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    Managing and Supporting Student Diversity in Higher Education: A Casebook
    Managing and Supporting Student Diversity in Higher Education: A Casebook
    Managing and Supporting Student Diversity in Higher Education: A Casebook
    Ebook367 pages3 hours

    Managing and Supporting Student Diversity in Higher Education: A Casebook

    By Robyn Benson, Margaret Heagney, Lesley Hewitt and

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    About this ebook

    Government initiatives in many countries emphasise social inclusion in higher education, resulting in a more diverse student population. This presents opportunities and challenges for academic and professional staff in managing and supporting these students. Managing and Supporting Student Diversity in Higher Education focuses on how students succeed amidst a culture of widening participation. The book is divided into seven chapters. The first introduces current literature and policies to present an international perspective on widening participation in higher education. The following five chapters present students’ stories on topics including getting into higher education, the international experience, coping with education later in life, and identity. Stories are followed by implications for management and support, and discussion topics for practitioners. The book concludes by looking at how students succeed in higher education and the implications for managing and supporting student diversity.
    • Provides an accessible and practical resource using students’ own voices
    • Emphasises how students from diverse backgrounds succeed in higher education
    • Offers in-depth personal insights into issues facing learners from diverse backgrounds
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherElsevier Science
    Release dateJul 31, 2013
    ISBN9781780633855
    Managing and Supporting Student Diversity in Higher Education: A Casebook
    Author

    Robyn Benson

    Dr Benson is a Senior Lecturer in Educational Design and e-Learning at Monash University, Australia. She has an extensive background in adult education, distance education and the use of educational technologies in higher education. She has initiated the design and development of many ‘workbooks’ to support academic professional development workshops on aspects of teaching, and to act as standalone resources for staff. Recent workbooks have included an orientation to educational design and e-learning, and covered specific issues relating to online communication and online assessment.

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      Book preview

      Managing and Supporting Student Diversity in Higher Education - Robyn Benson

      area.

      1

      Setting the context

      Abstract:

      This chapter sets out the key terms and concepts used in this book, and outlines the international background for social inclusion and widening participation in higher education policies and practices. We introduce some theoretical perspectives underpinning the concept of social inclusion, exploring related opportunities, challenges and strategies for improving access and retention, before providing an overview of existing ideas about how students from diverse backgrounds succeed in higher education. We then explain the participatory research project from which the book’s cases are drawn. As with each subsequent chapter, this chapter concludes with some discussion topics, to stimulate thinking about the best ways to support the participation and success of students from non-traditional backgrounds in higher education.

      Key words

      disadvantage

      diversity

      equity categories

      higher education

      indigenous

      low socio-economic status (SES) background

      narrative enquiry

      non-traditional

      participatory research

      regional

      rural

      social inclusion

      student success

      study modes

      widening participation

      Introduction

      In this chapter, we review international trends and perspectives relating to social inclusion in higher education to contextualise the cases that we consider in Chapters 2–6. Following some definitions of terms and concepts used in the book, we begin with an overview of international trends, drawing on a range of relevant literature from Europe, North America, the United Kingdom, and Australia, before considering some theoretical perspectives underpinning the concept of social inclusion in education. We then explore opportunities and challenges relating to social inclusion and strategies for improving access and retention, before documenting some ideas about how students from diverse backgrounds succeed in higher education. As you progress through Chapters 2–6, you may find it useful to compare the implications for university practitioners emerging from the students’ stories with approaches that have been suggested in this chapter and, on the basis of these, to derive ideas for your own context.

      Next, we turn to the role of participatory research and use of the student’s voice to inform decision-making about social inclusion in higher education. We explain how this approach was used with student participants to develop the cases on which this book is based. Finally, we summarise the key points that have been made in the chapter as a basis for highlighting issues relating to social inclusion in higher education that transcend the Australian setting of the cases. The implications and discussion topics presented in Chapters 2–6 will build on this background to generate principles and strategies that may be applied in a broad range of contexts to assist the success of students from diverse backgrounds in higher education.

