The Significance of Educational and Welfare Policies for the Experiences of Higher Education Students with Dependent Children by Rachel Brooks - a presentation from the BSA Teaching Group Regional Conference at the University of Surrey on 31 May 2014.

1. R A C H E L B R O O K S
The significance of educational and welfare
policies for the experiences of higher education
students with dependent children

2. Background
 Recent government policy
 Widening participation
 Encouraging teenage mothers to stay in education
 Implicit assumption that problems linked to wider
social & political context
 But few studies, esp. focussing on more than one HEI
 No comparative work
 Research sought to explore this further
 Contrasting countries
 HEIs with different histories & market positions

3. Research design
 Sample
 Two countries: UK & Denmark
 Different ‘welfare regimes’
 Two contrasting HEIs in each:
 ‘Older University’ & ‘Newer University’
 Research methods
 Analysis of policy documents
 Interviews with 2-3 staff members in each HEI
 Interviews with 13-20 student-parents in each HEI

4. Key findings
 National differences in relation to:
 Structural support for student-parents
 Attitudes towards student-parents
 Degree of institutional variation

5. Structural differences
UK Denmark
Financial support Tuition fees payable
Maintenance grant to
those on low incomes
Limited additional
funding for student-
parents on low incomes
No tuition fees payable
Government grants
Additional maternity &
paternity grants
‘Salary’ for PhD students
Parental leave No automatic right to
leave
All students entitled to take
maternity/paternity leave
Flexible methods of
study
At discretion of academic
staff; not common
Required by state
Childcare provision Varies by institution
Nationally, reasonably
high coverage, but
expensive
Varies by institution
Nationally, extensive
provision, at low cost

6. Cultural & attitudinal differences
 UK – limited constructions of ‘ideal student’
‘I think often our lecturers can treat the whole cohort as if they
are 18 years of age & straight from school’
‘Either, generally, in their life they are not prepared for it, or
academically they are just not capable of it......& then it’s really
difficult for the university to weed them out’
 Denmark – different & more diverse constructions
of the ideal student

7. Explaining national differences
 National policies e.g.
 Funding mechanisms for HE (inc. parental leave & pay)
 Flexible study
 Provision of childcare
 Societal norms (e.g. about women working)
 Evidence from European Social Survey
‘It is very rare for women in Denmark to stay home & take
care of their children. In fact, it is something we talk about
[because it’s so rare] – “Oh, she is staying home & taking
care of her children!”’

8. Institutional variations
 Danish universities both very similar
 Much greater variation between UK HEIs
 Considerably more structural support at Older
University (e.g. nurseries, holiday clubs, bursaries)
 Similar to Callender’s (2010) findings on provision of financial
aid within UK HEIs
 Rational response to particular political situation (marketised,
but also pressures to widen participation)

9. Institutional variations
 Different patterns emerged re cultural influences in
UK
 Some variation within Newer University
 Within Older University, much stronger & more dominant
culture – beyond that of the ‘traditional student’
 Difference in extent to which identification as a ‘university
student’ becomes individual’s main source of identity (Reay et
al., 2010)

10. Explaining institutional variation
 With less government support & direction, UK HEIs
have more discretion
 Marketised system encourages HEIs to develop
policies & practices to suit market segment
 UK more internally differentiated
 Social characteristics of students likely to affect university
culture

11. Conclusion
 Are important differences in support & attitudes,
broadly in line with wider social & political context
 HE funding mechanisms
 Norms re childcare
 However, institutional characteristics cannot be
simply ‘read off’ national context
 Differences in degree of institutional variation
 But this is also related to wider socio-political context
 UK HEIs more diverse as result of more fully developed HE
market

12. References
 Brooks, R. (2014) Spatial disparities in emotional responses to
education: feelings of ‘guilt’ amongst student-parents, British
Educational Research Journal (forthcoming)
 Brooks, R. (2013) International students with dependent
children: the reproduction of gender norms, British Journal
of Sociology of Education. (Advance online publication)
 Brooks, R. (2013) Negotiating time and place for study:
student-parents and familial relationships, Sociology 47, 3,
443-459.
 Brooks, R. (2012) Student-parents and higher education: a
cross-national comparison, Journal of Education Policy 27, 3,
423-437.