Experience of Higher Education among non-traditional students

CHAPTER EIGHT

EXPERIENCES OF HIGHER EDUCATION AMONG NON-TRADITIONAL STUDENTS

AGNIESZKA BRON

How non-traditional students experience participation in higher education (HE) including access, retention, learning, support and teaching, achievement, drop- out and graduation, as well as the plans and dreams they have in life are questions explored here empirically and theoretically. This chapter is based on the Swedish results from the two European projects RANLHE and EMPLOY.

The analysis is based on data gathered using in-depth biographical interviews with several non-traditional students, some conducted longitudinally. This, together with theorizing results, may contribute to a better understanding of the situation for non-traditional students and ways to enhance their participation in HE.

1. Introduction

The aim of this chapter is to present a synthesis of the Swedish research results from two European projects concerning a specific group of higher education (HE) students – non- traditional students. In the broadest sense, this research defines non-traditional students as an under-represented group participating in HE, denoting both mature as well as young adult students who are the first in their families to enter HE (cf. Merrill and Lyn, 2013; Thunborg and Bron 2012). This group of students has become important in various countries both in the global North and South. One of the issues is how HE can contribute both to democratic society and at the same time support the employability of non-traditional students.

This chapter is based on Swedish results from two projects run between 2008 to 2011, and 2014

to 2017, in which seven countries participated – Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Poland,

Portugal, Spain and Sweden. The University of Warwick with Barbara Merrill led these

projects. The RANLHE project on Access and Retention of Non-traditional Students in HE

concerned the following objectives: to identify the factors that promote or constrain access,

retention and completion for non-traditional students in HE; as well as to increase our

understanding of what advances or limits the construction of a learner’s identity of non-

traditional students to become effective learners (Finnegan, Merrill and Thunborg 2014). The

EMPLOY EU project on Enhancing employability for non-traditional students in Higher

Education on the other hand, dealt with the aim of promoting the enhancement of the

employability of students in HE from a non-traditional background (both young and mature) through improving the efficiency of transitions into the graduate labour market (EMPLOY 2016).

Employability is defined in its broadest sense as an individual’s ability to find, retain and/or move between jobs (Clarke 2008); the retention of and/or movement between jobs means shifting from being employed towards becoming employable (Williams et al. 2016). To become employable, various HE competencies are needed.

Our research questions, implicated, among others, how non-traditional students experience participation in HE including access, retention, learning, support and teaching, achievements, drop-out and graduation, as well as how they understood employability? What kinds of plans and dreams they had in life generally, and concerning employment specifically, including strategies for employability? We previously studied non-traditional students and graduates’ life transitions during and after HE from a retrospective perspective. We focused on what learning paths could be identified from the non-traditional graduates’ stories. What identity struggles were found in relation to their careers and life in general? How identities in relation to these struggles are formed and transformed?

In both European projects, the idea was to study similar HE institutions, which meant a deliberate choice based on the academic culture of the institutions (cf, Finnegan, Merrill and Thunborg, 2014). The HE organisations are differentiated on the basis of discipline cultures (Becher 1987, Becher & Trowler 2001, Alheit 2013). In Sweden, in the RANLHE project, we conducted our field study in Stockholm at three HE institutions (Stockholm University SU;

Royal Institute of Technology KTH and Karolinska Institutet KI) – all of them with a high academic habitus (Bourdieu 1990). We therefore chose variations of programmes based on different types of disciplines and with various statuses (Becher 1987). We studied both the institutions and staff as well as non-traditional students.

In the EMPLOY project, we once again studied various HE institutions but this time each partner concentrated on their own institutions. In our case we focused on a programme called

‘Personnel, work and organisations’ (PAO) at Stockholm University, where students get a bachelor degree in either Education, Psychology or Sociology within the specific area of Human Resources (HR) and pursue careers within HR jobs.

2. Widening access to HE in Sweden

Sweden has a long-standing policy of widening access to under-represented students. Non-

traditional and traditional students attend the same courses and programmes simultaneously, as

there is no division into full-time and part-time study, rather that the courses for part-time students are less dense and take twice as long. Therefore, the organization of HE is rather flexible.

