There are currently over 35 million students within Europe and yet, to date, we have little knowledge of the extent to which understandings of ‘the student’ are shared. A central aim of Constructing the Higher Education Student: Perspectives from across Europe is thus to investigate how the contemporary higher education (HE) student is conceptualised and the extent to which this differs both within nation-states and across them. This is significant in terms of implicit (and sometimes explicit) assumptions that are made about common understandings of ‘the student’ across Europe – underpinning, for example, initiatives to increase cross-border educational mobility and the wider development of a European Higher Education Area. It is also significant in relation to exploring the extent to which understandings are shared within a single nation and, particularly, the degree to which there is congruence between how students are conceptualised within policy texts and by policymakers, and the understandings of other key social actors such as the media, HE staff and students themselves. Should nations be understood as ‘coherent educational entities’ (Philips and Schweisfurth, 2014) – or is there, instead, a high degree of contestation within nation-states about what it means to be a contemporary HE student?
To help contextualise the arguments that follow in this book, in this introductory chapter we discuss previous scholarship that has explored, first, the extent to which students have become increasingly similar as a result of processes of globalisation and, with respect to students in Europe in particular, Europeanisation. We then consider some of the dominant ways in which students have been constructed and analysed in the academic literature. Following this, we provide detail about the empirical research upon which Constructing the Higher Education Student: Perspectives from across Europe is based, before giving a brief overview of the countries in which we collected data and the structure of the book.
Increasingly similar students?
The arguments we make in Constructing the Higher Education Student: Perspectives from across Europe articulate with extant debates – conducted across the disciplines of education, sociology, geography and social policy – about the extent to which educational processes have been globalised and the experience of being a student has become increasingly similar worldwide.
Nevertheless, this analysis – of increasing convergence of HE across Europe around an Anglo-American model – is not shared by all. Many writers contend that the demise of the nation-state has been overstated and that national governments retain considerable influence – in shaping education policy within their own borders, as well as upon the nature of globalisation itself (Green, 2006). For example, not all European nations have sought to establish elite universities or maximise revenue through attracting international students, and significant differences remain in how HE is funded (for example, Hüther and Krücken, 2014). Moreover, there is variation in the extent to which European nations have embraced marketisation (see
Dominant constructions of the student
When we turn to the literature on conceptualisations of the HE student, in Europe and elsewhere, the majority of discussion has tended to focus on a relatively small number of constructions. In this section, we introduce four of the most prominent of these – students as consumers (rather than learners), political actors, future workers and socialites.
Consumer not learner?
In much of the scholarship, within education and other cognate disciplines, it is often assumed that students are, first and foremost, learners. There is clearly a substantial amount of research devoted to enhancing the teaching and learning that takes place within higher education institutions (HEIs), typically underpinned by the belief that this is the primary function of the sector. However, over recent years, various scholars – as well as a range of social commentators – have asserted that students are understood less as learners and more as consumers (for example, Morley, 2003; Cardoso et al, 2011; Woodall et al, 2014). Typically such arguments are advanced as part of a critique of the neo-liberalisation of the HE sector. In countries such as Australia, the US and the UK, high fees are often seen to have inculcated more consumerist behaviours on the part of students, and led to their clear positioning as consumers by both HE institutions and policymakers (Tight, 2013). This has been brought into sharp relief in the UK by the government’s encouragement of students unhappy with their degree programme to seek redress through the Competition and Markets Authority – a governmental body that ensures that ‘consumers get a good deal when buying goods and services, and businesses operate within the law’ (CMA, 2020: np). In countries in which fees are either not payable by HE students or have been kept at a low level (such as across much of mainland Europe), similar arguments about the emergence of new forms of student identity are also
There is now, however, an emerging body of work that questions some of these assumptions and provides more nuanced accounts of the impact of market mechanisms within HE (for example, Budd, 2017). Research conducted in the UK by Tomlinson (2017), for example, has shown that while some students have embraced a consumer identity that informs their approach to their studies, a considerable number of their peers actively reject this construction on the grounds that it fails to recognise the effort they themselves put into their learning, and has the potential to undermine their relationships with lecturers (see also O’Shea and Delahunty (2018) who have made similar arguments with respect to Australian students). Research has suggested that constructions may differ at the institutional level, too, with higher-status and more financially secure universities better able to insulate themselves from the pressures of marketisation and thus protect their students from being positioned as consumers (Naidoo et al, 2011). Comparative research by Muddiman (2020) has evidenced differences – across nations – by discipline, as well: in her study in Singapore and the UK, students studying business were more likely to assume consumer-like orientations to their degree than their counterparts in sociology departments. Nevertheless, intra-European comparisons are rarely conducted, while research on the impact of market mechanisms on student identities is uncommon outside nations with neo-liberal welfare regimes and that charge high tuition fees. Our study sought to fill both these gaps.
