Identity and Education

The Links for Mature Women Students

Janet Parr

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781138713185
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351775953
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Bildung Allgemein

This title was first published in 2000:  Why do mature women return to education? On the face of it, the answer would seem obvious - to gain qualifications which they had not acquired in their earlier learning. However their return to learning seems to be much more than just about paper qualifications. This book describes the experiences of a number of mature women students who return to learning some time after their compulsory schooling. It looks at the links which the women make between their life stories and their return to education. In particular, it focuses upon a number of women who talk of painful experiences either past or current in their lives - experiences such as manipulative and controlling parents, psychological, physical and sexual abuse, an alcoholic parent, the death of a child or other family members and other difficult life events. These experiences have had a considerable and often ongoing effect on the women's lives and their return to education seems to be much more than just about paper qualifications. For example, the women talked of confidence, status, proving ability, self respect and independence and what emerged very clearly from their stories was the desire to have some power and control over the way in which their identity was defined. The book breaks new ground in that it makes clear links between the women's return to education, their past, often very painful experiences and identity. Sometimes the women make very clear connections, but at other times the connections are less explicit, though nevertheless powerful. This is an new area which will contribute to the growing literature on women returners. It will be of interest to lecturers and researchers in many disciplines and will raise awareness of some of the unexpressed reasons for women returning to education.

1 Introduction

Why do mature women return to education? On the face of it, the obvious answer is that they wish to gain qualifications which they had not gained at the conventional age. My research indicates though that this is far too simplistic an explanation. For the mature students with whom I spoke (to whom I refer throughout as 'the students' or 'the women'), returning to education seemed to be as much about their identity as it was about paper qualifications. It could almost be described as a 'life-raft' for some students as one of them said 'it's saved my sanity'. What emerged very clearly from what they said, was the desire to redefine at least part of their identity, to see themselves in a different way and exert a degree of control over some aspects of their lives.

This was so for all the students, but was particularly the case for a number who talked of trauma in their lives, both past and present. Around half of them told me of psychological, physical and sexual abuse, overbearing parents, alcoholism, and the death of a child or other family members. For example, Gerry talked of sexual abuse by her brother at an early age; Jenny spoke of her teenage pregnancy, subsequent marriage to a physically and psychologically abusive partner, as well as of her fight against the cultural restraints of her neighbourhood. Alison talked of a controlling and manipulative father, whereas for Dilys, it was her mother who was the problem. Petra's alcoholic mother meant that she had to take early domestic responsibilities and also care for her sister, whilst she herself was still a child. Delia's story, in the concluding chapter, is one of extreme physical and psychological abuse and painful divorce. These experiences were not what I had expected to hear, and certainly not what I had intended to write about, but their awfulness and frequency had such an impact on me that I had no choice but to recount them; to talk of their effect on the women's lives and the links which were made with education.

My original intention, at the outset of the research, had been to investigate the barriers faced by mature women returning to education. My own career as a mature student with family responsibilities and my subsequent lecturing post with adults in both further and higher education, indicated that women, in particular, face a number of specific problems when they return to learning. Some research has been conducted on adult returners, and has tended (though not exclusively) to be quantitative rather than qualitative. This has tended to focus on adults generally, rather than women specifically,¹ although more recent qualitative work which has centred upon adult women as students is emerging to fill this gap in the body of research which exists within this area.² My particular interest was in listening to what the women themselves had to say about their return to learning, and with this in mind, I approached a number of educational institutions in my local area.

The Student Group

The forty-nine mature women students who talked with me were attending college or university in or around a northern city which I have called Austen. The city has two universities and a number of colleges of further education. The college sites are located in a variety of geographical and social areas in the city, which range from a deprived area in receipt of European Social Funding, to a clearly affluent area with very different incomes and lifestyles. A range of courses were provided for mature returners which I anticipated would give me a good cross-section of students of different ages, studying different topics. In addition, I spoke with students from a college outside of the city boundaries, since this would draw in students for whom travel and time constraints might be more of an issue than for those students living in or close to the city. This college has just one main site but draws students from an equally wide social distribution.

For the purposes of this research, I defined mature as being 21 or over at the start of the course, since this is the age used by the institutions in my sample. Research by Bell, Hamilton and Roderick (1986) though, does reveal that there is a spread of minimum age for mature student classification across the ages of 21, 23 and 25 depending on the institution or organisation (see also Parr, 1991). However, it is not age so much as the length of time out of the education system before returning which I feel is important, and using 21 as the defining factor was likely to ensure that the woman had had at least three years and probably five or six years out of education before returning.

