‘I have some trauma responses, but it’s not my identity’: furthering social justice for care experienced and estranged university students

ABSTRACT

Care experienced and estranged students encounter profound material inequalities throughout their higher education journeys which demand our attention. However, cultural discriminations also pose problems. Both operate as social injustices which preclude them from being included, valued or seen as ‘ideal’ students, contributing towards inequitable outcomes. Drawing on feminist methodologies, this paper analyses 11 narratives of care experienced and estranged students at a post-1992 English university. This offers confirmatory evidence of material inequalities, including financial precarities and mismatched wellbeing provision. It also adds new insights into how such students are simultaneously subjected to processes of misrecognition. This includes being misinterpreted, disrespected or rendered invisible, excluding them from university lifeworlds and undermining a sense of belonging. Inspired by Nancy Fraser, the paper concludes that we must (continue to) tackle material exclusions alongside processes of misrecognition in order to further a social justice agenda for care experienced and estranged students in higher education.

KEYWORDS:

• Care experienced students
• estranged students
• higher education
• misrecognition
• social justice

Introduction

Within and beyond the UK, higher education is frequently designed for an imagined ‘ideal’ student: responsibility-free, mobile, affluent and able to prioritise studying (Tett, 2004). This produces exclusionary normativities, aligned with systemic classed, raced, gendered, geographical and other inequities (Burke & McManus, 2011). However, care experienced¹ and estranged² students face some of the most pronounced oppressions (Hauari et al., 2019). This may relate to mental health support, stigma, financial precarity, accommodation, and othering from the student body. These are all forms of ‘vast and deep’ social injustice born of interpersonal, structural and cultural dynamics, spanning from the macro to the ‘normal processes of everyday life’ (Young, 2011, p. 41). If left unchecked, this can lead to exploitation, marginalisation and powerlessness.

This paper aims to further the social justice agenda for care experienced and estranged students by attending to Fraser’s (2007a) redistribution-recognition dilemma. One the one hand, this involves interrogating maldistribution, meaning inequitable and unfair apportioning of resources. On the other, it requires consideration of how experiences, value and capabilities are misrecognised, i.e. devalued, contorted or invisibilised. Both shed light on processes which position this cohort as alter to the ‘ideal’ student. The paper draws on data from a wider research project which sought to explore the following questions:

1. What are the pedagogical, social and wider experiences of care experienced and estranged students at university?

2. How can universities best support them?

3. What (if any) barriers do they face in relation to on-course engagement, attainment and progression throughout and beyond their degree programmes?

Theorising misrecognition and maldistribution

In order to contribute towards a social justice agenda for care experienced and estranged students under a cohesive framework, we take inspiration from feminist theory. In particular, we draw on Fraser (1997a, 1997b, 2000, 2007a, 2007b) and her critiques of political activism which attempts to address social ills solely via redistributing resources or diversifying/amplifying underrepresented voices. Instead, she challenges us to address both sides.

Beginning with misrecognition, this is conceptualised as the cultural side of injustice which operates as ‘a matter of externally manifest and publicly verifiable impediments to some people’s standing as full members of society’ (Fraser & Honneth, 2003, p. 31; Fraser, 1997a). This may include domination, misinterpretation, disrespect, and being rendered invisible. It also has an affective dimension; being misrecognised can lead to feelings of shame and undermine self-worth (Burke, 2017). A call to consider misrecognition thus challenges us to shift from deficit discourses to transforming institutional cultures, pedagogic practices and educational systems which accept the very notion of ‘ideal’ – and less-than-ideal – students (Burke et al., 2016). In other words, there is a need to actively re-value previously maligned subjectivities via changing the very structures which have devalued them (Fraser, 1997a).

Underrepresentation and misrecognition matters; it can subject care experienced and estranged students to classificatory struggles, side-lining them from being embraced as valuable university subjects (Skeggs, 2004). Ward et al. (2017) cite how care experience can become the dominant framing students are read through and treated, one perceived as deviant by others. Similarly, Bland and Blake (2020) trace how estrangement can be scripted as stigmatised, ‘abnormal’ or shameful, with portrayals overly focussed on the ‘negative quality’ of parental relationships. Positive stories, such as Andrewartha and Harvey’s (2017) insights into Australian care experienced students’ psychological strengths, are sidelined.

However, issues of misrecognition are interwoven with economic injustices so these, too, must be considered (Fraser, 1997a). This requires us to not only think about who is seen/heard and how, but also maldistribution, namely who has access to different resources, to what extent and under which conditions. Shifting wholesale to representational solutions whilst ignore redistributive justice – as Fraser suggests the new political imaginary has done – will not engender a more equitable future. This is especially relevant care experienced and estranged students. As detailed below, many may be navigating significant financial and other material inequalities which lead to inequitable outcomes.