Political actor
The construction of ‘student as consumer’ is often held in tension with that of the student as a political actor. Indeed, in many societies, there is now an assumption that students should be politically active, driving social change and challenging enduring inequalities, and students are often criticised – by journalists, HE staff and other interested parties – when they are perceived
Future worker
Studies across the Anglophone Global North have indicated that, within national policy, students are frequently constructed as ‘future workers’ – typically as part of a broader ‘human capital’ discourse in which the primary purpose of HE is increasingly presented as labour market preparation – and are assumed to be motivated primarily by employment-related concerns (for example, Waters, 2009; Allen et al, 2013; Moore and Morton, 2017). In the wider European context, increasing the ‘employability’ of students has also constituted a key focus of the Bologna Process and informed various national-level policies (Stiwne and Alves, 2010). Within Denmark, for example, Nielsen and Sarauw (2017) have argued that there has been a growing demand on the part of policymakers that students ‘focus on and work towards their future employability from the day they enrol at the university’ (p 162) and move through their studies quickly to enable prompt labour market entry.
There are, however, some subtle differences in how this ‘future worker’ focus is played out, which are related to national models of HE funding and broader education policy traditions (about the role of public funding and the position of universities in national development). Antonucci (2016) notes that in what she calls the ‘social investment’ model of HE, which typifies Anglo-Saxon countries such as England (and also Australia, New Zealand and the US, although they were not covered by her research), students are constructed by policymakers explicitly as individual investors in their future careers and, as such, are expected to make significant private contributions
Socialite
Finally, students have often been viewed – by others, if not often by themselves – as socialites, ‘party animals’ or even hedonists, interested primarily in the social opportunities afforded by HE. This particular construction tends to be stronger in nations with a dominant ‘residential’ model of HE, in which it is common for students to leave their parental home in order to pursue their studies and live in dedicated student accommodation or shared private houses. Williams (2013) has argued that this specific construction has a long history within the UK particularly, dating back at least to the first half of the 20th century. However, some scholars have suggested it has taken on new significance in contemporary society, as a number of HE institutions have chosen to stress their ‘party credentials’ as a means of differentiating themselves from their competitors and thus attracting students who prioritise social life over study. This is articulated well in Armstrong and Hamilton’s (2013) ethnography of a large state university in the US, entitled Paying for the Party. They identify various ‘pathways’ that students can take through the university, but argue that it is the ‘party pathway’ which is dominant. It is, they suggest ‘the main artery through the university’, and the primary means of attracting ‘those whose dollars fuel the university’ (p 21). By stressing the highly developed social life of the campus and the correspondingly modest academic demands, the university targets extremely affluent students with middling academic records. As a result, Armstrong and Hamilton contend, it fails to support those from less privileged backgrounds who are more focused on their academic studies. Writing with respect to the UK, Sykes (2021) has shown how students often feel that they have to live up to the stereotype of the partying student in how they present themselves to others, even when their day-to-day lives are focused almost exclusively on studying and work.
