Reframing ‘the problem’: students from low socio-economic status backgrounds transitioning to university

Abstract

Part 2-Revaluing: 'non-traditional' student groups in higher education 3 Classism on campus? Exploring and extending understandings of social class in the contemporary higher education debate Angelique Bletsas and Dee Michell 4 Reframing 'the problem': students from low socioeconomic status backgrounds transitioning to university Marcia Devlin and Jade McKay 5 Changing social relations in higher education: the first-year international student and the 'Chinese learner' in Australia Xianlin Song

When the Personal Enables the Independent: Taking the Library to the Students

“…Similarly, while there has been some discussion of the connotative problems associated with labels, especially the term 'deficit' (Bamber & Tett, 2001;Billingham, 2009;Devlin, 2011;Devlin & McKay, 2014), changing the term does not really address the central issue: students are increasingly under-prepared for the demands of tertiary study. Devlin and McKay (2014), for instance, assert that 'problematizing' the student or the institution occurs when we refer to a deficit. They suggest a transition to the 'knowledge community' is feasible only when we remove the idea of deficit altogether from the framing of the issue (Devlin & McKay, 2014, p. 117).…”

Modern Artificial Intelligence Model Development for Undergraduate Student Performance Prediction: An Investigation on Engineering Mathematics Courses

“…Some of these include the student's gender, age (i.e., whether mature aged), marital and school leaver status, socio-economic status, and the proper prerequisite knowledge to learn university mathematics, when modelling the WS and the grade. There is significant indication that these factors are related to student participation, access, retention, and overall success [66], [67]. Recent studies are showing relevance of such causal factors with respect to a successful attainment of knowledge and grade at the university level [68].…”

‘Get Ready’: Improving the Transition Experience of a Diverse First Year Cohort Through Building Student Agency

“…One stream of this literature has sought to understand the particular transition difficulties faced by 'non-traditional' student cohorts. Devlin and McKay (2014) argue that students from low SES backgrounds are likely to experience 'socio-cultural incongruence' in their transition to university, arising from a lack of familiarity with the social practices, norms and discourses of academia, with which high-SES students are much better acquainted. Margolis, Soldatenko, Acker and Gair (2001) describe the difficulties experienced by 'nontraditional' students in terms of a 'hidden curriculum', by which they mean the 'skills, knowledge, and cultural grammar middle-class students from the dominant culture acquire', and observe that by 'taking for granted such knowledge and treating it as equivalent to "talent" or "intelligence," schools perpetuate an uneven distribution of cultural capital' (p. 8).…”

“…By the same token, it has also been recognised that responsibility for bridging gaps cannot lie solely with the institution. Devlin and McKay (2014) contend that there must be movement from both directions. They note that the problem with the 'blame the institution' approach is that it negates student agency.…”