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The Society for Research into Higher Education


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Where should freedom of speech responsibilities in higher education lie?

by GR Evans

Under the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act higher education providers and students’ unions will be required to publish Codes of Practice on freedom of speech. The Bill sets out the requirements separately for higher education providers (at A2 (2)(c)) and for students’ unions (at A6(2)(c)).

For both the Code must cover ‘the conduct required’ of the responsible bodies. Any complaint is therefore to be against the provider or students’ union, not any person or persons whose ‘conduct’ may be complained of. The complainant must be an affected individual who must have ‘suffered adverse consequences’ as a result of something the responsible body has done or not done. (An affected individual is (a) a person who is or was— (i) a member or member of staff of the students’ union, (ii) a student of the provider, or (iii) a member or member of staff of the provider or of any of its constituent institutions, or (b) a person who was, or was at any time invited to be, a visiting speaker.)

This has the advantage of clarifying who are to be the parties in a dispute about ‘conduct’ under the Act. However, the definition of ‘adverse consequences’ will have to be tested case by case and shown to be the fault of the responsible body. This could well seem remote from the actions of individuals which triggered or caused the harm. It will not be easy to identify a role for a decision-maker – the Bill requires the Office for Students to create a Free Speech tsar as arbitrator – to determine what responsibility a provider has in a given case, and especially the responsibility of individuals acting on behalf of the provider, such as HR professionals or union representatives.

Difficulties of these kinds have arisen in a number of instances which throw into question the practical reality of laying blame as now proposed. Kathleen Stock, a Professor at the University of Sussex, faced demands from campaigners that the University should dismiss her for her alleged transphobia. They wrote ‘we do not say Stock should not be permitted to say the things she does. We believe in the principles of academic freedom’, but they did not want those relied on. ‘Conflating concern about the harms of Stock’s work with threats to academic freedom obfuscates important issues’, they said. Stock told the Guardian that the academics had created ‘an atmosphere in which the students then become much more extreme and much more empowered to do what they did’.  UCU had taken sides against her, but trade unions are not included in the Act as responsible for the protection of freedom of speech.

The Vice-Chancellor of the University wrote to ‘all staff’ to say that the University had ‘vigorously and unequivocally defended her right to exercise her academic freedom and lawful freedom of speech, free from bullying and harassment of any kind’. Stock was not dismissed. She chose to resign. The question must be whether the University could have done more to protect her against the ‘adverse consequences’ she undoubtedly faced. On what grounds could she complain against the University?

Steven Greer, a Law Professor at Bristol, was attacked by student members of the University’s Islamic Society for allegedly making ‘Islamophobic, bigoted and divisive’ remarks in lectures. He received online threats. The University did something. It held a review, conducted by a KC who found that his remarks included ‘no evidence of Islamophobic speech’ and ‘did not amount to discrimination or harassment’, being ‘intended as the basis for academic debate by the students who elected to study it’. A Bristol spokesman was quoted as saying that students were encouraged ‘to engage with, debate, analyse and critique ideas and theories of all kinds within our academic programmes’. Steven Greer retired in 2022 but has published a book about his experience. He continues to call for the student activists to be punished by the University.

Speaking to Times Higher Education Greer drew attention to two other ‘freedom of speech’ cases at Bristol. David Miller, Professor of Political Sociology, had been dismissed by Bristol over remarks he had made about Israel. A Jewish student had made a complaint. The University commissioned a report from a KC, who, the University explained in a statement, ‘considered the important issue of academic freedom of expression and found that Professor Miller’s comments did not constitute unlawful speech’. Nevertheless, Miller was dismissed in October 2021, apparently for unprofessional conduct. His internal appeal was unsuccessful in March 2022. Had the new Act been in force he could have complained against the University, but could it have defended his dismissal if it was for reasons unconnected with any breach of its responsibilities to protect freedom of speech?

The second, the Bristol student Rachel Rosario Sanchez, had felt undefended by the University when she faced a hate campaign by student ‘trans activists’. She took the University unsuccessfully to court alleging that it had failed in its duty of care to her as a student. The option of making a complaint to the Office for Students might have been open to her had the new legislation been in force.

In Oxford, Professor Selina Todd co-signed an open letter to The Sunday Times in June 2019 questioning the acceptability of universities paying for training by Stonewall on LGBT matters, arguing that it was discouraging academic freedom of discussion. She was threatened by trans-rights activists. The University provided security at her lectures. In February 2020 her invitation to a conference was withdrawn. She told Cherwell (7 March 2020) that she was ‘shocked to have been no-platformed by this event, organised by Oxford International Women’s Festival and hosted at Exeter College’. She had “explained to the organisers that some trans activists may object to my being there. In fact, trans activists had already tried to shut the conference down because they claimed second-wave feminism was inherently trans-exclusionary”. If this was a college event, the University’s conduct was not in question in this case. The University has not sought to limit her continuing exercise of freedom of speech. She wrote to The Times on 3 November 2021 to criticise the Athena Swan scheme which is approved in many universities.

Cambridge has had recent cases testing the ‘conduct’ of one of its colleges and its Students’ Union. “Students from various colleges eagerly participated in the peaceful demonstration by banging pots and pans along with the chants”. This was reported by Tab in an article extensively illustrated with pictures of a ‘peaceful protest’ held outside Caius by the Cambridge Student Union LGBT+ campaign on 25 October 2022. A possible complaint about that action might lie against Cambridge University Student Union (CUSU).

The occasion was a lecture given by Helen Joyce, leader of the campaign group ‘Sex Matters’, at the invitation of Professor Arif Ahmed, a Fellow of Caius. It had gained considerable notice because the Master of Caius had circulated a letter deprecating the event, which had prompted press coverage. The Head of House did not, however, seek to prevent the occasion from taking place. But this is an example of a ‘freedom of speech’ episode where the responsible body was a ‘constituent institution’ of a higher education provider registered by the OfS. Any complaint of ‘adverse consequences’, for example about the consequences of the letter circulated by the head of House, would lie against the College.

Varsity has recently reported the vandalising of the front door of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology by an activist group ‘citing the department’s ties to fossil fuel funding’ and alleging ““lobbying” by the department to delay a motion to stop the University receiving funding from fossil fuel companies”. “Activists from the group had taken similar action against the Schlumberger Gould research centre and the BP institute”.

These examples suggest that it is not going to be easy to draft Codes of Practice for providers or students’ unions which can realistically protect the freedom of speech of individuals in the face of an activism by other individuals which may place a higher ethical premium on a particular cause or campaign. The banging of pots and pans is arguably an acceptable form of protest speech, but can that be true of the breaking down of a door? The damaged Departmental door is not a person so it cannot make a complaint.

The role of the OfS in handling complaints

The new legislation is built round the role of the Office for Students. The OfS is to ‘regulate’ the duties of providers and students’ unions, operate a Complaints Scheme and have on its Board a Director for Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom, adding this role to its other Directorship, for Fair Access and Participation.

This will require a change of attitude by OfS. On 15 December 2022 OfS implied that it would take no direct role in the enforcement of freedom of speech in higher education providers:

“The Office for Students stands for the widest possible definition of free speech within the law. It is not our role to take sides in the contested debates that feature in the higher education sector. We must, and will, apply our understanding of the law to the facts of an individual case and do so with care and impartiality.”

However, it did sketch intentions which might now be included in a Code of Practice. It would ask whether a provider has “robust decision-making arrangements, which require it to consider the impact of its decisions on free speech and academic freedom as part of the decision-making process” and “checks and balances to ensure that its policies and processes do not adversely affect free speech or academic freedom”. It would ask whether it ensured “that staff are appropriately trained, in particular those who are making decisions that may affect free speech and academic freedom matters.”