The Swedish HE system is financed mostly by the state and is free at the point of delivery to students. The total cost of the HE sector in 2016 was 79. 4 billion SEK which made 1.82 per cent of the GNP, from which 9.6 million SEK went to students in the form of loans and grants.

Sweden provides such support for up to a total of 12 semesters to each and every student, with highest age a student can enter being 57 years (UKÄ 2017), which contributes to enhanced access for both young and mature non-traditional students. Thanks to opening access reforms, the student population has become more diverse it terms of age, gender, class, ethnicity and disability.

In 2016, according to national statistics, as many as 42 per cent of the Swedish population between 20 and 64 years of age began studying in HE, whereas 27 per cent had already studied for three years or more (SCB, 2018). However, the participation in HE is not equally distributed, with 60 per cent being female students. Those whose parents have lower levels of formal education are still under-represented (about 20 per cent compared to 42 per cent with parents with higher formal education). However, the gap between students born outside Sweden, or with parents born outside Sweden, and those born in Sweden is decreasing – 44 per cent of those with a Swedish background and 42 per cent of those with a migrant background started to study at the age of 25, but there are still bigger differences between ethnic groups (UKÄ 2017).

3. Theoretical approaches

Both our European projects were grounded in social psychology, sociology and adult education,

and more specifically in the writing of Mead, Giddens and Bourdieu as well as in adult learning

theories (Mezirow 1978, Alheit 1995a, Bron 2000). In the Swedish part of the project, we

worked on the basis of Mead’s (1934) social pragmatism about becoming the self. To bridge

sociological and psychological approaches within the European research team, we agreed upon

two sensitizing concepts from various perspectives: Bourdieu’s (1990) habitus and Winnicott’s

(1971) transitional space. We found both concepts useful during the open coding (preliminary

analysis) and our understanding of student experiences. By sensitizing concepts, in accordance

with Blumer (1954), we meant those that were not definitive but those serving as a guide to

move towards empirical observations, and giving “the user a general sense of reference and

guidance in approaching empirical instances”. In comparison “A definitive concept refers

precisely to what is common to a class of objects, by the aid of a clear definition in terms of attributes or fixed benchmarks” (Blumer 1955, p. 7).

We used sociological theorizing about academic culture taking into consideration Becher’s (1987) two distinctions between hard vs. soft and applied vs. pure disciplines. We theorized the dynamics of cultures and sub-cultures in academia with the help of Bourdieu’s concept of habitus (Bourdieu 1990). Depending on the position of the discipline in the field, it was possible to identify an exclusive, ambivalent, pragmatic or inclusive habitus (see Alheit 2013).

We also theorized our biographical data in depth in accordance with an abductive perspective.

Mead’s (1934) concept of the forming of the self and Giddens’ (1984) theory of structuration, and the relation between structure and agency were useful when commencing the data analysis process. As the social act is never fully agentic or fully determined but is an interaction between the two, Giddens’ (1984) structuration concept was helpful.

4. Methodology and sample

Working abductively in the first project, we were already able to build a theory of biographical work, which we tested against the data (Bron and Thunborg 2017). However, building the theory took us quite a long time, and we had already been working with narratives for some time before we started the RANLHE project. Therefore, our breakthrough came as a result of the huge amount of biographical data, knowledge of social theory, especially pragmatism, as well as methodology and experiences, and some creativity.

To collect the data for analysis and theorizing, we used a specific approach, namely abductive analysis, which originally came from the work of Charles Sanders Peirce (1903). For Peirce the research act involved moving from a set of observations towards a theoretical generalisation recursively back and forth. “Abduction thus refers to a creative inferential process aimed at producing new hypotheses and theories based on surprising research evidence. Abduction produces a new hypothesis for which we then need to gather more observations” (Tavory and Timmermans 2014, p. 5). Specifically, “Abduction essentially comes about by “guessing right”, while Peirce disliked the term intuition, it is possible to describe abduction as a kind of scientific intuition, (…) that a scientist or scholar is partly born with and partly develops through hard work and the cultivation of one’s imagination” (Swedberg, 2012 p.18).

