18th EAN Annual International ConferenceYork St John University

22-24 June 2009

Diversity, inclusion, and the transforming student experience

Professor Stuart Billingham

• Focus on under-representation and barriers

• Retained emphasis on under-representation but with new focus on student “life-course”; “life cycle”; “learning journey”, and issues of “transition(s)” and “success”

• More attention now to “life in HE” and “life after HE” and not just “life before HE”

Conceptualising WP

A Cultural Change Agenda

• Thomas (2005) identified four key priorities:– Introducing diversity into the curriculum...– Mainstreaming interactive, student-centred learning and

teaching...– Reviewing assessment strategies that are suitable for all

students...– Moving towards an integrated model of academic and

pastoral support that enables all students to achieve their potential

L.Thomas (2005) The implications of widening particpation for learning and teaching, in Chris Duke and Geoff Layer (eds) Widening participation: which way forward for English higher education, NIACE

Thessaloniki 2006

• “An integrated strategy for widening participation requires fresh thinking about what we mean by WP”

• “It requires a new discourse and new practices within institutions...”

S. Billingham (2006) Long live widening participation: integrated strategy for sustainable change, EAN 15th Annual Conference, 30 August – 1 September, Thessalonki, Greece

Embedding Widening

Participation

Partnerships for Community Capacity

Non-deficitDiscourse

SustainableChange

Learning Reconsidered

• “Learning Reconsidered defines learning as a comprehensive, holistic, transformative activity that integrates academic learning and student development processes that have often been considered separate, and even independent of each other.”

NASPA (2004) Learning Reconsidered: A Campus-Wide Focus on the Student Experience, National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA), emphases in the original

Partnerships and Power

• Learning Reconsidered disturbs several traditional bases of power and influence in the academy. In particular,

• “...it is only through the explicit integration of academic learning and student development that we can provide a transformative experience”

NASPA (2004) Learning Reconsidered: A Campus-Wide Focus on the Student Experience, National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA), emphasis added

The student experience as learning

• The potential of viewing the student experience through “learning goals”– Learning to perform (motor and perceptual skills)– Learning to make sense (subject knowledge and

cognitive understandings)– Learning to participate (becoming part of

communities)– Learning to be (developing one’s sense of identity)

With thanks to Jill Armstrong, adapted from: B. Van Oers et.al., eds (2008) The Transformation of Learning:Advances in Cultural-Historical Theory, Cambride University Press

Two Years On

• A recent UK discussion paper on how to continue to provide high quality teaching and student experiences against a background of a more diverse student population, identifies three priorities:– Reforming curriculum and assessment– Developing a more flexible workforce– Rethinking quality and engaging students in a

responsible partnershipP.Ramsden (2008) The Future of Higher Education Teaching and the Student Experience, Dept for Innovation, Universities & Skills (DIUS),

Widening Participation or Engagement?

• Participation in can suggest simply taking part in what exists already

• Might engagement with serve us better in terms of suggesting change not only to who participates (narrow definition of diversity) but also to – the basis of participation (partnership and

inclusion)– the what, where, and when of participation

(broad definition of diversity)

Partnerships and Power

For example, in terms of the basis of participation:

• “We will not be able to take the student experience forward unless we see it as a joint venture between students and those who provide higher education”

P.Ramsden (2008) The Future of Higher Education Teaching and the Student Experience, Dept. for Innovation, Universities & Skills

Widening Engagement

• Widening participation as widening engagement leads us to ask, for example:– Is the range of people, organisations, agencies

involved with the design, delivery, evaluation and enhancement of student learning goals consistent with ‘the broad definition of diversity’?

– Are the ways in which these individuals, organisations and agencies engage with higher education institutions, and the sector generally, consistent with the principles of inclusion and partnership?

The Future?

• In summary:

• Widening engagement with higher education is about overcoming current and historic patterns of under-representation through exploiting new ways for these sections of our society to help shape higher education