Dynamics of Intersubjective Heteronormativity Amongst Students in Higher Education

Seal, Michael

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-19089-7_6

Cited by 1 publication

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“…This of course does not reflect the structural racism (Mirza, 2018) and elitism (Brim, 2020) which exists as a hurdle for many students in UK HE, even today where many students from non-white and/or low socio-economic status backgrounds find the UK HE system to be the ‘ impenetrable hub of imperial white knowledge production ’ (Mirza, 2018: 3). Rose is depicted as heterosexual which some have argued can be a further advantage in the HE system (Allen et al, 2020; Seal, 2019). And finally, Rose has added privilege, by the fact the character is shown to be a ‘traditional’ student in the sense she is neither a commuting student, nor is she represented as a mature student (who may have family and/or caring responsibilities, and may also be working to contribute to the household finances) – both factors which scholars highlight as being a boundary to equal opportunity in UK HE (Holton and Finn, 2018; Merrill, 2019, respectively).…”

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confidence: 99%

The Powerful Student Consumer and the Commodified Academic: A Depiction of the Marketised UK Higher Education System through a Textual Analysis of the ITV Drama Cheat

Silverio

Wilkinson

2020

Sociological Research Online

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Through a textual analysis of four episodes comprising the 2019 ITV 1 psychological thriller Cheat, this article explores a fictional representation of the United Kingdom (UK) Higher Education (HE) setting in a television drama. We discuss our analysis in the context of growing marketisation of UK HE, where academics are increasingly viewing students as powerful consumers. We focus on one of the central characters, final-year undergraduate student Rose Vaughan, and the staff with whom she interacts in a fictional HE institution – St. Helen’s College. This article engages with the following themes: ‘The powerful student consumer’ and ‘The commodified academic’. Insight gleaned through the textual analysis of this dramatised depiction of UK HE allows us to attempt to understand how both students and academics might be navigating the neoliberal university and negotiating place and status as (paying) students and (commercial) academics. Although heralded as powerful student-consumers in much literature, our analysis of this television drama shows how students can potentially disrupt the united front often attempted by HE institutions, but ultimately are faced with a ‘the house always wins’1 scenario. Our article offers an important contribution to the psycho-sociological literature into how the television drama depicts that the student experience has been transformed and impacted by HE’s marketisation. This includes a reconsideration of how the television drama portrays what it means to be a student, by exploring how one student is conceptualised, understood, and represented in the psychological thriller.

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