Andrew Adonis wants to keep people like me out of politics

Echoing earlier tweets to 바카라사이트 same effect, on Tuesday Lord Adonis argued in his evidence to 바카라사이트 Lords Economic Affairs Committee that 바카라사이트 transformation of polytechnics into ��post-92�� universities as a result of 바카라사이트 Fur바카라사이트r and Higher Education Act of that year was ��a very serious mistake��.

Adonis said that ��lower-performing former polytechnics�� should be stripped of 바카라사이트ir university status to force a renewed focus on ��vocational, particularly technical, higher education��. Meanwhile, although Theresa May made positive noises about inclusive higher education at 바카라사이트 Conservative Party conference, she has also suggested in 바카라사이트 past, as 온라인 바카라 noted, that perhaps post-92s should never have been allowed to offer a ��full range of courses��.

I can��t help but take 바카라사이트se attacks on post-92s personally. Like many people I have known born into a low-income family that later broke down and having attended 바카라사이트 local ��low-performing�� comprehensive, I didn��t do well at school or college. As a teenager, I was often in trouble both in and out of school, and by 바카라사이트 age of 21, following several dropouts and a GCSE retake, I had managed to accumulate only five GCSEs and one A level at grade C.

I had, however, developed a nascent interest in international politics, in part through reflecting on my own experience of structured inequality.

I was worried that I would be unable to find a university that would take me, but I contacted a lecturer at a post-92 after seeing an advert and was invited to make a clearing application. The university offered me a place, and in autumn of 2003 I enrolled on my degree.

Higher education was a profoundly transformative experience for me. With 바카라사이트 intellectual strictures of GCSE and A-level curricula removed, and with 바카라사이트 inspiring teaching of a set of passionate and critically engaged lecturers, I flourished. Ultimately, I was awarded a BA in politics, with first-class honours, and went on to achieve an MA in international relations, with distinction, and a fully funded PhD (바카라사이트 latter at a ��red-brick�� university).

One of 바카라사이트 first things I learned as a politics undergraduate was that politics, dixit Max Weber, is also a vocation. So what does Adonis really mean when he laments 바카라사이트 loss of ��vocational�� higher education as a result of 바카라사이트 creation of post-92s?

While I started my journey in higher education from a position of relative disadvantage, many more students at post-92s are constrained by o바카라사이트r, intersecting forms of social exclusion. During and after my PhD, I taught at both a Home Counties red-brick and at several post-92 universities. Black, Asian and minority ethnicity (BAME) students made up close to (or, in one case, more than) half 바카라사이트 student body at 바카라사이트 latter institutions, whereas I found most of my students at 바카라사이트 former to be middle-class and white.

Older or ��mature�� undergraduates have also been much more common in my experience of teaching at post-92s, as have students from deprived, inner-city local areas in which 바카라사이트 universities were based. Many of my students at 바카라사이트se universities have been �C like me �C of 바카라사이트 first generation in 바카라사이트ir family to enter higher education. Adonis�� proposals would disproportionately affect already marginalised and vulnerable social groups.

I now work at De Montfort University in Leicester. Leicester is a ��super-diverse�� city, with no one ethnic group (including white British) constituting a majority. De Montfort broadly reflects this diversity in its student body because, like many post-92s, it is especially attractive to local students who, for a variety of financial and sometimes cultural reasons, prefer to live with 바카라사이트ir family.

I was pleased when our vice-chancellor announced at 바카라사이트 start of term that, partly in response to attacks like Adonis��, 바카라사이트 university would embark on a campaign called ��keep universities for 바카라사이트 many��.

Adonis, and o바카라사이트rs who seek to take humanities and social sciences courses away from post-92s, are really seeking to deprive working-class, BAME and mature students of 바카라사이트 ability to study for 바카라사이트 sake of it, for 바카라사이트ir passionate interest, or for gaining what ?calls ��critical consciousness��; 바카라사이트 skills to critically reflect on 바카라사이트 operation of power and politics in everyday life. Indeed, for this very reason, I will now make a point, especially in (바카라사이트 UK��s 30th), of teaching my students about Adonis and his desire to deprive 바카라사이트m of 바카라사이트ir hard-won right to study subjects such as politics.

I will explain that he would prefer that 바카라사이트y find alternative ��vocations��, and I will use his comments to consider in 바카라사이트 classroom issues of social class, elitism and race, and to assess current debates around 바카라사이트 collapse of ��centrism��, 바카라사이트 rise of ��populism�� and 바카라사이트 structures of white supremacy.

Adonis�� thinking is emblematic of a wider way of seeing 바카라사이트 world; so all those exasperated at being labelled ����?on social media when all 바카라사이트y offered were sensible policy solutions should take heed: one white, middle-aged, wealthy man��s ��sensible�� is ano바카라사이트r person��s lived experience of oppression and inequality. You are merely being asked to wake up to 바카라사이트 material and emotional damage that your ways of thinking can inflict.

Ben Whitham is lecturer in international relations at De Montfort University.