What is it about?

Using Marx's notion of Chaotic Conceptions, this paper explores how "Student Engagement" and "Non- Traditional Students" an be used discursively to perform ideological work, disguising interests and inequities.

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Why is it important?

Student Engagement is very "sexy" to policy-makers currently, and any institutions around the world are being required to develop interventions to prove, or improve, their student engagement. Likewise, widening access / participation, transformation, and social justice policies continue to enjoy attention. This paper helps to think through the implications of using these terms "chaotically".

Perspectives

This paper, distilled from a PhD study on Engaging "non-traditional" students in Higher Education, arises in part from a frustration at the lack of boundedness which allows concepts such as "student engagement" to be abused to all manner of ends, and the resultant lack of clarity accompanying these terms. Additionally, if provisioning for "non-traditional" students is to be optimally effective, it needs to take account of which students consider themselves to be "non-traditional" in their particular study contexts, and why, and to design interventions which respond appropriately.

Dr Vicki Trowler
University of Huddersfield

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: Negotiating Contestations and ‘Chaotic Conceptions’: Engaging ‘Non-Traditional’ Students in Higher Education, Higher Education Quarterly, June 2015, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/hequ.12071.
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