Creating a sense of place: the role of personal tutors and social networks

1. Creating a sense of place: the role of personal tutors and social networks  Ciaran Burke Associate Professor of Higher Education @ciaranburkesoc c.burke@derby.ac.uk

2. Widening Participation • Post-war U.K. higher education policy has operated within the context of post-industrial Britain. • Successive policies had a common theme – social justice through access to university: • Higher Education Act (1992) • Teaching and Higher Education Act (1998) • Future of Higher Education (2003) • Students at the Heart of the System (2011) • Beginning with New Labour, we have seen a more direct narrative of widening participation policy.

3. Widening Participation • An issue with some WP policy is that it follows a “History Boys” approach: • Group of “able” working class boys stay at school to prepare for the Oxbridge entrance exam • School hires an Oxbridge graduate to tutor the boys • They are taught to think differently and ultimately be different to be successful • Issues: • Focuses on access • Teaches working class students to “pass” as middle class >

4. Widening Participation • The process of non-traditional students getting on and getting out of higher education has not received the same policy focus or critical attention (Waller, et al., 2018) • As such, policies fail to consider the classed nature of access resulting in: • A sense of not belonging (Reay, et al, 2005; Burke, 2015) • What Reay et al. (2009) refer to as Strangers in Paradise • What Ingram (2018) describes as an individual’s identity being pulled in two different directions • The absence of a sense of place is not surprising but problematic • It is this rift between self and place that personal tutors can begin to address

5. Widening Participation • Widening Participation interventions often take a linear character focused on the individual and at times parents/guardians • Such approaches fail to recognize the need to consider social networks (Fuller, et al., 2011) • Within this context there are three theoretical considerations: • Hot knowledge – Ball and Vincent (1998) • Communicative reflexivity – Archer (2007) • Collective habitus – Bourdieu (1977, 1984)

6. Hot knowledge vs. cold knowledge • In I heard it through the grapevine (1998) Ball and Vincent make the distinction between different forms of knowledge: • Hot knowledge – information from individuals and informal sources • Cold knowledge – information from written/official sources • According to Ball and Vincent, individuals prefer: • Hot knowledge over cold knowledge • Hot knowledge from individuals who share their demographics • Issues being: • Reproduction in levels of understanding higher education • Limited impact of overt widening participation interventions

7. Communicative reflexivity • According to Margaret Archer, a central element in addressing social reproduction and structural inequality is reflexivity: • “reflexive deliberation, via the internal conversation” (2008) • A form of reflexivity within Archer’s model is “communicative reflexivity”: • Individuals discuss things out loud as they need confirmation and completion by others • Issues: • Communicative reflexives tend to interact with those similar to them • This type of reflexivity can support social reproduction • However, Kahn (2017) develops this position to argue that it depends on who students interact with – here is the opportunity for personal tutors

8. Collective habitus • Within Bourdieu’s structural constructivist theory of practice, habitus plays a central role: • Norms, values and dispositions • These interact with forms of resources within specific contexts • Habitus is “durable, not eternal” – a strong enough interaction or intervention can alter one’s habitus • However, the habitus has a collective level, one which reduces the impact of outside forces: • objective conditions also contain a warning against the ambition to distinguish oneself by identifying with other groups, that is, they are a reminder of the needs of class solidarity’ (Bourdieu, 1984: 381). • Issues: • Reinforces one’s natal sense of place • Potential to dilute the impact of an intervention

9. Proposed study • These issues are the starting point of my RARA supported project • Research question asks: to what extent do social networks reinforce or dilute the impact of personal tutors? • Adaptation of Scott’s (2013) social network analysis where a relational analysis focusing on contacts, ties and connections will be applied. • Sample: • 10 to 15 undergraduate students • Three significant individuals per undergraduate student • Method: • Semi-structured interviews • Visual methods • Imagined correspondence

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