with undergraduate students (Victoria Mountford) and university staff (Michelle Addison). Focusing primarily on white British ways of talking, we examine how embodying particular accents or ways of talking affect classed notions of ‘fitting in’ or ‘standing out’ (Reay et al 2009: 1; Abraham and Ingram 2013 ) in HE. In a climate of uncertainty in Higher Education we are concerned that the importance of demonstrating one's impact, value and worth comes down to more than just productivity, it is becoming demonstrably about being able to ‘talk the talk’. Here we trouble the practices of speaking ‘what you are worth’.

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