Much attention is now directed towards the role of evaluation in efforts to widening higher education participation. Indeed, the evaluation of interventions aimed at broadening HE access, and ensuring the success of those from under-represented groups once they are at university, is considered a priority by the Office for Students [OfS], (Blake 2022; OfS, 2023a; OfS, 2024).
Various guidance documents prepared by the HE regulator, both for individual higher education providers (OfS, 2023b), and Uni Connect, the government funded collaborative outreach programme (OfS, 2022), set out a rationale for this focus. ‘High quality evaluation,’ it is argued, ‘allows universities and colleges to understand the impact of their work to support students’, and to improve the effectiveness of this work (OfS, 2023a), and through sharing the findings of such investigations to ‘contribute to the wider evidence base’ (OfS, 2022, 12). In contrast, the role of research in widening participation [WP] receives far less attention and appears to be considered of less significance. Whilst ‘evaluation’ accumulates 42 references in the OfS’s advice to HE providers’ on their access and participation plans, research is mentioned 16 times (OfS, 2023b). More pointedly, the regulator’s guidance to Uni Connect partnerships states that ‘research is not one of the main aims or expected outcomes of funding’ (OfS, 2022, 13).
Yet, arguably, research has an equally important role to play in supporting and advancing the WP agenda. To appreciate this it is helpful to draw out the distinctions between research and evaluation. Perhaps the most fundamental of these relates to the broader remit that research has in ‘seeking new insights’ and making ‘new discoveries.’ Often this involves testing theories or hypotheses, and generating findings that have wider application (Anon, nd, np; Rogers, 2014). For some, research is viewed as ‘active and proactive’, whereas evaluation is ‘reactive’, in the sense of responding to an activity or practice (Anon, 2024, np).
Arguably, these distinct qualities mean that research has the potential to address a number of key WP challenges that remain unexplored in evaluations. For instance, providing insights into the reasons for the comparatively low rates of HE participation amongst particular groups of learners. These include young men from white, working class backgrounds, along with those taking vocational (applied general) courses and studying in further education colleges. All three are areas of current concern for those engaged in widening participation (Atherton and Mazhari, 2019; Raven, 2022; Raven, 2021).
In addition, it is by means of research that we can learn more about the longer-term impact of the pandemic and the cost of living crisis on the progression plans of those from more deprived neighbourhoods, as well as the reasons why some WP students appear more likely to drop out of university-level study. Research can also tell us about the post-graduation experiences of under-represented backgrounds – insights that are of central importance in presenting the case for HE. Indeed, research can be viewed as complementary to evaluation. Research can provide insights and guidance on how a particular WP challenge can be addressed, with evaluation deployed to assess the effectiveness of the measures taken.
Whilst the OfS’s limited support (and funding) may explain some of the comparative neglect of research, the way much WP-related research (admittedly, this includes my own) has tended to be conducted and disseminated may also act as an impediment to recognising its true value. Therefore, besides calling on the OfS to acknowledge the role that research can play in supporting efforts to widen participation, I have five suggestions aimed at fellow researchers for enhancing the accessibility – and impact – of their work:
Share research findings with WP practitioners through talks and presentations, as well as more interactive workshops
Publish work in journals whose readership includes WP practitioners and policy makers
Explore opportunities to circulate findings in more widely read newsletters and e-bulletins
Engage directly with practitioners in exploring potential research topics
Consider the practical, real world application of research findings.
I would welcome readers’ views on these suggestions.
Neil Raven is an educational consultant and researcher in widening access. Contact him at neil.d.raven@gmail.com.
Acknowledgements – Thank you to Tony Hudson, Lewis Mates, Jessica Benson-Egglenton, Robin Webber-Jones and John Baldwin.
Remember the Metaverse? Oh, come on, you must remember it, just think back a year, eighteen months ago, it was everywhere! Mark Zuckerberg’s new big thing, ads everywhere about how it was going to transform, well, everything! I particularly liked the ad showing a school group virtually visiting the Metaverse forum in ancient Rome, which was apparently going to transform their understanding of the classical world. Well, that’s what $36 bn (yes, that’s billion) buys you. Accenture were big fans back then, displaying all the wide-eyed credulity expected of a global consultancy firm when they reported in January 2023 that “Growing consumer and business interest in the Metaverse [is] expected to fuel [a] trillion dollar opportunity for commerce, Accenture finds”.
It was a little difficult, though, to find actual uses of the Metaverse, as opposed to vague speculations about its future benefits, on the Accenture website. True, they’d used it in 2022 to prepare a presentation for Tuvalu for COP27; and they’d created a virtual “Global Collaboration Village” for the 2023 Davos get-together; and we mustn’t overlook the creation of the ChangiVerse, “where visitors can access a range of fun-filled activities and social experiences” while waiting for delayed flights at Singapore’s Changi airport. So all good. Now tell me that I don’t understand global business finance, but I’d still be surprised if these and comparable projects added up to a trillion dollars.
But of course that was then, in the far-off days of 2023. In 2024, we’re now in the thrilling new world of AI, do keep up! Accenture can now see that “AI is accelerating into a mega-trend, transforming industries, companies and the way we live and work…better positioned to reinvent, compete and achieve new levels of performance.” As I recall, this is pretty much what the Metaverse was promising, but never mind. Possible negative effects of AI? Sorry, how do you mean, “negative”?