Working abductively is a systematic approach to being involved in three activities or cognitive

operations – in observations, experimentation and habituation (cf. Peirce’s 1979, Swedberg

2012). Observations involves collecting data using our conscious and logical but also our

unconscious and creative faculties, then we use experimentation to test different sensitizing

concepts as hypotheses against observations, both from other theories as well as those that

appeared in-vivo in interviews. This means to intervene actively in what one studies, and to involve a creative imagination. Finally, habituation focuses on the discoveries from the observations that one tested against the initial hypotheses and concepts (ibid.).

In the RANLHE project, we interviewed different cohorts of students: those in the final year, those who had left but returned later, and those who dropped-out (30 students in each case study institution). We also followed a cohort from their first to final year. In the latter case, we used a longitudinal method, interviewing the same students several times during their HE careers.

The sample of non-traditional students consisted of all the students attending the chosen programmes. All received a questionnaire beforehand; however, only non-traditional students who wanted to participate were interviewed. In this way, we interviewed 100 Swedish students.

In addition, senior management, lecturers and support staff were chosen at random in each HE Institution and interviewed (40 at each institution).

In the EMPLOY project, the whole cohort of students was contacted by e-mail during the last two semesters of their course and those with a non-traditional background, and who wanted to be interviewed, participated. We conducted approximately 60 interviews with 40 non- traditional students (twice with some) and non-traditional graduates (10 non-traditional graduates 2–5 years after graduation). By choosing an HR programme we aimed to not only study graduates’ routes of employability, but also their attitudes towards the labour market and recruitment practices. The project also included interviews with university staff, employers, union representatives, employer organisations and professional bodies randomly chosen (20 in total). Consequently, we obtained three perspectives on student employability from students, HE staff and employers.

In both projects, we used a biographical narrative approach by collecting stories from the

students about their lives (Antikainen et al. 2017). This approach also aimed at obtaining rich

and in-depth accounts, which can offer insights into people’s identities, education, and ways of

coping with their personal and social life, and developing attitudes toward themselves and

others (West, Bron, and Merrill, 2014). Using biographical interviews provided an excellent

opportunity to get access to rich data. However, this method required a complex process of

qualitative analysis, being aware that the stories told have different and unique narrations. “The

aim of the analysis is to see the complete individual story, as well as numbers of stories, to work

with and make sense of this. Thus, researchers have an opportunity to establish concepts,

typologies and in-depth understandings of the stories told, and use their imagination for

generating theory from the data” (Bron 2017, 257–258). Furthermore, working with narrative

interviews enabled us to use two kinds of analyses: synchronic and diachronic. The former aims

to uncover the types of situated identities that students performed at a certain time, while the latter points towards identifying how they formed and transformed their identities over time.

Although we used both approaches when analysing our observations, theorising biographical work originates specifically from the diachronic analysis. Theorising means understanding the data in a processual manner – analysing the data with the help of sensitizing concepts and looking for new concepts to appear. These new concepts and categories need to be described in a more theoretical, abstract language albeit still connected to the data and generated from the acquired data (Bron and Thunborg 2017).

5. Results and theorising biographical work

The access and retention of non-traditional students in HE according to our study in the RANLHE project, mostly regarded processes of identity formation and transformation in HE.

In our case, we began by looking for instances of biographical learning and finished by discovering the process of biographical work (Thunborg, Bron and Edström 2012; Bron, Thunborg and Edström 2014; Thunborg and Bron 2012).

Biographical learning led us to recognise identity forming and transforming. However, the first of our categories that the students encountered was identity struggles, and their accounts of HE as a battlefield or a free zone or both. From analyses of student stories, we found that non- traditional students with a migrant background regarded Higher Education Institutions (HEI) as a free zone that was free of prejudice in society, while students with parents with lower levels of formal education regarded the HEI as a battle field to which they did not belong (Bron, Thunborg and Edström 2014).

