I decided to create an updated SWOT analysis for my project, as the last one I did was for my previous question. I found this quite useful as it allowed me to think about my project from a different angle and really interrogate my question and methodologies that I am using.
I feel sure that I will update this as my research project evolves even more and I come across more obstacles.
Today I met with *Jess, a student at UAl. She very kindly agreed to talk with me, on the understanding that I would change her name and not use any identifying details about her in my project.
I started off by telling Jess about my background and my life, in the hopes of establishing common ground between us. And I think it worked! After I spoke about myself, we started discussing how hard it is to be a working class student at such an elite university. Jess told me that no one knows how badly she struggles to pay rent and that when she runs out of hot water, she uses the shower at her gym. A gym that she was gifted the membership to and has no way to renew when it runs out. Jess told me that she has often googled how to sell photos of her feet to make money but has never gone through with it because it felt dirty. More than once she has downloaded dating apps in the hopes of someone buying her dinner that night.
And then we spoke about UAL.
Jess told me that her course expects her to buy a lot of materials and books, without understanding that not every student on every course has a lot of disposable income. She spoke in depth about how this has made her feel less worthy to be on her course and that she feels alone amongst her classmates. The lack of understanding from her course leaders has made her feel embarrassed about being working class and as though she is inferior to the students around her. Jess spoke about UAL as an organisation that is unfeeling and doesn’t care about the students that are underrepresented amongst the student body. When asked if she was aware of any support for students who are from lower income backgrounds, Jess just laughed. She went on to explain that she feels invisible when she is at uni and she feels ashamed of not being able to wear designer clothes every day or go to Michelin starred restaurants at the weekends.
We finished our conversation by Jess telling me that she wishes things were different, and that UAL could be inclusive to everyone. Not just to the people with big bank accounts.
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Before publishing this blog post, I sent it to Jess to make sure I hadn’t misrepresented her comments or opinions in any way and that she was happy for me to post it, which she was.
“…it is also vital to ensure working-class students as well as ethnic and racial minority (BAME) students are adequately supported once they are at university. Widening access and participation, and the underlying meritocratic sentiments that underpin it, will never amount to more than empty rhetoric and token gestures until students from all class backgrounds feel at home in all higher education institutions”
This is a quote from the study that I was referencing in my previous post and one that has been resonating with me as I’ve been reading diversion and inclusion reports from multiple universities. This is something that I want to make sure is a pillar of my research – I want my interventions to be meaningful and not seen as token gestures.
In the abstract of a study by Genia M. Bettencourt, she says “Belonging was viewed as something that students themselves created rather than was facilitated by institutions. Moreover, while participants expressed varying degrees of support, connectedness, and belonging, they rarely felt valued by institutions that exploited their labor or tokenized their presence under the guise of supporting diversity.”
I find this to be concerning because students should be focusing on studying and having active social lives whilst at university, not relying on each other to set up support networks or being seen as the token working class students. I have to admit, this is something I have been worried about with my research – However unrealistic it may be, I am concerned that UAL could hijack my research and twist it to come across as diverse and inclusive. I think that this could be a possible challenge that I have to overcome and I need to be prepared for this. (Even though I might be overthinking it and it might not happen.). I also think that it is important that every student feels valued by the institution that they are paying thousands of pounds to attend. If you don’t feel valued, then what is the point of paying money to study there?
References:
Bettencourt, G.M. (2021). ‘I Belong Because It Wasn’t Made for Me’: Understanding Working-Class Students’ Sense of Belonging on Campus. The Journal of Higher Education, pp.1–24. doi:10.1080/00221546.2021.1872288.
Reay, D. (2021). The working classes and higher education: Meritocratic fallacies of upward mobility in the United Kingdom. European Journal of Education, 56(1). doi:10.1111/ejed.12438.
Most studies focus on working-class students and the ways in which they act or do not act. Yet, the ways in which interactions with middle-class students as well as university administrators and faculty make first generation students feel uncomfortable have not gained similar attention. (Lareau & Ferguson, 2017, p. 1)
I came across this quote when it was referenced in another article and it stuck in my mind. The study it is taken from was titled Cultural exclusion of upwardly mobile college students and published in 2017 in The American Sociological Association. The interactions that my stakeholders have with their peers and university staff is something that I had not thought about. The lack of support for working class students may not just be the lack of a visible support system but in being stereotyped by the people that are meant to be teaching them, whether knowingly or unconsciously.