OfS wrote more robustly about its role in protecting freedom of speech on 17 May 2021, after the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill was introduced. It shared a joint press release with the Department for Education on 12 May, proposing the role of a new Director, to oversee the various free speech functions of the OfS, now to include compliance and enforcement. It does not appear to have been suggested that this task properly lay with the UKRI too, so as to ensure that freedom to research was protected as well as freedom of speech in teaching. The vandalising of the Cambridge Departmental door was prompted by remarks on the value of research in areas in dispute. The word ‘research’ appears in the Bill only as part of the title of the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 and a few times in connection with checks on overseas funding for research.

When a ‘Case for the Creation of the Office for Students’ as ‘a new public body’ to take the place of HEFCE and the Office for Fair Access was outlined by the then Department for Business Innovation and Skills on 2016 it was argued that there was ‘a need for a simpler, less bureaucratic and less expensive system of regulation’. This was the intention under which the OfS was created. However, concerns about its operation have been multiplying. On 12 January 2023 the sector bodies (Russell Group, Million Plus, GuildHE and the University Alliance) wrote a joint letter to the Chair of the Education Select Committee calling for ‘an inquiry into the operation and performance of the Office for Students’. It said it would be ‘timely’ to ask whether it was ‘fit for purpose’ given its new Freedom of Speech role.

The sheer scale of the expansion needed to provide for the operation of the new complaints procedure does not seem to have been calculated. The OfS has a budget of £30m and 350 staff. It is likely to need many more to cover this new duty and the litigation it may prompt. The Bill says that the complainant must have exhausted internal procedures first before it comes to the OfS and if the matter is before a court or tribunal the OfS scheme may not consider it, but between those stages the OfS will be very busy.

Also not fully examined seems to be the role of the new Director, described in the Bill in an insertion to Higher Education and Research Act 2017, Schedule 1 on the OfS. It involves ‘overseeing’, ‘performing’ and ‘reporting’ to the OfS. The ‘performing’ lays on the Director the ‘free speech functions’ of the OfS including ‘monitoring and enforcing the registration conditions’ of providers. This seems likely to require considerable additional staffing to support the Director.

Conclusion

The new legislation imposes on higher education providers and students’ unions a responsibility which seems difficult to fulfil in the face of the untidy realities of the ‘free speech’ behaviours of their members, staff and students as exemplified in recent disputes. It lays a further responsibility on the Office for Students to police it all at a time when concerns are mounting about its competence in discharging its existing responsibilities.

SRHE member GR Evans is Emeritus Professor of Medieval Theology and Intellectual History in the University of Cambridge.

This is a revised version of an article which first appeared in The Oxford Magazine No. 451, Eighth Week, Hilary Term 2023, reproduced with the kind permission of the editor Tim Horder.


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Working-Class and working in higher education: possibilities and pedagogies

by Carli Rowell

This blog reports on presentations and discussion at an SRHE event on 1 February 2023.

Doctoral study, despite its expansion, continues to operate as a classed pathway, a problem exacerbated by the surplus of doctoral graduates and an increasingly congested precarious global academic labour market. Although a prerequisite for academic careers, the doctorate no longer operates as a passport into the ivory tower. It is now accepted that the ‘leaky pipeline’ of academia, whereby ‘non-traditional’ (eg working-class, BAME) participants remain absent from professorial and higher managerial positions within UKHE is adversely affecting the diversity of scholarship and leadership.

SRHE brought together those who identify as coming from a working-class background and who are currently working in higher-education or aspiring to do so, as well as those with an interest in supporting working-class persons through the pipeline to and through academia. The event served as supportive space where delegates discussed the lived experience of being a working-class academic (aspiring to otherwise), the implications of a working-class background on pedagogy alongside contemporary barriers to transitions to and through academia and so called ‘strategies for successes’.

In the opening session I shared some findings from my earlier SRHE Newer Researcher Award project “No words, just two letters ‘Dr’”: Working-class early career researcher’s reflections on the transition to and through a social-sciences PhD and into academia”. The project explored the lived experiences of 13 working-class early career researchers (ECRs) in moving through doctoral study into (and out of) the academic workforce. It sought to make visible the successes, hurdles, and ambivalences of this precarious and often invisible group of academics. The talk addressed some key emerging findings shaping working-class doctoral researcher experiences of getting in and getting on in UK academia. The important of working-class ‘others’ in navigating academics funding and the PhD application process and the implications for this upon the diversity of scholarship was a key theme, as were the geographical demands of the labour market which stood in conflict with the desires of many of the working-class participants who wished to remain living close to family and friends. This opened up discussion about the demands of academia for would be working-class academics.

Dr Iona Burnell Reilly (East London), following the publication of her edited book: The Lives of Working Class Academics: Getting Ideas Above your Station, reflected on the often uncomfortable experience of positioning oneself as being working-class in academia and pointed to the need to reflect on the working-class experience of higher education intersectionally, in conversation with other aspects of identity. Dr Burnell Reilly asked “Why do we feel the need to talk about working-class academic experiences?”, arguing that the legacy of elitism persists in relation to higher education. Class is not a protected characteristic and the history of the working class in HE suggests that classism has been the hardest bias to reverse (Crew, 2020). Then: “How have they [the w/c] become who they are in an industry steeped in elitism?” and “Do they [the w/c] continue to identify as working class or has their social positioning and/or identities shifted?”. Dr Burnell Reilly pulled out key themes central to the narratives included in her book, those of dual identities, imposters, the transformative power of education and the enduring stigma associated with certain classed accents. For her it was and is important that she continues to be herself in academia despite the pressure to assimilate, arguing this has brought her closer to her ‘working-classness’. Nevertheless, the questioning of one’s place (am I right to be here?); feelings of imposterism and the splitting of identities, (being one person at work and a different person at home) shape Dr Burnell Reilly’s experience of being a working-class academic.

In operationalising ‘working-class’ and how she came to choose authors to contribute, she felt it was important to allow authors to self-identify as being working class – things she would not say: “I’m not the class police”; “prove that you are working-class before you write a chapter”. Social class is something that is often difficult to identify with, a slippery concept that is difficult to define. For Dr Burnell it was not for her to define since, for her, social class comes from a person’s lived reality. Defining working-class “is not a problem to be fixed” – there are many different ways to be working-class.

Dr Burnell’s presentation was followed by lightning talks by Dr Teresa Crew (Bangor), Dr Steve Wong (East London) and Khalil Akbar (East London) (all contributors to The Lives of Working Class Academics: Getting Ideas Above your Station). Dr Crew said how in preparing for the talk, and when writing her chapter, she constantly reflected on the question of sharing, and how much she wanted to reveal about herself in her writing, noting that as academics we rarely write about ourselves. There were challenges and complexity in writing about being a working-class academic: “How do you write about the experience without coming across as being full of yourself?”, an interesting point given that not feeling full of oneself is a deeply classed feeling. Her experience of academia was littered with microaggressions; for Crew, “The social sciences are a wonderful discipline, but not always as welcoming as one might think”. Reflecting on her initial motivations to pursue higher education Crew spoke of wanting to be able to read the “posh newspapers”.  She finished with the observation that working-class aspiring academics often “only get one shot to get into academia and we need to make the most of that shot”.

Dr Steve Wong talked about his lived experiences of social class classifications across time and space, considering how working-class can mean different things in different contexts. Drawing on his background of being born and growing up in Malaysia, he reflected on how his own classed self-identity shifted as he moved to the USA for his university education. Considering the intersections of race, ethnicity, and class, the importance of accent as a class/ethnic/nationality marker once again came to the forefront of discussions. There are problems in identifying classes and the role of class affiliations. For Dr Wong, the problem of class is also the problem of belonging and the problem of being accepted or othered by other members of academic institutions.