Like Burke et al. (2017), we find value in deploying Fraser’s work when considering participation of students from underrepresented backgrounds. It is compelling to reflect on political-economic remedies for material inequality and cultural-valuational strategies. By bringing the two concepts into conversation, relationships can be better highlighted, including political-economic dimensions of many aspects of misrecognition. Accordingly, this paper seeks to interpolate insights which relate to both sides of the dilemma. This aims to produce a fuller picture of material, structural and symbolic barriers to inclusion and social justice for care experienced and estranged students.

Care experienced and estranged students: Social injustices

Empirical literature demonstrates that financial support for care experienced and estranged students is unevenly distributed, engendering economic precarity. Historically, some ‘care leavers’³ received almost no Local Authority support (Cotton et al., 2014). Local Authorities in England⁴ must now provide a minimum £2,000 bursary to care leavers and recent steps requiring them to publish local offers should lead to better parity (Harrison et al., 2021). However, a ‘postcode lottery’ still remains between university packages (Harrison et al., 2021). Sometimes, students who do not meet the ‘care leaver’ definition – e.g. earlier or shorter stays in care – may not qualify for any financial support (Centre for Social Justice, 2019). Furthermore, many universities do not offer comparable support to estranged students (Stevenson et al., 2020). Accordingly, for many, financial aid is barely enough to cover basic living essentials or ‘extras’ like a coffee with friends (Costa et al., 2020a; Hauari et al., 2019). This can necessitate prioritising paid work (Harrison, 2017) or taking out short-term, high-interest loans (Bland, 2018; Stevenson et al., 2020), especially at ‘crunch points’ like summer holidays or graduation.

Moreover, relative to more affluent student bodies, stark financial disparities can disrupt belonging. For example, Costa et al. (2020a) highlight how ‘middle-class’ university environments where peers have familial financial support can be othering. Accordingly, monetary matters are not just about distribution of resources. Disparities can also lead to misrecognition from the normative student trope. For example, observing an environment where peers appear financially 'comfortable' may suggest the 'ideal' student ubiquitously has familial backing and an 'abundance' of resources. Senses of shame or difference that may result could manifest as formations of misrecognition (Burke, 2017).

Provision of mental health services represents another area of maldistribution. Mental health conditions are overrepresented amongst care experienced (Ellis & Johnston, 2019) and estranged students (Bland & Blake, 2020), which may impede university life. However, take-up of university counselling and wellbeing services is mismatched to levels of need (Ellis & Johnston, 2019). Simpson and Murphy (2020) indicate it may be because this cohort are more independent than other students. However, there are also significant structural barriers: unclear referral routes, limited clinical expertise, long wait times and persistent disclosure requests (Stevenson et al., 2020).

University services may also be underprepared for or misunderstand the mental health needs of care experienced and estranged students, leading them to be misrecognised as ‘not-the-norm’ (Evans, 2018; Harrison, 2017; Stevenson et al., 2020). As a result, some may fear being stigmatised for accessing resources (Ellis & Johnston, 2019) or being perceived as overly ‘needy’ (Cotton et al., 2017). Thus, mental health considerations also have a misrecognition component.

Access to accommodation is a further maldistribution crunch point. Although not all care experienced and estranged students will encouter problems with accomodation (Wellard et al, 2017), a number may require year-round accommodation (Bland, 2018; Centre for Social Justice, 2019; Ellis & Johnston, 2019; Pinkney & Walker, 2020). Some may also need support with rent guarantees, deposits, storage for belongings and guaranteed emergency housing (Costa et al., 2020b; Harrison, 2017; Rouncefield-Swales & Bland, 2020). Whilst an increasing number of universities now offer 12-month contracts, additional problems have arisen including extra charges or having to change halls in summer (Hauari et al., 2019; Stevenson et al., 2020). This can also lead to issues of misrecognition when brought into comparison with the imagined ‘ideal’ or typified student. For example, Evans (2018) describes how not having another home to go to or a place to store belongings during holidays can draw unwanted attention towards students’ circumstances.

Finally, care experience and estrangement can attract societal stigma which may extend to (or manifest in) university life. Blake (2015) notes how estranged adults may be judged by those around them for not having contact with birth parents. Similarly, Bluff et al.’s (2012) care experienced student participants described frequently hearing ‘rubbish things’ about children in care whilst growing up like ‘all care leavers are either pregnant or in prison’, leading to negative perceptions (p. 955–6). Such narratives create a deficit discourse – trauma, struggle, poor outcomes – which in turn becomes a lens which can be imposed onto students and used by others to interpret their lives (Ward et al., 2017).

