What it means to be studying against the grain of neoliberalism in a community-based university programme in a ‘disadvantaged area’

Abstract

Australia is indicative of a country that is deeply confused and conflicted around a policy discourse of inclusion that is sutured within an existential context heavily committed to the tenets of neoliberalism. Nowhere is this more evident than in the case of higher education, in which the proportion of young people from backgrounds of ‘disadvantage’ has remained implacably stuck at around 15% for several decades. The research from which this paper comes is an innovative community-based university-provided programme for young people for whom university education was never a realistic possibility – because of family histories, interruption to their lives, of having undertaken forms of secondary education that prevented them from gaining university entrance qualification, or who had terminated their education before completing the secondary years of schooling. This paper explores the story of one young person in his first year in a university programme, as he struggled with obstacles and impediments of a higher education system and set of neoliberal policy discourses that remain deeply sceptical and antagonistic to his trajectory.

Keywords:

• disadvantage
• class
• participation in higher education
• community-based education
• aspirations

Acknowledgements

We thank the courageous young people who shared their stories, and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

Appreciation to the Collaborative Research Network (CRN), Federation University Australia for funding this project.

Notes on contributors

John Smyth PhD is Visiting Professor of Education and Social Justice at University of Huddersfield, UK. Until 2015 he was Research Professor of Education at Federation University Australia. He is Emeritus Professor at Flinders University South Australia, is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, a former Senior Fulbright Research Scholar, the recipient of several awards from the American Educational Research Association for his research, and the author of many books and articles. Among his most recent books (with Down, McInerney and Hattam) is Doing critical educational research: a conversation with the research of John Smyth (New York: Peter Lang, 2014).

Tim Harrison is senior lecturer, regional engagement programs, at Federation University Australia. He has had extensive experience in community engagement activities, and his PhD supervised by John Smyth, which is currently under examination, is entitled ‘An Australian rules for radical? Community activism and genuine empowerment.’

Notes

1. Pseudonyms have been used for all people, places and programmes in this research.