Recognising Students who Care for Children while Studying

Samuel Dent

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781839826733
• eBook ISBN:
  9781839826740
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Administration

Featuring a Prologue by Professor Penny Jane Burke, and Epilogue by Dr Ciaran Burke

The often-changing definitions of widening participation groups in UK higher education has the potential to lead to inequitable experiences for students who do not fit into traditional typologies. This book considers the experiences of students who care for children while studying (CCS), a group often discussed only broadly in existing research, to shine a light on the unique barriers and experiences they face. 

Problematising 'who' is recognised in widening participation and equalities policy, Samuel Dent presents an Institutional Ethnographic study, involving 16 CCS students at a research-intensive UK University and collected over two academic years, to gain further insight into their institutional experiences. Unearthing the complex reality that CCS students' experiences vary in proportion to a diverse range of individual circumstances, Dent identifies a consistent theme in which these students experience a pattern of institutionally 'othering', 'individualisation', and 'passing' behaviours. Dent ultimately concludes by tackling the important question of how these patterns of experiential imbalance might be challenged.

Chapter 1

Introduction

The research for this book began when I worked in student-facing support services. My career had, by this point, involved working directly with students in a number of roles and organisations, starting in student unions and moving into university support services. In developing my career during this time, I had been trained in student support with formal away days, courses, mentoring from senior colleges – the cumulative message of which had been to adopt a ‘student-centred approach’ and, particularly, to think about the complex and diverse way in which the services produced needed to work for ‘all’ students.

For me – although this may not be a shared experience across the sector – the ‘all’ students we were trained to work with were not a homogeneous group. Increasingly, I’d been driven by my employers to think about the different students I would work with and who would need my support. Responsiveness and inclusivity were often highlighted as key, especially in acting as a ‘one-stop’ shop for support as I did, leading on the delivery of student support services like facilitating mitigating circumstances, pastoral support, disability support and general information advice and guidance. In part, some of this training and work had been supported by the introduction of the single Equality Act (2010), as the universities I worked for started to navigate with support – and pressure – from students how the institution’s leadership would ensure they met their new, more clearly defined legal duties.

The challenge at the time felt new and refreshed, even if some of the issues, like disability discrimination, racism and sexism, were not. As time moved on, many improvements appeared to be made; I saw new policies and institutional reviews emerge, which sought to make more visible commitments to different groups and communities. Following this, each practice, process and pedagogical tool underwent review to ensure it met the needs of ‘all’, with strategic plans developed to show how any gaps would be rectified. This work was underpinned by seeking new equality awards, such as Stonewall accreditation, and moves for greater progress within the bronze, silver and gold of the Athena Swann Charter.

It felt, in many ways, like I was part of a sector which was growing and focussed on not leaving any students behind, making higher education (HE) work for all, and considering the complex task of evoking change and achieving some form of social justice. This was a message which was very ‘me’, and I wanted to be part of this change. However, the longer I spent working on the front line of student support, the more I started to see some cracks appear in how institutions appeared to me and how it tried to appear to their students. The contrast of appearance and reality was very closely felt in student support, where I was on the front lines of deeply distressed students, often pleading with me not to be withdrawn – as though I were their executioner from whom they were seeking to negotiate a pardon.

An example of this came from the first case to spark my interest in the experience of students who care for children. A student, having given birth on the eve of their exams, called me the following morning from hospital, pleading to be allowed to sit the exam a few hours later and not to be withdrawn, as they had been led to believed they would be by other staff, if their birth conflicted with assessment.

Those cases involving students who cared for children while studying (CCS students) were often the most harrowing for me to respond to. Like the example above, they would usually start with a phone call to my office, often sparked by events which made these students feel like they had reached the end of the line, seeking my support. As the students calmed down and told me their stories, I would learn that, for me, a perfectly ordinary life event, such as pregnancy, childbirth, or childcare, had been the centre of the problems they faced. Often the student had sought the support in the first instance of someone else at the university, such as the academic who led their programme. Problems would then emerge, either when this informal support fell apart or the student infringed one of the conditions or interpretations of a policy or rule devised for them. Examples of this I came across included when:

•  Academics would admit students to the course, provided they didn’t miss lectures or need extensions because of their childcare.

•  Students would be told they could stay on the course while pregnant or caring for children, as long as they gave birth during the Christmas holidays and made sure they never missed any exams.

•  Programme handbooks – often over 100 pages long in size 9 font – started to feature among the many other ‘programme-specific rules and guidance’, sections on student parents, explaining what was and was not okay for these students to do.

Despite the presentation of these conditions or support, there was little laid down about what would happen if the students fail to meet them. Instead, an ominous unwritten ‘or else’ seemed to hover next to each condition – or a passing remark which referred non-compliant students to the student support office.