Methodology

Research design was guided by the study’s research aims – lived experiences and students’ views – and feminist stance (Baxter & Eyles, 1997), thus leading to an interpretivist approach that resists causal relationships whilst privileging language and interactions as mediators of knowledge (Guba, 1990). A qualitative approach was therefore most appropriate.

We sought to acknowledge students’ plural, situated subjectivities (Alcoff, 1995) and value those experiences as powerful and constructive of their own truths (hooks, 1994). Considering knowledge production also meant questioning who is most and least heard ‘to avoid being complicit in further victimising vulnerable students’ (Burke, 2017, p. 432). As Arnot et al. (2004) argue, being heard often relies on expressing oneself in a normative fashion, necessitating strategies oriented at disrupting this orthodoxy. We took epistemological inspiration from Mazzei and Jackson’s (2009, 2012) ‘listening in the cracks’ metaphor, one which can be ‘messy’ but attempts to prevent closure of meaning. This meant avoiding simply platforming the loudest, most familiar or comfortably articulate/coherent narratives. Instead, it challenges researchers to pay attention to all expression (however fragmentary or transitory) and listen to everything, including that which is differently voiced and unvoiced (Mazzei, 2009). This also involved coproducing analysis with our participants to create an additional space where important (but perhaps more obfuscated) insights could be brought to the fore and assumptions of the research team be challenged.

Research design and participants

Although there are differences between care experience and estrangement – people who become estranged as adults may have no contact with social services, for example, – both groups navigate similar challenges at university (Stevenson et al., 2020). We adopted an inclusive definition of care experience to include earlier or shorter spells in care, those above the age of statutory support and experiences in varied settings including foster care, residential children’s homes and different kinship care arrangements (Stevenson et al., 2020). Kinship care – a widespread but under-researched and under-recognised formation of care (Shuttleworth, 2022) – will form part of UCAS’ definition from 2022, so including these students was important. This was operationalised by including estranged students in the sample, as it can be captured under ‘estrangement’ flags. Estrangement was defined as when the student was intentionally distanced from parents ‘in an attempt to sever relational ties or create boundaries that limit interaction’ (Sharp & McLaren, 2018, p. 812). These definitions recognise the long-term implications of spending time in care or being estranged from parents, regardless of the age at which it occurs and if someone goes on to independent life or returns to a family.

A purposive sample of 11 students volunteered to take part in biographical-narrative interviews. Due to the small populations of care experienced and estranged students (so an increased likelihood of identification) and the sensitivity of some topics discussed in the wider project, confidentiality was paramount. Accordingly, demographic data collection and attribution was limited to prevent jigsaw identification (Duncan, 2019). Further, certain personal information has been omitted from this paper, at the expense of richness (Squire, 2008). However, six participants were in STEM programmes, four in social sciences and one in arts/humanities. Three were first-year undergraduates, six were second years and two were postgraduate taught students. Nine were in receipt of a bursary whilst two had not met the eligibility criteria for support. Ages ranged from 18–29 and there were a range of genders including transmasculine/non-binary.

Data collection and analysis

Following ethical approval, fieldwork took place between February and June 2021 at a post-1992 university in England. Data collection comprised two phases conducted remotely via Zoom, recorded with permission and transcribed verbatim. The first stage used biographical-narrative interviews (Wengraf, 2001) to create a collaborative and empathic space (Andrews et al., 2008) in line with feminist inquiry. Students were posed an open-ended question about their higher education journey with supplementary semi-structured questions based on their original stories. Interim thematic analysis by the research team followed Braun and Clarke (2006): immersion in the data, generating code, and searching, reviewing and naming themes. This firstly utilised freewriting (Danvers et al., 2019) alongside multiple transcript readings to elicit an iterative coding framework. We followed an abductive process, drawing deductively on insights from the literature whilst also allowing new ideas to emerge (Fann, 1970). Transcripts were then more systematically thematically coded in NVivo, followed by an axial coding process to construct linkages and coherent themes (Saldaña, 2009).

