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 Massification, Marketisation and Loss of Differentiation in Pre-Entry Marketing Materials in UK Higher Education

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (11) ◽  
pp. 304
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Knight
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Widening Participation ◽  
Equity Issues ◽  
Higher Education System ◽  
Student Cohorts ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Uk Higher Education

Since the mid-1970s, the higher education system in the UK has massified. Over this period, the government policy drivers for higher education have shifted towards a homogenised rationale, linking higher education to the economic well-being of the country. The massification of higher education has involved a widening of participation from traditional students to new and diverse student cohorts with differing information needs. The increased positioning of students as consumers by higher education means the student choice process has become complex. Drawing on a recently conferred doctorate, this article asks whether the messages sent by institutions about the motivation for undertaking a degree have changed during the recent period of massification of UK higher education. It asks how such changes are reflected, overtly or in coded form, in the institutional pre-entry ‘prospectus’ documents aimed at students. Taking a discourse-historical approach, the work identifies six periods of discourse change between 1976 and 2013, analysing prospectuses from four case-study institutions of different perceived status. The research finds that the materials homogenise gradually over the period and there is a concordant concealment of the differential status, purpose and offer of the institutions, alongside an increase in the functional importance of the coded signalling power of the differential prestige of undergraduate degrees within the UK. This research’s finding that the documents produced by institutions have become increasingly difficult to differentiate highlights equity issues in provision of marketing in terms of widening participation and fair access aims.

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. 

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’.

scholarly journals Charting a course to an emerging field of 'research engagement studies': A conceptual meta-synthesis

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jude Fransman
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
International Development ◽  
Higher Education Policy ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Research Engagement ◽  
The Past ◽  
Narrow Definition ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Education Science

The past decades in the UK have witnessed renewed interest by policymakers, research funders and research institutions in the engagement of non-academic individuals, groups and organizations with research processes and products. There has been a broad consensus that better engagement leads to better impact, as well as significant learning around understanding engagement and improving practice. However, this sits in tension to a parallel trend in British higher education policy that reduces the field to a narrow definition of quantitatively measured impacts attributed to individual researchers, projects and institutions. In response, this article argues for the mobilization of an emerging field of 'research engagement studies' that brings together an extensive and diverse existing literature around understandings and experiences of engagement, and has the potential to contribute both strategically and conceptually to the broader impact debate. However, to inform this, some stocktaking is needed to trace the different traditions back to their conceptual roots and chart out a common set of themes, approaches and framings across the literature. In response, this article maps the literature by developing a genealogy of understandings of research engagement within five UK-based domains of policy and practice: higher education; science and technology; public policy (health, social care and education); international development; and community development. After identifying patterns and trends within and across these clusters, the article concludes by proposing a framework for comparing understandings of engagement, and uses this framework to highlight trends, gaps and ways forward for the emerging field.

scholarly journals Risk, Choice and Social Disadvantage: Young People's Decision-Making in a Marketised Higher Education System

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 110-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheryl Clark ◽  
Anna Mountford-Zimdars ◽  
Becky Francis
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Young People ◽  
Social Disadvantage ◽  
Widening Participation ◽  
Tuition Fees ◽  
Higher Education System ◽  
High Achieving Students ◽  
Risk Choice ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Relationship

Rising tuition fees in England have been accompanied by a policy mandate for universities to widen participation by attracting students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds. This article focuses on one such group of high achieving students and their responses to rising tuition fees within the context of their participation in an outreach scheme at a research-intensive university in the UK. Our findings suggest that rather than being deterred from attending university as a result of fee increases, these young people demonstrated a detailed and fairly sophisticated understanding of higher education provision as a stratified and marketised system and justified fees within a discourse of ‘private good.’ Our analysis situates their ‘risk’ responses within the discursive tensions of the fees/widening participation mandate. We suggest that this tension highlights an intensified commodification of the relationship between higher education institutions and potential students from disadvantaged backgrounds in which widening participation agendas have shifted towards recruitment exercises. We argue that an ongoing effect of this shift has resulted in increased instrumentalism and a narrowing of choices for young people faced with the task of seeking out ‘value for money’ in their degrees whilst concurrently engaging in a number of personalised strategies aimed at compensating for social disadvantage in a system beset by structural inequalities.

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