I spent a great deal of my time challenging these attitudes in my work, and I still do when I see them. I am never convinced I have been entirely successful, and these challenges have often been fraught with difficulty or conflict. Even as I moved my career into research the signs, quite literally, of the challenges students with children face appeared. The photo below, taken while visiting another university, is alarming in its exclusionary potential. For context in a relatively normal teaching building of seminar rooms and lecture theatres, every stairwell and corridor had the message in Fig. 1.1 on it in A3, white on a red background with the same intensity as a chemical spill or a fire hazard. Yet there were no labs in this building, no chemicals or clearly perceivable ‘risks’; in the conventional sense that may warrant such a sign. Furthermore, there was no real indication that many, or any, children would commonly be in the building. But reflections on my motivation for the research in this book came sharply back to me. For any student who cared for children, even if the children were not with them, the message was clear: you are a ‘risk’, a ‘danger’ and an ‘other’, a big sign at the end of every corridor told you so.

Fig. 1.1.   Photo of a University Corridor, Author’s Own.

My experience of working with students who cared for children always seemed incongruous to the messages I had been trained and flooded with in my early career and had associated with HE myself. Although I had never questioned that I would go to university, as a student from low-participation neighbourhood, an image had been engrained in my mind of HE as a welcoming place to be, supporting equality, diversity and inclusivity.

Thus, the genesis of this research was born; to explore my own puzzlement and confusion at my early experiences of working in HE and, in particular, focus on the experiences of students who care for children, remembering so vividly their confusing experiences in my practice.

The contrasts that appeared to me, when reflecting on my experiences of students who cared for children, seemed so clear. This was an environment where equality and diversity work, legislation and policy had been made so visible; yet, in seeing these students ostracising and isolating, there appeared to me to be potentially transecting issues of the protected status of paternity and maternity and gender discrimination. Further, services which were being developed with a view to supporting a diverse range of students and support their inclusion, participation and retention appeared to become positioned as regulators by informal channels of support who would exclude or punish students.

While working in student support, I had the space to improve the experience of those students within the schools or faculties I worked, but, through research, I could help share my findings with the sector and improve the experience of more students. Existing research, such as into the experience of student parents, showed me that my experiences of students who care for children often facing difficulty in participating in HE were not uncommon (Brooks, 2012a; Hinton-Smith, 2012a, 2012b; Marandet & Wainwright, 2010; Moreau, 2016; Moreau & Kerner, 2013; National Union of Students (NUS), 2009). Yet my puzzlement is not directly addressed in this literature: how can these students’ experiences exist within the landscape of greater focus in universities on equality and diversity and the provision of services aiming to support ‘all students’? This, then, is the puzzle this book seeks to explore and understand.

In Chapter 2, I expand on my introduction, exploring the UK HE policy landscape and discussing how different groups of students have, and continue to move into and out of specific policy focuses. I specifically consider the way in which ‘widening participation’ (WP) and ‘equalities’ policies tend to exist in ‘silos’ focussed on singular beneficiaries. This creates possible clefts where intersectional groups, or those not in the focus of either WP or equality silos, may be left unsupported. Critically engaging with existing literature which explores these shifts in focus, I go on to suggest that these siloed policy shifts may lead to an inequitable student experience, which this research will seek to explore further through the experiences of CCS students.

In Chapter 3, I explore and critically assess the current literature specifically connected to CCS students, establishing common patterns which emerge. I identify a dearth of research in the area of student parents, with many being captured in broader research into issues of mature students, or around gender. I highlight how these groups are not synonymous with carers of children, and in the small body of existing literature, highlight several key barriers and the specific ways in which they are experienced as a result of students’ ‘caring for children’ status. In this review, I suggest that an up-close study is of how CCS students navigate and prioritise the barriers they face is needed, which looks to gain a richer understanding of how they are experienced and intersect, looking to create understanding of how the institution mediates these experiences.

In Chapter 4, I go on to discuss the methodological approach I adopted to gain this deeper, richer, understanding of CCS students by utilising an Institutional Ethnographic (IE) approach (Smith, 2006). This approach adopts a ­specific standpoint (i.e. CCS students) and explores how they go about their work, and how this is institutionally mediated through Texts, signifying extra-local decision-making which shapes their experiences. I also introduce my theoretical framework and describe how this was constructed through the data analysis. I conclude by elaborating on how these conceptual tools were utilised in practice through discussion of the methods of data collection and analysis.

In Chapter 5, I explore the nature of the practical topics CCS students navigate and experience as they go about the work of their everyday lives. Analysing the data to understand the recurrent themes across these accounts, I highlight the emergence of ‘othering’ (Ahmed, 2012; Archer & Leathwood, 2005; Burke, 2013; Phiri, 2015; Reay, 2001), and ‘individualisation’ (Burke, 2013, p. 37; O’Shea, Lysaght, Roberts, & Harwood, 2016; Smit, 2012), which lead CCS students to engage in ‘passing’ (Leary, 1999; Sanchez & Schlossberg, 2001; Stevenson, 2014) behaviours. In drawing this chapter to a close, I suggest that these themes hold an institutionally mediated quality which requires further interrogation, through Chapters 6 and 7.