Emergent insights were collated in a PowerPoint slide-pack for the original participants who were then invited to coproduce the final analysis. Individual analytical discussions invited students to comment on gaps, wording, verisimilitude of themes, theme presentation, priorities and recommendations (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990). This aimed to unsettle research power imbalances and recognise students’ lived experiences as authoritative (Walkerdine, 2021). It also reflects our aspiration for students to be able to shape the ways in which their experiences were represented, challenge the normative dominance of researchers, and play a more active role in shaping the outcomes of the research. However, regardless of our motivations we remain aware of the problem of speaking ‘for’ those who we wish to platform (Alcoff, 2009) and significant limitations to ‘giving voice’ (Ellsworth, 1989). Research often involves raced, classed, gendered and other power imbalances and itself sits within a broader oppressive social world. Regardless of our best intentions, these dynamics may unwittingly suggest what ‘desirable’ forms of expression may be, shutting down alternative utterances.

Ten of the original participants took part in this process, nine through a verbal conversation and one in writing due to time pressures. This paper emerged directly from these discussions. Students frequently spoke of wanting problems to be taken seriously, whilst not having their stories misrecognised as those of ‘troubled children’ in need of a ‘pity party’.

Findings and discussion

Students were navigating a complex nexus of material inequalities at university, such as wellbeing support unsuitable for their needs, financial precarity or disruption in education. Simultaneously, as the following discussion illuminates, they were also subject to misrecognitions which variously undervalued their strengths, invisibilised their experiences or excluded them from the academy.

Trauma, stigma and pathologisation

The first theme relates to mental health – both misaligned provision and misrecognition in the form of pathologisation – as well how trauma and stigma more widely are mis/recognised and navigated. Reflecting prior research about the over-representation of mental health conditions amongst care experienced and estranged students (Hauari et al., 2019; Stevenson et al., 2020), all participants reported diagnoses including complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD), PTSD, anxiety, depression and eating disorders. This adds more weight to calls for universities to attend to unmet therapeutic needs beyond those assumed of the ‘typified’ student (Ellis & Johnston, 2019; Harrison, 2017). However, our research suggests that constrictive provision does not just mean that appropriate care is unavailable. Symbolic injustices also ensued; students felt ‘maligned or disparaged’ in their interactions with services that had not been designed with them in mind (Fraser, 1997a, p. 14, 1997b). Inequalities thus had both distributive and representational dimensions.

For instance, engagement with the university’s Wellbeing Service made one participant, Harry, feel decisively differentiated from ‘the average […] student’. Not only did he feel 10 sessions of cognitive behavioural therapy was therapeutically inappropriate for his ‘complex mental health history’, he also felt his needs were rendered invisible (Fraser, 1997a). He recalled that ‘beyond that [the standard offer], I’m expected to basically have no issues’. Moreover, he felt dismissed in communications and interactions, described as ‘a lot of people just going, “oh, not my problem”’. His experience was not isolated. As Marissa’s narrative highlights, this misrecognition could inflict ‘grievous wounds’ and lead to ‘crippling self-hatred’ (Taylor, 1992, as cited in Fraser, 1997a):

[The Wellbeing Service] said, “We don’t deal with people with what you have”. […] I literally felt like I was a freak, like the worst. The worst, the worst, the worst. I think the worst feeling I’ve ever encountered probably until now was that. Feeling as if I was unhelpable [Marissa, Female, Arts and Humanities student]

These experiences reveal the ‘two distinct species of injustice’ identified by Fraser, 2007a, p. 20). The first is well established: provision is too therapeutically and temporally limited to be appropriate for longer-lasting or more acute issues. The second is cultural. Namely, students are not merely under-resourced, but also misrecognised through shame and silencing (Burke, 2017). Although shame would not have been intentional, the service’s comments (arising from the structural context) nonetheless led to this outcome. This must be tackled, as prior research already suggests that care experienced students may be reluctant to seek or receive support due to stigma (Hyde-Dryden, 2012; Simpson & Murphy, 2020).

Considering trauma and stigma more broadly, participants were acutely aware of how personal self-concepts contrasted with how people within the university setting viewed care experience or estrangement. This necessitated caution around what to share with fellow students and/or staff (Mayall et al., 2015). As Phoenix explained, ‘most people will see me as just a white male, so then I walk away with that privilege’ but that as soon as his past in care became apparent, ‘it seemed to be that I’ve then had all that privilege ripped away and some oppression added onto it’. This is illustrative of the power of misrecognition: its potential to unpick otherwise privileged racial and gendered dimensions (Crenshaw, 1991). Phoenix’s was an experience that had followed him throughout life, yet one he resisted:

We’ve been labelled as these troubled children, which, don’t get me wrong, trauma is part of my identity, I know I have some trauma responses, but it’s not my identity. [Phoenix, Male, Social Science Student]

