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Abstract

Equal access to higher education has for long been a political ambition, however, despite the expansion of the number of students now entering higher education it has not yet been achieved. The present special issue offers insights into the encounter between students from non-traditional backgrounds and higher education. Five individual studies from four countries offer a unique contribution to understand non-traditional students’ risk of dropping out of higher education as more than a question of academic preparation and hence individual deficits. Together the five papers display a variety of analyses of a key issue for the European Higher Education Area: attracting and retaining a wider group of students. The results show how non-traditional students across countries are made up of a complex mosaic of voices. Hence, the special issue makes a call to move away from the stereotypical images of non-traditional students, and to continue analysing the variety, the complexity and diversity of non-traditional students and their encounter with higher education.

Keywords

Non-traditional students higher education equal access Bourdieu retention inclusion

Right after World War II, the Danish Minstry of Social and Labour Market Affairs had two commissions addressing the access of young people to post-compulsory schooling and to higher education (Ungdomskommissionen, 1949). The results of their work clearly reflected the sentiment that whoever had the interest and abilites to pursue higher education should be able to do so, irrespective of the economic means available to him or her. Further, three specific reasons were stated for this need to obtain more democratic access to higher education in reality, and not just hypothetically. First, in keeping with social justice, society should be accessible to all citizens no matter their class or social position. Second, an economic rationale to ensure that full potentials to support wealth and welfare were reached in society was articulated. Third, there was a democratic rationale which articulated that public and private positions should be accessed after having completed higher education because this would enhance the possiblity of citizens appreciating the problems and living conditions of one another. So, due to justice, the economy and democracy, there should be a more equal access to higher education (Ungdomskommissionen, 1949).

Some 50 years later it was stated at the Berlin Communiqué that:

Ministers reaffirm the importance of the social dimension of the Bologna Process. The need to increase competitiveness must be balanced with the objective of improving the social characteristics of the European Higher Education Area, aiming at strengthening social cohesion and reducing social and gender inequalities both at national and at European level. (Bologna Process, 2003: 1)

Likewise, the White Paper for Higher Education in England opened the executive summary by highlighting how the outcomes of higher education are ‘a major factor in our success in creating jobs and in our prosperity’, that ‘universities and colleges play a vital role in expanding opportunity and promoting social justice’ and that ‘the benefits of higher education for individuals are far-reaching’ (Department for Education and Skills, 2003: 4). Hence, the social as well as the individual potentials of higher education are emphasised in both papers, as is the impact of a more equal access on the economy and on aspects related to social cohesion and justice in society. The same conclusions are reached by Thomas (2005) who notes that widening participation is justified by both economic and non-economic arguments.

A recent report from the Bologna Process commented that the social dimension had entered the Bologna agenda later than that of other policy areas (Bologna Process, 2015: 4). In 2007 with respect to the social dimension, it was defined that ‘the student body entering, participating in and completing higher education at all levels should reflect the diversity of our populations’ and in 2009, it was further elaborated to include that it had been ‘decided to set measurable targets for widening overall participation and increasing participation of under-represented groups’ (Bologna Process, 2015: 4).

Hence, equal access to higher education is not a new ambition, but apparently it is not easily attained either. Although the students in higher education present a more diverse group now than 50–60 years ago, the continued focus on widening participation reflects that there still is an uneven chance of entering and completing higher education depending upon the individual’s cultural or socio-economic background. In several European countries, the gender gap has narrowed or even closed, although male and female students are unevenly distributed across different fields of study. Although gender still interacts with the way students are met at higher education and the possibilities they experience, parents’ educational backgrounds are highlighted as a particular concern (OECD, 2016). The more diverse group of students has, inter alia, been achieved through a general growth in the number of students leading to what has been coined ‘the mass university’ (Scott, 1995, 2005). This is also mentioned in the Bologna Process where the implementation report from 2015 describes how the concrete measures taken to address a social dimension can be divided in two:

[…] measures to increase participation as a whole, expecting this to increase the participation of under-represented groups as well […] and measures targeting specific under-represented groups directly in order to achieve a more balanced composition of the student body. Most countries combine both approaches in one way or another (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2015: 116).

