Going the extra mile: spaces between rhetoric and experience SRHE Annual Conference 2015, 9-11 November 2015 Converging concepts in global higher education research: Local, national and international perspectives Kate Thomas Research Fellow Birmingham City University

Going the extra mile? Staff working with mature part-time undergraduates engage in compensatory behaviour to bridge the gap between an institutional rhetoric of belonging and student experiences of peripherality Institutional geographies of power (Massey, 2005) position these staff as peripheral in both pre-and post-1992 institutions Who belongs? Who matters?

research context multiple case study 2013-2015 4 English higher education institutions 3 post-1992, 1 pre-1992 8 site visits 25 interviews with staff: strategic, senior management, teaching , support 5 student workshops

belonging in HE ‘Individuals’ ability to become competent members of academic and social communities of the college relies on a raft of variables including student congruency (institutional ‘fit’) and integration in academic and social spheres of the HE.’ (Tinto 1988, p.452)

‘belonging’ ‘At the heart of successful retention and success is a strong sense of belonging in HE for all students. This is most effectively nurtured through mainstream activities that all students participate in … our definition of ‘belonging’ is closely aligned with the concept of student engagement, encompassing both academic and social …’ (Thomas 2012, p.6) ‘Belonging … is often used in a way that implies a common understanding of what belonging is and why belonging is important. Needless to say, no such common understanding exists.’ ‘Practices of belonging within a place not only mark the claims of particular groups to particular territories, but in doing so, inevitably identify ‘the other’, excluding on the basis of difference, defined and implemented through relationships of power.’ (Mee and Wright 2009:772)

institutional geographies of power centre >institutional rhetoric

mature part-time student experiences multiple engagement home work HE communityy centre

It can be draining … we just have to bend over backwards really …but if we go that extra mile and they succeed, then we’ve done something really good bridging the gap We do what we need to do to keep people on board There’s a very strong understanding of the context and environment in which those people are working The tutors are really supportive; it’s just the wider university system is not geared up for part-time students, Saturday students, mature students They’ll do Skype, they’ll do email, they’ll do late night tutorials if that’s what we need. We try to be a village within the big city of the university We set up a kind of protective enclave for them

peripherality We seem to be lone voices – as someone described it Oh you’re here to talk about the odd programmes. We’re an oddity really, you’re having to work round systems that aren’t quite right. Teaching twilights and weekends raises a whole load of other issues for staff, and sustainability of staff. Where does that stop? Are we all going to be nocturnal creatures, moles scurrying around? I’m always in there with elbows, fighting for part-time. We’re not a big cohort here, and a lot of the decisions are made on the full-time and the Masters .

shared ownership a wider territory for the ‘complex social process of student-institution negotiation’ (Ozga and Sukhnandan 1998, p.316) a human interface between institution and individual the individual at large in the world recognition of multiple engagement

Questions? Thank you. Kate Thomas Research Fellow Birmingham City University kate.thomas@bcu.ac.uk