His contrasting narratives – one of rejecting a trauma story and another about the imposition of oppression – illustrate how stigma is both lived and resisted in subtle ways (Tyler & Slater, 2018). Many students narrated their experience in opposition to processes of misrecognition that were injurious and could impair positive understandings of the self (Fraser, 1997a). This points to the crucial need for spaces where care experienced and estranged students can agentically and authentically narrate their own stories and be heard to do so, rather than allowing sector staff and policymakers to construct narratives on their behalf. As Louise notes:

I don’t want to tell my story for people to think, “Oh, you must have had such a rough time”. […] I want to be able to tell my story, you know, to inspire the other [care experienced] people to … sort of … come to university. [Louise, Female, Social Science student]

Pedagogy also produced complex topographies where mental health and stigma was navigated. For some, teaching praxis which moved away from the ‘imparting genius mode’ created less hierarchical spaces, highlighting the value of often unseen, undervalued, ‘caring’ teaching work (hooks, 1994; Morris et al., 2021). Michael explained how one tutor openly discussing their experience as a foster carer brought ‘added peace’ and created ‘the first time I’ve ever actually felt fully comfortable on a course’.

However, other students spoke about being ‘actively triggered’ in teaching spaces, reflecting O’Neill et al.’s (2019) work with care experienced social work students who were tasked with discussing abuse during childhood during teaching sessions. For example, Phoenix described being repeatedly asked to discuss domestic violence during a seminar. Despite voicing that he ‘saw a lot of parallels in my own life’ that ‘I don’t really wish to discuss’, he recalled being continually asked to contribute – alongside specific mention of his male positionality – with the experience being a re-traumatising one. This points towards problematic delivery of sensitive content when it is considered to apply only to those outside of the classroom (Mayall et al., 2015). The ‘ideal’ student is implicitly constructed as one who has not experienced traumas or distress. This misrecognises students such as Phoenix – confronted with a curriculum that has been designed without due consideration of their presence – as disruptive, anomalous or unwonted, preventing fuller participation (Fraser, 1997a, 2007a).

Financial precarities and capacities

The second theme relates to money, tracing problems both with maldistribution of economic resources as well as misrecognitions of ‘sufficient’ care experience or estrangement, and financial literacy. Previous studies have conclusively illustrated the exceptional financial duress that many care experienced and estranged students face (Bland, 2018; Costa et al., 2020a). Echoing these findings, our participants often struggled to afford food, travel, rent, course materials and other essentials, even with bursaries (Hauari et al., 2019). This produced moments of exclusion from legitimate student subject positions. Harry could not buy course materials or afford to join his programme’s student society, while Marissa, ‘let go [from my job] during COVID’, found herself with a laptop that ‘isn’t working very well’, yet despite online learning found herself having to ‘kind of hold […] off on buying one’.

However, those who fell outside of strict bursary criteria – thus denied ‘requisite standing’ – were pushed into acutely precarious positions by being misrecognised as illegitimately/insufficiently care experienced or estranged (Fraser, 2007a, p. 20). One participant, currently in a kinship care arrangement, spoke at length about her unsuccessful attempts to secure bursary funding. Without this and unable to secure work during the pandemic, escorting seemed her only option. Reflecting Sanders and Hardy (2015) who note that – among a wide range of reasons – financial fragility can lead precarious students into sex work, she explained that:

It sounds really weird, but some of my friends have even met with, like, a man […] just to get money. But … I don’t know. It’s weird, but … if it works. […] me and my friend got paid £200 to speak to a man […] it was kind of enticing, I guess. [Nik, Female, Natural Science Student]

This serves to indicate how it is not only pervasive financial inequalities that can impede full participation within higher education. Alongside this is a process of mis/recognition and mis/classification of legitimate and illegitimate care experienced and estranged student subject positions, the deployment of which can ‘deny them the resources they need in order to interact with others as peers’ (Fraser, 2007a, p. 20).

