Traditional or non-traditional students?: incorporating UK students’ living arrangements into decisions about going to university

Abstract

Since the introduction of the post-1992 university, various, and ongoing, higher education policy reforms have fuelled academic, political, media and anecdotal discussions of the trajectories of UK university students. An outcome of this has been the dualistic classification of students as being from either 'traditional' or 'nontraditional' backgrounds. An extensive corpus of literature has sought to critically discuss how students experience their transition into university, questioning specifically the notion that all students follow a linear transition through university.Moreover, there is far more complexity involved in the student experience than can be derived from just employing these monolithic terms. This research proposes incorporating students' residential circumstances into these debates to encourage more critical discussions of this complex demographic. Drawing upon the experiences of a sample of students from a UK 'Post-1992' university this research will develop a profile for each accommodation type to highlight the key characteristics of the 'type' of student most likely to belong to each group. In doing so this establishes a more detailed understanding of how a 'student' habitus might affect the mechanisms which are put in place to assist students in their transitions into and through university. Moreover this will identify links between HE aspirations and the types of accommodation students come to reside in. This will be achieved by examining the different ways in which students identify their prior knowledge of university life and the role of others in informing choices; the desire to be included in traditional 'student experiences' and how the propinquity of university to home impacts upon their decisions.

‘I’m not sure where home is’: narratives of student mobilities into and through higher education

“…However, some participants had more fluid experiences of moving away in which they wanted to maintain ties to their family home rather than leave their old life behind. Similarly, moving away did not appear to signify a simple break from students' previous identities; whilst Holton (2018) found that students who did not move away from home during university would be more likely to want to retain a sense of their pre-student identities, our findings suggest that even when students do move away, some of them do not necessarily express a desire to change either.…”

“…The first theme from our thematic analysis highlights that many of the participants moved away from home for the "student experience" (Holton 2018), anticipating that they would become more independent as part of the need to grow up. This perspective reinforces traditional depictions of the 'planned' 'student pathway' of moving out of the family home (Rugg, Ford, and Burrows 2004) and shows the impact of such cultural expectations upon students' conceptions of becoming a student.…”

“…Despite a growth in the number of commuter students who demonstrate frequent mobilities (Holton and Finn 2018), in the UK, the majority of students still move away from home for university (over 80% in Britain in 2017-18;Whyte 2019), often desiring the "student experience" (Holton 2018). Students living away from home during university are assumed to experience several benefits.…”

Smartphone GPS Locations of Students’ Movements to and from Campus

“…Current research has shown that commuting students vary their levels of engagement based on whether or not they are living with their parents [48,49]. Low network warp, i.e., low street connectivity, is strongly associated with suburban areas of the city [24].…”

The ‘Mirrored Ceiling’: Young undergraduate student women’s expectations of gendered career opportunities and constraints

“…Prestigious universities tend to socially and culturally reproduce certain sectors of society with relatively high levels of cultural and economic capital (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1979). In the UK such geographies tend to be tied to practices of mobility and migration, where young people move away from home and stay in student accommodation to study (Holdsworth, 2009;Kinton et al, 2018;Smith & Hubbard, 2014), although more diverse residential student geographies are emerging (Holton, 2018;Wakeling & Jefferies, 2012). Differentiated student cultures exist even within traditional and seemingly homogenous student intakes (Holton and Riley, 2016; see also Finn & Holton, 2019).…”