The majority of the students were on full-time courses. Eight students defined themselves as part-time, though definitions of part-time do vary between educational institutions and between those institutions and various state offices which deal with cash benefits. This is connected with responsibility for course fees. Generally speaking, full-time is defined by the colleges as sixteen hours or more of attendance per week, whereas some students were defining this as part-time. This was particularly relevant to the women's motor vehicle course, which was concentrated into three days of attendance.

The ages of the students ranged from 22 to 50 years, with the majority of women being over 30, and generally partnered. Most had domestic and caring responsibilities which covered both children and elderly dependents. They came from a diverse social demographic background, although it must be pointed out here that my interpretation of the socio-economic group and life-styles of the women is both speculative and subjective, based on geographical location, as I have already indicated, and on what the women told me. My interest was in the women's experiences as women so the research and analysis was based on gender rather than on material circumstances.

The courses

The students were enrolled on a wide range of generally mixed gender courses, both practical and academic which ranged from introductory courses in neighbourhood centres, to degree courses at university. Some of the courses attracted funding from a variety of sources. These were largely those in designated deprived areas, and also those specifically aimed at encouraging women into non-traditional areas, both of which were funded by the European Social Fund. The women on these latter courses were in receipt of an allowance and had access to free crèche facilities. Students on the foundation year of the degree courses were eligible to apply for a mandatory grant. The Access courses were defined by the colleges as full time, so tuition was free, although students did not receive a grant. Senior staff at all the college sites were helpful in discussing with me the provision which was made for mature students in general, and women in particular, as well as the courses which would give a range of women to talk with.

The interviews

The women were in no way 'selected' for interview, the only criterion being that they should be over 21, and were randomly drawn from those in the various groups I spoke to, who volunteered to meet and talk with me. The students interviewed on the different courses largely reflect the numbers of students enrolled on those courses, though the sample is by no means mathematically proportionate (see Parr, 1996 for further details). All of them were white, since no black students came forward for interview. I had given considerable thought to the sampling procedure, and felt that to try and combine factors such as age, partnered status, caring responsibilities and so on with the different types of courses would be problematic, especially for those courses with small numbers.

This style Is also very much in line with the grounded theory³ approach I was taking, which involves a constant interaction, right from the start, between all the research processes - data collection, analysis beginning soon after with ongoing review of the collection process, the development of conceptual frameworks and theories from the data, and the testing of ideas.

I met and talked with the women in a variety of settings, including the colleges and universities, their homes, and even on three occasions, in my car. All the interviews except one were taped, with the agreement of the students, and transcribed, since I felt that this was far less intrusive than scrambling notes down, whilst at the same time trying to watch body language and think about what the woman was saying.

My desire to hear the women's stories led me towards an appreciative ethnographic research style (for further details, see Parr, 1996). This qualitative approach highlighted what had been a major issue in my mind and which I felt would be emphasised with the relative intimacy of a loosely structured interview situation, where I had a great deal in common with the women with whom 1 was talking. I aimed to create an easy, comfortable interactive situation in which the women could ask questions of me if they so wished. I wanted to answer these questions as honestly as possible without driving the interview down a particular route. My own values had clearly informed the research but I did not want them to unduly influence the women's stories. My interest in this area stems from my own experiences as a mature student and as a lecturer in further education working mostly with adults, and I was aware that my background and experiences could both facilitate and hinder the data collecting and analysis. I also recognised that my own internalised concepts could limit my perception and thus my ability to be open and receptive to new ideas and concepts emerging from the data. It is impossible of course to ignore one's own values as I have said in the Preface, and in fact all recent feminist methodology emphasises that it is important for the researcher to locate herself in the research and acknowledge the inherent bias, which can be viewed as being positive as well as negative.

Selection of the material I have presented, from the wealth I was given, has clearly been mine and designed to illustrate the links between identity and education. However, my aim has been to enable the women's voices to be heard, although in order to protect them, the women's names and the names of the institutions they were attending have been changed. My desire to represent them accurately means that it is mostly their narratives which are used in the book and I have generally reproduced their words verbatim. Although I have occasionally paraphrased and edited what they told me, this has been limited. As Reissman says:

Speech that has been 'cleaned up' to be more readable loses important information.

(Reissman, 1987, p. 189)

A strength of the grounded theory approach I took is an emphasis on open-mindedness, a willingness to listen, hear and act on the results at all times. I took every precaution not to drive the interviews down the route of 'barriers' which had been my original topic, and to some extent was vindicated by the emergence of the unsolicited and unexpected data, which forms the focus of this book.