However, the report also concluded that ‘the goal of providing equal opportunities to quality higher education is far from being reached’ (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2015: 21). Increasing the number of students does not in itself reduce inequalities (Arum et al., 2007; Boliver, 2011). The massive growth in students has led to an increased stratification and differentiation of the tertiary educational system in which prestigious universities and study programmes attract socially privileged students while the chance of non-traditional students entering is substantially smaller (e.g. Ball, 2003; Reay et al., 2005; Scott, 2014). As such, higher education presents a remarkably stable hierarchy (Brennan and Osborne, 2008; Croxford and Raffe, 2014; Thomsen, 2015). This is a problem as the hierarchical positions that students gain after higher education are considered to be a fair result of their effort and interests, and so are the benefits they produce (Thomsen, 2008).

This is the background to this special issue. For decades it has been a political objective in European countries to have a more diverse student body and more equal access to higher education, and for the past 15 years it has also been an integral part of the Bologna Process. Still, achieving this objective appears to be deeply complex. Why is that?

Research on non-traditional students and higher education

Statistics concerning the composition of the student body in higher education (such as, for example, OECD, 2016) frequently focus on gender, socio-economic background and ethnicity, though David (2004) argues that social background tends to overshadow issues of gender and ethnicity.

The term ‘non-traditional’ covers a much broader and quite diverse group that also has to be considered in relation to a particular context. For instance, the paper of Bean and Metzner on the attrition of non-traditional students in the US focuses on ‘older, part-time, and commuter students’ (Bean and Metzner, 1985: 485), but in Scandinavian countries there is not the same tradition of students living on campus and commuter students, therefore, are the traditional students. Consequently, the term ‘non-traditional students’ in this special issue refers to students who enter a study programme that students with that particular background have not previously been expected to attend. They will often be a minority, but they will also frequently be positioned as a distinct (and disadvantaged) group within the institutional culture as well as they will actively take on the position as different from the majority. (Archer et al., 2005; Schuetze and Slowey, 2002).

One strand of research on non-traditional students has been based on rational choice models (e.g. Breen and Goldthorpe, 1997) in which students are assumed to act as rational human beings in assessing advantages, opportunities, risks and costs related to a given choice of educational path. This line of research primarily addresses access to higher education. Regarding the retention risk for non-traditional students, there has been an emphasis on taking a qualitative approach, particularly over the past 10–15 years (Ulriksen et al., 2010). One reason for this could be the need to understand the subtler mechanisms and interrelations at stake in the students’ higher-education experiences which cause inequalities to persist in spite of decades of political intentions (David, 2004).

The bulk of this research follows the work of Bourdieu (1984a, 1984b, 1986) and the possibility it offers of addressing class issues at a time where class relations appear to be less clear and there is a need for ‘a new kind of cultural class analysis’ (Savage, 2003: 536). Part of the research has found further inspiration in gender studies and the work of Butler (1993) in which there is a focus on the way inclusion and exclusion practices interact with the positions available to the student (e.g. Johnson et al., 2011; Tonso, 2006; Walker, 2001). The mutual interest in these two approaches (which are sometimes used together) is firstly the emphasis on the interaction between students and the cultural and institutional context, and secondly on the intersection of different elements rather than trying to point out a particular decisive factor, and finally the assumption that the social and cultural background of a student is present as a resource and as a way of perceiving and interpreting perceptions (in Bourdieu’s (1984a) vocabulary, as capital and through the habitus). Hence, their social background and gender is not a passive inheritance or trait of the individual, but something that is actively present in the students’ way of engaging with the higher education institutions they enter.