Continuing the considerations on the importance of considering the working-class experience of academia intersectionally, Khalil Akbar discussed his sometimes uncomfortable experience of academia, especially when considering issues of Islamophobia, race, and the power of language. In writing his chapter Akbar said that, at first, such reflections did not feature as part of his chapter, but he felt that the omission was concealing important aspects of his lived experience. Akbar noted the sacrifices that his family had made in order for him to attend university. He had been motivated to attend university at first by his desire for escapism, prompting the difficult experience of feeling as if he was betraying aspects of his religious and cultural identity. For Akbar, working-class academics have the potential to foster a sense of belonging for non-traditional students. Reflecting on the whiteness of the establishment, Akbar shared his experience of wanting to leave university: having no one like him to talk to made for an isolating experience. With no one to turn to for guidance Akbar subsequently withdrew from university, returning to HE later in life. He emphasised the importance, to use his words, of reflecting upon “the academic I am becoming, not the academic I am” noting that becoming academic and feeling academic was an ongoing process.

Talks were followed by a safe, supportive and collegial discussion space whereby key themes were discussed and where delegates shared reflections on the themes of the day. The event provided space for delegates to feel empowered to think about how their working-class background had influenced and continues to influence their experiences of studying and working in HE. The importance of ensuring a clear pipeline to and through academia for working-class persons (and other non-traditional participants) was discussed, with calls for the role of the PhD funding application process to undergo greater scrutiny and more inclusivity.

It is hoped that this event will serve as one of many more SRHE events that seek to bring together academics from working-class backgrounds.

SRHE member Carli Rowell is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Sussex. She is currently an executive member of Gender and Education Association and convenes the British Sociological Associations Social Class Study Group.  Email c.r.rowell@sussex.ac.uk or Twitter @Carli Rowell.


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Landscapes of Learning for Unknown Futures: Prospects for Space in Higher Education

by Sam Elkington and Jill Dickinson

Across the higher education (HE) sector, factors including increasing student numbers, growing diversification, concerns about students’ mental health and wellbeing, and marketisation, have been compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis. Their culmination has pushed the changing needs of learning spaces to the top of the agenda. Against this backdrop, our Symposia Series aims to provoke critical debate around the possibilities for new configurations of learning spaces to support decision-making, policy and practice in developing future landscapes of learning within HE.

Learning Landscape

In response to the challenges faced within the HE environment, university estates teams need to recognise how learning can take place anytime and anywhere and develop radical strategies for student-centred, sustainable campus design. Future approaches to learning need to be dynamic and linked, and weave together formal and informal activities to create a holistic learning experience. We offer the concept of ‘learning landscape’ to explore how universities can draw on a spectrum of different learning spaces to reflect changing preferences and incorporate digital technologies. This Symposia Series at SRHE presents opportunities for key stakeholders to engage in collaborative reflexive discussions around, and debate the potential for, effectively entwining the possibilities for pedagogy, technology, and learning spaces.

Symposia Series

The Symposia Series brings together leading voices from across the field to encourage critical discussion and debate with a view to generating, encapsulating, and assembling key insights that can inform future decision-making, policy, and practice around landscapes of learning in HE. The Series is structured through the prism of three thematic lenses: networks, assemblages, and flexibilities, with a separate Symposium dedicated to each. Through providing opportunities for shared learning, we hope that the Series will cultivate an ongoing community of practice that will support the development of better understanding around the opportunities for developing learning spaces in terms of their networks, assemblages, and flexibilities.

Networks, Flexibilities, and Assemblages

In the first Symposium, which focuses on the theme of Networks, we chart a focus shift in HE, recognising that the contemporary learning landscape needs to be considered less in terms of singular learning spaces and more in terms of the ways in which spaces are becoming more connective, permeable, networked, and interwoven (physically and digitally), providing inclusive and adaptive environments in which learning can take place. Professor Lesley Gourlay (University College London) will be giving the keynote at this Symposium, followed by presentations from Sue Beckingham (Sheffield Hallam), Dr Julianne K Viola (Imperial College London), and Dr Brett Bligh (Lancaster).

The second Symposium explores the idea of flexibility as a critical aspect of how learning is situated relative to the demands of students for greater control in fitting their studies around their learning needs and preferences, as well as other aspects of their lives. Such a view implies a widening and loosening of the boundaries of conventional learning spaces to provide greater potential flexibility in how, where, and when learning happens. In this Symposium, we will hear from Dr Jeremy Knox (Edinburgh) (as keynote), Dr Andrew Middleton (Anglia Ruskin), Dr Kevin Merry (De Montfort), Dr Namrata Rao (Liverpool Hope) and Dr Patrick Baughan (The University of Law).

The third and final Symposium draws on the lens of Assemblages to examine the expanding spectra of both learning spaces (including their architecture and materiality) and the pedagogical approaches that are being adopted within them. These discussions are presented against the backdrop of challenges posed by traditional decision-making around strategic long-term estates-planning, resource implications, and the need to act swiftly to meet the challenges presented by a dynamic HE environment. Following a keynote fromProfessor Carol Taylor (Bath) at this Symposium, we will also hear presentations from A/Prof Tim Fawns (Monash), Dr Karen Gravett (Surrey), and Dr Harriet Shortt (UWE).

Thinking differently about conversation

We are also drawing on this Symposia Series as an opportunity for modelling multimodal opportunities for engagement to foster more inclusive, effective, and ongoing dialogue and encourage informed, meaningful change. Each of the three Symposia will run primarily face-to-face, hosted by SRHE in London. Components of each Symposium (namely the Keynote and Presentations) will also be streamed live so as to enable a hybrid format and remote engagement. We will also be recording content from each Symposium to help further engage as wide an audience as possible. We are inviting a selection of international scholars with recognised expertise in different aspects of HE learning space research to engage with, and review, the keynote and presentation materials from the Symposia and work with us to produce extended blogs in response. In addition, we will be facilitating continued dialogue to bridge each Symposium across the Series through other modes, for example via the use of Padlet, blogs, social media, and podcast communications to create a rich tapestry of critical insight and debate that we hope will drive the conversation forwards around the prospects for learning space in HE.

Sam Elkington is Professor of Learning and Teaching at Teesside University where he leads on the University’s learning and teaching enhancement portfolio. Sam is a PFHEA and National Teaching Fellow (NTF, 2021). He has worked in Higher Education for over 15 years and has extensive experience working across teaching, research and academic leadership and policy domains. Most recently Sam worked for Advance HE (formerly the Higher Education Academy) where he was national lead for Assessment and Feedback and Flexible Learning in Higher Education. Sam’s most recent book (with Professor Alastair Irons) explores contemporary themes in formative assessment and feedback in higher education: Irons and Elkington (2021) Enhancing learning through formative assessment and feedback London: Routledge.

Dr Jill Dickinson is an Associate Professor in Law at the University of Leeds. As SFHEA, Jill has also acted as a reviewer for the Advance HE Global Teaching Excellence Awards. A former Solicitor, specialising in property portfolio management, Jill’s research explores place-making


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The Polytechnics legacy – continuing to break down the academic/vocational divide in the twenty-first century

by Kat Emms

For two years Edge Foundation has been drawing together lessons from past education policies. Government is at risk of institutional amnesia for a variety of reasons, such as a high level of organisational churn (Stark, 2018) and at Edge we believe it is essential that decision-making about future policy builds on and adapts evidenced best practice from the past, in order to avoid repeatedly falling into the same traps. As part of Edge’s Learning from the Past series one recent initiative was SRHE Fellow Professor Gareth Parry’s (Sheffield) paper on Polytechnics.

The polytechnics were designated in the 1960s as new institutions formed from existing technical and other colleges within the English further education system, and with one in Wales. Rather than focussing on traditional further education provision, these establishments wholly or largely concentrated on higher education (‘advanced’) courses. In the 1960s Britain was facing an increase in demand for higher education and these new institutions would help meet this demand. Furthermore they would help diversify the sector through offering higher education across a number of levels, notably sub-degree as well as degree and postgraduate courses, while also offering the ability to study in different modes (full-time, sandwich and part-time). Offering sub-degree qualifications and more flexible modes of study supported access to higher education for those who would otherwise not have had such opportunities.