In Chapter 6, I focus on critically exploring the specific points of interaction with institutional policy and practice, looking at texts (Smith, 2006; Smith & Turner, 2014) and their activation as points of engagement between the CCS student in my study and their institution. Using this approach, I probe deeper into understanding ‘why’ some of these students’ accounts are permeated by the themes of ‘othering’, ‘individualisation’ and ‘passing’, suggesting that CCS students potentially experience an inequity of student experience due to the cumulative impact of the themes of ‘othering’ and ‘individualisation’, which encourages ‘passing’ behaviours in order for CCS students to navigate this particular institution. While in Chapter 7, I probe this cumulative set of themes further through considering the accounts of staff and their reflections on CCS students, and their status within this institution. Here, I establish further evidence of the recurrent themes of ‘othering’, ‘individualising’ and ‘passing’ as a more accepted form of student. I conclude this chapter by suggesting that the prevalence of these themes across both student and staff perspectives represents a wider institutional culture which marginalises CCS students and creates, for some, a potential inequity of student experience.

Finally, in Chapter 8, I summarise the findings from my research and utilise a Fraserian lens to theorise about the nature and the form of potential remedies to the inequity of some CCS students’ experiences stemming from the recurrent themes in the data, thus drawing this book to a close by discussing potential institutional remedies and recommendations for the sector.

Recognising Students who Care for Children while Studying, 1–5
Copyright © 2021 by Samuel Dent
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
doi:10.1108/978-1-83982-672-620201001

Chapter 2

Exploring the Higher Education Policy Context

Introduction

In opening this book, I presented a problem which I attributed to the reactiveness to policy changes of the higher education (HE) institutions I worked for and the fractures I felt emerged between the policy vision and its implementation around the beneficiaries of HE. This chapter will, therefore, probe the English HE policy landscape and the equalities legislation affecting the university–student relationship by considering what is already known about the cleavages between the aims and beneficiaries of HE policy and implementation more broadly. As well as considering the influence and contrasts of equality and diversity (E&D) policies which affect institution students. This chapter will therefore seek to critically understand the policy landscape associated with the puzzle at the heart of this book before going further in the next chapter to consider the existing literature specifically connected to students who care for children while studying (CCS students).

First, I will briefly unpack the policy landscape following World War II up to the present day, discussing the shifts from ‘elite’ to ‘mass’ HE (Trow & Burrage, 2010, p. 94), and the extent to which this move symbolised the greater diversification of HE participation – or whether it just merely increased the numbers of students from backgrounds who already participated in HE. Moving on to consider the policy following the mid-1990s to the present day, where ‘widening participation’ (WP) was explicitly introduced as a concept (National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education (NCIHE), 1997, p. 101) and the subsequent expansion and contraction of policy and practice connected to this.

Elite to Mass HE – 1945–1997

Prior to World War II, participation in HE had been relatively low, at approximately 50,002 students in 1938/1939 (Mountford, 1966, p. 57), compared with the highs of 2,503,010 seen in the decade 2004/2014 (Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), 2016), leading to the expansion between this period to be characterised as a move from elite to mass participation (Trow & Burrage, 2010). Trow’s work on elite and mass participation in HE (Trow & Burrage, 2010) explores this concept in some detail, defining elite participation as providing places for about 15% of the age cohort able to attend HE, in contrast to mass participation, which is defined as rising to about 50% (Trow & Burrage, 2010, p. 94). Trow proposes other more qualitative aspects to consider in a theory of mass participation, such as the way HE is perceived by students and staff, the nature of the curriculum and the character of academic standards (Trow & Burrage, 2010, p. 94); yet, by using specific numbers such as 15% and 50% to define his theory, Trow’s work gains influence in policy because of its accessibility as a quantitative measure of the state of current HE participation.

Using Trow’s quantitative indicators, there is a strong argument to suggest that the United Kingdom has moved into a period of mass participation in HE. Looking at the decade 2005/2006–2014/2015, using data from the HESA and considering that there were approximately six million young people in the United Kingdom aged between 18 and 24 (Arnett & Gutierrez, 2015) during this period. The data suggest that, on average, nearly 40% of young people were in HE, albeit having decreased slightly since 2010/2011, with student enrolments comfortably above two million consistently. Highs of 2,503,010 being reached in 2010/2011 (HESA, 2016).

The recent image of participation contrasts starkly with the pre-World War II figures cited above and the post-war figures of 126,445 in 1963/1964 (Mountford, 1966, p. 57), providing initial support for the notion that this period could be described as shifting from elite to mass, according to Trow’s definition of the term (Trow & Burrage, 2010, p. 94). However...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: Exploring the Higher Education Policy Context
• Chapter 3: The Experience of Students Who Care for Children: A Literature Review
• Chapter 4: Researching Students Who Care for Children While Studying: A Methodology
• Chapter 5: The Work of Being a Student Who Cares for Children
• Chapter 6: CCS Students’ Institutional Experiences: Activated Texts
• Chapter 7: Understanding CCS Students Within the Wider Institution
• Chapter 8: Conclusion: Findings, Recognition and Remedies
• Epilogue
• Bibliography
• Abbreviations
• Appendix – Participant Vignettes and Demographics
• Index