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Negotiating the risk of debt‐financed higher education: The experience of lone parent students
Author(s) -
HintonSmith Tamsin
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
british educational research journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.171
H-Index - 89
eISSN - 1469-3518
pISSN - 0141-1926
DOI - 10.1002/berj.3201
Subject(s) - disadvantaged , bachelor , negotiation , higher education , debt , friendship , sociology , welfare , attendance , qualitative research , position (finance) , political science , economic growth , gender studies , economics , social science , finance , law
Widening participation has opened higher education ( HE ) to diverse learners, but in doing so has created challenges negotiating situations of disadvantaged positioning compared with peers conforming more closely to the ideal ‘bachelor boy’ student. As one of the most financially vulnerable groups of students, lone parents occupy a doubly precarious position negotiating the challenges, including financial constraints, of both university participation and raising children alone. Their experiences of HE participation are particularly important to understand as increasing financial precariousness of both studentship and lone parenthood squeezes them further through concurrent rising university fees and welfare cuts. This paper draws on insights from longitudinal qualitative research with 77 lone mothers in England to explore the negotiation of social and economic risks and rewards involved in their undertaking of a debt‐financed higher education.