It’s been often observed that every development in communications and information technology – radio, TV, computers, the internet – has produced assertions that the new technology means that the university as understood hitherto is finished. Amazon is already offering a dozen or so books published in the last six months on the impact of the various forms of AI on education, which, to go by the summaries provided, mostly seem to present it in terms of the good, the bad, and the ugly. I couldn’t spot an “end of the university as we know it” offering, but it has to be along soon.
You’ve probably played around with ChatGPT – perhaps you were one of its 100 million users logging-on within two months of its release – maybe to see how students (or you) might use it. I found it impressive, not least because of its speed, but at the same time rather ordinary: neat B-grade summaries of topics of the kind you might produce after skimming the intro sections of a few standard texts but, honestly, nothing very interesting. Microsoft is starting to include ChatGPT in its Office products; so you might, say, ask it to list the action points from the course committee minutes over the last year, based on the Word files it has access to. In other words, to get it to undertake, quickly and accurately, a task that would be straightforward yet tedious for a person: a nice feature, but hardly transformative. (By the way, have you tried giving ChatGPT some text it produced and asking where it came from? It said to me, in essence, I don’t remember doing this, but I suppose I might have: it had an oddly evasive feel.)
So will AI transform the way teaching and learning works in higher education? A recent paper by Strzelecki (2023) reporting on an empirical study of the use of ChatGPT by Polish university students notes both the potential benefits if it can be carefully integrated into normal teaching methods – creating material tailored to individuals’ learning needs, for example – as well as the obvious ethical problems that will inevitably arise. If students are able to use AI to produce work which they pass off as their own, it seems to me that that is an indictment of under-resourced, poorly-managed higher education which doesn’t allow a proper engagement between teachers and students, rather than a criticism of AI as such. Plagiarism in work that I marked really annoyed me, because the student was taking the course team for fools, assuming our knowledge of the topic was as limited as theirs. (OK, there may have been some very sophisticated plagiarism which I missed, but I doubt it: a sophisticated plagiarist is usually a contradiction in terms.)
The 2024 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), held in Las Vegas in January 2024, was all about AI. Last year it was all about the Metaverse; this year, although the Metaverse got a mention, it seemed to rank in terms of interest well below the AI-enabled cat flap on display – it stops puss coming in if it’s got a mouse in its jaws – which I’m guessing cost rather less than $36bn to develop. I’ve put my name down for one.
Dr Paul Temple is Honorary Associate Professor in the Centre for Higher Education Studies, UCL Institute of Education.
A paper for the Symposium on ‘Inequalities in HE during Covid-19’ (SRHE Conference, 6 December 2023, Birmingham) provides new evidence on the ‘social suffering’ that university students endure due to precarious employment. Based on findings from the project ‘Learning from Labour: Critical Pedagogy for Working Students’ carried out at Middlesex University in 2022-2023, the study explores the educational and employment challenges faced by working students in UK post-92 universities (MDX News, 2023). Researchers Janroj Keles, Claudio Morrison and Parisa Dashtipour surveyed students at their university to understand their work experiences, challenges, employment rights awareness, and workplace difficulties. The preliminary findings of the research are summarised in an extensive report (Morrison, Dashtipour, and Keles, 2023).
Headline news has reignited debates about how financial hardship and challenging labour market conditions are squeezing students’ study-life balance, and alarmingly raised claims that part-time jobs may disproportionally disadvantage less privileged students (BBC News 2023). This directly contradicts widely held beliefs that these jobs offer valuable benefits of labour market flexibility and resilience. The Middlesex study reveals how thousands of university students in the workplace may regularly face discrimination, unpaid hours, threats of dismissal and shifts changing at short notice. The study further reveals a concerning lack of awareness among students regarding their employment rights, including benefits like maternity leave.
Academic debates and research background
The issue of ‘incompatibility’ between work and studying is neither new nor it is unique to the UK. In the UK conditions shifted significantly after the 1990s reforms with the creation of post-92 universities, the replacement of grants with loans and tuition fees and a diversified student body. Early research by Moreau and Leathwood (2006) on post-92 students concluded that students from working class background were disproportionately impacted by the lack of state support, as the ‘benefits of flexible labour predominantly accrue to the employer’ (2006: 37). Since austerity, even ‘white, middle-class students of traditional age’ face a ‘double deficit’ of financial shortfall and increasing pressure to gain employability skills (Hordósy, Clark and Vickers, 2018: 361). Studies covering EU countries show that around 70% of university students are active in the labour market above the accepted ten-hour threshold (Lessky and Unger, 2022). This ‘time-consuming’ employment is particularly prevalent among business students with first-in-family background; this is explained by increasing participation of underrepresented groups, greater appreciation of work experience and higher costs of living and is associated with higher drop-out rates. Research on student-workers by employment scholars remains limited (Rydzik and Bal, 2023). Several researchers highlight the multiple vulnerabilities experienced by students as a peripheral casualised workforce (Alberti et al, 2018; Ioannou and Dukes, 2021, Rydzik and Kissoon, 2022). Mooney (2016), for example, criticizes the fact that hospitality management takes a ‘dispassionate’ attitude toward casually employed students, failing retention. UK research further highlights sexist and discriminatory attitudes in the industry (Ineson et al, 2013; Maxwell and Broadbridge, 2014). Recent research identifies multiple effects of insecurity induced by precarity arguing for ‘student-workers as a conceptually distinct category of workers impacted in particular ways by labour flexibilization’ (Rydzik and Bal, 2023). However, there is some disagreement regarding the idea that all jobs involving precarious labour have negative outcomes. Other studies have questioned slippages between ‘the concepts of precarious work and precarious workers’ (Campbell and Price, 2016: 314) and between precarity as ‘waged work exhibiting several dimensions of precariousness [and], precarity [as] the detrimental effect of labour-market insecurity on people’s lives’ (Antonucci, 2018: 888). Students may avoid the short-term effects of insecure, low-paid jobs by exercising choice (Antonucci 2018). According to Whittard et al (2022: 762) ‘students possess skills attractive to employers, they may receive training and, in some cases, employment opportunities after graduation’. Additionally, Grozev and Easterbrook (2022: 259) argue that ‘the experience of working alongside studying can help to reaffirm students’ commitment to their studies and make them resilient learners.’ In sum, research so far has highlighted the economic and motivational pressures pushing low-income students towards low-paid/low skills precarious jobs. A limited amount of research has detailed both the potential incompatibilities between these jobs and education and the long-term risks associated with precarity. However, student agency and their ability to strategize remain contested. The Middlesex study contributes to these debates by adding evidence on the structural constraints that student workers face in the ‘labour process’ which encompasses work organisation, workplace power structures and ensuing social relations. This ultimately sheds light on what it truly means to be a precarious worker in this specific context.
