LA RMN COMO MÉTODO PARA ESTUDIAR INTERACCIONES FUERTES Y TRANSITORIAS

The lim ited identification o f specific non-traditional student groups found in corporate strategy docum ents, apart from the W idening Access and Participation Strategy, w as also found in Learning and Teaching Board discussions. In both cases, w idening participation issues w ere dealt w ith at a very high level o f generality in terms o f the student groups being considered. W hilst strategies aimed at the diverse student population, such as retention plans and study support, were discussed in these m eetings the nature o f diversity w as largely unspoken. There was one major exception to this. This was the specific discussion o f disabled students which occurred as a result o f there being a dedicated disability services team located within a Student Services U nit and w hich had representation on the Board. Thus reports were received regarding the disabled student population and, in particular, members o f the B oard w ere inform ed o f legislative requirements. The other reason that this group was specifically identified was because the university was performing particularly well in respect o f this target group. Comments were made regarding the

positive show ing o f the university in respect o f benchm ark data and it was claimed that the university continued ‘ .. .to enjoy a strong reputation for its w ork for disability support’. A s one m anager rather over enthusiastically stated ‘we are one o f the best HEIs in G reat B ritain in the area o f disability’.

It w as in the Equality and D iversity Com m ittee meetings that groupings were identified rather m ore explicitly and this identification was made on the basis o f legislative requirem ents. A num ber o f equality groups had been formed to report to the com m ittee. These groups w ere based on legislation and were: race, disability, gender, age, sexual orientation and religion or belief. The approach taken by this com m ittee w as m ainly focused on the w orkforce rather than students and could be seen as taking an equality audit approach. Thus the m ajor work o f the committee during the study included the presentation o f equalities reports to fulfil statutory responsibilities, inform ation on new legislation, and training program m e provision. Student inform ation w as provided in term s o f an audit o f student withdrawal in which students w ere categorised according to inform ation available on registration. These categories w ere gender, disability, and ethnicity. This did provide some opportunity to analyse the retention o f non-traditional students (when defined according to the stated categories) and to consider w hether rates o f withdrawal needed further investigation. H ow ever during the study period the m ajor issues considered at this com m ittee w ere staff related. It could be argued that the equality auditing approach that w as taken by this com m ittee could simply be seen as ensuring there was minimal com pliance. A lthough this com m ittee appeared to be putting some potentially useful system s in place reports to the com m ittee did seem to show aspects o f what M orrison (2007:329) has term ed ‘w eary com pliance’. However it was a developing committee that w as gradually putting equalities training and systems in place. During the study

period there w as little discussion in this com m ittee that w as directly related to the research questions, b ut the categories that w ere largely em ployed by the committee for equalities purposes w ere those defined by statutory duties and available inform ation.

W ithin Inter-U , as in m ost universities, the student profile varied between departm ents and even betw een courses w ithin departm ents. One m anager made the point that different subject areas attracted different groups, so those perceived as non- traditional in one area could be seen as traditional in another. Although, rather avoiding the general evidence o f under-representation in higher education, this point was reiterated on several different occasions and by different people in Inter-U. In some respects it reflected the know n com plexities o f subject specific differences in representation as noted in C hapter 3. For exam ple, in one health-related subject group, tw o fem ale lecturers interview ed explained that there w ere only ever two or three m en in a group o f 30 students and that all lecturers w ere female. They pointed to other areas w ith a sim ilar profile and how clearly they believed that in these instances it w as m en th at w ere the non-traditional students w ithin the group.

Those outside particular subject groupings also believed that students w ere likely to be identified as non-traditional relative to the subject area rather than in term s o f under-representation in higher education. An audio-taped discussion with a group o f w om en w orking in a central support unit was undertaken in the prelim inary stage o f the study and an extract from this illustrates this point. A fter talking about the changes they believed w ere occurring in term s o f the student population and the variations across the university, the follow ing exchange took place.

S p e a k e r 1. I m ean th in k o f courses such as Social Work, Com munity

Ed. N o n -tra d itio n a l is their traditional. Yeah? -in the bigger sense o f w h a t they say they are. [pause] You have to be a mature student to com plete the course. So f o r them it is the norm. Whereas fo r others it is not...