The new polytechnics were mostly formed by a merger between two or three colleges – colleges of technology, art, commerce or more narrowly specialist institutions. The responsibility for these newly developed institutions lay with local government (Sharp, 1987), with awarding powers coming from the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA).

The polytechnics policy was based on an economic need to equip the workforce with the vocational, professional and industrially-based expertise it required, particularly in the face of international competition. Traditional universities were not able to meet this need alone. Polytechnics provided centres of excellence at higher education level across a range of disciplines, and offered more practice-based, work-related learning. The CNAA’s charter required that their degrees be comparable in standard and quality with those in universities (Silver, 1990).

By the late 1980s the polytechnics were becoming large institutions with strong national roles, equipped with their own central admissions service to manage student applications. Their establishment as independent, self-directing institutions was realised by the Education Reform Act of 1988, which removed the polytechnics and larger higher education colleges from local government control. The Further and Higher Education Act of 1992 eliminated the binary divide and enabled the polytechnics to acquire university title and the power to award their own degrees.

The former polytechnics increasingly shared similarities with existing universities, partly because traditional universities also adapted to compete and meet societal demands, for example through widening participation in their student recruitment and developing more work-related elements for their existing curricula.

Several features bequeathed by the original polytechnics can still be seen in today’s twenty-first century HE system. In the 1960s/1970s the polytechnics tackled skill shortages facing many sectors in the UK economy; in 2017 Degree Apprenticeships (DAs) were established for similar reasons. The advent of DAs emphasised a vocational orientation, with these courses now firmly a feature in pre-1992 universities including those in the Russell Group, as well as the former polytechnics. This epitomises the polytechnics policy, which explicitly aimed to achieve a  ‘blurring of boundaries’ and ‘a breakdown of the traditional demarcation between vocational and academic courses’ (Pratt, 1997, p309). DAs were meant to be an innovative new model bringing together the best of higher and vocational education, whilst also upholding the same standards as non-apprenticeship degrees. Not only are DAs continuing to blur the academic/vocational divide within the sector, they are also supporting the formation of new partnerships between employers and higher education providers in order to develop new forms of higher-level, occupationally relevant education.

As well as helping the HE sector to diversify provision, polytechnics were acclaimed for expanding and diversifying the student population going into higher education (Scott, 1995). DAs have the same aim: they target school leavers from disadvantaged backgrounds, and mature learners already in the workforce, to offer them the opportunity to enter higher education. However, so far the evidence that they are achieving this is mixed, with recent research showing that fewer degree apprentices are eligible for free school meals than those attending university (Cavaglia et al, 2022).

As with the polytechnics in the 1960s, the HE sector is also seeing again the opening of new, and arguably innovative, higher education institutions across England. Locally focussed developments such as Milton Keynes University, ARU Peterborough and UA92 aim to meet the needs of the local community and employers. They do this through a particular emphasis on designing and developing their provision in collaboration with local stakeholders including the local authority and employers.

The new HEIs are to an extent emulating the polytechnics’ approach, not necessarily by offering distinctly new professional routes, but in ensuring that students’ education is continuously relevant to the real-world and professional life, through engaging with employer projects or developing students with a wide set of transferable skills. This is reinterpreting ‘vocation’ in a way which is more relevant to the 21st century: a profile career and the development of transferable personal skills is crucial for today’s workforce, compared to the sometimes narrower range of technical skills required and delivered by the polytechnics.

The polytechnics transformed the HE sector by diversifying provision and the student population. The blurring of the academic and vocational divide can still be seen in today’s higher education sector, particularly when we consider degree apprenticeships and newly established higher education institutions, with their provision becoming adapted to a 21st century world of work. At Edge Foundation we are exploring these two areas in our forthcoming research which will be published in early 2023.

Katherine Emms is Senior Education and Policy Researcher at the Edge Foundation. Her main areas of research cover higher education, vocational education, skills shortages and employability skills.


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SRHE Digital University: what’s on in 2023

by Janja Komljenovic, Katy Jordan, and Jeremy Knox (SRHE DU Network Co-Convenors)

From 2023, the Digital University (DU) network is launching a new strategy to connect its members, collaborators, and friends. We hope this new way of working will motivate and stimulate debates around everything digital in higher education.

We will organise the network’s work and events along three themes each year, chosen to reflect key issues in research and teaching currently. Each will last about four months, but sometimes activities arising from the different themes will overlap. DU convenors will organise a launching event for each theme. We invite our members, friends, and anyone interested to propose sessions, seminars, webinars, workshops, etc, for any of the three themes. We will try to organise these events in the timeframe of the particular theme. The DU network will, therefore, act as a platform for anyone to contribute to discussions about digital higher education.

In 2023, the DU network will focus on the following themes:

Post-digital university (January to April) – please contact Jeremy Knox (jeremy.knox@ed.ac.uk)

This theme invites discussion of the concept of the postdigital in higher education, where the term refers to a broad rethinking of assumed distinctions between technology and society, and a blurring of boundaries between the human and the digital, the informational and the biological. The postdigital engages specifically with our current state of technological development, where digital technologies appear to be both ubiquitous, but also increasingly invisible, as they sink down into the mundane activities of everyday (educational) life. This theme encourages discussion of what these new postdigital relationships mean for practice and research in higher education.

The webinar planned for this theme (Spring 2023, date to be confirmed) will be the launch of two new books in the Postdigital Science and Education book series: Postdigital Ecopedagogies: Genealogies, Contradictions, and Possible Futures and Bioinformational Philosophy and Postdigital Knowledge Ecologies. During the session, the four authors – Petar Jandrić, Michael Peters, Sarah Hayes, and Derek Ford – will present a brief overview of the projects, before inviting responses from an invited panel: Alex Means, Amy Sojot, Greg Misiaszek, Christine Sinclair, and Lesley Gourlay. This session will then open to discussion with the audience.

Social media in higher education (May to August) – please contact Katy Jordan (klj33@cam.ac.uk)

We are hoping to hold an in-person event on the theme of social media in higher education in the summer (date to be confirmed). This will be convened by Katy Jordan, in collaboration with Mark Carrigan. We welcome suggestions for presentations and discussion topics – we are particularly interested in the following topics as a starting point, but very much open to other ideas too, so please do get in touch if you are interested.

  • The role of algorithms in mediating scholarly communication
  • Social media and research impact
  • The academic social media ecosystem – post-Twitter

The political economy of EdTech (September to December) – please contact Janja Komljenovic (j.komljenovic@lancaster.ac.uk)

This theme is inviting discussion around interests, power relations and institutions that structure EdTech. The theme is quite broad. A few indicative interests are the following:

  • Techno-scientific and techno-political future imaginaries of digital higher education
  • The role of different actors in digitalising universities: edtech companies, financial investors, and policy entrepreneurs
  • Governing higher education with digital data versus governance of digital data in higher education
  • What are digital assets in higher education and why they matter
  • Who controls and uses user data collected at universities, what are the impacts?

The two webinars planned in this theme are:

  • 21 September 2023: Universities and unicorns – new forms of value in digital higher education with Janja Komljenovic, Sam Sellar, Morten Hansen, and Ben Williamson

This free event is open for booking, please click here to find our more and register.

  • 9 November 2023: EdTech futures with Rebecca Eynon, Klint Kanopka, Kathryn Moeller and Neil Selwyn (convened by Janja Komljenovic)

This free event is open for booking: please click here to find out more and register .

If you would like to propose an event or a speaker for any of the themes, please feel free to contact the named network convenor as indicated above. We hope to hear from you.

In future, we will announce the themes for next year at the SRHE Annual Conference in December, at the DU network meeting. We will continue to stay in touch about DU network activity (including the dates for upcoming events as they are confirmed) via SRHE mailings.

Janja Komljenovic is a Senior Lecturer and Director of the Higher Education Research and Evaluation at Lancaster University in the UK. She is also a Research Management Committee member of the Global Centre for Higher Education, with headquarters at the University of Oxford. Janja’s research focuses on the political economy of knowledge production and higher education markets. She is especially interested in the relationship between the digital economy and the higher education sector; and in digitalisation, datafication and platformisation of knowledge production and dissemination. Janja is published internationally on higher education policy, markets and education technology.