Method
The researchaimed to adapt and adopt critical pedagogy to the post-92 HE to raise the quality of learning experienced by working students and their agentic power in the workplace (Neary et al, 2014). Following an engaged research approach, the research used multiple methods, including a survey, interviews, in-class discussions and reflective essays. Academics across the University employed student-centred, research-engaged learning strategies to stimulate critical reflection on students’ work experiences and socio-political backgrounds (Dashtipour and Vidaillet, 2020). Their accounts illustrate work experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, the problems encountered, coping strategies and their knowledge of employment rights.
Findings
The research presents a picture in line with existing data on students’ employment during the pandemic. Its findings, however, suggest that the social suffering of student-workers is underestimated and consequently there is a stronger connection between ‘bad’ jobs and poor educational outcomes than previously thought. The study sample included females (61%) students living at home (34%), international/overseas students (44%), British (32%) and EU-settled residents (18%). Among surveyed students, 90% reported ‘not having enough money to live on without working’. In particular, fifty per cent work part-time and a third work in zero hours, freelance or informal jobs. Further, findings reveal how 68% of respondents have their work schedule changed at short notice, 28% do not always or ever see a payslip, 22% complain about unpaid extra work, and 17% claim some of their wages are paid cash-in-hand to avoid taxation. There is widespread evidence of discrimination and harassment and poor working conditions: almost 30% claim experiencing discrimination at work (almost 10% do so frequently), and 24% reported bullying; 22% claim threats of dismissal and 12% of disciplinary action; 20% reported accidents and injuries at work. Lack of knowledge of employment rights is one of the main reasons for difficult relationships with employers and it appears to exacerbate precariousness in the workplace.
Labour process analysis identifies the structural constraints that make such workplaces toxic and exploitative environments. Poignant respondents’ accounts describe a disorganised but highly exploitative work regime which relies on employees’ precarious conditions for its reproduction. Management strategies include lengthening of working time, deskilling and effort intensification combined with functional flexibility. Due to their short-term commitment, lack of experience and rights awareness as well as their desire for flexible hours, students become dependable workers. However, student-workers are no mere victims of unscrupulous employers and exploitative work designs. Resistance to unfair conditions also materialises either by withdrawing labour (turnover) or as workplace small-scale individual (foot-dragging, work-to-rule) and collective (solidarity, grievances) resistance.
The authors are concerned that these workplace issues may have an impact on students’ performance. Morrison, the project’s Principal Investigator, argues that student jobs are psychologically and physically taxing, as such immediately interfering with their ability to benefit from learning. Such experiences also lower their labour market expectations. The causes appear to lie in their lack of control over the conditions of their work and their poor awareness of labour rights. Precarious employment and exploitative business models make such problems a structural feature of these jobs. Keles, a co-investigator, exposes the dark side of student work for overseas students:
“Overseas students are trapped in a cycle of exploitation and bear the brunt of exploitative work. They typically work under unfavourable conditions, such as long hours – up to 30 per week – low pay and usually unsocial hours. Moreover, a significant proportion of oversees students reported that they have experienced bullying and undervaluing at these toxic work environments. In addition to increasing students’ vulnerability and mental health issues, these precarious employment conditions also lead to a number of other problems during their studies like poor academic performance”.
Drawing on extensive teaching experience, the researchers are adamant that these conditions may significantly contribute to low attendance, missing deadlines, requesting extensions, and even failing to turn in their assessments on time at the university.
Implications
Overall, the study emphasises that it is not poor education that allegedly prevents students from succeeding in the labour market, but rather it is the latter, due to the social suffering it causes, that prevents students from making the most of their learning opportunities. Post-92 universities should not be unfairly blamed for failing students’ employability. However, recognition of the significant challenges students face should lead universities as well as students and educators to turn these struggles into an opportunity for collective, social and pedagogic change. Therefore, while advocating changes in employing sectors and in university funding to reduce students’ reliance on low pay/low skills jobs, the authors urge universities, unions, and civil society to act towards improving student’s agency and bargaining power by raising their labour and employment rights knowledge and awareness of workplace collective conditions.
Universities constantly and rightly encourage students to gain work experience to increase their employability, they should also support working students by including employment rights as part of the taught curriculum, providing topical advice services and offering additional well-being support. Initiatives like Hospitality Now (Lincoln University, 2024) or the Hertfordshire Law Clinic (Hertfordshire, 2024) show this is both a timely and feasible approach.