This literature provides an important point of departure for the chapters that follow. Indeed, in a number of chapters, our arguments articulate with some of the points made above. We also, however, introduce some new constructions that are captured less well in the extant literature. Moreover, we demonstrate the complexity of such conceptualisations, by showing how some understandings differed within as well as across nations.
Researching understandings of the student
The subsequent chapters of this book draw on data that were collected as part of a European Research Council-funded project – ‘Eurostudents’ – that explored how HE students are understood across Europe. The research was designed to enable us to make comparisons between the ways in which students were constructed by different social actors within individual nation-states, as well as across nations. To facilitate cross-national comparisons, data were collected from six countries – Denmark, England, Germany, Ireland, Poland and Spain – chosen to provide diversity in terms of relationship to the EU, welfare regime, mechanisms of funding HE, and the type of financial support offered to students (see Table 1.1). We provide more detail about the specific policy contexts in each of these countries at the time we were collecting data later in the chapter. To compare the perspectives of different social actors within the same nation, we analysed how students were understood in policy and the media, and by HE institutions and students themselves. Fieldwork was conducted during 2017–20, and a full list of all the data collected can be found in Table 1.4.
Characteristics of the countries involved in the research
Country |
Welfare regime |
Accession to the EU |
Tuition fees for full-time undergraduates (2017/18) |
Student support for full-time undergraduates (2017/18) – with amounts per annum1 |
---|---|---|---|---|
Denmark |
Social democratic |
1973 |
No tuition fees |
c.85 per cent receive needs-based grants (of up to €9703); loans available to those entitled to state grant |
England |
Liberal |
1973 (left in 2020) |
High fees, typically £9250 per year |
No grants; loans available to all |
Germany |
Corporatist |
1952 |
No tuition fees; administrative fee of up to €300 per semester |
c.25 per cent of students receive need-based grants (up to €8820 – includes integrated loan) |
Ireland |
Catholic corporatist |
1973 |
No tuition fees; ‘student contribution’ of €3000 per year |
c.44 per cent of students receive need-based grants (up to €5915); no loans available |
Poland |
Post-Communist |
2004 |
No tuition fees; one-off administrative fee of c.€47 per year |
c.16 per cent of students receive need-based grants (€1244) and eight per cent merit-based grants (average €1113); loans available to those on lower incomes |
Spain |
Mediterranean/sub-protective |
1986 |
c.71 per cent of students pay fees; average amount of €1213 per year |
c.30 per cent of students receive need-based grants (up to €6682); no loans available |
We are cognisant of some of the critiques of comparative research that uses the nation-state as the unit of analysis. These tend to argue that such an approach reinforces methodological nationalism – that is, the assumption that the nation is the natural social and political form of the modern world (Wimmer and Glick Schiller, 2002). However, while employing a cross-national design, as discussed above, our research aimed to assess the perspectives of students and other stakeholders in a Europe where policy over the past two decades has been intended to bring about convergence of HE systems and, it is argued, has led to the conceptualisation of students in increasingly similar ways (for example, Moutsios, 2013). Moreover, our research design was intended to question explicitly whether nations, themselves, should be considered as ‘coherent educational entities’ (Philips and Schweisfurth, 2014), through exploring the perspectives of different social actors in each nation and being aware of likely inter-dependencies between the global, national and local levels (Kosmützky, 2015). No a priori assumptions were thus made about the relative importance of national borders. We now discuss each of the four strands of our research in turn.
Policy perspectives
The first strand of the research focused on the understandings of the HE student held by policy actors and disseminated through relevant policy documents. In each of the six countries, between 12 and 16 policy documents were selected, produced by government (including key strategy documents and speeches given by HE ministers); national unions representing HE staff and students;
Interviews were conducted in each of the countries with a similar range of stakeholders, representing government (a civil servant working on HE policy and/or a government minister); unions (in most countries a leader of the national students’ union, although in Spain we interviewed a leader of a union representing staff); and graduate employers/business organisations. In addition, we interviewed a member of staff from the national body representing universities (often called ‘rectors’ conferences’ in mainland Europe). In total, we interviewed 26 such policy actors across the six countries. All interviewees were asked a similar range of questions about how they understood students in their own country and the extent to which their understandings had changed over time. They were also asked about specific ways in which students have been understood by others (for example, as consumers, political actors, future workers) and the degree to which they shared such views. Additionally, they were asked to respond to an extract from a key policy document from their own country. All interviews were conducted in English and lasted, on average, an hour.