Furthermore, the dominant discourse of financial precarity obscures high levels of sophisticated financial literacy. This may emerge as a result of restricted income, prior experiences of debt and/or being relatively independent earlier in life (Costa et al., 2020a), conceptualised as a located form of financial maturity by Hyde-Dryden (2012). Although a couple of students found managing money initially difficult, most described budgeting as second nature. Much of the previous literature has – rightly – focussed on financial hardship. However, our participants often navigated a difficult and complex landscape more competently than students with more financial stability, as Marissa’s narrative shows:

Everyone jokes about spending their student loan and being irresponsible financially and I’m sat there like thinking, like, is that really a joke? […] There’s a brotherhood in being irresponsible […] which is fine, like, if you’ve paid your tuition, great, but if you’re on student loan which I am, for me, I have a different sense of responsibility in taking someone else’s money, in taking debt [Marissa, Female, Social Science]

It is essential to acknowledge that ‘there is an important distinction to be made between coping and comfortable for this group of students’, necessitating an extension of financial support (O’Neill et al., 2019, p. 48). However, echoing Fraser (1997a, 2007a), our research shows that recognition also matters. The ways in which students are mis/recognised as legitimately care experienced or estranged informs these financial inequalities. Furthermore, a unitary narrative focussed solely on financial precarity fails to acknowledge the capacity for financial literacy demonstrated by our participants, ascribing them a deficit-defined subjectivity. Accordingly, this furthers the case for ‘an integrated politics of redistribution and recognition’ to advance a stronger agenda for social justice (Fraser, 2007b, p. 305).

Maturity and independence

The third theme relates distinctly to misrecognition, in particular how our participants’ maturity and independence went unrecognised as it was different to how ‘traditional students are often imagined’ (Costa et al., 2020b, p. 692). In other words, normative imaginaries of ‘the student’ erase consideration of independence garnered from alternative social contexts or ‘atypical’ trajectories (Burke et al., 2016). Several participants described feeling more grown-up and in control of life than their peers, having had responsibilities earlier in life or navigated the world relatively independently. Such experiences are reflective of a ‘compressed and accelerated transition to independence’ (Hyde-Dryden, 2012, p. 202; Stein, 2012). This included managing personal finances, looking after a home, working, engaging with public services and self-financing international travel. A capacity for self-reliance was often cited as a strategy drawn upon to propel their higher education journey (Pinkney & Walker, 2020). For example, Gray previously worked whilst studying in further education. He felt working-whilst-studying produced independence that resourced him to adapt to university life relatively smoothly by providing ‘a lot of the skills that I needed’ and the ability to organise ‘properly’.

Nonetheless, frustrations emerged when our participants felt they were confronted with a ubiquitous level of ‘immaturity’ of other students living alone for the first time. These peers were perceived to lack ‘real life experience’ (Andrewartha & Harvey, 2017), but the behaviour was accepted (or even celebrated) as that of the normative student. This could leave our participants feeling exasperated and decidedly different, as well as uncomfortable in student accommodation, as Harry describes:

A couple of them had no idea what they were doing, as in living independently, quote-unquote. One of them walked in and immediately asked me, where’s the dishwasher? […] That was not fun trying to get my flatmates to pull their own weight, not just leave all their stuff in the kitchen for weeks on end [Harry, Male, Natural Science student]

Such discomfort could engender feelings of isolation as well as frustration. For example, Mirai explained the level of required independence made her university journey more of ‘a learning experience’ and ‘self-growth thing’ than that of her peers. However, her narrative was also tinged with sadness when she reflected on being ‘on my own with a lot of things’. As the ‘typical’ student is stereotypically assumed to be ‘hedonistic’ and have an immutable safety net to fall back on, the trajectories and experiences of our students were misrecognised by being silenced or invisibilised (Fraser, 1997a). Rather than feeling valued for the maturity and independence they bring to the sector, our participants felt othered by apparent differences which affectively excluded them from fuller participation (Burke et al., 2016). In this case, a ‘genuinely emancipatory response’ cannot be tackled by redistribution alone (Fraser, 2000).

(Un)belonging: ‘You’re always within-without’

The fourth theme expands on the idea traced in the theme above, highlighting broader ways in which care experienced and estranged students were subject to cultural forms of injustice which undermined their sense of belonging. A sense of difference and disconnection from other students can make it hard to form bonds with peers at university (Gazeley & Hinton-Smith, 2018). This is crucially important as, in some cases, a lack of belonging is cited as a driving factor behind attrition, alongside financial precarity and illness (O’Neill et al., 2019) and contributes towards the ‘hidden (and not so hidden) injuries of misrecognition’ (Fraser, 1997a, p. 36).

Almost all participants wholly or partially did not feel they ‘fitted’ at university, navigating a ‘very obvious feeling of otherness’ and ‘a bit of alienation’, especially in moments where socioeconomic disparities were starker. As Cotton et al. (2014) have noted, overhearing flatmates calling home for money can be very distancing. Similarly, not having a ‘home’ base or a social network to check in with can exacerbate feelings of loneliness or difference (Hauari et al., 2019). Moving into university could render such experiences especially acute, with participants describing displays of emotional, practical and financial parental support as othering. Abigail, who had been dropped off at university by a work colleague, described her first days at university as representing a constellation of embodied differentiations, from the ‘cliquey’ feeling of halls to the presence of parents and markers of wealth:

You could tell they’d come from quite well-off families, even move-in day, all the cars that were moving people in. […] It was always their parents moving them in and I think that was one thing … Because I was kind of dropped off […] pushed in the deep end, but I think a lot of people’s parents stayed for the weekend and stuff, so then that already made me feel a bit weird [Abigail, Female, Natural Science student].