      Some definitions

      In this book, we use the terms ‘higher education’ and ‘universities’ interchangeably. We define social inclusion as involving processes or actions to ameliorate the impact of disadvantage and/or to counter the processes that create it (Ferrier and North, 2009), in contrast to definitions that focus on the state of being socially included or excluded. This is called widening participation in some countries. In Europe, key aspects of widening participation are reflected in the social dimension of the Bologna Process where the nations involved envisaged a European Higher Education Area (EHEA) aimed at:

      equality of opportunities in higher education, in terms of: access, participation and successful completion of studies; studying and living conditions; guidance and counselling; financial support, and student participation in higher education governance. This implies also equal opportunities in mobility, when it comes to portability of financial support, removing barriers, and providing incentives (Bologna Process Website, 2007–2010).

      In the UK, widening participation was identified with social mobility in the 1990s. More recently, it has come to be associated with the role of universities in ‘enabling non-traditional learners from diverse cultural and socio-economic backgrounds to access HE as a stepping stone to professional employment and improved socio-economic advantage’ (Butcher et al., 2012: 51). We include the concept of widening participation within the term ‘social inclusion’.

      We also use the terms ‘diverse’ and ‘non-traditional’ interchangeably when referring to students’ pathways to higher education. ‘Non- traditional’ can refer to the pathways students took to access university, such as those admitted to university on criteria other than results of their final year of schooling. It can also refer to students themselves; that is, students from groups under-represented in higher education. As well as these different meanings, Hockings (2010: 2) comments on other problematic aspects of the categories ‘traditional’ and ‘non-traditional’:

      First, while there is some overlap between the groups considered to be non-traditional, it does not mean that all these groups are necessarily disadvantaged, although the evidence suggests that many are. Second, an individual may identify with both non-traditional and traditional groups.

      We associate the term ‘non-traditional’ with disadvantage, which is another problematic term. ‘Disadvantaged’ students are those whose life circumstances, such as poverty, poor health, or other factors, have prevented them from demonstrating their academic potential and from accessing higher education. This term has fallen out of favour in recent times, as it characterises the student as disadvantaged. The current preference is for a more critical examination of the processes or circumstances that exclude or discriminate against individuals or members of certain groups. These processes or circumstances are frequently structural factors, such as inequitable selection policies, conditions of study that favour those with middle-class forms of social capital, or inflexible regulations governing extensions for assignments or access to libraries and computers. When these factors interact with personal circumstances such as work and family responsibilities, then students are at risk of withdrawal from their studies (Long et al., 2006).

      Students in groups under-represented in higher education are sometimes referred to as belonging to certain ‘equity categories’. This term has come into the lexicon because entrenched patterns of under-representation of some groups relative to their share of the population have prompted governments, particularly in the UK and Australia, to engage in a wide range of student equity policies and programs. In the UK, these categories encompass students who have black or minority ethnic backgrounds, disabilities, disadvantaged social and economic backgrounds, no prior family background in higher education, a background in the care of Local Authorities, opportunity to study only part-time, and non-traditional qualifications (Butcher et al., 2012). In Australia, the equity categories comprise students from low socio-economic, non-English-speaking,¹ Australian Indigenous, and rural backgrounds, those with a disability, and women in non-traditional disciplines. These groupings were first established in the 1990s. More recently, institutions have included students who are first in their family to attend university (sometimes called ‘first generation’ students) in their widening participation activities.

      Equity categories can be effective in directing equity effort within universities, and the collection of statistics on the access, participation, retention, and success of students in these categories provides a basis for monitoring the equity performance of universities and of the higher education sector as a whole. However, students experience disadvantage beyond the boundaries of the designated categories. For example, many people from low socio-economic backgrounds are disadvantaged for other reasons, such as being a sole parent, being unemployed, or being a trauma sufferer (Clarke et al., 1999). Categories can also mask internal diversity within a group. For example, the Australian Indigenous student category includes students living in urban and rural areas, and individuals with differing degrees of numeracy and literacy (Ferrier and Heagney,

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