Estranged students in higher education: navigating social and economic capitals

ABSTRACT

Family is widely regarded as a cornerstone of student support. When family support exist as an essential form of social capital making, rupture of family ties places students in a disadvantageous position. This paper focuses on estranged students’ accounts of their experiences of higher education, highlighting how capital dynamics shape their academic trajectories. Based on interviews with 21 estranged students, our research uncovers different dimensions of estranged students’ struggles and successes as they move through academia. This paper explores the social imagination that surrounds the university student, or ‘student experience’, as resting upon family support. The authors propose that widening participation policies and practices need to be more attuned to the realities that mark estranged students’ experiences, as they are not only impacted by the scarcity of either economic or social capital, but also by the instability of interrelated capitals that contribute to precarious and volatile experiences.

KEYWORDS:

• Estrangement
• family
• higher education
• capitals
• Bourdieu

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/dec/21/its-painful-and-difficult-the-students-estranged-from-their-families.

2. For the purpose of this research, fieldwork sites have been distinguished by the type of institution. This is important in the context of the UK, with different types of institutions: for example, Russell Group institutions (n=24) are often recognised as the leading institutions in the UK, with Technological Universities likely to be research intensive institutions operating outside of the UK HE elite Russell Group. These institutions are likely to attract different types of students and hold different ‘widening participation’ strategies.

3. Student Awards Agency Scotland is the agency of the Scottish Government giving financial support to eligible students doing a course of higher education in the UK.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Carnegie Trust and the Society for Research in Higher Education.