Anyone interested in viewing the report and/or sharing experiences of supporting working students is welcome to contact the research team C.Morrison@mdx.ac.uk, J.Keles@mdx.ac.uk.
Claudio Morrison is a Senior Research Fellow in Employment Relations and HRM at Middlesex Business School. Over the last 20 years he has carried out ethnographic research in Post-Socialist Eastern Europe investigating the working lives and resistance practices of labour migrants and industrial workers. Current work includes the development of alternatives to mainstream ethics and the promotion of critical pedagogies and reflective learning in western academia.
Janroj Yilmaz Keles is an Associate Professor in the Department of Law and Social Sciences, Faculty of Business and Law at Middlesex University, researching on peace and conflict, gender, political violence, migration and (digital) social movements. He is one of the co-investigators of GCRF HUB – Gender, Justice and Security and the Nuffield Foundation funded the Afghan resettlement in England: outcomes and experiences project. He served as an editor for the British Sociological Association’s journal Work, Employment and Society from 2018 until 2022.His monograph Media, Conflict and Diaspora (I.B. Tauris, 2015), was well received by the academic community.
Around the world, there is a move toward making curricula more culturally sensitive, diversified, or decolonized. However, the impact of such curricula on students is not yet well understood. My colleagues and I sought to research effects of cultural sensitivity on students’ interest in their subjects, focusing primarily on students in professional education programs across 7 participating institutions. We presented this research at the 2023 SRHE conference. The full paper was published this month in Higher Education. We report briefly on the findings and significance of that study.
This new presentation and publication builds on Dave SP Thomas’ PhD thesis, which we presented at the 2021 SRHE conference and later published in Studies in Higher Education. The initial study conceived and tested a ground-breaking survey instrument, the Culturally Sensitive Curricula Scales (CSCS), that enables students to rate the cultural sensitivity of their curricula. By cultural sensitivity of curricula, we mean curricula in which attitudes, teaching methods and practice, teaching materials, curriculum, and theories relate to, affirm and respect diverse cultures, identities, histories, and contexts. The CSCS survey has paved the way for understanding the extent to which students perceive their curricula as representing diversity, whether people of diverse ethnicities are portrayed in stereotyped or negative ways, the extent to which students are encouraged to challenge power and their experience of inclusivity in classroom interactions.
In the original study, we found that Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic students in a single English university tended to see their curriculum as less culturally sensitive than their White peers. We also found that more culturally sensitive curricula may help boost Black, Asian and minority ethnic students’ interest in the subject. Colleagues in NERUPI, the Network for Evaluating and Researching University Participation Interventions, were intrigued by the initial study as many of them were seeking to create more diversified, decolonised or culturally sensitive curricula.
Seven NERUPI member universities took part in the current, follow-up study on which we reported at the 2023 SRHE conference. In this project, we revised the CSCS survey, expanded the participant pool to a wider range of institutions and programmes of study, and controlled a key potential confounding variable.
Revising the Culturally Sensitive Curricula Scales (CSCS-R) clearly enhanced them, making them more definitive, thorough and reliable. Thus, the CSCS-R is a stronger instrument for use in researching and evaluating students’ experiences of the cultural sensitivity of their curricula.
After surveying nearly 300 second year students in this NERUPI study, we again found that minoritised students perceived the curriculum as less culturally sensitive than White peers. This finding was robust across programmes and universities, suggesting that it is a widespread issue across the higher education sector in England, not a feature of a single university. Most of the participating universities were still in the early stages of curricular reform. The CSCS study was intended to raise staff awareness of these experience gaps amongst their students to support the creation of more culturally sensitive curricula.
We also found Black students tended to rate their curricula as less sensitive than Asian students. These wider ‘experience gaps’ for Black students than Asian students are consistent with wider achievement gaps (‘degree awarding gaps’) for Black students.
Finally, we found that when students rate their curricula as more culturally sensitive, they also tend to have higher interest in their programme, even when controlling for ethnicity and quality of teaching overall. Thus, culturally sensitive curricula appear to be good for all students, not just minoritised students. Surveyed students were primarily studying pro-social professions (eg psychology, education, nursing, social work) where they are preparing for professional roles that serve a diverse clientele and society. These students may be particularly interested by curricula that positively reflect the plurality of the professions to which they aspire and a more just society.
In sum, this study contributes to understanding how teachers can design instruction that both supports students’ interest and reflects an increasingly diverse society. The study, then, may help educators create more interesting and engaging curricula, while also addressing issues of diversity, equality, and inclusivity within HE.
Kathleen M Quinlan PhD PFHEA is Professor of Higher Education and Director of the Centre for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Kent, UK. She researches learning, teaching, assessment, and student engagement in higher education, specialising in understanding how curriculum and instruction can be designed to support students’ interest.
At the SRHE International Conference in December 2023, I was delighted to have the opportunity to present an insight into my doctoral thesis: ‘AnExamination of University Paramedic Students’ Enculturation into the Ambulance Service.’ This was my first time at the SRHE conference, consequently the inevitable nerves were always with me. However, I had no reason to worry, the warm welcome and supportive environment with liked minded people was an excellent opportunity for me to ‘tell my story’. My EdD viva in 2021 followed an ethnography over several years (starting in 2013) which explored university paramedic students’ enculturation (the process of being socialised in a certain culture), into a traditional National Health Service (NHS) Ambulance Service Trust.