Katy Jordan is a Senior Research Associate at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. She holds a PhD from the Institute of Educational Technology at the Open University, UK. Her research interests broadly sit at the intersection of educational research, educational technology and internet studies, and she has published research on a range of topics, including social media in higher education, massive open online courses, and gender equity through educational technology.

Jeremy Knox is Senior Lecturer and Co-director of the Centre for Research in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh. His research interests include the relationships between education, data-driven technologies and wider society, and he has led projects funded by the ESRC and the British Council in the UK. Jeremy’s published work includes Posthumanism and the MOOC (2016), Artificial Intelligence and Inclusive Education (2019), The Manifesto for Teaching Online (2020), Data Justice and the Right to the City (2022), and AI and Education in China (2023).


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Moving with the times: The growing need for better graduate mobility data

by Tej Nathwani

Introduction

As SRHE noted in their summary of the theme of the 2022 conference, one of the current areas of discussion is the relationship between student mobility and outcomes. For example, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) have used the Longitudinal Education Outcomes dataset to explore trends in graduate mobility and earnings in England. While mobility is correlated with individual destinations, there are also wider macroeconomic consequences resulting from the extent to which graduates move around the country.

In a separate paper by the Resolution Foundation and the Centre for Economic Performance, researchers at the two organisations highlighted how one of the key factors that explains variations in productivity across areas are human capital levels – measured by the share of graduates in the locality. Hence, while providers can help with widening participation and upskilling the labour force in our most deprived regions, the full benefits of this for the vicinity may only be realised if those individuals who study in higher education choose not to move out of the area or region. One of the consequences of this is that providers are increasingly working with employers to try and ensure graduates can utilise their skills in the local economy (for example at Sheffield Hallam).

Given the state of the UK economy and the role mobility may have on individuals and growth, this is a topic that will remain salient in forthcoming years. However, even before we think about the association between mobility and outcomes, the first question to consider is how data might help us to better understand the extent to which graduates move for study and/or work. Historically, exploration of graduate movements has been at a regional level, which has become less relevant and valuable at a time when interest also lies in inequalities within regions, as well as between them. This blog will thus focus on a new marker HESA has generated to help our users gain more detailed insights into mobility.

The current problem

Patterns of regional migration and the categorisation of graduates into different groups based on this was first explored by Prospects back in the mid-2000s. One of the limitations of using such an aggregated level of geography, however, is that Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are all classified as individual regions. This means we are unable to examine what mobility is like within these nations. To see the drawbacks for investigating mobility in England using region, consider the neighbouring areas of Bradford and Leeds – both of which are within Yorkshire and The Humber. As the ONS regional economic activity data illustrates, there has been a divergence in the economic performance of these two places over the last twenty years. Hence, a graduate originally from Bradford who studies at the local university, but then moves for work to Leeds would be allocated to the same group in a regional analysis as one who initially lives, studies and is then employed in Bradford. With the graduate share being a key factor in understanding the differences in economic performance between areas, the possibility of distinguishing between graduates who remain in areas of low economic activity and those who move out of such localities for work is growing in importance.

A potential solution

HESA collect the postcode at which the individual resides prior to starting higher education and also request similar data from the graduate in the Graduate Outcomes survey regarding their location of employment (if they don’t know the postcode for their employment location, we ask the graduate to provide the town/city/area in which they work). There is therefore the potential to map these postcodes to local authority data (and their equivalents in Scotland and Northern Ireland). Using local authority of residence/work and region of study, we have created a mobility marker consisting of the following seven categories:

  1. Stays in same region for study and finds work in the same local authority as original location of residence
  2. Returns to the same local authority for work as original location of residence, having left region/country for study
  3. Stays in same region for study, but finds work in different local authority (in the same region) to original location of residence
  4. Returns to a different local authority (of the same region) for work when compared with original location of residence, having moved region/country for study
  5. Moved region/country for work, but did not move region for study
  6. Moved region/country for study, but did not then move region/country again for work
  7. Moved region/country for study and then moved region/country again for work (with the region/country being different to their original region/country of residence)

Going back to our original example of the two graduates from Bradford (one who moves for work and one who doesn’t), this new classification ensures they are no longer placed in the same group. Rather, one is allocated to category A, while the other is assigned to C. Such distinctions will help improve our awareness of overall patterns of mobility across time.

Concluding thoughts

Our initial exploration into mobility and job quality suggests that migrating for employment is correlated with graduates finding a role that fits better with their career plans. With similar findings on the benefits of moving for work from a salary perspective also being reported by the IFS, this could potentially leave those aiming to reduce disparities in economic performance between areas with a conundrum. Policies aiming to upskill the labour force in more deprived areas and help reduce spatial inequalities require these individuals to remain in such neighbourhoods. Yet current evidence suggests that moving for work is associated with more positive outcomes for these people. Given the relevance to policy aims, as we continue to collect increasing amount of data on graduates through our annual Graduate Outcomes survey, we shall be exploring the potential to map how mobility differs by area (eg by investigating whether we have adequate sample size at more granular levels of geography). If this does prove feasible, this will help end users with ascertaining the extent to which localities with lower output are gaining/losing graduates.

High levels of inequality and poor growth are two key concerns for the UK economy. We hope that the development of new measures on deprivation and graduate mobility can help the higher education sector with tackling these issues and assist providers in capturing the wider impact they are making in society.

Feedback on our mobility marker is most welcome. Please send these to pressoffice@hesa.ac.uk.

To learn more about Graduate Outcomes, visit www.graduateoutcomes.ac.uk or view the latest national level official statistics.

To be kept updated on our publication plans and latest research releases, please join our mailing list.

Tej Nathwani is a Principal Researcher (Economist) at HESA, which is now part of Jisc.


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Deprivation data: Introducing a new UK-wide area-based measure

by Tej Nathwani

Introduction

The 2020s will be a pivotal period in determining the UK’s economic future. That’s the primary message of a recent report published by the Resolution Foundation and Centre for Economic Performance at LSE. While major events such as the pandemic and Brexit have undoubtedly played a part in this, there are also longer-term factors that have contributed to the country reaching this position. Examples noted by the researchers include stagnant productivity levels, large disparities in economic performance between areas and inequalities in our education system.

Naturally, one of the questions being increasingly asked of the UK higher education sector is how it is helping to resolve some of the latter issues. Yet being able to tackle these matters successfully, as well as understand the outcomes from various interventions, requires the provision of suitable data. As the body responsible for the collection and dissemination of information about UK higher education, HESA has a role to play in supplying appropriate variables and statistics to our users that support them in their decision-making. Hence, the past few years have seen us develop new fields designed to be relevant and valuable in meeting the current needs of our customers. Across two separate blogs we will be outlining what these are and the potential value they can deliver. In this first piece we begin with a focus on our work relating to socioeconomic disadvantage.

The uses of data on deprivation in higher education

One of the ways in which providers seek to improve equality of opportunity in education is through outreach activity. These are initiatives that aim to raise aspiration and attainment among those from disadvantaged backgrounds, as well as helping to inform them of the potential benefits that studying for a degree can offer. Area-based data on deprivation will typically be used in two ways. Firstly, as part of the eligibility criteria that an individual must meet to participate (for example, at Surrey). Secondly, it can help providers determine the areas of the country which they believe would be most useful to target given their strategic ambitions (for example, at King’s College London).