Sampled newspapers
Country |
Name of newspaper |
Tabloid/broadsheet |
Political orientation |
Other information3 |
---|---|---|---|---|
Denmark |
Politiken |
Broadsheet |
Centre left |
Largest circulation of broadsheets |
BT |
Tabloid |
Centre right |
Largest circulation of tabloids |
|
England |
The Guardian |
Broadsheet |
Centre left |
Third largest circulation of broadsheets |
Daily Mail |
Mid-market/tabloid |
Right |
Second largest circulation of all newspapers |
|
Germany |
Süddeutsche Zeitung |
Broadsheet |
Centre left |
Largest circulation of broadsheets |
Die Welt |
Broadsheet |
Centre right |
Third largest circulation of broadsheets |
|
Ireland |
Irish Independent |
Mid-market/tabloid |
Centre right |
Largest circulation of all newspapers |
The Irish Times |
Broadsheet |
Centre left |
Second largest circulation of all newspapers |
|
Poland |
Gazeta Wyborcza |
Broadsheet |
Centre left |
Largest circulation of broadsheets |
Rzeczpospolita |
Broadsheet |
Centre right |
Second largest circulation of broadsheets |
|
Spain |
El País |
Broadsheet |
Centre left |
Largest circulation of broadsheets |
ABC |
Broadsheet |
Right |
Fourth largest circulation of broadsheets |
In the subsequent chapters of the book, policy documents are referred to in terms of their country of origin and type (for example, German government document, Polish union document). Full references can be found in the Appendix, along with a list of all 92 documents analysed. The interviews are referred to by giving the country and type of organisation the interviewee represented.
Media perspectives
The second strand of the research concentrated on how HE students were represented in the media, with respect to newsprint and popular culture. Our decision to focus on newspapers was informed by the belief that the views of print journalists, and how they construct HE students within newspapers, are significant. As Williams (2011) notes, journalists ‘are subject to the same influences as other people and in order to sell articles, pieces must chime with the opinions of at least a section of the population’ (p 170). They thus reflect dominant understandings of what it means to be a student, but can also ‘help reconstruct ways of being a student for new generations’ (Williams, 2011: 170). In each of the six countries, two national newspapers were selected for analysis (see Table 1.2). When sampling the newspapers, we chose to include only national – not regional or local – publications, and restricted ourselves to those that were available through an online database or
We then searched for articles that were published between 2014 and 2016 using search terms (for example, students, higher education, university) relevant to each national context. In total, we gathered 1159 articles from the six countries, which were analysed using (largely qualitative) content analysis. On the basis of this content analysis, a sub-sample of the articles was chosen for more detailed discursive analysis. When material was not available in English, it was translated using Google Translate or professional translators.