This is definitely something that I will be discussing with my stakeholders. I am curious how they feel about their interactions with their tutors and peers, and whether this quote is actually true or just speculation.
However, a problem with asking this question is that my stakeholders could become more self conscious about the interactions they are having with their peers. Therefore I think that I will need to do some follow up with them after asking this to see if they have become more aware of the content of their interactions or if it has limited their interactions in any way.
Later on in this article it talks about how some of the students in a study felt inferior to their more privileged peers. This stems from the perceived academic superiority of the middle and upper class students. A few of their participants spoke about being intimidated by their classmates who came from more privileged backgrounds.
“So the last thing you want to do is open your mouth, because you know that they’re going to be talking about you afterwards, saying “my god, she’s so stupid.” So you’re just so scared. And so as a result I virtually said nothing, I was really intimidated, I was really, really scared […] I didn’t want to open my mouth. And it’s that sense of “I’m the bottom of the pile. They’re so much better than me, and I can’t open my mouth because of that, because I’m so scared.” (Interview, UK, 2007, Nicole, 20 years, law student)“
From my own experience, I relate to this. The first term at CSM I was so intimidated by my cohort – I thought everyone was smarter than me and had more valid points to raise in class. I was described by one classmate as shy, because I never spoke. But the truth is, I didn’t want anyone to think I was stupid and wonder why I was there. I didn’t feel worthy to be at such a prestigious school and reading this study has made me realise how many other students across the country could potentially feel like that. It’s an awful feeling and one that isn’t conducive to good mental health.
“The students were constantly engaged in an exhausting process of self-surveillance in order to monitor their behaviour and conform to unfamiliar, and sometimes inexplicable codes of behaviour. As they struggled with a sense of not fitting in socially, of failing to find a place to belong culturally within elite higher education, the least stressful option was often to remove themselves physically from the causes of their discomfort—the privileged majority at Southern university.“
This is something I have planned to asked my stakeholders about – whether they are hyper-aware of how they act around those of their peers who are from a higher social class, and if this is having a negative affect on their university experience. I find the study that these quotes were taken from fascinating. I think that Diane Reay, Gill Crozier and John Clayton have published a study that is very different from the other research that I found about working class students in higher education and it is very thought provoking. As a working class student, now I find myself analysing how I am acting around people from my cohort and wondering if I am experiencing uncomfortable interactions with others and not realising it.
References:
Reay, D. (2021). The working classes and higher education: Meritocratic fallacies of upward mobility in the United Kingdom. European Journal of Education, 56(1). doi:10.1111/ejed.12438.
Lareau, A. and Ferguson, S., 2017. Cultural exclusion of upwardly mobile college students. American Sociological Association August, 12, p.2017.
Zuleika asked why my current research question focuses on female students particularly. I am slightly embarrassed to admit that I didn’t have a great answer. I mean, apart from being a female student from a lower income background, I didn’t have any research or statistics to back this up. It was suggested to me that in order to focus solely on female students, I need a good reason eg. some data or research to back this up.
So I found some.
A 2019 article in The Guardian draws attention to the lack of diversity in universities. Once one looks past the slightly alarmist headline about over half the universities in England having less than 5% of poor white students, the article is actually very interesting. They break the country down into LPNs (low participation neighbourhoods) and talk about how white young people who receive free school meals are less likely to attend university than those who come from Traveller backgrounds. The article goes on to mention that of all the university applications from students from a LPN, only 22% are accepted and 50% of universities only accept less than 20% of applications from these potential students.
And then gender is mentioned.
“Of the higher education providers who responded to a survey by Neon, fewer than 40% were doing outreach work specifically with white males and fewer than 12% with white females from low-participation backgrounds.“
Later in the article it goes on to mention that white disadvantaged male students are the least likely of every ethnic group to attend university. However, this means that proportionally across universities, the majority of working class students will be female.