The current problem

The most commonly used area-based measure of disadvantage across the sector in each of the four nations is the index formed from the Indices of Deprivation. However, while this is especially effective in capturing deprivation in major urban areas, it is known to be less useful in identifying this in rural locations. For example, Na h-Eileanan Siar in Scotland has no localities that emerge in the bottom quintile of the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD), despite income levels being below the national average. (Indeed, local government looking at poverty in the area highlight that ‘There are difficulties in using the SIMD in rural areas. Areas such as the Outer Hebrides are sparsely populated, socially heterogeneous and less sensitive to area-based measures such as SIMD. This can lead to a situation where households in rural areas are omitted from policy and targeting by national interventions designed to address poverty and inequalities’.) Furthermore, the size of the areas used to derive the index can also make it difficult to fully understand the levels of deprivation within localities. For example, there may be pockets within a zone that are experiencing higher levels of disadvantage compared with other vicinities, but the use of a more aggregated geographic domain can lead to this being masked. The consequence of this for the higher education sector is that there may be some prospective students who live in deprived neighbourhoods, but due to the limitations of existing data, find themselves unable to participate in outreach activity (eg as a result of not meeting the eligibility criteria or providers not targeting their place of residence).

Comparability is also an important aspect of high-quality statistics. Each nation of the UK, however, adopts a different approach in generating its index from the Indices of Deprivation. This means it is not a UK-wide variable and does not enable statistics to be evaluated across nations. Both the Office for Statistics Regulation and the latest State of the Nation report by the Social Mobility Commission (see p20) have highlighted this as an existing data gap that inhibits our understanding of wider societal trends in social mobility.

A potential solution

The question we therefore asked ourselves was ‘Can we create a UK-wide area-based measure of deprivation that can also address some of the drawbacks of existing indicators?’. To do so, we relied upon the 2011 Census, given the questions asked across the nations are harmonised as far as possible, meaning a UK-wide metric can be created. Data are also released at ‘output area’ level (output areas are often referred to as ‘small areas’ in Northern Ireland), which is a smaller level of geography than is used for the Indices of Deprivation. Output areas will typically contain less than 500 individuals.

With earnings data not available in the Census, our measure of deprivation was derived using the qualifications and occupations of residents in output areas, given these two factors are key determinants of low income. Having generated this, and to understand the potential value it could bring, we compared the bottom quintile of our measure to the equivalent group in the index produced from the Indices of Deprivation (ie the most deprived neighbourhoods). In each of the four nations, we found that our measure picked up a greater proportion of rural areas, albeit to varying degrees. Furthermore, when looking at those output areas that emerged in the lowest fifth of our measure, but a higher quintile of the index developed using the Indices of Deprivation, we observe that the most prevalent localities are based in local authorities/council areas/local government districts where there appear to be lower levels of economic activity (eg County Durham in England, North Lanarkshire in Scotland, Rhondda in Wales, as well as Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon in Northern Ireland).

Concluding thoughts

In summary, our measure does seem to overcome some of the existing shortcomings of area-based indicators of deprivation. Over the next few years, we shall therefore be looking to supply the measure to users in an accessible format, alongside updating it using information from the most recent Census. As well as supporting equality of opportunity, if the measure can help to raise participation and skill levels in some of our most deprived neighbourhoods, there is also the possibility that this will assist with reducing spatial disparities in output. For example, the study by the Resolution Foundation and the Centre for Economic Performance notes that the ability of the Shared Prosperity Fund to successfully increase growth may well depend on the levels of human capital in the area. Through upskilling local residents living in disadvantaged localities, providers may therefore be able to facilitate the creation of the conditions needed for growth-enhancing initiatives to succeed. Of course, this rests on the assumption that these areas do not subsequently see residents move to other parts of the country. Understanding the geographical mobility of graduates will thus be the topic of our next blog.

Read more about our measure, its correlation with income and how it compares to the Indices of Deprivation https://www.hesa.ac.uk/insight/08-11-2022/new-area-based-measure-deprivation-summary.

Feedback on our measure of deprivation is most welcome. Please send this to pressoffice@hesa.ac.uk.

To be kept updated on our publication plans and latest research releases, please join our mailing list.

Tej Nathwani is a Principal Researcher (Economist) at HESA, which is now part of Jisc.


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Mobilities and the ‘international academic’ in higher education

by Vera Spangler, Lene Møller Madsen, and Hanne Kirstine Adriansen

December marks the month of the International SRHE Research Conference. It was an interesting week full of presentations and discussions around the theme of Mobilities in Higher Education. In the opening plenary talk, Emily Henderson invited us to reflect critically on the different ways in which mobilities of academics and students in higher education are discursively constructed. She debated how discursive constructions of mobility may influence who can access academia/higher education, who can gain recognition, and who can establish a feeling of belonging. Emily’s presentation set an interesting and highly relevant ground for the week to come, opening space for critical thought about  academic mobility and experiences of mobility, subjectivities, and power. Our presentation about who is considered ‘the international academic’ addressed similar ideas and observations, which we would like to share in this blog post in order to open the conversation with a larger audience.

Never has the higher education sector been so mobile, particularly as internationalisation occupies a central position on the global agenda of policymakers. Over the past decade we can observe a significant increase in academic mobility. This is partly due to the fact that the academic profession is becoming exceedingly internationalised and globalised, often involving some sort of travel on the part of the academic throughout their career. In the academic sector, having international staff is often seen as integral to the institution’s reputation and recognition. Likewise, international mobility is perceived as inherently beneficial for the individual and as a valuable asset for academic research careers. Professional stays abroad can function as a mark of distinction or valuable international capital.

Mobility and, notably, internationalisation are often used with many positive connotations, presented as neutral and unconditionally good. Internationalisation is often deemed instrumental in enhancing the quality of research and education. Universities put increasing effort into attracting international academics, seeking their contribution in establishing an international research and teaching environment to promote the status of the faculty and their position internationally. Particularly for universities outside Anglo-America, international scholars constitute an important element in creating a so-called ‘international university’. However we often see a uniform, unidirectional, and unproblematic description of how to attract and retain international academics in higher education strategies and mainstream policy documents. There is a dominant prominence in university strategies of attracting ‘global talent’ and ‘the best and the brightest’, promoting a specific idea of the ‘international academic’. Yet questions remain about how academics of different national and social backgrounds understand the role of being an ‘international academic’ and how their understandings are consonant with those sought, promoted and shaped by higher education institutions.

Our paper for the SRHE conference tried to unpack ‘the international’ in international academic mobility based on interviews with international academics (varying in age, nationality, and academic position) living and working in Denmark. The data stem from the larger research project Geographies of Internationalisation, which explores how internationalisation affects the perception of quality, relevance and learning in higher education and how these perceptions travel with mobile academics. Our conference presentation examined what it means to be an international academic, who the ‘international’ is, and how the academics’ ‘international-ness’ is being used and/or neglected by institutions.

During the interviews, interesting conversations emerged as to when one is considered international – do you have to be recruited as ‘an international’ or can you just be a ‘love migrant’ who then gets employment at a university? Others pondered how long one could live in Denmark and still be considered ‘an international’. Our analysis shows that ‘the international’ is not a neutral concept, but often ‘international-ness’ is associated with those from the centre (the Anglo-American academy), while academics from the (semi-)periphery are viewed as less international, perhaps just ‘foreign’ as one interviewee stated. Language is an important factor in this context. As we have shown elsewhere, English is often conflated with the international, for instance internationalisation may simply mean English Medium Instruction. This may explain why academics from the Anglo-American academy can appear to possess more of that universal character that is international. In this way, we point to the uneven geographies of internationalisation, and how universities in the (semi-)periphery can end up mimicking the Anglo-American academy in their attempt to internationalise.

While internationalisation can bring many social, material and professional benefits concerning, for instance, intercultural competencies and employability, there is a diversity in geographical patterns, constraints, demands, privileges and motivations that are to a large extent silenced in prominent policy documents and discourses. Hidden behind its neutralising and universalising discourse, internationalisation is a multi-dimensional, highly uneven process; a plural landscape of possibilities for some, and disadvantages for others. For some years now, critical scholarship on internationalisation has been growing. There is increasing concern that internationalisation practices and mainstream policies reproduce global inequalities and already uneven relations and geographies. There are a number of different ways to avoid this. Along with other scholars of critical internationalisation studies, we encourage efforts to rethink and critically explore consequences, practices and discourses of internationalisation both in scholarship and in academic conversations to open up questions for a renewed focus and to find ways forward.

