Student Carers in Higher Education: Navigating, Resisting, and Re-inventing Academic Cultures

Description

This timely volume explores the ways that university institutions affect the experiences of student carers and how student carers negotiate the (often conflicting) demands of care and academic work. The book maps the experiences of student carers in academic cultures, exploring the intersectional ways in which gender, class, race and other social categories define who can take up a position as a student and a carer. It is framed by concerns of equity and diversity in higher education and ways that diverse people with wide-ranging care responsibilities are able to access and engage with degree-level study. The book promotes the idea of a more inclusive and equitable higher education environment and supports the emergence of more ‘care-full’ academic cultures which value and recognise care and carers. The book will be highly relevant reading for academics, researchers and post-graduate students with an interest in higher education, social justice, gender studies and caring responsibilities. It will also be of interest to postgraduate students in sociology of education as well as higher education policymakers. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents List of Illustrations Figures Tables Editors List of Contributors Acknowledgements Chapter 1: Introduction Student Carers in Higher Education: In/visibilities and Mis/recognition Researching Higher Education, Care and Equity Volume Overview References Chapter 2: Affective Equality in Higher Education: Resisting the Culture of Carelessness Introduction The ‘Males-Only’ Tradition The Gendered Social Order and Education Higher Education as Bureaucracies Human Capital, the Academy and Care Carers and the Neoliberal Academy Students and Caring Ireland Student Resistance to the Consumerist View of Higher Education Conclusion: New Managerialism, Commercialisation and Student Resistance Notes References Chapter 3: Negotiating Embodied Aspirations: Exploring the Emotional Labour of Higher Education Persistence for Female Caregivers Introduction Literature Review University Participation and Women University as a Gendered Institution Research Design Theoretical Framing Findings Emotional Underpinnings of University Attendance Hidden Work and Negotiations Enacting Success and Persistence Discussion Note References Chapter 4: Belonging, Space and the Marginalisation of University Childcare The Australian University Context Child-free Australian University Spaces Narratives of Fatigue: My University Campus Initiation Safety Notice Children in the Building Must Be under the Supervision of an Adult at All Times Gender Norms: Care-full Students In Closing References Chapter 5: Anything but ‘carelessness’: Employed student-mothers’ experiences of low-status vocational higher education Introduction The development, expansion and gendered nature of the teaching assistant workforce The development of foundation degrees and the challenges of student-motherhood Theoretical frame and the study’s methodology Theoretical frame Methodology Limited access to capital and an attempt to move away from lower-status care work Navigating the emotions of study, discourses of care and identity work Conclusion References Chapter 6: ‘A Space for Me, but What about My Family?’: The Experiences of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Student Carers in UK Higher Education Introduction The Context of Caring for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Communities in the UK Caring Responsibilities and Higher Education Access to Higher Education Take-Up of Higher Education Delivery of Higher Education Both Students and Carers, within Family Contexts – How University Is Experienced by Gypsies, Roma and Travellers Chelsea Chrissie Colin 1988–1992 1992–1994 1995–2013 2013–2021 Analysis of the Three Autobiographies Living in ‘Two Different Worlds’ The Importance of Capital Caring for Others, but also Self-Care Supporting Structures and People Conclusion Note References Chapter 7: Resisting Colonisation: Indigenous Student-Parents’ Experiences of Higher Education Colonial Influences on Indigenous Participation in Higher Education Indigenous Student-Parents and Postsecondary Success The Indigenous Wholistic Framework Methodology Participants Analytical Approach Teachings from Indigenous Student-Parents Lesson One: Responsibility to Others ‘My Mom Stopped Work Just for Me’ ‘Home Helps Ground Me’ Lesson Two: Challenging Expectations Challenging Postsecondary Student Norms Challenging the Dominant Narrative of Student Success Lesson Three: Resiliency through Relationships On- and Off-Campus Visioning Wholistic Support for Indigenous Student-Parents Wholistic Weavings: Concluding Thoughts Notes References Chapter 8: How the ‘caring chain’ impacts the decision to study abroad, overseas experiences and career plan: A narrative analysis about a Chinese single mother Introduction Literature review: the invisibility of international student carers Research methods Fangfang’s story: as a single mother, as a single child Discussion Mother identity Intergenerational support Concluding thoughts Notes References Chapter 9: Doctoral carers: Tracing contradictory discourses and identifying possibilities for a more care-full doctoral education Introduction: widening participation and the category of ‘doctoral carers’ The study and participants: the Uneasy Feelings project A care-free woman in a room of her own or a stressed-out octopus on wheels? The conflicted discursive space of doctoral-motherhood Doctoral student-mother: complex and contradictory discourses Conceptualising care-full doctoral education Conclusion Notes References Chapter 10: Fragmented Perceptions of Institutional Support for Food-Insecure Student-Parents Theoretical Framework Four Perspectives on Organisational Life for Food-Insecure Student-Parents Senior Administrator Staff Student Leader Student-Parent Discussion Differentiation Fragmentation Note References Chapter 11: ‘It’s not only me doing things for me’: Conference participation for doctoral students with caring responsibilities Introduction Framing conference attendance for doctoral students who are carers Conferences for doctoral students Conferences for carers The ‘In Two Places at Once’ study Doctoral students attending conferences Doctoral students with caring responsibilities attending conferences Account 1: working from home or home-bound? Account 2: Available to drop everything? Account 3: Time and money running out Account 4: Enhanced constraints as a sole parent/doctoral researcher Account 5: Full-time academic, part-time doctoral student…and carer Discussion Conclusion Acknowledgements References Chapter 12: Conclusion Resisting the ‘ideal’, care-free student and calling for care-centric academic cultures Academic norms and carers’ identities: intersectionality and diversity Negotiating spaces of participation: beyond a rhetoric of access Concluding comments References Index