S p e a k e r 2 . . . I th in k y o u know the Business [departm ent] has a lot o f

m ature students, non-traditional an d so fo r th

S p e a k e r 3 Yeah a n d non-U K

S p e a k e r 1 So I th in k certain departm ents are used to having them and

certain [depa rtm ents] a r e n ’t. But then... w hy are they non-traditional? I f that [departm ent] is used to having them? You see w hat I mean.

The first speaker had a role in supporting student retention across the university and, despite qu estioning w hether students should be seen as non-traditional in certain academ ic departm ents, believed that there w ere those departm ents that were more sym pathetic to the w idening access agenda by virtue o f both the values presum ed to underpin their subject area and their student intake, and, equally, there were those departm ents that w ere not. This b e lie f w as shared by others who made similar references to the departm ent in w hich a num ber o f health and care courses were located as being particularly receptive to non-traditional students. One other departm ent w as singled out in the discussion with the w om en from the support unit as being the least receptive and com m ents w ere m ade by other m anagers, lecturers and support sta ff confirm ing this perception. A lso, w hen m em bers o f the w idening access and participation team w ere asked w hat they thought was m eant by some previous Learning and T eaching B oard m inutes that referred to some academ ic departments being ‘highly resp o n siv e’ to the w idening access agenda and ‘some less so ’ this particular departm ent w as nam ed as the ‘least responsive’. This departm ent contained a num ber o f sport related courses and, as stated in Chapter 6, in the latter stage o f the study interview s w ere undertaken w ith individuals from the tw o departm ents viewed as representing either end o f the ‘responsiveness’ continuum. It was interesting that

the sta ff interview ed from the departm ent identified as not receptive to w idening access appeared very supportive o f a range o f non-traditional student groups in higher education, rather, it w as the circum stances o f the departm ent, in term s o f its recruitm ent profile, that seem ed to present this view to others.

The difference betw een the tw o departm ents, w hich was openly acknow ledged by staff d eliv erin g sport related courses, appeared to be the relative pressure to recruit from w idening access groups. W hereas, for som e courses in the health and care departm ent, non-traditional student recruitm ent w as necessary for viability the sport related courses w ere already highly attractive to potential students. This was expressed by one sport lecturer w hen he said ‘I d o n ’t think we are encouraged to look at a w ide range o f students institutionally because we are relatively over-subscribed anyw ay’. T his view , that it w as the high level o f com petition for places that led to com placency regarding w idening access, w as w idely held am ongst the staff in this departm ent. T here w as also a general acceptance o f the view expressed in a later com m ent by the sam e lecturer that ‘I think the staff w ould be supportive o f a far w ider range o f interests and abilities than we h av e’. O ther evidence from interviews, conversations and observations confirm ed that this departm ent differed not because o f a lack o f concern w ith m aking higher education available to a w ider constituency but because o f the lack o f an im perative to actively engage in seeking to recruit underrepresented groups for ‘busin ess’ reasons. In one interview I enquired ‘Have I got this right -it's not a huge focus because you recruit okay ? ’ and the response was ‘Yes - w hether those people apply or not - if they do apply we are happy to take them on, but it ju s t goes back to that application stage’.

This, to som e extent, m irrors the different contexts o f new and older, more prestigious, un iversities insofar as the latter do not face the same issues o f recruitm ent and can place greater reliance on m arketing through reputation. Also, ju st as the continued disparity in access figures betw een types o f university is disguised by national access targets, so university perform ance, using benchm ark figures can disguise d ifferences betw een departm ents. However, as will be seen, the imperative placed on those in other departm ents to seek recruitm ent from non-traditional student groups w as not alw ays view ed positively

The interview s in the tw o academ ic departm ents showed that some specific groups o f students w ere consistently identified as non-traditional regardless o f department w hereas the identification o f others appeared to be related to the local context o f the course. All the lecturers and m anagers interview ed discussed disabled students as one category o f non-traditional student and particularly highlighted issues o f dyslexia. As already m entioned, a high profile w as given to disability w ithin the university and this probably influenced perception. H ow ever, the consistent reference to students with dyslexia appeared to derive from the w ays in w hich the m anagem ent o f dyslexia was u nderstood by lecturers. This will be discussed further in section 7.6.