Vera Spangler is a PhD student at the University of Surrey in Guildford, England. Her research project is a comparative study between England, Denmark and Germany with focus on knowledge legitimacy and the role of student mobility in the re/production of global hierarchies.

Lene Møller Madsen is an Associate Professor at the Department of Science Education, University of Copenhagen. She is part of the research project Geographies of Internationalisation, responsible for the WP on academic mobility. She holds a PhD in human geography, and have worked with pedagogical training of staff for many years including international academics.  

Hanne Kirstine Adriansen is Associate Professor and academic international coordinator at the Danish School of Education, Aarhus University, Denmark. Originally trained as a human geographer, her research concerns mobility, space, and education. Since 2019 PI of the research project Geographies of Internationalisation with 14 affiliated international scholars and master students.

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A pantomime without a happy ending

The year-long pantomime that was government in 2022 started trying to be managerial and serious, just as the true pantomime season got into full swing and TV started showing the usual repeats specials. Rather too much sherry and mince pies before the pantomime highlights compilation meant that I fell asleep during A Christmas Carol – so I’m not sure if this was just a dream (or a nightmare) …

This year every university and college is putting on its own pantomime. What’s showing near you? We offer these plot summaries to help you choose what to watch.

Cinderella

Higher Education Cinderella has been condemned to a life of servitude, enforced by the ugly sisters DfE and the Office for Students (you can’t usually tell them apart). Life is only tolerable for HE Cinderella thanks to all the friendly student mice, and UUK, an apparently kindly character in the service of the household, but with suspiciously shiny Buttons. There is much excitement in the land as Parliament decides to stage a magnificent Election Ball to find a suitable person to be the government Prince. Cinderella would love to go but has no well-paid staff to wear; the DfE and OfS ugly sisters prepare eagerly by appointing more recruitment consultants. Suddenly the UCU Fairy Godmother appears and declares “You shall go to the Election Ball”. The USS pumpkin is miraculously transformed into a golden pension and the student mice turn into horses, although there do seem to be fewer of them. Best of all, Cinderella’s pay rags turn into a shimmering and apparently permanent contract, and her glass ceiling is transformed into slippers. Cinderella climbs into her pension, pulled by all the student horses, to attend the Election, but her Fairy Godmother warns her that she must return home before the election result is announced. At the Election Ball there are several wannabe Princes: none appear to be very Charming, but nevertheless they pay her close attention, making all kinds of promises. Some even make pledges. Suddenly the first exit poll appears and Cinderella rushes back home, losing a glass slipper in her haste. The pension turns back into a pumpkin, and the Fairy Godmother has disappeared and seems unable to work her magic. However there is a new Prince after the Election Ball, who has announced that he will scour the kingdom to find the person who can wear the glass slipper. He visits the household and cries with delight that Higher Education Cinderella is the one for him, but since there is only one glass slipper there must be a cutback in student numbers. Cinderella goes back to sit on the pumpkin with her low pay, weeping over the lost mice. She realises the glass slipper thing was all cobblers.

Dick Whittington

Higher Education Dick has lost more and more income as his student fees were eroded by inflation, but he hopes that if he strikes out for a better life he might find somewhere the staff are paid with gold. He travels hopefully and reaches what might have been the golden triangle, but it seems no better than the old place. He spends years trying to make his fortune, without success. His Admissions Cat catches lots of home student mice, but he is forced to send it abroad in the hope of making his fortune from lots of international students. In despair Dick strikes out again, accompanied by Freedom of Speech Bill.

Dick (suspiciously):                     “Is there somebody following us?

Bill:                                                 ”Let’s ask the audience. Is there anybody following us?”

Audience (shouting excitedly): “It’s the minister!”

Bill:                                                 “Where is she?”

Audience (still excitedly):           “She’s behind you!”

Bill:                                                 “Oh no she’s not”

Audience:                                      “Oh yes she is!”

And they were right, the minister was right behind the Bill. Bill trudges on but suffers so many proposed amendments he slows down until he eventually gets passed. On the road Dick hears the sound of UCU bells saying to him “Your turn again, Whittington” and he goes back to his place on the picket line.

Jack and the Beanstalk

Jack lived in desperately poor circumstances with his departmental colleagues, until one day all he had left was one research grant. He decided to take his research to the conference market to see if he could generate any more funds. But even before he got to the conference he met a pro vice-chancellor (Research) who said if he handed over his grant as a contribution to overheads the PVC would give him a handful of sabbatical beans. He went back excitedly to his department to tell them the good news, but they pointed out that by giving the grant away the whole department was doomed. Jack was distraught and he threw the sabbatical beans into the departmental workload model. The next day when he woke up he was astonished to see that everywhere he had thrown a sabbatical, a research grant application had sprung up. Pretty soon the grant applications had grown into a full-fledged research grant money tree which stretched right up into the UKRI. Jack started to climb and when he got to the top he discovered a land where there lived a giant called Russell G. He crept into the giant’s home, sneaked away with some more research grants and went back to his department. That kept them going for a while, but soon they needed more funds and Jack had to climb the money tree again. This time the giant was waiting for him, and roared “Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum, I smell the blood of a teaching institution.” Jack raced back to the money tree with the giant close behind, scrambled back down to the ground and hacked at the money tree until it toppled over. Unfortunately the giant was already halfway down. It fell right on the top of the department and squashed it flat, leaving only a handful of the most research-active staff, which Russell G picked up before leaving.

Sleeping Beauty

A Higher Education princess is warned that if she pierces her tuition with a student fee she will die. She tries to rid the kingdom of all traces of tuition fees, but still they slip in and gradually get bigger until they become impossible to avoid. At last she succumbs and as the fee takes effect she falls into a deep sleep, becoming lost because she is, like almost everyone else, beyond the reach of Test and Trace. Nothing will wake her until one day a prince arrives on a pantomime horse and vows to rescue her from her slumbers. The horse is played by the twins REF and TEF: no-one is quite sure which end is which, until the front half confirms the protection of the research budget and all the talk about low quality courses comes out of the rear end. Before the Prince can rescue the princess he decides, out of an abundance of caution, to commission a review by the Office of Budget Responsibility. (In the past this had, unwisely, been deemed unnecessary for a pantomime with a short run.) The OBR review shows that waking the princess will cost almost as much each year as Covid PPE contracts, whose benefits are mostly still being sought long after the VIP lane was closed. So the prince decides to leave her asleep.

In every case the performance ends with the audience singing a seasonal favourite, “The 2022 days of government”, ending with the chorus:

“On the last day of 2022, the PM sent to me:

five Secretaries of State

four DfE reshuffles

three HE Ministers

two pension schemes

and an HE (Freedom of Speech) Bill)”

… then I woke up, and I wasn’t sure whether this was Christmas Past, Christmas Present or Christmas Future. You decide.

Rob Cuthbert, editor of SRHE News and Blog, is emeritus professor of higher education management, Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and Fellow of SRHE. He is an independent academic consultant whose previous roles include deputy vice-chancellor at the University of the West of England, editor of Higher Education Review, Chair of the Society for Research into Higher Education, and government policy adviser and consultant in the UK/Europe, North America, Africa, and China.

Email rob.cuthbert@uwe.ac.uk, Twitter @RobCuthbert.


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Fostering a sense of safety in higher education

by Lauren McAllister, Luke Ward, and Lauren Young

From left to right: Lauren Young, Lauren McAllister, and Luke Ward

As three lecturers who have taught on a postgraduate course for several years that covers topics around race, gender, identities, parenting, development, disabilities, mental health, wellbeing, and the associated experiences of managing these oppressive and regulatory discourses – we began to question how we can keep ourselves, and our students ‘safe’. We had reflected that we were not talking about a physical sense of safety here, but rather a felt sense of feeling understood, or perhaps even contained.

