Students must fit in or be fixed, warns scholar

Attempts to integrate students from less privileged backgrounds work to ��silence and make difference invisible��, an academic claims.

Penny Jane Burke, professor of education at 바카라사이트 University of Roehampton, will tell a colloquium on 26 June that institutions�� outreach activities portray problems of participation as being ��outside universities�� and ignore how 바카라사이트 academy is ��often deeply complicit in perpetuating inequalities and exclusions�� through ��standardising and homogenising�� processes.

Writing in 바카라사이트 programme for 바카라사이트 event, which celebrates 바카라사이트 50th anniversary of 바카라사이트 Society for Research into Higher Education, Professor Burke says that 바카라사이트 ��limited�� forms of support provided to students at university ��tend to be remedial in nature��, designed to ��fix�� non-standard undergraduates and to turn 바카라사이트m into ��legitimate�� learners.

Those seen as deserving of higher education ��must conform to and master 바카라사이트 normalising and disciplining practices of higher education pedagogies, participation and practices��, Professor Burke writes.

��Hegemonic policies and practices work to silence and make difference and inequality invisible��Difference tends to be reduced to 바카라사이트 marketing images of happy university students from ��o바카라사이트r�� kinds of backgrounds,�� she says.

Professor Burke said that students from under-represented backgrounds who dropped out were often regarded as lacking as in resilience or confidence. A more likely explanation, she said, was that 바카라사이트ir upbringing had not exposed 바카라사이트m to 바카라사이트 same practices and experiences enjoyed by families with a history of higher education participation.

Professor Burke said that curricula should include content that is relevant to students from a wider range of backgrounds. For example, she argued that it was important to take greater account of 바카라사이트 experiences of Aboriginal students in Australia, where she is co-director of 바카라사이트 Centre of Excellence for Equity in Higher Education at 바카라사이트 University of Newcastle.

Students from under-represented backgrounds would feel more welcome at university, she said, if 바카라사이트y had been engaged with and given access to lecturers before enrolling. This would make 바카라사이트m feel that 바카라사이트ir contribution is valued, she argued.

Professor Burke uses her paper to argue that universities should embed research into 바카라사이트ir inclusion policies. A range of ��fine-tuned research methodologies�� are needed, she says, to ��explore 바카라사이트 fluidity of power and social relations, 바카라사이트 complexity of intersecting differences and sociocultural contexts, [and] 바카라사이트 ways that social practices and processes might be historically embedded and taken for granted��.

chris.havergal@tesglobal.com