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Working class student – a student who is the first in their immediate family to wish to study at university. Someone who has upward mobility and who has the desire to have a better life than their parents. A student who has to had to sacrifice a lot of things to be at university and able to complete their course.
Saviourism – using research or interventions as a way of ‘saving’ working class students from being working class. Showing them off as though they’re rare and meant to be stared at as an illustration of diversity.
Upward Social Mobility – the goal of wanting a better life than the one that your parents have had, especially in terms of the career you choose to enter into.
LPN – Low Participation Neighbourhood. Students who come from an area that has the least number of students entering higher education are referred to as coming from a LPN.
Imposter phenomenon/syndrome – Imposter syndrome, originally called imposter phenomenon, is the persistent inability to believe that one’s success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one’s own efforts or skills.
Arts education environment – a university which solely teaches creative subjects
In the surveys I have conducted, I have asked people what social class they identify as. This was something that both Zuleika and Georges questioned me on in the last tutorial before the end of the term. I thought that maybe I had asked the wrong question and that class is something we are given and we don’t get to choose which social class we identify as.
However, I came across an article that talks about how class is experienced first through your family and then that idea of class is affirmed by societal interactions. Lubrano (2004) describes class as a ‘script, map, and guide. It tells us how to talk, how to dress, how to hold ourselves, how to eat, and how to socialize… in short, class is nearly everything about you’. The author of the article goes on to write that ‘social class identity is both subjective and complex, which means that we cannot ascribe class identity to people; rather, individuals choose how they identify’.
I feel slightly better about my choice of words in my surveys now. However I think that I still need to delve further into class, and if people consciously identify as a particular class or if they just pick one that sounds appropriate for them.
In Chavs Owen Jones talks a lot about class and how the working class has been demonised and almost blamed for everything that is wrong with society. I really enjoyed reading this book, however I think that he was the wrong person to write it. He comes from a securely middle class background and in areas of the book his bias shone through. Whilst I think that he made some good points, I don’t think that it was a purely objective book. Being a very left wing person, Jones at times relied on blaming the Conservative party for the class issues that exist in the UK. He might be right, but I don’t believe that the class system and the inequalities it creates are purely a political issue. When politics are brought into a topic, it quickly becomes divisive and contentious. If we take the politics out of the equation (if that’s possible) then it becomes an issue that society as a whole needs to tackle, no matter their political affiliations. Another problem I had with this book was that most of the people Jones quoted were from the upper or middle classes eg Boris Johnson’s sister or Simon Heffer, a prominent right-wing journalist whose children attend Eton. This book was written about how the working classes have been demonised but most of the sources used were people who demonise the working class. There’s something about this that doesn’t make sense to me.
References:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ss.20263?saml_referrer
Jones, O. (2020). Chavs. London: Verso Books.
This week I’ve been reading the last 7 years worth of equality, diversity and inclusion reports for UAL. I was perhaps naively, expecting to see some sort of significant change over the years… a huge difference in the demographic of the student populations across each arm of UAL.
What I didn’t expect to see was barely any change, especially in the numbers of students who come from what are classed as lower income areas and those who are considered working class. Whilst there has been a small increase, UAL are still below the targets that they have set for themselves and CSM has the lowest number of students from working class backgrounds out of all the colleges that form UAL. Of the 14,760 undergraduate students across UAL, only 35% of home undergraduate students come from the working classes. At Central Saint Martins only 28% of home undergraduate students are from working class backgrounds (around 4132 students), compared to 40% at LCC.
These statistics aren’t broken down into genders so I have emailed the author of the most recent report, asking if by any chance this was a data point that he had collected but wasn’t considered pertinent to the report overall. I am curious as to whether there are more female, male or non binary students from the working classes… and if anyone actually knows! The fact that the data hasn’t been disaggregated is very interesting in and of itself – we don’t know how many students come from what is considered to be a less privileged background and have dependants, or how many are working almost full time hours to be able to attend university. I feel like there is some data missing and the fact that it possibly hasn’t been collected is interesting. Why was it not considered important to split this data into genders or break it down even further?