The research illustrates the many challenges and dichotomies which faced neophyte paramedics as they went from a university classroom setting into their day-to-day clinical work placements. The challenges they faced were not the result of individuals alone, rather they resulted from an inherent subculture ingrained within the very fabric of the organisational structures of the ambulance service and paramedic profession. This ethnography contributes to the social science literature on health and social care by presenting an introduction to the sociological perspective of student enculturation, from the university classroom into an often-chaotic working environment of the ambulance service.
The research uncovered the way cultural meanings, institutionalised rules, professional identity and working practices determined the working behaviours in the subculture of paramedic practice, as individual situations and experiences were contextualised. Drawing on the work of seminal authors and experts in the field, such as Metz (1981), Mannon (1992) and McCann (2022), this research explores the subculture along with the hidden curriculum which gave rise to it, as it seeks to understand how and why this appeared to hamper and impede the pedagogy experienced by students. This is not the pedagogy taught and encouraged in university, rather a pedagogy which arises out of the intricacies and nuances of the traditional working environment of the paramedic.
There is a complex interplay of subcultural integration between experienced paramedics and students. The work draws on the peculiarity of the language, behaviours, values and working practices of paramedics and students to illustrate the subculture and hidden curriculum which is inherent in their day-to-day working practices. How students transpose what they learn in the university classroom setting to their clinical work placement is examined and unpacked to help illuminate how students contextualise the knowledge formally taught in the university learning environment, to that of the practice setting.
Supported by a plethora of fieldnotes and interviews with students and paramedics, along with my reflective and reflexive accounts collected over a period of eighteen months, my research informs and contributes to the unfolding developments within the paramedic profession. There are working customs and practices not seen by members of the public or portrayed by media representations.
With Professor Diane Waller (OBE) I am co-authoring a book (to be published by Routledge in March 2024) based on my research journey, along with the obstacles, challenges and opportunities presented to me as the principal research investigator. As an experienced paramedic with over 30 years working for a busy inner city NHS ambulance service trust, and 20 years as an academic, teaching student paramedics, I illustrate the various situations that were presented. We delve into the professionalisation of paramedics as we try and make sense of the research findings. One aspect of the doctoral journey shone a light on the insider/outsider dichotomy, which I encountered in the field collecting data.
The ethnography allowed me to engage and witness, first hand, how and why students became so reliant on the subculture and hidden curriculum which O’Reilly (2009), Brewer (2000) and others also highlight, claiming that ethnography can provide forms of in-depth data. It gave me the opportunity to work with participants, to see and be part of their community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991), share in their frustrations, anxieties, disappointments and at times sadness which confronted them in their challenging day-to-day work. The intricacies, nuances, colloquialisms, attitudes, and behaviours become exposed, whilst I grappled with the emic position of researcher as I became one of them (Brewer, 2000). I took Burgess’s (1984) advice, that the emic position provides the researcher with full participant observation status, who already belongs to the group being researched. At the same time, I was reminded of Walford (2008), whose opinion highlights the danger of the emic researcher going native – I was keen that my position would not compromise my research findings. Considering the dichotomy between the emic and etic researcher and the potential influence on my study, I illustrate how this dichotomy was managed in the field.
My insider observations helped me to slip between insider (emic) and outsider (etic) roles, to create a persona that encouraged and cajoled participants to disclose and illuminate more confidential and detailed accounts of their day-to-day practices. I was also aware that my research evolved through a reflexive stance related to my personal practice experience throughout the research. Hunt & Sampson (2006) and Van-Maanen (2011) advise using reflexivity to examine the self and voice to help harness and understand the responsibility of the researcher within the research. I combined a meaningful personal, professional and researcher self to the research (Van Maanen, 2007), as I became an integral part of the participants’ community. I worked with them, I copied their language, their slangy terms, their anecdotes and at times their offensive language, to help cement my place within the community. Developments of social research and in particular ethnography, have stimulated discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ researcher (Allen, 2004).
There were occasions, such as when I was required to treat patients as a paramedic, whereby I removed myself from the research process, then slipped back into the emic role as soon as I had cared for the patient. There were dichotomies within the discourse, as students revealed startling accounts of inappropriate behaviour, or I witnessed criminal damage to the ambulance. These actions often required me to switch between the emic to etic researcher as I continued with the ambulance shift. I questioned myself, at times not really knowing what to do, whether to speak up, or remain silent and ensure my acceptance into their workplace community.
I was riding out with Rupert, a second year Foundation Degree student. This meant that Rupert was employed by the ambulance service as a student paramedic, who returned to university in blocks to commence his academic studies. This also meant that Rupert was working one-to-one with his crewmate (working partner), an experienced old-timer called Albert. The shift was due to start at 15-00 hours and finish at 23-00 hours at Newmoon ambulance station situated in the outskirts of the city. Albert arrived for the shift ten minutes late, although we had not received any emergency calls, so ambulance control was unaware of the situation. At 15-10 Albert arrived and parked his car on the station. I had not met the paramedic (Albert) before, but Rupert had been working with him for a while now and appeared to get on well with him. It was not long within the shift, after attending our second emergency call, that whilst sitting in the ambulance that I could smell alcohol on Albert’s breath as we were talking. Albert was the driver of the ambulance that day and it soon became apparent that Albert had been drinking alcohol prior to starting the shift and driving the ambulance. I found a moment to speak with Rupert privately about my suspicions and to my surprise Rupert was aware of the situation, stating: “Oh don’t worry John (researcher) he often has a little drink before the shift, he only has a couple of pints at lunchtime, everyone knows him around here, it’s okay it’s just something he does”. Taken from my fieldnotes. *
On this occasion I was riding out with Jenny, a foundation degree student. Jenny was driving the ambulance whilst we had a patient in the back of the vehicle taking them to hospital. I sat in the front of the cab so I could talk to Jenny on route to hospital. The patient was in a stable condition, suffering just minor abdominal discomfort. Suddenly, Jenny miscalculated the distance between a passing car and a parked motor vehicle (van) causing us to strike the parked van. I could see from looking through the ambulance wing mirror that we had shattered the van’s right-hand side mirror, which was hanging from the vehicle with shattered glass and debris on the road as we continued passing various vehicles. I looked at Jenny who promptly said: “pretend you didn’t see that John (researcher)” and laughed as we continued en route to hospital. Taken from my fieldnotes. *
* All names and environments have been anonymised with pseudonyms.