We realized how biographical learning took place with the help of an additional two concepts that emerged from previous research – floating (Bron 2000; Bron and Thunborg 2011) and anchoring (Fenwick 2006). Through the analysis of biographical data, we were able not only to see how identities were formed but also to discern how transformations of identities occurred.

The process of anchoring helped us to recognise identity formation; for example, becoming a student or a person. However, when struggles were involved (e.g. struggles in accessing university studies and becoming a student) two processes, floating and anchoring, helped understand the transformation of identity. Identities, however, differ – a ‘learning identity is seen as part of a person’s biography connected to previous experiences of learning, whilst a student identity relates to the specific setting of HE during a certain period in a person’s life’

(Field 2012; Thunborg, Bron and Edström 2013; Bron 2017).

Hence, we discovered three learning identities – learning failure, instrumental learner, and good learner – which through open coding, and as hypotheses, we tested in several stories (selective coding) (Thunborg, Bron and Edström 2013, 185). Finally, we put together a typology of student learning identities. These identities were situated on a continuum between low and high commitment to HE, on the one hand, and risk of dropping-out and continuing, on the other.

In the typology, we sketched out altruistic students (those who wanted to make a difference for others or in society); ambivalent (a student who enters HE, struggling to find out if he/she fits);

car park (something to do while waiting for a job); instrumental (studies in order to get a better job, better life or status); life-long learner (a genuine interest in study but not willing to pass the exam); one-track student (an interest in a specific discipline); risk of failing (a risk of dropping-out, struggling with exams and having high demands); and self-realizer (a mature student who starts studying after a radical change in life) (cf. Thunborg, Bron and Edström 2013).

Yet, as students are continuously occupied with forming and/or transforming their identities, they move easily from one identity to another depending on the HE programmes, sequence of life, and experiences. In other words, identities are flexible, resembling more ideal types, in a Weberian sense, as in our typology (Bron 2017; Alheit 1995b).

In a different analysis of data in the same project, we focused on the identities non-traditional students form during their studies as students situated in the university culture (Alheit 2013, Becher 1987). We discovered three student identity types: adopted, floating and multiple integrated identities. The adopted identity links to students who hide their social background and previous experiences behind a coherent HE identity (they learn to ‘play a game’ of being students). The floating identity relates to students struggling with who they are, with a feeling of being stuck, not able to go back, or forward, and not able to decide whether they belong in HE altogether. Finally, the multiple integrated identity where students see themselves as having various identities connected to different periods of their life and life settings, but with a conviction that all these identities are part of them (feeling natural as students) (Thunborg, Bron and Edström 2012).

Processes of forming and transforming identities, while learning biographically, led us further to discover a practice of biographical work based on the analysis of longitudinal interviews. By biographical work we mean a process of becoming aware, retrospectively and consciously, about one’s own identity struggles while being involved in its formation and transformation.

Hence, the core of biographical work is identity struggles that are connected to two processes

a student is involved in – floating and anchoring. These processes lead to either situated identities or integrated identities. The first concerning identities as students, the second identities as a person (including being a student). Biographical work as a theoretical concept was problematized in Bron and Thunborg (2017)

Engaging with biographical work as a theoretical frame of reference, in the next project, we studied the life transitions of non-traditional graduates before, during and after HE from a retrospective perspective. Among others we analysed two graduates, and to our surprise we found that several years after graduation they were still in transition. The first graduate looked to be in recurrent formation, while the second appeared to be in constant transition. Both were anxious about their future life and were struggling with their lack of social networks – the first only used the contacts he already had, while the second was actively trying to build her own social networks by overcoming these difficulties in her own career. Being in transition, not knowing what to expect next, also made us wonder what being in constant transition is like. Do people try to avoid life crises in the process of floating or is there a strong likelihood they could end up in a floating situation, not knowing what may happen next? This has been further elaborated within the theory of biographical work (Bron 2000, Thunborg and Bron 2018).

