A keynote at the launch of Cultural Journeys in Higher Education Jan Bamford and Lucie Pollard Published: Emerald 2019 Description: The cultural diversity of university student populations can be seen to reflect the changing demographics of an increasingly international mobile workforce. The implications of the growing migrant population and differing communication patterns in the classroom is a highly under-researched area. Cultural Journeys in Higher Education provides a unique insight into the cultural experiences of university recounted through the students' narratives and voices. This book explores the increasingly culturally diverse composition of the student body and its impact on student learning. The need to negotiate differing cultural scripts and adapting to the new cultural landscape when students arrive at university are just a few of the experiences addressed within this important text. Cultural Journeys in Higher Education navigates the issue of curriculum delivery through the eyes of those who receive the education and questions whether a new approach is needed to adapt to an increasingly culturally diverse student body. The student experience is a central focus of this book, giving researchers, practitioners and leaders in education a unique perspective that will enable them to further understand the cultural framework that underpins Higher Education.

1. Cultural Journeys in Higher
Education book launch
Keynote: The ‘cold climate’ of Higher
Education
Debbie Holley
Professor of Learning Innovation

3. The struggles of university life: one students’ narrative
‘The Boxer’ expresses tension and a continuous awareness of cultural, ethnic and class
distinctions/boundaries…
“it’s different for me” and “it really felt like yes, social class is showing here big time”.
He works at mediating this by joining societies and taking on prestigious work placements in
environments which he considers exclusive and elitist and achieves a degree of acceptance but
not without a struggle:
“I’m the only minority there”.
“It’s like they give me an active role and they welcome me warmly and they don’t make me feel
like I’m an outsider”.
Importantly, much of this narrative reflects contradictory arguments which highlight his desire
for acceptance, and this is positioned against concerns about his socio-economic status.
He now ‘doesn’t fit’ into his old life of gym and performance – enhancing drugs; and doesn’t fit
into a ‘new life’ at University, where many are from privileged backgrounds
Pokorny, H., Holley, D. & Kane, S. (2017) Commuting, transitions
and belonging: the experiences of students living at home in
their first year at University
Link:
• Comes from a
London council
estate
• First in family to go
to University
• Succeeded at
school ‘despite’ his
teachers

4. An institutional
response?
Access:
Below sector average offers
Reviewing central admissions,
programmes
and level 3 qualifications
BME outreach through
target schools
Induction
Progression
Gap into progression to
high skills work/study
Reduced over past 3 years 13% /2%
Employment 6.8% gap
Strategic committee priority calls
SUBU partnership
Race equality charter
Careers partnering across University life
Analysis of stats and data gaps
Success:
BME students more likely to arrive
with non traditional qualifications
More likely to qualify with
less good honours degree (18%)
Generic assessment criteria
Assessment and Feedback
policy
De-colonising the curriculum
National evidence base –
Institution wide initiatives needed..
Focus on processes and staff
not the discourse of deficit students!
And a personal response:
I encourage every one of us to
engage with the Students Union
national campaign.
Listen to Lenny Greaves, at the
Bournemouth University
Students Union speak here:
#whyismycurriculumwhite?

5. Cultural Journeys: what can we draw from this
work?
Strangers in your own land:
Any education given by a group tends to socialize its
members, but the quality and value of the
socialization depends upon the habits and aims of
the group.
J. Dewey (Democracy and Education, 1916)
It is disappointing to note in 2019:
Bamford and Pollard - real challenges remain in
finding a common ground

6. Conclusion:
The intellectual analysis of the lived lives of the participants in this book offers experts, academics, potential and
existing students insights into the authentic student experience, and suggests ways in which the real student
voice can be powerfully harnessed for change. Cultural complexities in Higher Education are nuanced, complex
and fraught with the ethics of power, race, class and gender. I commend the authors for engaging with, and
working through these discourses, and share with them the sentiments of their final sentence:
…those of us working in higher education need to do more to assist students so they can flourish and
achieve the results they deserve…
Thank you