The two accounts above, taken from my fieldnotes, illustrate the dichotomy of my insider/outsider relationship which had formed over time with the participants. O’Reilly (2009:110) claims that it is the “insiders’ explicit goal to gain an insider perspective and to collect insider accounts”. It was therefore important for me to have their trust, assurance and be part of their community if I were to witness and experience their real-life working relationships and behaviours. These were real and challenging dichotomies and ethical tensions which I had to grapple with as I spent time in the field as researcher.
Events such as these were difficult and morally challenging situations which stretched and tested my professional and moral compass.
John Donaghy is a Registered Paramedic and academic, with over thirty years’ experience working in an inner-city NHS Ambulance Service Trust, prior to moving into academia twenty years ago as a Principal Lecturer and Professional Lead for Paramedic Science. He has a professional doctorate in Education (EdD) and is a Fellow of the College of Paramedics. He works extensively with both the UK and Irish Regulator of Pre-hospital Emergency Care and continues to undertake clinical shifts at Wembley National Stadium in London, UK. His research interests lie within the professionalisation of practice which led him to explore the ambulance and paramedic service.
References
Allen, D (2004) ‘Ethnomethodological insights into insider-outsider relationships in nursing ethnographies of healthcare settings’ Nursing Inquiry, 11(1), 14–24
Brewer, J. D (2000) Ethnography – Understanding Social Research. 1st, edn, Open University Press. New York, USA.
Hunt, C. & Sampson, F. (2006) Writing self & reflexivity. 3rd edn, New York: Palgrave.
Mannon, MJ (1992) Emergency Encounters – EMTs and their Work. 1st edn, Boston, MA: Jones and Bartlett, Boston
Metz, LD (1981) Running Hot-Structure and Stress in Ambulance Work 1st edn. Edited by D Metz USA: Abt Books, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
O’Reilly, K. (2009) Key Concepts in Ethnography. 1st edn, London: Sage. Los Angeles, London, New Deli, Singapore, Washington DC.
Walford, G (2008) How to do Educational Ethnography 1st edn, London, UK: The Tufnell Press
The SRHE Digital University Network was launched in 2012, with a view to present “critical, theorised and research-based perspectives on technologies in higher education”. As the landscape of digital technologies being used in different ways across the higher education sector is subject to change over time, we took the opportunity through the 2023 SRHE conference session to reflect on what the Digital University means and think about the future of the network. We invite you to contribute to this debate and participate in our future events.
Looking back
From 2013 onwards, the Digital University had been included in the annual SRHE conference themes. We drew upon the archive of SRHE conference papers on the website, to look for patterns and themes in papers associated with the theme over the past decade. From the archive, we gathered 122 papers under the Digital University theme. We noted details like the date, authors, location, and research methods for each paper. To gain an overview of the types of topics covered, each paper was tagged with up to three keywords, which were visualised as a network to see thematic clusters.
Looking at the yearly distribution of Digital University papers, there are typically 10 to 15 papers each year. In 2015 and 2021, there were more, in the latter case possibly because of a focus on online learning due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Examination of the research methods used showed that mixed methods approaches are particularly important, with a wide range of methods being used, including digital methods.
The network analysis of keywords suggested that the topics covered in the papers broadly fall into six clusters: EdTech and learning design, Critical perspectives, Institutional perspectives, Literacies and multimodality, Online and blended learning, and Social media and identity. Over the ten years, some clusters stayed the same, while others, like ‘Social media and identity’ and ‘literacies and multimodality,’ were more common in the early years.
Co-occurrence network of topic keywords associated with the papers within the sample. Node size is scaled according to frequency, and nodes are colour-coded according to clusters.
Discussing the network
We hope that the analysis can be the start of a wider conversation with the Digital University Network community, about what the Digital University means and where to focus activities in the future. We have launched a blog site for the network, which includes the short paper reporting the analysis, acts as an archive for information about previous events, and creates a space for comments about the future. We will also use the blog site as a place to post information about future events – so we would encourage readers to ‘subscribe’ to the blog, in order to keep up-to-date about future events.
If you are interested in topics related to the Digital University network, please do visit the blog, and (i) comment to let us know about topics you would like to see covered by the network in the future, and (ii) subscribe to the blog to receive notifications about future events, at: https://srhedigitaluniversity.wordpress.com/
Dr. Katy Jordan is a Lecturer in the Department of Educational Research at Lancaster University, where she is a member of the Centre for Technology-Enhanced Learning. Her research interests broadly focus on the use of technology in a range of educational contexts and has published extensively in the field, with particular interest in relation to digital scholarship, open education and equity.
