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Seeking the Passionate Career: First‐in‐Family Enabling Students and the Idea of the Australian University
Author(s) -
May Josephine,
Delahunty Janine,
O'Shea Sarah,
Stone Cathy
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
higher education quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.976
H-Index - 42
eISSN - 1468-2273
pISSN - 0951-5224
DOI - 10.1111/hequ.12104
Subject(s) - ivory tower , the imaginary , passion , perspective (graphical) , sociology , individualism , meaning (existential) , higher education , pedagogy , media studies , social science , psychology , social psychology , psychoanalysis , political science , law , visual arts , art , psychotherapist
This paper examines the idea of the university from the first‐in‐family enabling students’ perspective. It provides an overview of the current crisis of meaning in scholarly commentary that points to a spectrum of meanings about the university. This spectrum ranges from the ancient imaginary of the monastic university as ‘ivory tower’ to the instrumental idea of the entrepreneurial university. The analysis then reports on the idea of the university in over 40 interviews and surveys of first‐in‐family enabling students who attended two large regional Australian universities in 2014. Their metaphorical understandings of the university constitute a powerful imaginary about what a university is and can do for individuals and the wider society. For many, the resolution of the individualistic passion for knowledge of ‘ivory tower’ studies and the commitment to the social and economic usefulness of the fully engaged entrepreneurial university can be found in the pursuit of the passionate career.