For students without an extensive social network, such moments can be particularly isolating and hamper belonging by highlighting an ‘absence of social ties in their lives, people whom they could trust and call on in case of need’ (Costa et al., 2020a, p. 112). This was especially true for Harry as his circumstances placed him in a particularly isolated position. He felt beyond his (busy and under-resourced) Leaving Care Advisor and one or two friends, he had limited support

However, it is important to note, as Hauari et al. (2019) do, that whilst care experienced and estranged students may have biographies marked by the absence of normative family support, this does not mean they automatically lack networks. Foster carers, colleagues, school friends, teachers, family and social workers may form various nexuses and spaces of care (Mayall et al., 2015). Gray and Phoenix both explained that long-term relationships with a cohabiting partner provided invaluable love and peace, without which they were certain they would not have made it to and through university. Alternatively, Ellie was cared for by grandparents after time in Local Authority care as a young child, describing them as her ‘favourite people in the world’ who were deeply invested in her wellbeing and education.

Furthermore, pedagogical environments providing a ‘praxis of care’ and embracing different needs can be meaningful (Inchley et al., 2019, p. 418). Programmes with diverse cohorts and aspects of collaborative practice – like Social Work, Nursing and Education – appeared to engender a greater sense of comfort for participants. Mirai entered university a little older than the normative age of 18 on one such heterogenous programme. She cited being around mature peers as an important source of connection as her course mates were also living alone, juggling competing responsibilities, so were ‘in the exact same boat as me’.

The importance of these connections is reflective of Furey and Harris-Evans (2021) work on care leavers and employment. Meaningful connections go beyond the functional and instead embody care, presence and solace. It also underscores two competing dynamics. There are broader issues that the academy can be a hostile place for those who do not fit the typified trope of a networked, resourced student which poses questions about redistributing resources in order to better support them. However, this does not mean care experienced or estranged should automatically be misrecognised as necessarily isolated, inciting a more nuanced and flexible approach.

Educational and professional horizons

The final theme discusses education and professional horizons, exploring particularly how a focus on precarities may misrecognise future hopes. As detailed in Bluff et al. (2012), news narratives about ‘poor’ outcomes can have a pernicious effect. When Phoenix entered the care system, he felt re-scripted overnight as a ‘victim’ and ‘trouble-maker’, a meta-narrative he described as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Indeed, the wider literature on post-school trajectories of care experienced people often focuses on ‘poor’ outcomes (Furey & Harris-Evans, 2021) or socioeconomic ‘dilemmas’ (Power & Raphael, 2017). In this dominant discourse, care is often positioned as antonymous to thriving in education and work, misrecognising such students as lacking potential or ability (Burke et al., 2016).

Counter to this discourse, care experienced students may have highly articulated, committed learner identities (Shotton, 2019). In fact, many participants espoused a deep-seated passion for learning. Gray and Marissa both described themselves as highly independent, feeling able to work with minimal scaffolding and proactively engage with scholarly work beyond their curricula. Similarly, Louise spoke about stubbornness, resisting her father’s negative attitudes to university and a foster carer’s underestimation of her ability which drove her to commit to education as a form of resistance (Andrewartha & Harvey, 2017). She continued to draw on this whilst at university:

People are like, “Oh I don’t know how you have so much motivation” and it’s just like, “Well, you’ve got to keep going”. […] When I am relaxing in the evening, if […] I’ve done uni work […] or I’ve gone to the library, I feel like my day’s been, like, beneficial [Louise, Female, Social Science student]

Alternatively, for Abigail and Phoenix, learning was a place of comfort and solace as it was ‘my way of escaping home’ or something to ‘throw’ yourself into in the face of hardships. Accordingly, there is a need to challenge to the misrecognition of care experienced and estranged positionalities as intrinsically trouble(d) within the educational field. Otherwise, fallacious yet pervasive assumptions about a mismatch or deficit will continue (Burke et al., 2016).