Dr. Janja Komljenovic is a Senior Lecturer 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.
Dr. Jeremy Knox is Associate Professor of Digital Education at the Department of Education, University of Oxford, and an Official Fellow of Kellogg College. 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 has previously served as co-Director of the Centre for Research in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh.
It’s nearly Valentine’s, and I’m looking for love.
Don’t be silly, you scoff. Love doesn’t exist.
Silly Lovers
Silly, then, for one Paulo Freire (1921-1997) to claim education as an act of love. Evoking the four-letter word no fewer than fifty times in the English translation of his Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) the Brazilian educator and philosopher links love with solidarity, humanisation and liberation, to clarify education’s mission as building a world where it is easier to love, and where educators must risk acts of love.
Laughable, too, that his contemporary James Baldwin (1924-1987) analysed love in its full range of possibilities, including erotic, platonic and familial, as well as relating to racial justice and the arts. The queer black author-activist is popularly understood to have compared the role of the artist to ‘exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see’.
One generation on, bell hooks (1952-2021) took things further. For the poet-professor, love is a ‘practice of freedom’ to ‘move against domination, against oppression’. More than an act of resistance, hooks is asking for a re-positioning of our very being, which demands a shift that is both ontological (how we are), as well as epistemological (how we think). ‘The moment we choose to love we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways to liberate ourselves and others’ (1994). Critically, diversity is key – not contrary – to this love. The same way opposites can attract, a ‘beloved’ community is formed ‘not by the eradication of difference but by its affirmation, by each of us claiming the identities and cultural legacies that shape who we are and how we live in the world’ (1995).
Laughable Academics
Sure, love might exist, but these are marginalised lovers, movers and shakers from the last century. So woolly and passé, you scoff. Serious academics today do not talk about love. Nor do they laugh (much), you kindly warn. If you want to be taken seriously, grow up. Act professional.
Cheers, but I’m not just an(y) academic.
I’m an artist. It’s my job to be dotty. That’s why when the pandemic hit, I discussed how the queen of dots Yayoi Kusama gives form and direction to unknowns, and called for the governments to embed artists to strategise bold exit strategies and to curate new visions. I called this ‘artful leadership’, where artists catalyse change beyond the remit of art and design.
I’m also flagrantly hyperactive and dyslexic. I connect dots in novel ways. I love mixing and mis-matching things, to see what happens. Like running with the arts and humanities, which has helped catalysed a movement (pun fully intended) of creative ‘running studies’ and running artists as change-makers.
Although neurodivergence is over-represented in art and design, what makes my approach a-typical within HE and HE art and design includes my background as a working-class migrant. Others may laugh or mock, but my autism and thick-skin make me as impervious as the most wrinkled elephants. I laugh back, by calling upon the octopus to confront the elephants in the ivory tower with ‘tentacular pedagogy’. Driven by the art school ethos of creativity, courage, curiosity and change-making, but with its hearts in neurodiversity, decolonisation and intersectionality, this teaching and (un-)learning framework rallies art and design to play a pro-active leadership role to remove barriers in HE, update art and design’s mission to serve ‘society, the economy and the environment’, and fulfil UNESCO’s vision for HE to prioritise care, solidarity and social justice by 2050 (easy-peasy).
Out of Love
Easy now, dear, you say. We’re all grown up and sophisticated. Like the woolly mammoth, slavery, sexism and the lot are extinct. Move on, I hear you say. Why does your kind like dwelling about the past?
Well, no more than those who like to reminisce of the mythical ‘good old days’, I shrug. Also, like the crafty Covid virus, far from being wiped out, the worst of us is alive and kicking, and have mutated to multiple guises.
All amid the small matters of an ongoing double pandemic, (support for) killings, and (culture) wars.
Love Sick
If this makes you feel sick, stick with me.
I’d love to work together, not divide us further.
After all, Baldwin had grasped that love is hard work. Love ‘does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does’, and is instead ‘a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up’ (1960), of individuals, of societies.
Building a beloved community, and building a community that gets the value of a beloved community, is hard work. You’d agree that to get there, to catalyse any form of meaningful change, education is key. It’s just as well that, like love, hooks considers education a practice of freedom, in her tantalisingly-titled book Teaching to Transgress(1994).
This brings us back to Freire, who states that, to foster change, love, as well as dialogue, are ‘indispensable’ (1970). Dialogue ‘cannot exist’ in the ‘absence of a profound love for the world and its people’. Founded upon ‘love, humility, and faith’, ‘dialogue becomes a horizontal relationship of which mutual trust between the dialoguers is a logical consequence’.
Love Letters to the Future
That’s why myself and many others involved in social justice and decolonial work in art and design have been opening up spaces for dialogue and action within and outside of HE centred on love.
I’ve been theorising a love-centred form of leadership. Rather than a trait or talent hinged on individuals, hierarchy, organisations, positions, genes or luck, I re-imagine leadership as a diversified, beyond-colonial, neuro-queered and (co-)creative practice, outlining ‘neuro-futurism’ as a multi-faceted toolkit within this. Care, compassion, kindness, joy, thriving and empathy are key in this (ignore the boffins who claim that autistic people don’t get empathy).
But armchair pontifications are too cosy. Which is why my book draws on my own trial and (many) errors. They include my ongoing attempts to embody and test out modes of change- and future-making, as well as to foster such possibilities for others.