Another problem I noticed with these reports is that they only cover undergraduate students. I have been unable to find similar reports for postgraduate students which I am finding frustrating. After talking to Zuleika, I am reminded that it is often assumed that master’s students are well off financially, because of how expensive the courses are. Of course, assumptions are often incorrect but I wonder if this is why no data was collected for postgraduate students. If so, I think it is irresponsible for a large university such as UAL to make such a sweeping assumption.
I have been in touch with the SU at UAL and received an email pointing me in the direction of the OFS Action and Participation Plan, which again is only targeting undergraduate students. I suppose that by trying to get a more diverse undergraduate student body one could expect them to carry on to postgraduate study. However I feel that this is again assuming something without providing data to back it up.
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*A few weeks later*
I have come across a report by The Office for Students which has the most recent data for the demographic of students at English universities. The socio-economic background of students is only taken account for those students 21 and under, and yet again there is no data around the socio-economic background of postgraduate students. The Office for Students report pointed me in the direction of HESA, who collect all sorts of data for university students within the UK.
I found this table very interesting. It breaks down the socio-economic background that undergraduate students are entering higher education from. In the context of my research, I would consider working class to encompass semi-routine occupations, routine occupations and never worked/long term unemployed. Overall, the data hasn’t changed much over the last 5 years, for any of these socio-economic backgrounds. To me, this indicates that nothing is changing within higher education, particularly within undergraduate study. I have no data around postgraduate study so I can’t speak to if anything is changing there.
References:
https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/sb262/figure-6
https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/media/79a7bb57-83cf-4c50-a358-6bcfe80f165c/ofs2022_29.pdf
https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/144474/190206_EDI-Report-2018.pdf
https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0013/40630/UAL-Equality-and-Diversity-Progress-Report-2015-FINAL.pdfPosted on
It’s been a few days since the tutorial where I presented my first intervention and I’ve had plenty of time to absorb the feedback and to realise for myself why it wasn’t a good intervention.
Firstly, it didn’t answer my research question. And that’s kind of the point! A student creating a community of support for other working class students isn’t the university supporting those students. And whilst a support network is potentially needed, this isn’t the way to do it. If I wanted to progress down this road, I would need to change my research question. And right now I’m very happy with my question and it’s something that resonates with me.
Secondly, anonymity is important. If students need a safe place to vent, Instagram isn’t the place to do it. Somewhere like Reddit or The Student Room, or even the anonymous feature in Facebook groups is much more successful for this. This isn’t to say that Instagram couldn’t be used in this context, but I don’t see that it could be used as a safe space to be open about experiences and feelings.
And lastly, an Instagram account of this sort could be very emotionally harmful to the person or persons running the account. An inbox full of potentially shocking or emotional experiences is something that could be triggering to the account owner. I think for this to be something that wasn’t harmful each message would need a trigger or content warning. This would ensure that no one got triggered by submissions to the page and it would mean that everyone’s emotional wellbeing would be prioritised.
However, I learnt a lot from this short lived Instagram account.
I learnt that people need a place to vent, and that seeing other’s experiences makes people feel less alone. I learnt that Instagram accounts of this sort get a lot of inappropriate messages, of people wanting to question the truthfulness of people’s experiences and calling them liars, just because that thing hasn’t happened to them.
I also learnt that the experiences of female working class students, whilst obviously individual to each person, are largely the same. This leads me to believe that a systemic change is needed, so that these experiences aren’t being had by the majority of female students from the working classes.
Given that I changed my question so close to the deadline for our first intervention to be done, I decided to start super small.
As a result of surveys I conducted I found out that a lot of female students from working class backgrounds feel as though they are not part of a community. So I started an Instagram account – I wanted to see if this was a method of building a community that my stakeholders would engage with.
From conducting this intervention and receiving feedback, I realise that this doesn’t answer my research question. I am focusing on how universities themselves can better support students, not how students can support students. I also think Instagram isn’t a viable place to build this kind of community due to the lack of anonymity. If I were to move forward with building a community, it would need to be on a platform that can be more anonymous or a secure safe place. Maybe a private Instagram page or a closed Facebook group?
Either way, I think this was a successful intervention. Not in the way I wanted but I think the feedback I received gave me a kick to hone in on my question more for my next intervention. If one of my later interventions goes down the community building lines, then I think I have learnt how not to do it!