Are we just engaging ‘the usual suspects’? Challenges in and practical strategies for supporting equity and diversity in student–staff partnership initiatives

Mercer-Mapstone, Lucy; Islam, Maisha; Reid, Tamara

doi:10.1080/13562517.2019.1655396

Cited by 40 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…First, our findings align with calls for considered strategies when designing for SaP in relation to equity (Bovill et al, 2016;Mercer-Mapstone & Bovill, 2020;Mercer-Mapstone et al, 2021). Our approach to centering equity with considerations of entanglement with power and intersectionality manifested from the recruitment stage of student partnerships, and remained centered throughout the program.…”

Section: Concluding Reflections and Implicationssupporting

confidence: 71%

Learning, Unlearning, and Relearning Together: Unmasking Power in a Students as Partners Program using Collaborative Autoethnography

Alhadad

Vasco

Williams

et al. 2021

SUCCESS

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We interrogated a students as partners (SaP), co-curricular program that focuses on supporting student learning. To center power and equity in SaP, the program was grounded in social design-based experiment methodology. We considered the manifestation of power and equity beyond higher education, to that of broader socio-political contexts. Collaborative autoethnography (CAE) was used to garner a richer understanding of student-staff experiences of the program. Through CAE, power emerged as central to our collective experiences, and a recognition that power asymmetry in students as partners programs is complex and multi-layered. We found that to address power imbalances in these programs requires considered strategies and intentional designs. Further, CAE, in and of itself, can be a powerful way to foster self-awareness, mutual trust, respect, and the acknowledgement of others in student-staff partnerships. We conclude by recommending the importance of deliberate design for equity and power towards consequential learning and transformational change.

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Section: Concluding Reflections and Implicationssupporting

confidence: 71%

Learning, Unlearning, and Relearning Together: Unmasking Power in a Students as Partners Program using Collaborative Autoethnography

Alhadad

Vasco

Williams

et al. 2021

SUCCESS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…This has meant the faculty can employ SEC who are representative of our student body, with sufficient SEC diversity to aid inclusive curricular design. This approach is in contrast to current research that institutional level SaP projects, although often large-scale and involving multiple projects, can sometimes be modest in the number of students involved and not represent the student body (Mercer-Mapstone & Bovill, 2020;Mercer-Mapstone et al, 2021). It should be noted that the gender ratio of SEC does not fully reflect the student body, even with the recent increase to an equal split between male and female students.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 81%

Change agents: The impact of a student partnership on the educational practice of a diverse higher education engineering faculty

Knight

Ordidge

Timothy

et al. 2022

IJSaP

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This article describes the implementation of a new student partnership across a large and diverse STEM faculty and the impact this four-year partnership had on enhancing students’ experience. This innovative partnership recruited and employed students, termed student experience champions (SEC), to inform and develop inclusive educational initiatives in response to their educational experiences. This partnership enabled the faculty to develop a dynamic and agile working relationship with their students, creating an environment where students informed the strategic direction of the student experience and leading faculty and departmental educational projects that resulted in institutional changes. The breadth of the SEC projects enabled the benefits of student partnerships to be appreciated across the faculty, leading to a culture change where SEC are now viewed as partners in programme enhancement.

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“…Such conceptions critique structures within HE-including those structures which seek to engage students. This includes, for example, considering to what extent student representatives and institutional engagement structures and schemes are reflective of or accessible to a diversity of students (Bols, 2017;Matthews, 2017;Healey & Healey, 2019;Mercer-Mapstone et al, 2021). Much of this previous research problematises these structures, indicating that, especially at institutional level, engagement mechanisms often accommodate the elite-those students who have the time, capital and financial stability to engage with mostly unpaid extracurricular opportunities to make their voices heard (Mercer-Mapstone et al, 2021).…”

Section: Deconstructing Homogeneity In Student Voice and Experiencementioning

confidence: 99%

‘University is a non‐Muslim experience, you know? The experience is as good as it can be’: Satisfied settling in Muslim students’ experiences and implications for Muslim student voice

Islam

Mercer-Mapstone

2021

British Educational Res J

Self Cite

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We report findings from a cross-institutional investigation testing the applicability of a new concept, 'satisfied settling', which describes the ways in which students are unconsciously 'settling for less' in terms of their university experiences. The context of exploration for this article was that of Muslim students' experiences as a critical area which has received little previous focus. Our results describe a staged cognitive process undertaken by students to subconsciously excuse institutional failures to support their religious needs by settling for lower levels of satisfaction. The 'counter stories' told by 19 Muslim students (via semi-structured interviews) detail how their voices are heard or silenced around the deep importance of religious provisions in their university experiences. Satisfied settling was ultimately found to translate across institutional contexts, and the applicability of the concept is discussed in extending to other marginalised student groups.

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Are we just engaging ‘the usual suspects’? Challenges in and practical strategies for supporting equity and diversity in student–staff partnership initiatives

Cited by 40 publications

References 27 publications

Learning, Unlearning, and Relearning Together: Unmasking Power in a Students as Partners Program using Collaborative Autoethnography

Learning, Unlearning, and Relearning Together: Unmasking Power in a Students as Partners Program using Collaborative Autoethnography

Change agents: The impact of a student partnership on the educational practice of a diverse higher education engineering faculty

‘University is a non‐Muslim experience, you know? The experience is as good as it can be’: Satisfied settling in Muslim students’ experiences and implications for Muslim student voice

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