In the second part of this strand, up to two popular films or drama-based television programmes that feature students prominently were selected from each country, where available (see Table 1.3). We included only those that had been made in the last ten years, and which had been widely distributed and/or
Sampled TV series and films
Country |
Name |
Format |
Date of production |
Other information, including genre |
---|---|---|---|---|
England (or UK) |
Clique |
TV series |
2017–2018 |
Psychological thriller; two seasons |
Fresh Meat |
TV series |
2011–2016 |
Comedy; four seasons |
|
Germany |
13 Semester |
Film |
2009 |
Romantic comedy |
Wir Sind Die Neuen (We Are the New Ones) |
Film |
2014 |
Comedy |
|
Ireland |
Normal People |
TV series |
2020 |
Drama and romance; one season |
Spain |
Fuga de Cerebros (Brain Drain) |
Film |
2009 |
Romantic comedy |
Merlí: Sapere Aude (Merlí: Dare to Know) |
TV series |
2019 |
Drama; one season |
Institutional perspectives
The third strand of the research focused on institutional perspectives, that is, how HE students are constructed through official university texts and staff understandings. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with staff members from three HEIs per country.5 In general, the institutions were chosen to represent key elements of the diversity of the relevant national HE sector. However, in some cases, our choice was limited by logistical factors, such as where we were able to secure access and the practicalities of travel. In Denmark, we chose two universities of different ages (one established
Respondents were asked about their own conceptualisations of HE students in their countries, the extent to which these had changed over their career, and the factors they believed had informed these understandings. As with the policy actors mentioned above, staff were also asked for their views about some of the common ways in which students were understood by others. These interviews lasted, on average, an hour, and were all conducted in English. In the subsequent chapters, when we refer to members of staff we provide an identifier that relates to the institution for which they worked (see Appendix for details). Further information about staff members’ roles, discipline, years of experience, and gender are provided in the Appendix.
Student perspectives
The fourth strand examined the constructions of HE students held by students themselves. Three focus groups were conducted in each of the 18 HE institutions where we also conducted staff interviews (see above). Thus, in total we conducted 54 focus groups, involving 295 undergraduate students.
The focus groups lasted, on average, 90 minutes. Participants were asked a wide range of questions about their understandings of what it means to be a student today. An open, semi-structured approach was used to ensure that the conversation was led by students themselves. We also made use of plasticine modelling. This creative method, as discussed by Ingram (2011) and Abrahams and Ingram (2013), is a useful tool for eliciting rich data on a subject such as social constructions, as it enables participants to make tangible relatively abstract ideas, and allows greater time for reflection. At the start of each group, we asked all participants to make two plasticine models: the first focusing on how they understood themselves as HE students, and the second on how they thought others viewed them. Students were subsequently asked to talk us through what they had made and why. In addition, towards the end of the focus group, participants were asked for their views about specific constructions discussed in the academic literature (such as student as consumer, political actor, future worker and learner), and examples of representations (of students) drawn from the sampled policy and newspaper texts (see above) were introduced as prompts to encourage discussion. The focus groups were conducted in English in England, Ireland and Denmark. In Germany, Poland and Spain, they were conducted in the national language, with the transcriptions translated into English prior to analysis. We also conducted one individual interview with a student in Denmark, as she was the only participant to turn up to one of the planned focus groups. Although we rescheduled this group, she could not make the new time but was nevertheless keen to take part in the project. When we report the focus group data, we note the relevant country and have given each of the three HEI focus groups a number.
A note about language
Throughout our data collection (see Table 1.4 for a summary of all data collected), we were aware that various terms, including some of those central to our research, such as student and worker, have different connotations in particular languages. To increase our awareness of these, sometimes key terms were discussed explicitly as part of the interviews and focus groups. This was particularly the case for the
Summary of all data collected
Data collected in each of the six countries |
Data collected across the project as a whole |
|
---|---|---|
Policy constructions |
12–16 policy texts 4–6 in-depth interviews with policy actors |
92 policy texts 26 in-depth interviews with policy actors |
Media representations |
Relevant articles from two newspapers over three-year period Up to two popular films or TV series |
Content of 12 newspapers over three-year period (total of 1159 articles) Seven popular films or TV series |
Institutional perspectives |
12 in-depth interviews with HEI staff |
72 in-depth interviews with HEI staff |
Student understandings |
Nine focus groups (each with 4–6 students) |
54 focus groups (total of 295 students) |
National policy contexts
In the chapters that follow, we show how some understandings of students were common across the six countries in our study. We also, however, demonstrate that in some cases, particular conceptualisations were informed by the specific national policy context. To help situate these arguments, as well as provide more detail about the contexts in which our data collection took place, in this section we outline various key features of the HE sectors in the six nations. We also discuss some of the particular reforms which, our analyses suggest, had exerted influence on how students were understood. This overview is not intended to be exhaustive, but rather to highlight salient points to inform the reading of later chapters.
