Coping with Higher Education Expectations : Wellbeing and Prestige-related Stress in Medicine and Law

• In this chapter we draw on interviews with students and staff on law and medicine programmes in two high-status universities in Sweden and England to explore (di)stress, crisis and wellbeing on these programmes. Thus, our focus is on predominantly, although not exclusively, middle- and upper-class students. There has been a tendency in educational research, and especially research that concentrates on social justice, to focus on disadvantaged groups while their privileged counterparts—who are often cast as successful and “having it all”—are seldom subject to scrutiny (Gaztambide-Fernández & Howard, 2010). While we acknowledge the tremendous importance of research on disadvantaged groups, there are strong arguments for also rendering visible the experiences of privileged, middle- and upper-class students. As Walkerdine, Lucey, and Melody (2001) argue, if we wish to explore the ways in which systems of stratification are produced, reproduced and transformed we need to analyse the production of privilege as well as the production of disadvantage. Furthermore, although middle-class students typically have many privileges relative to their working-class counterparts, it is unreasonable to assume that educational achievement is simply a celebratory success story for middle-class young people (Allan, 2010). For example, Walkerdine et al. in the UK (2001) and Holmqvist (2017) in Sweden vividly portray the anxiety, stress and profound fears of failure experienced by privileged young people who were growing up in a culture where anything less than excellence was regarded as failure. As Francis and Mills (2012) argue, schools can be damaging organisations for pupils and teachers and the implications for social justice are considerable. In this chapter, we focus on H.E. rather than schools to explore the production of stress and anxiety in two high-status programmes, and especially the ways in which stress is heightened by the prestige of the programmes: what we have termed “prestige-related stress.” We focus in particular on the ways in which stress and hard work were normalised on the programmes, how students responded, and the impacts on their wellbeing. We also explore the ways in which social comparisons and changing frames of reference impact student identities and feelings of worth. We begin by briefly outlining our research methods and contexts.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Utbildningssociologi

Sociology of Education

Psychology

Psykologi

Sociologi

Sociology

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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