The student self: variations in the trajectories of first-year students

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The student self variations in the trajectories
of first-year students
     

• Monica McLean, Andrea Abbas, Paul Ashwin and
  Ourania Filippakou
• Seminar for CHEER
• March 10 2010

Funded by
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Pedagogic Quality and Inequality in University
First Degrees

• Origins challenge to quality and league tables
• Aim to therorise just pedagogic quality
• Objectives (1) to evaluate the value for
  students of
• sociology degrees in different universities (2)
  critically
• to use Bernsteinian concepts to investigate
  whether
• how structural characteristics play out in
  curriculum
• and pedagogy (3) to contribute to debates about
• pedagogic quality

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Pedagogic Quality and Inequality in University
First Degrees Bernstein

• Bernsteins theory social biases in education
  that result in unequal access to knowledge that
  extends freedom to imagine and act
• The concept of code classification and framing
• How boundaries are relayed by various pedagogic
  processes so as to distribute, shape, position
  and opposition forms of consciousness (2000,
  p.xiii)

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Pedagogic Rights
Right Level The right to Capability
Enhancement Individual the means of critical understanding and to new possibilities. (2000,p.xx) Confidence
Inclusion Social be included socially, intellectually, culturally and personally. (ibid) Communitas
Participation Political to participate in the construction, maintenance and transformation of order (ibid. p.xxi) Civic discussion action
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Overall research questions

1. What pedagogic discourses and disciplinary
   knowledges are constructed and sanctioned?
2. What pedagogic identities are being invoked?
3. How is the distribution of pedagogic rights
   manifested?
4. How are students positioning themselves and how
   are they being positioned in relation to
   pedagogic rights?

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Methods of Data Collection 4 universities- 2 top
half and 2 bottom half

• Key informants (interviews)
• 96 first-year lifegrids and interviews
  (fieldnotes)
• 32 longitudinal case studies
• Final-year survey
• Assessed work each year (commentaries)
• Videotapes each year
• Textual analysis

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First year life-girds and interviews analytic
process

• Lifegrids past me memory defines who you are
• 44 Interviews Nvivo first stage coding previous
  education and employment me now family wider
  university future identities current education
• Attributes including Change -education,
  family, housing, health (high, low, medium)
• 12 interviews second-stage coding- highest and
  lowest change and me now, family and future
  identities
• Internal language of description narratives of
  self as student
• External language of description Bernstein,
  Archer, Reay et al.,Leathwood

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Low change
Pseudo Uni Ge Class Eth Quals
Barry (19) 1 1 Teacher (no degree ) homemaker W B A-levels
Prue (19) 1 1 Cleaner/ sales manager W B A-levels
Elspeth (19) 1 2 Teacher /administrator W B A levels
Martha (19) 1 1 Teacher (no degree) W B A-levels
Harriet (21) 2N 1 Painter-decorator / homemaker B B A-levels
Caroline (19) 3 2 Teachers WB A levels
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High Change
Pseud. Univ Ge Class Ethn Quals
Denise (39) 3 2 Podiatrist/home maker WB Access
Stephanie (20) 3 2 Traffic controller/home maker WB A levels
Rita (20) 3 1 Nurse/care worker WB Access
Saira (40) 4 1 Civil service AB Access
Ryan (33) 4 1 Nurse BB Access
Orlando (22) 4 1 Failed business/home maker MRB A levels
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Discussion

• Socio-economic class and self-as-student
  narratives
• Student selves and pedagogic rights
• Multiple narratives
• Archers reflexives
• Bernstein's code
• Outstanding issues inequities in HE just
  pedagogies the lifeworld and the economic agenda

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• http//www.pedagogicquality.ac.uk