Similar to Marketing participation? Student ambassadors’ contribution to Widening Participation in Engineering and Medicine at two contrasting universities
Planting Roots: Assisting International Students in Navigating the Immigratio...Ryerson Student Affairs
Similar to Marketing participation? Student ambassadors’ contribution to Widening Participation in Engineering and Medicine at two contrasting universities (20)
2. Outline of session
• Introductions
• Qs.
What do student ambassadors do?
What are they for?
• The research
• Questions and discussion
3. Background
• Part of a larger ethnographic study of student
ambassadors
• Data collected over 2 years (2008-2009)
• Study centred on 2 contrasting universities in
the same geographic area
Bankside – a new university
Royal – an old ‘elite’ university
5. STEM
(science, technology, engineering and
mathematics, including medicine)
• Engineering
Strategically Important and Vulnerable Subject (SIVS)
13 percent undergraduate population were women in
2009
attracts predominantly middle class male students
some ethnic minority groups underrepresented
• Medicine:
women now out number men on undergraduate courses
some ethnic minority and lower socio economic groups
significantly underrepresented
6. Interrogating Policy Assumptions
• ‘Coordinators commend the way in which
interaction with higher education students’ can
‘play a part in breaking down cultural barriers’ and
the way in which ambassadors can make higher
education ‘cool in the schools’(p38). (HEFCE
(2005) Evaluation of Aimhigher
• An evaluation of the student associates scheme (for
the TDA) is also cited in this report: ‘by being close
in age and experience, student associates can relate
to the issues young people face’ (p38).
7. Multi-stranded approach
• Hodkinson and Macleod (2007) suggest that a
focus in research on the outcomes of learning, the
‘static products of learning’, are ‘all indicative of
seeing learning as acquisition’.
• David (2010) outlines the need for a nuanced
understanding of teaching and learning and the
‘development of a social scientific understanding
of teaching and learning in different settings and
how diverse learning occurs’ (David, 2010: p6).
8. DATA
• Observation of activities
Medical days (Royal)
Engineering days/ careers session (Bankside)
Maths workshops
Summer schools
• Conversations with pupils and ambassadors during
activities
• Informal focus groups with pupils and ambassadors
(recorded and transcribed)
• Interview/ conversations with organisers
9. Participants
• AEP and MAS activities and Maths workshops targeted
pupils from south east London state schools from
‘deprived’ boroughs (according to the 2004 Multiple
Deprivation Index (IMD)) with extremely low participation
rates in HE
• Pupils and ambassadors were ethnically diverse with the
largest group represented being Black African
• Ambassadors were predominantly 1st generation HE
• Informal conversations/ focus groups held with:
Royal: 41 pupils; 16 student ambassadors
Bankside 71 pupils; 16 student ambassadors
10. Marketing discourses
Aimhigher
• marketing ain’t in the list and neither is anything like it;
what you’re marketing is the idea of progression in
higher education into careers (Aimhigher coordinator)
• in the training, what ambassadors are often told is,
which T-shirt are you wearing; if it’s an Aimhigher one,
you’re talking about progression; if it’s a Bankside one
you’re at a Bankside open day and you’re talking about
courses at Bankside and you need to know about courses
at Bankside … Aimhigher is different … because it’s
offering knowledge of a pathway, not knowledge of a
specific; the train starts here and stops at your
destination which is Royal or Bankside or … or ….
