reiterates an economic model of education (Shore, 2008; Carey, 2013b). This fast developing yet skewed view of participation and involvement needs to be challenged and problematised for it to be able to be conceptualised in alternative forms, for example, the ones that are more congruent with the academic and philosophical value of HE, as stated earlier in this section.
2.2 Students’ changing roles and identity
The last sixteen political years in England, as discussed in section 2.1 (above), when analysed from a students’ role and identity perspective, have been transitional years in HE.
The main shift can be realised in HE culture from its knowledge production and development of a civic society role to a more consumerist business model of education, raising voices of concern for maintaining either ‘quality’ or ‘standards’, or both, in HE (Dearden, et al., 2011). This shift in culture has created new and multiple identities for students. Labour’s widening participation policy agenda, for example, contributed to the construction of ‘new’ HE students, perceived to be ‘non-traditional’ students, often characterized by a struggle (Reay et al., 2002; Reay et al., 2010). Their struggle is illustrated by the irony between the rhetoric of equity and easy access of HE to all, as perceived by the widening participation initiative, but with the implications that continue to reflect and re-construct class and other inequalities, mounted up with the discourse of “dumbing down”
(Leathwood and O'Connell, 2003: 4) and lowering of university standards (ibid).
The Coalition government’s introduction of new HE funding and increased fees has added to the wider global economic debate on education (Thomas, 2012), creating yet another hybrid identity for students, who are characterised as coming to university for enhancing their knowledge but, at the same time, demanding a consumer service. There are, therefore, worries over the impact of this new level of student expectation on academic professionals;
the 'value for money' that students get for the fees they now pay and; above all, over the effect on the nature of the study itself (Taylor and Wilding, 2009; Dearden, et al., 2011).
These changes, in turn, have affected the overall management and pedagogic environment of institutions (Bragg, 2007; Taylor and Wilding, 2009; Dearden, et al., 2011; Cochrane and Williams, 2013), as discussed later in this chapter.
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The Conservative’s introduction and proposal for a TEF and the notion of putting students’
experiences, through national surveys and statistics, at the heart of HE, has further fuelled a debate on commercialisation of education, with HEIs expected to produce trained, readymade, quickly adaptable manpower for the economic market (Tandon, 2007;
Buchanan, 2014). Needham (2003) refers to this commercialisation of education as 'marketplace democracy', where government treats citizens as consumers, maximising customer satisfaction and expanding individual choice and competition, a pattern similar to the choice and power that can be found in the private economy. This shift in citizens’
behaviour invites students to navigate HE as a market, making demands upon the institutions to work towards student satisfaction (Taylor and Wilding, 2009).
The impact of these policy initiatives, during the last decade and a half; and the emergence of a parallel approach of regarding ‘students as partners’, in university education (as discussed above, in section 2.1), have therefore created two dominant conflicting discourses in HE, namely, consumerism; and students’ participation. The discourse on students’
participation is based on a more collegiate model of education where students are regarded as co-producer in their learning. Consumerism, conversely, presupposes a more conventional customer-provider relationship between the student and university (Carey, 2013b).
Both roles of students can influence their behaviour and response to any unsatisfactory provision or service. The former role of being a ‘member’ drives the student to strive to improve the institution and the education that it provides rather than go elsewhere; and the latter role directs a consumer attitude where the student, as a client, may complain and look for desired services, either within or elsewhere (Bergan, 2003). The reality however falls between the two categories, where students do have specific expectations for their education but at the same time also see themselves as members of a community, as participants (Bergan, 2003; Taylor and Wilding, 2009; Dearden, et al., 2011; Carey 2013a). Students, therefore, do not necessarily see themselves positioned explicitly in either the participation or the consumerist model of education but somewhere in between.
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A recent formal work on students’ participation within the HE sector in the UK can be traced to the year 2007 when the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS, now the BIS, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, 2011) started its student listening programme as part of a commitment to citizen engagement and the amplification of ‘student voice’. The work developed further with the establishment of the National Student Forum (NSF), originally set up by the DIUS in early 2008. The forum was created to give a greater voice to students taking HE courses across the UK and to extend the delivery of a message that “policies were the better for being informed by the student voice”
(NSF, 2010: 10). The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) also supported the partnership of various stakeholders, such as the National Union of Students (NUS) and the Higher Education Academy (HEA), to develop and promote student engagement policies and practices (Seale, et al., 2014). The HEA also identified ‘students as partners’ as one of its central work and research streams, with a belief that student partnership can lead to effective student engagement as well as improve learning and teaching (HEA, 2013). The ideals of the HEA are reinforced by the UK Quality Code for Higher Education, which states that all students should have the opportunity to be involved in quality enhancement and assurance processes in a manner and at a level appropriate to them “it is important that higher education providers create a culture and environment where students are encouraged to take up the opportunities on offer” (QAA, Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, 2012: 3).
All these initiatives and developments have certainly helped to embed students’
participation more strongly into the sector’s way of working at a national level but the NSF asserted that much of the improvement for the student experience now needs to take place at the local level (NSF, 2010). The ‘Next Steps’, according to them (on their closure in 2010), were for the sector organisations and universities to themselves extend the work (from what they initiated) and continue to devise appropriate, effective and inclusive ways of hearing from the student body in all its diversity (NSF, 2010).
Despite the development of students’ participation policies and quality codes, evidence from research suggests that students in HE, in general, experience a lack of opportunity for participation (Persson, 2003; Bartley, et al., 2010). The proportion of students participating in student union elections, for example, is often less than 10 per cent (Quality Convergence
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Report: Sweden, n.d). This contention makes ‘students’ participation’ a worthwhile area to investigate as there is some contradictory evidence between theory and practice.
The differences in rhetoric and reality of students’ roles in HE problematises the notion of students’ participation and urges us to explore how HEIs can become social and educational spaces where the essence of democracy and participation can be cultivated and developed (Molander, 2002). It raises the question how HEIs can effectively encourage students to participate in various matters affecting their experiences? What can we do alongside them to feel that their participation has an impact? These are some of the questions that I explore through my work.