Some studies have explored the challenges experienced by non-traditional students related to cultural differences compared to traditional higher education students. For instance, while the culture of higher education programmes and institutions appears natural for students who have traditionally inhabited universities, the culture is often experienced as alien to students who are the first in their families to enter higher education. Non-traditional students struggle with what Reay et al. (2010) describe as having difficulties with deciphering the cultural rules governing practices in academia and hence with participating in legitimate ways (Watson et al., 2009). This is what Bourdieu (1984b, 1986) emphasises with his concepts of cultural capital and field, which embrace how some individuals are recognised as naturally fitting in due to their way of acting, dressing, speaking, navigating, etc., whereas others struggle to find ways to relate to and gain acceptance in the field. Students from non-traditional social backgrounds will often need to put in more effort to acquire the academic practices of, for example, participating in class, preparing for courses, doing assignments and engaging in an academic discussion (Archer et al., 2005; Leathwood and O‘Connell, 2003).

Furthermore, non-traditional students may face difficulties related to teaching and learning in higher education. While the student population has changed dramatically, the curriculum and the teaching and learning culture has changed at a more modest pace (Haggis, 2006). The more diverse student population also means a group of students who do not necessarily share interests, expectations and aspirations. Therefore, there is a need to consider how the pedagogy, assessment and curriculum could prevent some students from being perceived and perceiving themselves as not having the potential, ability or motivation to participate (Burke, 2013).

All in all, these challenges in relation to the institutional culture, including the teaching and learning context, increase the risk of non-traditional students leaving higher education without completing their degree (Bean and Metzner, 1985; Ulriksen et al., 2010, 2015b ) or facing lower attainment and progression in their studies (Mountford-Zimdars et al., 2015).

The special issue

The present special issue offers contributions to our understanding of the encounter between students from non-traditional backgrounds and higher-education institutions and of the consequences of this encounter. It presents five papers from four countries and offers insights into a variety of challenges and their implications faced by European higher education and also how these challenges both appear in different cultural contexts and how they are experienced by non-traditional students. The aim of the issue is to:

provide insight into how non-traditional students meet higher education in different cultural and national contexts and, in particular, why some students leave their study programme before completion.

study how the non-completion of non-traditional students is produced across borders, educational systems, institutions and study programmes.

explore how different methodological frameworks contribute in different ways to understanding non-traditional students’ encounter with higher education.

The papers presented in this special issue stem from a symposium entitled ‘Non-Traditional Students’ Meeting Higher Education’ presented at the ECER Conference, 2014. It focuses on students who would not traditionally have pursued higher education.

The papers draw on different theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches, however two main approaches are applied: one approach draws on the work of Bourdieu to analyse non-traditional students’ meeting with higher education and the way in which inequalities are embedded in and maintained by education and how education sets the scene in ways that are experienced as challenging to students dependent on their social prerequisites. The focus is on how education reproduces social hierarchy and how it affects students (Archer et al., 2005; West, 2014); and the other approach covers different theoretical frameworks with a common interest in how the individual student handles and experiences being non-traditional in the meeting with higher education. Unlike the approach drawing on the work of Bourdieu, the focus here is not on the social structures or reproduction of power, but on the individual’s agency. With a particular focus on the individual, the attention in the analyses is paid to students’ negotiation strategies when encountering higher education (Carlone and Johnson, 2007; Holmegaard et al., 2014), how the students handle their social and academic integration (Tinto, 1993; Ulriksen et al., 2015a) and how they build resilience (Walker et al., 2006).

The first paper in the issue by Nairz-Wirth, Feldmann and Spiegl presents an interesting European case, as Austria has one of the lowest rates of social mobility in Europe and hence a low rate of non-traditional students entering higher education. The paper presents the results of a qualitative study of non-traditional students who have left their higher education studies. The students’ narratives reveal how the transition process to university is crucial for understanding their later dropping out of higher education. The non-traditional students struggle with negotiating and combining the habitus of their family and previous schooling with the requirements of the university and the institutional habitus there. The students are at risk for not finding a way to fit into the university culture and this puts them at further risk of dropping out.

The paper by Bradley presents the challenges of dropping out for non-traditional students in a UK context. The paper presents data from a longitudinal qualitative study and explores the impact of social class on students’ university experience and how higher education hence contributes to social mobility. The paper unfolds a range of reasons for dropping out, such as homesickness and the sense of not fitting in. Several implications for higher education are discussed.