Denmark
The Danish HE sector is relatively small compared to the other five countries in the sample, comprising just over 310 000 students in 2018. Nevertheless, it
Salient higher-education-related data, by country
Denmark |
England (figures given for UK as whole) |
Germany |
Ireland |
Poland |
Spain |
|
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Total number of students enrolled in tertiary education, 2018 (thousands)* |
310.9 |
2467.1 |
3127.9 |
231.2 |
1492.9 |
2051.8 |
25–34-year-olds with tertiary education (bachelor’s level or above) (%), 2019** |
43 |
44 |
33 |
63 |
43 |
33 |
New entrants to bachelor’s programmes below age of 25 (%)** |
76 |
87 |
83 |
89 |
87 |
91 |
Unemployment rates of 25–34-year-olds with tertiary education (%), 2019** |
7 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
3 |
12 |
Public expenditure on tertiary education (as % of GDP), 2017* |
2.45 |
1.44 |
1.25 |
0.97 |
1.08 |
0.93 |
Over recent years, some in Denmark have argued that these principles have been undermined by various government reforms – particularly those
England
England was chosen as a case study country rather than the whole of the UK because HE is governed separately in the four ‘home nations’ that make up the UK, and because of the differences in funding structures in England,
As Table 1.5 indicates, the UK has a relatively large number of students as a whole, when compared to other European countries (although fewer than Germany), and most are quite young (87 per cent of those starting a first degree were under the age of 25). In 2019, 44 per cent of the UK population between the ages of 25 and 34 had attained at least a bachelor’s degree and, in 2019, very few graduates were unemployed (only two per cent). Despite the high fees charged to students (see Table 1.1), public expenditure on tertiary education as a proportion of GDP is the second highest in our sample, at 1.44 per cent (Table 1.5). As noted above, the English HE sector (as well as that of the UK as a whole) is more vertically differentiated than in many countries (Hazelkorn, 2015), with divisions typically drawn between larger, older, ‘research intensive’ universities (commonly members of the ‘Russell Group’ mission group); smaller, research-focused universities, which held university status prior to 1992; and more modern, often teaching-focused institutions, which gained university status in 1992 or later.
The English HE sector differs from many of its European counterparts with respect to its early embrace of marketisation and its associated decision to charge individual students a high level of fee (albeit with the option of taking out a loan, the repayment of which is tied to future earnings) (see Table 1.1). Indeed, a number of studies have illustrated how HE policies in England – through the introduction of a range of market mechanisms including student charters (contracts between students and their HEIs), student satisfaction surveys, and institutionalised complaint mechanisms, as well as high tuition fees – construct students as consumers, and HE as a commodity in which they will be willing to invest for personal gain (Naidoo and Williams, 2015; Brooks and Abrahams, 2018; Raaper, 2018). As discussed earlier in this chapter, it has also been argued that these policies have had a significant impact on classroom practices and the learner identities taken up by students themselves (for example, Nixon et al, 2010; Naidoo and Williams, 2015). These analyses of the contemporary English university often stand in stark contrast to the ‘idea of a university’ proffered by the theologian John Henry Newman in his classic text of the 19th century, and which has exerted a significant influence, historically, on how HE has been understood in England. In this, he argued that university scholars should be engaged in intellectual pursuit as an end in itself, not for any external purpose. Moreover, he advocated a broad, liberal education, focused on teaching students to think, reason, compare, discriminate and analyse, and was
Germany
The German HE sector is the largest of the six in the research, with over three million students (Table 1.5). Nevertheless, the proportion of young people with at least a bachelor’s degree in Germany is joint lowest – at 33 per cent. This is largely due to the enduring strength of the vocational sector in Germany, with many young people choosing to take up an apprenticeship or other form of vocational education or training rather than enrol in HE. Those who do progress to HE are typically quite young – with 83 per cent of new entrants on bachelor’s programmes below the age of 25 – and are very likely to move into employment on graduation (the unemployment rate for graduates under 35 was only three per cent in 2019) (Table 1.5). HE is not predominantly regulated at the national level in Germany, but by the 16 individual states (Länder). There are, however, some important commonalities across the country: tuition fees are not payable and means-tested grants are available to those whose family income is below a certain level (around a quarter of students are eligible for such funding) (see Table 1.1).