If we selected only mature graduates from our sample we could focus on their transition from HE to working life, and more specifically study the transition paths that could be identified from their stories; what paths were considered to be successful, and what kinds of struggles did mature graduates experience by following the ‘right paths’. To this end, we analysed 17 interviews with 12 mature graduates (including five we returned to after one year). We concentrated on successful paths to getting a job in the HR sector, and could identify eight transition paths: linear, parallel, shadowing, internship, mentorship, further education, changing career and returning path – some being considered ‘the right path’ to find an HR position, others compensatory paths, and still others less successful where the graduate failed to get a position in HR. Despite the fact that many of the paths were effective for getting a position in HR, only one path appears to be understood as the ‘right one’ – the parallel path.

To find a job in the HR sector already while studying was the most common path for young as well as mature graduates. However, for the mature graduates, this path implied many struggles.

In the narratives where the respondents were not able to follow the right path, the balance

between family, being a student and working life was obvious, but there were also other

difficulties that mature graduates experienced, such as not being fluent enough in Swedish

and/or English, or being seen as overqualified, or attributing the failure to age discrimination.

These problems prevented mature graduates from trying to find a part-time job within the HR sector. They struggled in their transition from HE to the labour market, which links to aspects of difficulties in not being able, allowed, willing or even daring to follow the right path.

On starting the EMPLOY project, and analysing official statistics, we found that students with parents without an HE degree largely choose programmes within the education sector, while students with ethnic minority backgrounds mainly choose programmes in the health care sector (Thunborg and Bron 2018). Therefore, we assumed that these groups help to fill a gap in the labour market, while students whose parents were Swedish and had an HE degree, tended to participate in high-status programmes such as Master studies, studies in Law and general academic programmes (not leading to a specific vocation). The latter tend to prepare them better to acquire competences to compete for other positions on the labour market. It appears as if HE is perpetuating instead of challenging a segregated labour market. One could conclude, perhaps, that HE policy is not yet contributing to equality and social mobility (cf. Fleming and González- Monteagudo, 2014).

6. Conclusions

This chapter includes a synthesis of the results from two projects, also described in earlier and future publications by the authors, that looked at student experiences of HE, including access, learning careers, graduation and employability. Using abductive methodology and theoretically driven analysis led to outcomes concerning the formation and transformation of non-traditional student identities through biographical work when learning biographically. Likewise, our results revealed the struggles that non-traditional students experience during HE and en route to the labour market after graduation, and in particular added to our understanding of how students deal with employability and learning in HE. One issue concerned the consequences of a divide between the traditional role of HEIs (i.e. learning) and the new political aim of contributing to graduate employability that could lead to instrumental identity forming among students.

In addition, this chapter reveals some ways of conducting research into HE and biographical

learning in non-traditional students, as well as presenting some results when using an in-depth

biographical approach (West, Bron and Merrill 2014). Students experience institutional culture

like being involved in a battle, enduring struggles and having difficulties being understood, as

well as understanding how the academic culture operates. Some others have the opposite

experience: they struggle in society, while university feels like a free zone, in which they can

be themselves, get credit for own merits, exist outside the prejudice that dominates in society

at large, and not feel like strangers. Our longitudinal studies contributed to the nuances in understanding the concept of identity – the way the identities of students and learners differ. In particular, mature students do not feel like students but rather learners. Using a thorough abductive analysis, we could recognise various types of identities. Many students were instrumental with low commitment to their studies, not interested in learning, but just passing the courses, some could have been at risk of dropping out. However, those who were self- realisers or on a one-track path felt highly committed to HE. Student and learner identities change according to their biographies but those who experience multiple integrated identities are committed not only to multiple settings but also to one’s sense of being. Such a result was also possible as we looked at how structure and agency could both enable and constrain student actions and decisions in both life and HE.

The policy of employability affects final-year non-traditional students and graduates; they struggle with being employable but are still floating several years after graduation. It is important to stress that the voices of employers and HE support staff, as well as lecturers, on the issue of employability provided us with a better understanding of the kinds of situations students are situated in (Osman & Thunborg 2019).

Finally, this chapter refers to various methodological and theoretical considerations, and steps that we took when achieving analytically critical results leading to new theoretical conclusions.

In this meta-analysis we started from biographical learning that non-traditional student experience, and arrived at the notion and theory of biographical work.

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