‘Students that just hate school wouldn’t go’: educationally disengaged and disadvantaged young people’s talk about university education

McMahon, Samantha; Harwood, Valerie and Hickey Moody, Anna. 2016. ‘Students that just hate school wouldn’t go’: educationally disengaged and disadvantaged young people’s talk about university education. British Journal of the Sociology of Education, 37(8), pp. 1109-1128. ISSN 0142-5692 [Article]

[img]
Preview
Text
_Students that just hate school wouldn_t go__ educationally disen.pdf - Accepted Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial.

Download (113kB) | Preview

Abstract or Description

This paper contributes to a growing body of literature on widening university participation and brings a focus on the classed and embodied nature of young people’s imagination to existing discussions. We interviewed 250 young people living in disadvantaged communities across five Australian states who had experienced disengagement from compulsory primary and secondary schooling. We asked them about their education and their educational futures, specifically how they imagined universities and university participation. For these young people, universities were imagined as ‘big’, ‘massive’ alienating schools. The paper explores how the elements of schooling from which these young people disengaged became tangible barriers to imagining and pursuing participation in university education. The primary barrier they described was their relationships with school teachers. Our analysis shows how relationships with teachers can impact the imagined improbability/probability of university participation. We offer suggestions for how barriers to university created by poor relationships with teachers may be overcome.

Item Type:

Article

Identification Number (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2015.1014546

Keywords:

imagination, university participation, school disengagement, disadvantage, teacher–student relationships

Departments, Centres and Research Units:

Educational Studies

Dates:

DateEvent
April 2016Published
31 March 2015Published Online
28 January 2015Accepted

Item ID:

12120

Date Deposited:

15 Jul 2015 15:00

Last Modified:

12 Jun 2021 18:06

Peer Reviewed:

Yes, this version has been peer-reviewed.

URI:

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/12120

View statistics for this item...

Edit Record Edit Record (login required)