That was why I created a performance and installation last November, where I ran speed-dates with people from all walks, who also share their wishes for the future in the form of red tags that they tie to a staircase, which a visitor has termed ‘love letters to the future’ (Figure 1):
Figure 1: ‘Peace and Love’ for 2050 (Tan 2023)
That was also why, as a jury member for the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival in Japan last October, we awarded the top prize to an anonymous filmmaker who had been imprisoned by the Myanmar military junta. We get how life- and career-changing such a prestigious award can be for the filmmaker, and what a powerful message of solidarity for other creative makers equally imprisoned – actual and otherwise – such a move sends.
That is also why, despite extensive challenges, I have remained thick-skinned as trustee board member of an arts and social justice charity, and helped to steer radical transformation in its governance, by embedding co-creation and anti-oppression policies and practices, leading to the appointment of its first, black neurodivergent female Artistic Director.
Love Seek
For the new year, I’m doubling down on my insistence on love. I’ll do so through a new project, entitled FAB PALS.
In the pilot, I will travel to different parts of my new adopted home of Hampshire, to look for artful leaders amongst hard to reach easy to ignore. This includes the Nepalese community who had made immeasurable sacrifices during the ‘good old days’ of the British Empire, but whose courage and creativity are now all but forgotten. I will volunteer at each site, to learn about their efforts on social and climate change, and how they survive and thrive within structures not built for and often designed to harm them. We will co-create stories set in the future, to visualise alternative, better realities that they aspire towards. These stories will irritate the dominant narratives of Hampshire as a twee stomping-ground of the elite, consistently ranked UK’s most desirable place to live in, and/or the best place to escape from a zombie apocalypse. Festivals are fab, so we will showcase this in a festival called Futures Artful Biennale (‘FAB’).
This can then be scaled-up and extended, to create a model of allyship and solidarity between HE and the community, in and beyond Hampshire. The spotlight will be on how the ‘undercommons’ within HE can find and team up with the under-dogs outside, and collaborate as artful leaders. Networks go beyond performative allyship and foster meaningful friendships, so we’ll do so through a network called ‘Partnering Artful Leaders’ (‘PALS’).
FAB PALS flips the narrative HE art and design as under-valued, as outlined in a report led by CHEAD. It does so by using EDI as a positive force and creative solution — not an appendix or problem. It will enable others, including ‘naysayers’, to learn about and from participants as consultants and collaborators. In the longer run, FAB PALS will co-develop a visual access rider with local communities about equitable ways of working with HE. FAB PALS critiques the common narrative of HE helicoptering into communities to colonise efforts, and/or confuse and harm with bureaucratic processes, contracts and forms demanded by research ethics offices thick with legalese to minimise risk for HE, then leaves, just as suddenly, once the ‘public engagement’, ‘impact’ and ‘diversity monitoring’ boxes are ticked.
Out of Love
Any discussion of the future must include the next generation, as well as education. My generation – myself included – have been responsible for much of the lovelessness and harm that we see now and for a while. Which is also why we must help to clean up after ourselves, to learn from beloved communities to push back on the push-backs. In particular, the bold interventions of queer, neurodivergent, multi-disciplinary Gen-Z artists such as Jacob V Joyce bring to live Freire’s explanation of love as an ‘act of courage, not of fear’ (1970).
In a new masters programme on arts and cultural leadership, I’ve also been calling upon hooks, Joyce and others, to not just decolonise, but love-bomb the curriculum. Rather than those offered by run-of-the-mill arts management degrees, the modules I lead on seek to dismantle the master’s story of leadership, and to build one out of love. This morning, I was more than proud to receive a 5000-word assignment entitled ‘love’ submitted by a student, which explores the role of oxytocin and power-sharing in leadership.
Sure, the academy ‘is not paradise’, reminds hooks (1995). Nonetheless, education remains a ‘location of possibility’, and learning remains ‘a place where paradise can be created’. Freire adds that if ‘education alone cannot transform society, without it society cannot change either’ (2004).
The road ahead is quite definitely not paradise. Still, I’ve observed that many in the business of teaching — and especially teaching art and design — do what we do, despite set-backs, because we believe that art and design, HE and HE art and design, can be a force for good. That’s why we work with students, who will lead the following generations to ask better questions. We continue to risk acts of love, knowing that change, like love, takes time, and that we can build a world where it is easier to love. As artist-lovers, we want to make others conscious of the things they don’t see, and to replace harmful structures, cultures and mindsets with oxytocin, justice, solidarity, humanisation, liberation and joy, and move towards freedom.
If you don’t get this, it’s because only serious, artful academics get – and want to beget – love.
I’ve outlined my seriously silly efforts to beget love. It’s only been 25 years since my first full-time HE teaching role – I moisturise, cheers, love – and I’ll keep trying.
Do tell me about your efforts, so that we can join hands.
Acknowledgements: The author is grateful to the many radical artist-lovers who have inspired her to look into love. The photograph is a detail of ‘Have a Speed-Date With Kai – Let’s Re-Imagine Our (Collective) Future Together’ by Kai Syng Tan (2023), as part of Ordinary Things, which was an exhibition curated by Professor Louise Siddons, The Winchester Gallery. The photograph was taken by Amy Hamilton.
Kai Syng Tan PhD PFHEA is a trans-disciplinary artist-curator, advisor and Associate Professor in Arts and Cultural Leadership, University of Southampton. Her book Re-Imagining Leadership with Neuro-Futurism: An A-Z Towards Collective Liberation (Palgrave Macmillan 2024) will be out in Spring. These are her personal views. @kaisyngtan