This relaxed approach created an atmosphere in which the women felt free to talk openly. This is evident in chapter two, which begins by discussing the reasons which the students initially gave, at the start of the interview, for returning to education. They talked of factors such as a better job, better qualifications, contributing to the family income, a testing of ability and a realisation of their potential in comparison with significant others. There was however a major shift in their explanations and later in the interview they talked of status, proof of ability, a public as well as a private identity and a general need to 'do something for myself'.

Some of the women had begun to compare their ability with others who were better qualified and were beginning to question the way in which their own ability had been defined. A number of students verbalised a longheld desire to return to education and often used opportunities like redundancy to fulfil this ambition. For others, the return to education was rather tentative and was really a trying out of their ability to cope with academic work. Finally, for a number of women, there was a therapeutic component to their return to education. The chapter ends with a discussion of these changing reasons, links them with a desire for women to change their lives, and talks of the social pressures on women to conform to a particular identity.

The concept of identity is pivotal to the women's stories, and is closely inter-linked with power and control. Chapter three discusses the social influences on our identity and the links between these influences and the women's return to education. Clearly, there is no single characteristic which makes up our identity, but a multiplicity of elements which may be divided broadly into biological and social influences.

The students I talked with have a biological identity as women, but their roles as daughter, mother and wife are affected by the cultural norms of this society and are thus part of their social identity. In a predominantly patriarchal culture, the identities of both women and men will be influenced by a male-powerful ideology. Walby's (1990) six patriarchal structures of household, work, male violence, sexuality, culture and the state are used as a framework for discussion of influences on identity and verbatim material from the students is incorporated in illustration.

The links between identity and education were made in a variety of ways: proof of ability, a better job; sometimes simply associated with the status which education was perceived as bringing with it. Particularly for those who were partnered and/or had domestic responsibilities, links were often made between education and their domestic identity. This was particularly powerful with one student, Colette:

I wanted to do something for myself, yes for myself. 1 didn't want to be a mum with two kids. I wanted to do something for myself and not she's somebody's mum and that's Paul's wife type of thing ...

Colette goes on to talk more about this and the chapter then links her with other students who told me of extremely painful life experiences and will draw out, in a very general way, the links between these stories and education, as an introduction to the following four chapters.

The shift from barriers to trauma

Right from the start of the interviews, unexpected and unsolicited findings were emerging. All the hurdles which I had expected the women to have to negotiate in their return to education were there. In addition to this though, the students were talking to me about personal issues in their lives, including painful experiences. Because I was focusing on barriers, I did not at first see the importance of these experiences, but I felt that if the women had been prepared to give precious time in a busy schedule to talk to me, the least I could do was to listen to what they wanted to tell me - in ethical terms, a 'win-win' situation. I noted these stories with interest though and can remember commenting to my colleagues on the trauma in some of the women's backgrounds.

I used the word 'trauma' because of the powerful and painful nature of what the women were telling me. These experiences had clearly had a major impact on the lives of the students, and the effects appeared to be ongoing. As I interviewed more students, I began to realise that they were emerging frequently, and seemed to be as much the rule as the exception. I did consider though whether the impact of what the women were saying was staying with me and colouring my thinking. By this time I had completed about fifteen interviews I realised that a large proportion of the women with whom I spoke were talking of painful experiences in their past. I was stunned at the frequency of these stories, and as they emerged, I mentally fitted them into my original framework of barriers - these painful experiences were major hurdles which the women had surmounted, or were surmounting, in their return to education.

By the time the interviews had been completed, around half of the forty nine women had told me of painful life experiences which could be significantly linked with their return to learning as adults. I was surprised at the way these experiences tumbled out with no prompting and I was appalled at their frequency. It was at this point that I decided that these stories and their links with education should be told.

The problem of definition

Initially, I used the word trauma to describe these experiences, since they appear to have had a considerable negative effect on the women, but felt very uncomfortable with the word, since for me it implied almost a 'oneoff' occurrence, which in some cases is true, but in others, the women are coping with ongoing painful experiences. I spent more than a year trying to think of an alternative word or phrase to adeq...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Why do women return to education?
• 3 Identity and education
• 4 The impact of major life events or changes
• 5 Childhood experiences
• 6 Unplanned pregnancies, life course and a return to education
• 7 Mega trauma and the links with education
• 8 Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index