scholarly journals What’s in a Name? Unpacking Students’ Roles in Higher Education through Neoliberal and Social Justice Lenses

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 73-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mollie Dollinger ◽  
Lucy Mercer-Mapstone

There has been an increase in research and practice exploring how students can gain agency to shape higher education experiences. Numerous terms evoking certain metaphors have entered the discussions around engaging students, from students as consumers or producers, to students as creators, partners, or change agents. There is scope within the evolving literature to explore the differentiations between these metaphors and how underlying assumptions ultimately shape our practices and research. We thus unpack the above five metaphors frequently used to redefine students’ roles in higher education. We then engage in a dialogue across differences: highlighting how our own two distinct perspectives on the research area and practice – grounded in neoliberalism and social justice – align, overlap, differ, and provide constraints or affordances for student engagement. We offer a critical and reflective commentary questioning the drivers of students’ changing roles in higher education in the hope of inviting others into generative dialogue toward expanding the evolving field of student engagement. 

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucy Mercer-Mapstone ◽  
Rachel Guitman ◽  
Anita Acai

Debates in higher education problematise the role of students in student engagement. Resisting neoliberal values and language, scholars argue that students should be positioned as ‘partners’ or ‘change agents’ rather than ‘customers’ or ‘consumers,’ but the extent to which students are able to self-author their experiences as subjects rather than objects in mainstream publications is rare. Drawing on standpoint theory, we—three students from international contexts—argue that if students are to shape higher education discourses, then students’ work needs to be more prominently represented in mainstream academic publishing. We exemplify one approach to alternate forms of conducting and sharing student-led research by exploring and representing our own experiences of gender in partnership through poetic transcription. In doing so, we hope to disrupt some of the dominant assumptions around the positioning of students as objects in research and the validity of students’ self-authored voices in higher education.


2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 168-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik W. Carter ◽  
Jenny R. Gustafson ◽  
Michael M. Mackay ◽  
Kaitlyn P. Martin ◽  
Misty V. Parsley ◽  
...  

Although peer mentors play a prominent role in supporting higher education experiences for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), little is known about these college students and the factors leading to their decision to become involved in this particular experience. We examined the motivations, experiences, and expectations of 250 peer mentors attending five diverse universities offering inclusive postsecondary programs for students with IDD. Nearly all (93.7%) of the entering peer mentors had prior disability-related experiences and almost all identified a combination of personal and professional reasons for involvement. Peer mentors anticipated an array of personal benefits as a result of their participation, although beliefs about some areas of potential impact were more mixed (e.g., improvements in grades, study skills, social status). Views regarding the extent to which students with IDD can participate in different aspects of campus life reflected high expectations; predictions about these students’ postgraduation experiences were more modest and mixed. We offer recommendations for research and practice aimed at identifying and engaging peers in supporting inclusive college experiences.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vicki Trowler ◽  
Robert L. Allan ◽  
Jaroslaw Bryk ◽  
Rukhsana R. Din

AbstractThis paper, while conceptual in nature, is informed by both research and practice. Exploring the “engagement interface” as the site for student engagement (SE), we offer a conceptual contribution in engaging with the Kahu and Nelson (2018) model by bringing in a fuller understanding of SE grounded in the higher education context rather than being uncritically transplanted from a compulsory education context. This involves consideration of the multiple facets of SE as well as the dynamic, shifting and multilocal nature of the construct. The paper then proceeds to enhance the details of the model, grounding them in a finer-grained reading of the literature and relating educational constructs to the model’s proposed “mechanisms” in a conceptually substantiated way. This further extends Kahu and Nelson’s aim of illuminating the “black box” of SE. Our third contribution is to practice by proposing tactics: informed by the literature, we invite practitioners to consider ways in which they can increase the likelihood of facilitating engagement with, and by, students more constructively.


Author(s):  
Chris Guggiari-Peel

In the UK higher-education sector there are currently groups of students, such as those from an ethnic minority, who tend to achieve less well than their peers (Richardson, 2008). There are also students, currently ill-defined, who engage less with their university and are hence perceived as ‘hard to reach’. Although there has been much research into the social benefits of student engagement, the potential link with academic success has not yet been formally investigated in the UK. This study explores this missing factor by looking at specific forms of co-curricular engagement alongside particular demographics of students and their levels of retention, attainment, and Destination of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) outcomes so as to understand better the link between student engagement and academic performance. The study used data from the University of Exeter, dating back to the 08/09 academic year, as well as definitions of ‘engagement’ and ‘hard to reach’ that are unique to this study. ‘Engaged’ denoted participation with one of four, long-running, co-curricular activities: Change Agents, Grand Challenges, Peer Support and Student Representatives. ‘Hard to reach’ students were chosen as those who were from an ethnic minority, lower performing schools and low socio-economic backgrounds. These three groups do not represent all potentially ‘hard to reach’ students at Exeter, but data on ten further groups were not available for research purposes. Across all students in the study, and for each specific ‘hard to reach’ group, those who engaged with a co-curricular activity achieved a higher proportion of 1st and 2:1s, were less likely to withdraw and reported a higher proportion of positive DLHE outcomes. The question of who exactly are ‘hard to reach’ at Exeter was hence made more difficult, as it transpired that those groups selected were actually proportionally more engaged than the wider cohort. Also, the usefulness of grouping various disadvantaged groups together as ‘hard to reach’ was questioned. This was because the three ‘hard to reach’ groups’ levels of success were found to be more different from each other, than the collective ‘hard to reach’ group was from the ‘not hard to reach’. Overall, engagement with co-curricular activities seems to act as a leveller and as a means for all students to reach their academic potential. 


2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tania Israel ◽  
Alise Cogger ◽  
Kristin Conover ◽  
Audrey R. Harkness ◽  
Jay N. Ledbetter

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen C. H. Zhoc ◽  
Beverley J. Webster ◽  
Ronnel B. King ◽  
Johnson C. H. Li ◽  
Tony S. H. Chung

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