Stigmatised learners: mature-age students negotiating university culture

Abstract

Research on the socially-situated nature of learning shows how practices and identities are affected by participation in communities, but very little is known about how mature-age students experience the relational dynamics of university. Based on data from a qualitative study of first-year students, we consider written accounts by older learners to examine how they negotiate the culture of higher education. We found that mature-age students encounter a university culture dominated by younger students, who draw separating boundaries between the social and the academic and stigmatise older students because of their academic practices. Drawing on Lave and Wenger’s learning theory, we examine the way mature-age students negotiate the process of becoming legitimate members of the learning community, and the resistance they face in doing so. Knowing how mature-age students learn, and how to support them, depends on examining their negotiation of university culture, as well as their differing aspirations and needs.

Keywords:

• learner identity
• mature-age students
• older learners
• socially situated learning
• university culture

Notes

1. Mature-age students are more likely to stay close to home for HE, but evidence suggests they encounter relational divisions and hardship between them and their families and networks of friends (Merrill 2014, 7). HE changes people, and can divide people due to issues of changes in verbal expression and worldview (James 1995, 460–461). The conflicts and divisions can be particularly nefarious for women and their partners (Edwards 1993) and generally for those from working-class backgrounds (Mallman Forthcoming)

2. Students knew that their lecturer, Helen Lee, would not grade their assignments (that work was done by tutors), so there was no link between their participation and their mark in the subject.

3. The student participants in our research were given the Nathan (2005) reading to inspire ideas for their own writing. Some of the language the students used, which we analyse in this article, is influenced by what they read; however, they tended to refer to the text only briefly, and some did not refer to Nathan at all. The text supplied them with some additional vocabulary that they employed to offer accounts (often impassioned accounts) of their own observations and embodied experiences of negotiating university culture.

4. The mature-age students quoted in this article range from 22 to 56 years of age. There are important differences in the experiences, circumstances, needs and interests of students within this broad range. For example, drawing on this same research project, we write elsewhere (retracted) about the experiences of ‘young mature-age students’, particularly those between 22 and their early 30s who do not readily identify with school-leavers or ‘mature-age’ cohorts. These students often feel isolated, thinking they are the ‘only ones’ who fall between officially recognised and popularly operationalised categories of student. Accordingly, we do not presume all of the students discussed in this article can be spoken for as a homogeneous ‘mature-age student’ cohort. We discuss some experiences they had in common while recognising these experiences need more complexification in further research to account for differences within this broad range of ages.

5. We made minor edits to correct typos and grammatical errors.