Having spoken to colleagues and other lecturers who similarly teach some topics that may be deemed ‘challenging’ or ‘sensitive’, we found that there was very little agreement with regards to how to approach some of these topics and discussions.

What does it mean to feel ‘safe’ within the higher education classroom?

Historically, this idea of a feeling of being ‘safe’ derived from feminist movements where a physical space was created for like-minded individuals to meet and explore their experiences (Flesner and Von Der Lippe, 2019). Within UK universities, safe space is also explored in the context of addressing sexual violence, harassment and discrimination (see: Anker and Von der Lippe, 2018; Uksaysnomore.org, 2022).  Research which did explore safety in the context of a relational sense in the classroom, either positioned the achievement of safety as unrealistic (Du Preez, 2012) or as necessary to ensure both educators and students feel comfortable unpacking difficult dialogues (Nolan and Roberts, 2021). Despite this discrepancy, there was a general agreement that lecturers felt anxious and ill-equipped when teaching sensitive/contested/difficult topics – often leading to them avoiding or minimising engagement in the teaching of such topics (Sue et al, 2010; Warde et al, 2022). We also noted that there was not a clear sense of agreement with regards to what is considered ‘sensitive’ in teaching. In fact, some pedagogical researchers argue that students experience topics differently, and assuming students homogenously feel safe fails to consider this diversity (Barrett, 2010).

As a result, we felt we had several core unanswered questions which drove our research, including: how then as educators do we manage the complexity of experiences, when topics are differently experienced? How do we balance our own anxieties around teaching topics that are differently experienced, and morally/ethically ensuring are students are feeling ‘safe’? And finally, are we as educators responsible for this management of the classroom space?

Our research: What did we do and what did we find?

Our research used collaborative methods to explore both students’ and lecturers’ experiences of ‘safety’ within the HE classroom. We conducted our project in four clear stages to ensure that lived experience was at the heart of any recommendations we established.

Firstly, we conducted five focus groups with students, unpacking the notion of safety and jointly creating a vignette which would be used to scaffold the lecturers’ focus group discussions. We then conducted four lecturer focus groups in which we similarly explored this notion of safety, before using the collaboratively created vignette. This vignette was presented in four stages, with discussion encouraged at each stage. The vignette anchored discussions and enabled lecturers to explore how they prepared for difficult topics; the management of an in-class disclosure; the impact of a dominant voice; and finally, how they end their sessions. Following the focus groups, both groups were thematically analysed separately, before themes were established across the groups, with the support of two students from the student focus groups. The final stage of the project was then to establish some useable recommendations in the form of a workbook/resource for lecturers, which was similarly created with the support of students.

Within the focus groups we found that both the students and the lecturers focused less on whether a topic was deemed ‘sensitive’ or not, and more so on the space ‘between’. Students for example talked about the need to feel heard, the trust between the group and the worry about how their contributions could be perceived. Lecturers noted the impossibility of being able to prepare students for challenging discussions, and many explored the need for students to feel uncomfortable and uncontained, as part of their learning.

Our findings raised two core areas of focus which we used as basis for the development of our workbook: the development of the foundation of relational trust, and the scaffolding of discussions. Building on scholars who positioned relationality as core to teaching and learning (Hobson and Morrison-Saunders, 2013), we developed the concept of ‘relational trust’. We conceptualised relational trust as this shared or mutual understanding between all members of the group (students and lecturers), of an expectation of disagreement, misunderstanding and challenge. We also recognised that this foundation was not a set or established entity, rather it was relationally created and needing to be continually nurtured through considered teaching and learning activities/experiences. In the implementation of our findings, we therefore began to focus less on the framing of a particular topic (ie as inherently safe, or not), and more so on ways through which conversations could be scaffolded within our teaching.

Ok, but what can I ‘take away’ from this and use within my teaching?

Based on the discussions with the students and staff, we can make several usable recommendations to support educators:

  1. Development of a classroom agreement: Firstly, we explored the importance of this foundation of relational trust, whilst also acknowledging that this foundation is never truly ‘set’ or done – rather it is something that needs to be continually nurtured (and revisited). Lecturers and students explored the benefits of a ‘class contract’ during the induction of a new group, whilst also acknowledging some key barriers to the effectiveness of this contract. We explored the importance of needing to revisit this class contract, acknowledging that this relational trust changes with the introduction of new members to the group, changes in topic, general changes in dynamic etc.
  2. Clear expectations of roles: Both lecturers and students lacked clarity with regards to the role of the lecturer – and in turn, the student – in the classroom space. In particular, there was a clear blurring of expectation of what was expected of the lecturer when engaging in discussions that may be considered challenging.  Lecturers generally have multiple roles within higher education, but our findings suggest there is an expectation for lecturers always to fulfil all these roles within the classroom, and that lecturer roles are not neatly compartmentalised into ‘teaching’, ‘module coordination’, ‘office hours’, ‘dissertation supervision’, ‘personal academic tutor sessions’ etc. Therefore, we explored the importance of having a discussion/activity where you actively engage with your students, considering the different expectations of the student, lecturer, and other facilities – to ensure that there is a mutual and shared understanding of roles.
  3. Scaffolding of discussions: Using ecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1992) and trauma-informed pedagogical practices (Carello and Butler, 2013; Dana, 2018; Perry and Hambrick, 2008), as a basis, we recognised the multiple layers of comfort and safety and how these could be scaffolded within classroom discussions (see Figure 1). We have therefore provided a framework below through which lecturers can frame their discussions, enabling students to contribute and be heard in spaces that gradually feel more comfortable, negotiating possible language and elements of disclosure. For this activity, it is useful to consider an element of teaching, eg a core topic, an activity, discussion, skills practice, and reflect on/plan out how this might look, starting at the ‘individually’ zone and working your way towards ‘wider group/class’. For example, the activity might be a discussion point on ‘what childhood means to you’, which you may then ask students to (1) reflect on individually for a few minutes, and note this down on a post-it, before then (2) discussing this with the person next to them, noting areas of similarity and difference. Later, the students are then tasked with (3) forming small groups and assigning a particular developmental stage, asking them to mind-map the main themes of childhood for particular developmental stages. Before then (4) bringing the class together, asking each group, in turn, to share their discussions, starting with the group who was assigned the youngest developmental stage, working up to early adulthood, to produce a co-constructed developmental trajectory.

Figure 1: Zones of Comfort

Four circles all within each other showing how a task can gradually include more people (individual, pairs, small groups, and wider group)

Beyond these useable recommendations, we also argue that there needs to be more of a systemic shift within the university culture where work that involves caring for students needs is often undervalued or unseen (Baker et al, 2021). For example, some universities do not provide hours for staff to prepare and undertake course inductions which promote this relational trust, nor are they given time throughout the course delivery to consider activities that purposefully consider inter-class relationships.

Want to hear more? You can find us on Twitter: @Lauren8McA, @Lukewrd, @Laurenyoungcbt

Dr Lauren McAllister is a senior lecturer and programme lead for the MSc Child and Adolescent Mental Health course at the University of Northampton.

Dr Luke Ward is a lecturer in child and adolescent mental health and a registered therapist working with children, young people, and families who have experienced trauma.

Lauren Young is a lecturer in child and adolescent mental health, a registered cognitive behavioural therapist, and a registered children’s nurse.

References

Anker, T and Von der Lippe, M (2018) ‘Controversial issues in religious education: How teachers deal with terrorism in their teaching’ in Schweitzer, F and Boschki, R (eds) Researching religious education: classroom processes and outcomes  Waxmann Verlag GmbH

Bronfenbrenner, U (1992) Ecological systems theory Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Dana, D (2018) The Polyvagal theory in therapy: Engaging the rhythm of regulation WW Norton & Company

Perry, BD and Hambrick, EP (2008) ‘The neurosequential model of therapeutics’ Reclaiming children and youth 17(3): 38-43