The Challenges of A Diverse Student Base

This post aims to explore the narrative around the ‘traditional student’, and how access to university by those from non-traditional backgrounds challenges the typical narrative of university experience. This post is in relation to Read, Archer and Leathwood’s article ‘Challenging Cultures? Student Conceptions of ‘Belonging’ and ‘Isolation’ at a Post-1992 University’.

There are a number of prevailing narratives surrounding a ‘university experience’, which is a narrowly experienced phenomenon by a dominant body of white, middle class, and/or male academics and students. It is a trope often seen in stereotypes of the ‘student’, and is perpetuated in more highly ranking universities such as Oxford and Cambridge with traditions built largely on the experiences of this narrow representation of the wider student body (college dinners, academic dress and balls are not a trait of the former polytechnic).

Despite fees rising from non-existent to the region of £9000 per year for undergraduates, recent decades have seen an increase in students from non-typical backgrounds; from diverse ethnicities and working class families. These non-typical students often find themselves ‘othered’ as newcomers to a centuries old institution built on a familiar intake. Someone from a working class background may find themselves at odds with a tradition of upper class gatherings which they otherwise would not find themselves exposed to, likewise, a student of non-white ethnicity may not see themselves being represented in authority positions at their chosen institution. Choice, therefore, plays a larger role to these students than it would a hegemonically aligned student, with prospective students often opting for a university that better represents their identity over academic prowess.

It is valid therefore, to conclude that there is no one pervasive approach that can be taken to assure ‘fitting in’ for students, or indeed, academics as a whole. An assumption is often made that students fall into particular categories with particular interests, which are voraciously catered for during freshers weeks; the alcohol, the pizzas, the banter. To not conform neatly to the student shape our universities and student unions cut out for us means to become isolated and further removed from what is already an alien experience. To not be alcohol addled within your first week means you miss out on the formative bonding experience that is expected of you as a fresher, and are outcast to search for more familiar territory, and often found wanting. More could, should, and must be done to ease all students into their lives as academics, without relying on tired, harmful stereotypes and lazy inclusion measures.