M ature students w ere also consistently identified and, w ere the only group that in all cases, w ere po rtray ed as m aking a positive contribution to the learning environment. Lecturers that taught large cohorts o f m ainly 18 to 21-year-olds were particularly positive regarding m ature students. Typical com m ents were:

I do th in k i f y o u have a m ature student in the group who does have these life skills there is som ebody else saying w hat y o u ’re saying. I think it does a d d a different dim ension to the group. (S F el)

and

/ th in k m ature students are w orth their w eight in g o ld in the teaching

situation because th e y ’ve got so m any other experiences that they can draw on. A b o u t 95% o f our intake come fr o m sim ilar backgrounds and sim ilar life experiences an d yo u ask them some general questions and they ve g o t no thing to draw on. (SM m 2)

The positive regard for m ature students thus appeared to be linked to the contribution they could be relied on to m ake w ithin the teaching situation, w hether this was supporting the lecturer ( ‘saying w hat y o u ’re saying’) or bringing new perspectives. A num ber o f lecturers believed there w ere few er m ature students on their courses than previously and w ere saddened by this.

The only other group that w as consistently identified was m inority ethnic groups, although this w as m ore often a passing reference rather than a discussion that drew on experience. T he im pression w as given that lecturers thought it was im portant to indicate th eir know ledge o f the inequality suffered by m inority ethnic groups but it w asn’t som ething people w ished, or w ere able, to discuss. A n unelaborated ‘we don’t get very m any ethnic m in o ritie s ...’ w as a typical statement. Also, in the health and care related departm ent the term w as m ost often associated w ith international students w hereas this w as not the case in the sport related department. It is interesting to reflect upon the possible reasons for this group only being identified in a peripheral way. B oth the W idening A ccess and Participation Strategy and its revision had explicitly nam ed this group o f students and, some argue, it is this group that have experienced the m ost m arked inequalities in our education system (G illbom and Y oudell, 2000). The reticence m ay have been due to lecturers concerns regarding the sensitivity o f the issue or it m ay have been due to their lim ited experience together

w ith som e aw areness o f th is being one non-traditional group that the university was not seen as having had p articular success at recruiting, apart from internationally.

Interestingly the group o f students m ost com m only discussed by lecturers from the health and care departm en t in relation to w idening access were those who ‘...d id n ’t really m ake the g ra d e ’. T hese students w ere variously referred to as those ‘with low A levels’, ‘w itho ut any form al qualifications’, and w ith ‘no academ ic background’. It was interesting th at w hilst the health and care lecturers all spoke at length about these students w hen discussing those accessing the university as a result o f w idening access policy the lecturers from the sport departm ent did not classify w idening access students in this way. A difference in w orking definitions o f non-traditional students again appeared to be influenced by the different pressures on each department em anating from the m ark etab ility o f their courses.

The relevance o f course num bers to staff in the health and care departm ent was evident in m y conversation w ith the tw o m ale lecturers w ith extensive experience. One started talking about his recent involvem ent in a foundation program m e. He saw this as m eeting the u n iv ersity ’s ‘w idening access agenda’ and also ‘serving us well in term s o f our student n u m b e rs’. W hen they started talking about non-traditional stu dents’ need for tutorial support I asked who they thought were the w idening access students. I offered the com m ent that they had m entioned ‘part-tim ers’, ‘mature stud en ts’ and those w ho needed foundation degrees to ‘m ake the grade’ or ‘change stream ’ and enquired w h eth er they thought there were any other groups. They responded:

S p e a k e r 1: No, no I don ’t think there are any other real...{HMe2) S p e a k e r 2: No, no 1 m ean w hat we have fo u n d again is... both [co lleag u e's nam e] a n d I are program m e directors and come clearing

tim e I m ean it can be a little bit w orrying w hether yo u ’re going to m eet y o u r targets or not. (H M e l)

The first speaker later w ent on to say that ‘...o f course in the broadest sense - o f w idening access - are our international students’, and further into the discussion they talked about d isab led students. H ow ever, the m eaning o f non-traditional students and w idening access policy w as experienced m ost acutely in relation to achieving course num bers, m eeting ‘you r ta rg e ts’, and this often m eant providing access opportunities for students w ith less academ ic qualifications. In certain cases lecturers experienced this as providing access to students w ho should not be in university.