Coping with higher educational expectations : Gender, class and unequal challenges in prestigious contexts

• This paper explores men students’ experiences and expressions of negative affect, especially shame and fear. We ask how these are informed by gender, social class and prestigious higher education contexts. Context and social categories inform affect-norms, which in turn inform understandings of, for example, which kinds of affect are legitimate to experience and express. The importance of considering affective dimensions in education has been demonstrated beyond their effects on well-being; e.g. joy and pride, as well as shame, fear of failure and test-anxiety, have implications for students’ motivation, effort and choice of educational trajectories.  The paper draws on data from an ongoing qualitative, large-scale study about masculinity and men students in England and Sweden (2015-2018). Semi-structured interviews (approx. 1-1.5 hours) were conducted with students and staff in Law, Medicine and Physics engineering, i.e. prestigious and stressful programmes that recruit primarily top-achieving, middle-class young people. This paper explore the challenges of coping with prestigious and competitive HE programmes. How do different learning and social contexts, gender and class, inform students’ experiences of stress and strategies manage these? The analysis is informed by sociological stress research and theories about self-worth and social identity. We draw upon data from a large, ongoing, three-year (2015-2018), cross-national (Sweden and England) comparative interview project that investigates student identities, masculinities and academic failure and success in Medicine, Law and Engineering physics. Data are being generated by focus group interviews and individual interviews with students and staff, and analyzed in Atlas.ti using a constructivist grounded theory approach. Our data suggest that these programmes, in part, attracted students because of being renowned as challenging. However, most had not anticipated the challenges in terms of their academic identities; many students had to negotiate a change from being a top student to being an ‘average’ or ‘low’ achiever, and many struggled with to find a sustainable work/rest balance. Students used a multitude of strategies which we explore in relation to gender and class; e.g. increased academic effort and withdrawal from other activities, displaying calmness and concealing poor test results, and, also, seeking academic and emotional support from peers. By examining undergraduate stress and well-being in prestigious contexts, we will begin to shed more light on (1) how privilege are maintained, reinforced, and might be challenged, and, also, (2) the pressures and demands on many middle-class young people and the effects on their wellbeing.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi -- Sociologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology -- Sociology (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Genusstudier (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Gender Studies (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Lärande (hsv//swe)

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

Nyckelord

Utbildningssociologi

Sociology of Education

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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