Three main types of institution make up the German HE system: universities (including some that specialise in particular areas, such as technical universities); universities of applied sciences (that are practically oriented, and include a period of paid practical training); and colleges of art, film and music. There is a strong vocational system in Germany and, as noted above, many young people opt to pursue an apprenticeship rather than an HE qualification. Although, historically, the German HE system has been a relatively ‘flat’ one, with few status differences between institutions, since 2005, steps have been taken by the German government to introduce more vertical differentiation into the system. This has been done through the ‘Excellence Initiative’, which has concentrated funding in a small group of
Currently, a bachelor’s degree takes three years or six semesters to complete and a master’s degree usually two years or four semesters. However, it is only since the early 21st century that bachelor’s and master’s qualifications have been available in Germany, as a result of the Bologna Process. Previously, students studied for a Diplom or Magister and, because these allowed students to study very flexibly, they often took a long time to complete (Ertl, 2013). Indeed, since the turn of the century, there has been a concerted effort in Germany to encourage students to move faster through their degree programme – bearing some similarities to the Danish reforms discussed above. German politicians have been concerned at the cost to the taxpayer of slow completion (Ertl, 2013). Student support is now available only for the number of semesters it is expected to take a student to complete a degree (six for most bachelor’s programmes). After this time, students are still able to continue with their degrees, but have to fund their studies themselves. As in Denmark, there has been considerable opposition to these reforms, with students believing they are being rushed through their studies, and denied the freedom to decide on their own pace of learning. This opposition is often framed in terms of the Humboldtian principles upon which German HE was built and particularly the idea of Lernfreiheit (the freedom to learn) (see Brooks et al (2021a) for further discussion).
Ireland
The Irish HE sector is the smallest of the six covered by the research, with just over 230 000 students (Table 1.5), and government spending in this area is fairly low (0.97 per cent of GDP). However, Ireland has the highest participation rate in the study, with 63 per cent of 25–34-year-olds having gained at least a bachelor’s level qualification (Table 1.5). Irish students tend to be young, with 89 per cent of those starting bachelor’s programmes under 25, while unemployment among graduates has been relatively low (four per cent in 2019). Although Irish students do not officially pay tuition fees, they do have to pay a reasonably high ‘student contribution’, which, at the time of our research, stood at €3000 a year. Means-tested grants are available for students from low-income families; when we collected data in Ireland, around 44 per cent of students were entitled to such grants, up to a maximum of €5915 (see Table 1.1).
The Irish HE sector is comprised of universities, institutes of technology, colleges of education and some specialist institutions. However, it is generally considered a binary system, with distinctions made between universities on the one hand and institutes of technology on the other. Institutes of technology are largely teaching-focused, and the majority of
Poland
Polish HE has a long history, with the first university established in the 14th century. It has been influenced by both Humboldtian principles (see above), and the country’s Communist past (Antonowicz et al, 2020). It has, however, undergone significant change over the past three decades since the end of Communist rule in 1989. Although the HE participation rate is now similar to that seen in many other European countries (43 per cent of 25–34-year-olds held at least a bachelor’s degree in 2019 – see Table 1.5), the rate of expansion has been much higher. During the Communist period, HE was centrally planned, with places strictly linked to labour market need and, by 1989, despite massification in many other parts of Europe, only about ten per cent of each cohort went on to HE (Kwiek, 2016). Within 15 years, however, the participation rate had risen to over 50 per cent – a process that Kwiek (2016) describes as both abrupt and uncoordinated. The main drivers of this expansion were changes within the labour market, which required a more highly educated workforce, and greater demand for HE from the population (and an increased ability to pay fees, as salaries increased post-Communism) (Kwiek, 2016).
