Constructing the Higher Education Student: a comparative study of six European countries

Project Information

EUROSTUDENTS

Grant agreement ID: 681018

DOI 10.3030/681018

Closed project

EC signature date 14 April 2016

Start date 1 August 2016

End date 31 July 2022

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost € 1 753 936,00

EU contribution € 1 753 936,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITY OF SURREY
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - EUROSTUDENTS (Constructing the Higher Education Student: a comparative study of six European countries)

Reporting period: 2020-07-01 to 2022-07-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

There are currently over 35 million students within Europe and yet, prior to the start of this project, we had no clear understanding of the extent to which understandings of ‘the student’ were shared. Thus, a central aim of the research was to investigate how the contemporary higher education student is conceptualised and the extent to which this differs both within nation-states and across them. This is significant in terms of implicit (and sometimes explicit) assumptions that are made about common understandings of ‘the student’ across Europe – underpinning, for example, initiatives to increase cross-border educational mobility and the wider development of a European Higher Education Area. It is also significant in relation to exploring the extent to which understandings are shared within a single nation and, particularly, the degree to which there is congruence between the ways in which students are conceptualised within policy texts and by policymakers, and the understandings of other key social actors such as the media, higher education institutions and students themselves.

The research proposal was underpinned by four discrete but overlapping objectives:

To generate new knowledge about the ways in which the higher education student is constructed by different actors within a single nation-state (policymakers, the media, higher education institutions and students themselves), and across six different European nations;

To establish a new inter-disciplinary theoretical framework to understand these conceptualisations of the student, drawing on perspectives from education, sociology, social policy, human geography and cultural studies;

To build research capacity in this area through: bringing together a team of researchers to conduct the project; establishing European and international networks on constructions of the higher education student; and fostering inter-disciplinary collaborations;

To consolidate the considerable research leadership experience the PI has already gained in her career to date, through: extending her experience of managing a research project and team of researchers; developing a new inter-disciplinary theoretical framework; and engaging in high-profile dissemination and engagement activities.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

A large, mixed methods dataset was generated over the course of the project (now submitted to the UK Data Service data archive) comprising:

• 54 focus groups with undergraduate students (295 individuals)
• Analysis of 1159 newspaper articles
• Analysis of seven TV shows or films
• Analysis of 150 higher education institution websites
• Interviews with 72 members of higher education staff
• Analysis of 92 policy texts
• Interviews with 26 policy actors

Data were collected in six nations: Denmark, England, Germany, Ireland, Poland and Spain.

The findings from the project have been widely disseminated across the disciplines of education, sociology, human geography, European studies and media studies. Project outputs include: a research monograph (Constructing the Higher Education Student: Perspectives from across Europe, Policy Press, 2022); an edited collection (Reimagining the Higher Education Student, Routledge, 2021); 21 peer-reviewed journal articles (19 published; two under review); five book chapters; three special issues of journals (Sociological Research Online; International Journal of Social Research Methodology; International Studies in the Sociology of Education (currently in progress)); and ten non-academic publications (blogposts, magazine articles and reports). In addition, the research team: ran a monthly online reading group, with an active international membership; organised four project conferences; and gave 93 conference or seminar presentations.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The research advances the research field in various ways.

First, it provides new evidence about the ways in which students are understood across Europe. The most common and powerful conceptualisations of students are as: people ‘in transition’; citizens; enthusiastic learners and hard-workers; future workers; stressed; and threats or objects of criticism. However, these understandings are not always shared by all social actors. In describing their identity, students typically foregrounded learning and hard work rather than more instrumental concerns commonly emphasised within policy. This brings into question assertions made in the academic literature that recent reforms have had a direct effect on the subjectivities of students, encouraging them to be more consumerist in their outlook.

Second, it provides the first analysis of how conceptualisations of students are patterned by nation-state (through different welfare regimes, mechanisms for funding higher education, and educational cultures) and, to a lesser extent, by type of higher education institution. These differences suggest that, despite the ‘policy convergence’ manifest in the creation of a European Higher Education Area, understandings of what it means to be a student in Europe today remain contested.

Third, our data indicate that in some ways, Spain differs from the other five countries in the sample, and presents an interesting paradox: on the one hand, marketisation is less firmly established in the higher education system of Spain than in many other European countries, and policy and institutional narratives in Spain presented the higher education system as being relatively unmarketised. On the other hand, the staff and students presented the Spanish higher education system and the student experience as having been dramatically transformed by marketisation. In analysing this paradox, we draw attention to how the manner in which the marketisation of higher education is experienced on the ground can be very different in different national contexts, and may be mediated by a number of factors, including the manner in which the private cost of education (if any) is borne by students and their families, and the extent to which marketisation may have become normalised in the higher education system of a country.

Finally, our research has generated new knowledge about the extent to which students are constructed, either explicitly or implicitly, as family members within newspaper articles and policy. Such constructions differed quite considerably by nation-state. Students were, for example, positioned as integral family members in the Spanish and Irish newspapers and interviews, but typically as independent actors in the Danish texts, while family relations were discussed in rather ambivalent ways in England and Germany. On the basis of these data, we suggest that the north-south dichotomy in family relationships, which is discussed in much of the sociological and policy studies literature, is played out in more complex ways with respect to higher education.

Project logo