In their paper Ulriksen, Madsen and Holmegaard apply an identity framework combined with the notions of academic and social integration. Through a longitudinal qualitative study, they analyse the experiences and retention of non-traditional Danish students within science, technology, engineering and mathematics. They focus on the experiences of two groups: students from a less privileged socio-economic background; and students of ethnic origin other than Danish. The analysis identifies the challenges these students encounter and how they navigate in order to handle them.

The paper by Cotton, Nash and Kneale studies non-traditional students in the UK. The paper primarily draws on qualitative interviews to study the retention of non-traditional students and applies a resilience framework to analyse the risk and protective factors. The study outlines a number of factors that support the retention of non-traditional students. It discusses how the use of a resilience framework adds an additional layer of analysis to studies of non-traditional students and provides potential benefits both in theoretical and practical terms.

The final paper by Gale and Parker discusses the retention and drop out of non-traditional students in an Australian context, thus offering a contrasting view to the discussion in the previous papers which have been rooted in a European context. The paper presents statistical data on Australian university students from under-represented groups, who are retained at about the same rate as their more advantaged peers. The paper suggests that Australian non-traditional students, unlike those in Europe, appear to have greater access to the cultural capital privileged in higher education institutions. The results suggest that an even distribution of cultural capital across systems, institutions and student groups provides the platform for social mobility and retention of higher education students, no matter their socio-economic status.

Together the five papers display a variety of analyses of a key issue for the European Higher Education Area: attracting and retaining a wider group of students. Thus, this special issue offers a view of the different contributions of higher education research in Europe and abroad as an issue of great social importance.

Where do we go from here?

Taken as a whole, the papers in this special issue highlight the important point that non-traditional students’ risk of dropping out of higher education has to be conceived as more than a question of academic preparation and hence, individual deficits. The papers show that non-traditional students are facing a variety of social, cultural and institutional challenges embedded within higher education itself. At the same time, we must be careful not to present non-traditional students’ as a homogeneous group of students exposed in the same way. In spite of the similarities that can be found across the papers, there is also a need to be aware of the particular conditions for students in different contexts related to, for instance, the institutional structure, the social composition of the population or the educational system as whole.

Another point to make is that the challenges analysed and discussed in this special issue are not experienced by non-traditional students alone. The literature shows that similar challenges are actually pointed out by both students leaving and students staying at higher education in general (Ulriksen et al., 2010), but the students who end up leaving higher education encounter the challenges with different resources, strategies and experiences than the ones staying.

The papers in this special issue demonstrate how qualitative methods in particular allow for diving into the diversity of the empirical material, and show that the non-traditional consists of a complex mosaic of voices. Along the same line, we call for more research to move away from the stereotypical images of non-traditional students and to continue analysing their variety, complexity and diversity.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interest

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Author biographies

Henriette Tolstrup Holmegaard Holmegaard is an Assistant Professor in the Sociology of Science Education at the Department of Science Education, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Her research focuses on students’ aspirations and choices of studying higher education STEM, their transition into university and from university to employees. Specifically it includes a strong focus on students’ identity processes in relation to the cultural context of their study programme.

Correspondence:htholmegaard@ind.ku.dk.

Lene Møller Madsen is an Associate Professor in Science Education at the Department of Science Education, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Her research focuses on students learning processes and students’ ways of becoming members of disciplinary science educations. Specifically, it includes academic and social integration, spatial thinking skills, and the use of fieldwork within the Geosciences.

Correspondence: lmmadsen@ind.ku.dk.

Lars Ulriksen is a Professor in the Sociology of Science Education at the University of Copenhagen (the Department of Science Education). His research has focused on the transition of students into higher education and the students’ encounter with the culture and curriculum of the study programmes.

Correspondence: ulriksen@ind.ku.dk

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Why should European higher education care about the retention of non-traditional students?

Abstract

Keywords

Research on non-traditional students and higher education

The special issue

Where do we go from here?

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interest

Funding

Author biographies

References