Polish students are typically young, with 87 per cent of those entering bachelor’s programmes below the age of 25 (see Table 1.5), and most go on to find jobs at the end of their studies (the unemployment rate for 25–34-year-olds with tertiary education was three per cent in 2019 – see Table 1.5). Students attending public HEIs do not have to pay tuition fees, only an annual administration fee which, at the time of our data collection, was around €47. A small number of needs- and merit-based grants are available to students; in addition, loans are offered to those from low-income families (see Table 1.1 for further details). Those attending private HEIs pay for their tuition; they typically study on a part-time basis and engage in paid work at the same time. Fees are also payable for those studying on a part-time basis in public HEIs.
Spain
Despite the Spanish HE sector being relatively large (in terms of the size of its student population), only a third of those in the 25–34 age group have a bachelor’s degree or above, and public expenditure on the sector is the lowest of all our six countries (see Table 1.5). Those who do go on to HE are typically young, with 91 per cent of new entrants to bachelor’s programmes under the age of 25 – the highest proportion across the sample. One of the factors that distinguishes Spain from the other five countries in the research is the relatively high level of unemployment (see Table 1.5). At the time of our data collection in Spain (2017–2018), the youth unemployment rate was 34.3 per cent – more than double the EU average of 15.2 per cent and the highest of all the countries in our study (Eurostat, 2019a). Moreover, Spain
The majority of Spanish students (around 70 per cent) pay fees – at the time of our data collection the average annual amount was €1213 (see Table 1.1) – and a relatively small proportion (about 30 per cent) are eligible for needs-based grants. No loans are available to cover either tuition fees or living costs, and student support was cut back quite substantially following the 2008 recession (de la Torre and Perez-Esparrells, 2019). As in Denmark and Germany, there have been some substantial reforms to the Spanish HE system as a result of the Bologna Process (Elias, 2010; de la Torre and Perez-Esparrells, 2019). For example, the time required to complete an undergraduate degree was shortened from five to four years in 2007, and then to three years in 2015 – although universities still have the right to offer a four-year degree if they wish. While these changes were controversial at the time of introduction (Phillips, 2008; Elias, 2010), they were commented on by only a very small minority of our interviewees, and appeared to have been largely accepted by the time of our data collection (see Brooks et al (2021a) for further discussion). In general, European policies have been viewed favourably by politicians and policymakers in Spain. Bonal and Tarabini (2013) have contended that Spanish official discourse (in education policy as well as elsewhere) consistently underlines the advantages of Europeanisation as a means of advancing both social and economic progress: ‘in order to become “real Europeans” it is crucial to follow the reforms already implemented by other European countries’ (p 337).
Structure of the book
In the subsequent chapters of the book, we draw on the data collected in the Eurostudents project to explore six of the most dominant constructions of HE students that emerged from our data. Not all of these were equally strong in all of the countries in which we conducted fieldwork – and, where relevant, we explore the reasons for this variation. Moreover, we also examine differences in the extent to which the particular conceptualisations were evident among the various social actors in the research; indeed, a key part of our overall argument is that there is often a significant disconnect between the understandings of students themselves and those of others in society.
The first construction we discuss, in Chapter 2, is that of students as ‘in transition’ – understood in terms of transition to the labour market, but also a period of self-development. While, in general, being ‘in transition’ was
Different authors have taken a lead on particular chapters, so some variation in authorial voice may be evident across the book. However, we have all shared the analysis across both country and data strand, and discussed the content of each chapter together in considerable depth. Constructing the Higher Education Student: Perspectives from across Europe should thus be considered very much a common endeavour.