(Aimhigher coordinator)
11. HEIs – WP units
• Initially I was very clear I was working for Aimhigher – I
would say to student ambassadors ‘don’t talk about
Bankside’. I’ve now moved to a position where I think
they should talk about what Bankside offer…they are
proud of their own university and particularly if they are
subject specific students on a vocational project, they
should be able to talk about their course and what they
do but I wouldn’t tell them to promote Bankside
(outreach manager, Bankside)
• ‘internally we are always told to do recruitment’ … ‘are
we recruiting?’ (WP manager, Royal)
12. Royal
• Slowly over time the internal pressures mount –
there is a benchmark and you are asked what you are
doing to meet it? You get – it’s lovely you’re doing
charity work but… (WP manager, Royal)
• The problem is that type of student at Bankside they
recruit locally from London so it works together but
Royal’s recruitment is national – they go to
Newcastle to get the best students…but recruitment
teams from Royal would never go to these schools
(WP manager)
13. Bankside
• …to create a group of students who, in terms of their
skills, behaviour and experience, embody the most
successful graduates of Bankside (outreach manager,
Bankside)
• …super student employees…a core of experienced, well
trained students who we can rely on to train others,
represent the university at high profile events and to
the media and lead on project work
• They need to be professional – corporate …they are
representing the institution they are working for (head
of recruitment, Bankside)
14. Student ambassadors
• Than: I applied, I did some Open Days when I was a student
ambassador – like last year and then I filled in an application
and became a student ambassador and they put me on the
Widening Participation mailing list as well so to be honest, I
don’t know the difference between them ‘cause all I do is, I get
e-mails from Widening Participation, Royal – I just say, yes,
no; they say training days, I say, can I do it – if I can do it I do
it – if I don’t ….so I wouldn’t really know what was what to be
honest (Royal: G&T SS)
• Munira: Because you’re trained for the one job, not trained to
go, well, if this is a Royal event this is how you behave and if
it’s an Aspire event this is how you behave
Casey: ‘Cause we’re still representing Royal in one way or
another (G&T SS)
15. • Candice: It’s the only uni in the UK with a McDonalds on
campus
Abiola: I want to go to this university – there’s a
McDonalds here
Candice: Yeah this uni is top! University is a lot of work
but I think it’s a really good experience and I’d
encourage as many people as I can to have that
experience (MD)
• Gill: Any opportunity we tell them about uni – in a subtle
way like ‘you need a degree for everything!’ – we’re
selling that (EC)
16. Pupils
• Clare: And do you know where you want to do it, by the way?
Vanessa: I don’t know, I didn’t really know about any universities until I came
to this one. I like this one; it is really good
Lola: Yeah it is
Vanessa: They’ve sold it to us …
Clare: And when you said, they sold it to you – how?
Vanessa: Well, the things they said about Queens and they just made it seem
really good here
Lola: And they kept saying, we’re not trying to sell it to you
Vanessa: Yeah, but they made a pretty good job of selling it (laughs) Yeah just
emphasising how they can still get the grades and still become what they want
while also having a social life and all the clubs we can join (G&T SS)
17. • Sarah: engineering is another word for making things
Ayisha: I want to become an engineer now
Meena: only if it involves science
Aiysha: yes for the rest of my life (TT)
18. • Martin: They just try to make it like – whereas
before you’d be like, wow it’s going to be really hard
and they are like, just take it slowly, do your work as
it comes and you have to work hard but it will be fun.
They’ve highlighted the positives - they haven’t
really told us any of the negative stuff
• Fabienne: the supervisors didn’t really help me- it’s
3 years till I go to university – I don’t really want to
know – I’m not bothered. I already know what you
have to do – I knew the stuff that you can do – stuff
you can gain from it (EC)
19. Professionalism and employability
• We need to raise the bar…a more rigorous
recruitment process – professional training to raise
their expectations about what they will be doing and
CPD, self assessment and a probationary period so
that they make more effort in passing and we should
get regular feedback from customers (outreach
manager)
• Wendy: working for the AEP is like customer
services – you treat the children with respect so that
they’re nice back to you (STEM day)
20. Charity and deficit
• Jessica: I’m a bog standard state student – I
got mediocre GCSEs but I set myself high
goals for A levels. Money doesn’t have to put
you off – my mum works in an office and my
dad’s a gardener’
• Jamila: I set myself a target – Royal – I come
from an underprivileged area
21. • Chanelle: Yes, you don’t have to come from an upper
class background or a grammar school to get to
university. You can come from where they are coming
from; there’s no real boundaries apart from your actual
expectations in your head, I think. It’s like, if you think
you won’t be able to make it then that’s going to limit you
in where you’re going. If you think I can do this, I can
achieve what I want to achieve then that will give you
inspiration to go and if there is someone telling you, you
know I came from where you come from; I came from a
lower privileged background and I’m here; it inspires
them (MD)
22. The current position
• Marketisation of HE
• Pupils as consumers
• Aimhigher funding and HEFCE funding for WP
projects withdrawn
• Qs
Can student ambassadors play a part in genuinely
increasing equality and diversity in HE?