Moreover, national statistics indicate care leavers who complete their degree are more likely to progress to postgraduate education than graduates without care experience (Office for Students, 2020). Within our research, strongly formulated orientations to learning often translated into realised or hoped-for postgraduate transitions. Two participants in our study were already completing taught postgraduate qualifications, with one considering doctoral study. Amongst undergraduate participants, there was also very high demand for Master’s degrees.

Baker et al. (2021) have suggested that higher-level study could be a ‘low risk’ way of enhancing employability. However, our participants’ narratives suggest there were motivations beyond the economic-instrumental, instead being anti-neoliberal and emotive (Ball, 2012). For example, Marissa spoke of wanting to maintain her ‘endless curiosity’ by conserving access to a university library where she could ‘take out so many books on anything and everything’ beyond the scope of her course or what would be accessible in a public library. This adds further cause to properly recognising and accounting for situated meanings constructed around learning.

Like discussions of education, the dominant discourse about graduating care experienced and estranged students is often governed by notions of isolation, precarity or a ‘lack’ of networks and support (Hauari et al., 2019; Rouncefield-Swales & Bland, 2020). The structural, institutional and organisational barriers which produce this should be addressed, acknowledging Fraser (1997a, 2007a) call for the maldistribution of (economic) resources to be tackled. This includes the disproportionate proportion of incarcerated or homeless care leavers (Mendes & Moslehuddin, 2004) and how estranged students face particularly acute pressures in graduate transitions without the luxury of reliable housing or financial support (Rouncefield-Swales & Bland, 2020).

However, this picture misrecognises (by invisibilising) how our participants almost universally articulated clear, passionate and socially-oriented professional future horizons. This reflects Stevenson et al.’s (2020) argument that a history of care can result in a strong altruistic component. For example, Phoenix laid out a detailed plan of undergraduate specialisms, higher-level study and professional experience that he hoped would lead to a senior policy role to change the landscape of care. Similarly, Michael traced links between prior care-related advocacy, his current programme and future doctoral study that would allow him to force changes across education and policy. These are two of multiple examples, including humanitarian disaster relief, emergency critical care and pedagogical or therapeutic support for those with disabilities or learning differences.

When only a story about graduate precarity, isolation and a ‘lack’ of social capital preponderates, students’ alternative future hopes, visions of personal capabilities (Blake, 2017) and potential operate under erasure. Their strengths, qualities and imaginaries must be given space to flourish and be heard so students can be more frequently recognised as capable (Burke et al., 2017). Parity of participation will be better served when we pay greater attention to and tackle imposed assumptions and silences (Fraser & Honneth, 2003).

Conclusions and implications

Our research, due its methodological and epistemological position, suggests what might be the case, rather than asserting what ‘is’. In tracing the multiple and sometimes conflicting narratives of care experienced and estranged students, experiences manifest in more complex ways than the broad deficit narratives of the dominant discourse (Ward et al., 2017). Material and symbolic barriers must be tackled, but there are also demotic subjectivities and resources that are obscured or devalued by various forms of misrecognition. This paper – following coproductive analysis with students themselves – highlights a few dimensions. When it comes to mental health, there are clear issues with mismatched wellbeing provision but also incidents of students feeling stigmatised when voicing their needs, leading to significant negative affective outcomes (Burke, 2017). More broadly, our participants were enmeshed in a nexus of shaming forms of misrecognition as their biographies were interpreted through patterns and meanings divorced from their own. Financial issues also presented both material and cultural injustices. Students were under sizeable economic duress, especially when misrecognised as insufficiently ‘disadvantaged’, whilst their levels of financial literacy often went unnoticed. Further misrecognitions – in the form of nonrecognition (Fraser, 1997a) – manifested when it came to maturity and independence and being positioned as ‘atypical’ and ‘other’, leading to feelings of difference and division. Finally, whilst financial precarity (among other barriers) may present obstacles to progression into postgraduate study and professional work, we also saw clearly-articulated desires for educational and professional horizons that struggle to occupy a platform in the wider dominant discourse.

Turning to implications, we echo insights from Harrison (2017), Hauari et al. (2019), and Stevenson et al. (2020), further supporting the collective case for radical transformation of the sector. However, we build on this by drawing attention to dynamics of misrecognition to complement the broader suite of maldistribution-related implications already established.

Firstly, prior work has emphasised the need for better equipped mental health services attuned to long-term and/or more complex needs. Our work compliments this, highlighting that this provision must be delivered in a way that is sensitive to wider stigma of care experienced and estranged students. This is crucial so as not to misrecognise them as pathologised.

Secondly, echoing Stevenson et al. (2020), financial support must be both more expansive and more generous. It is still too restrictive even for those that meet the criteria. Further, perhaps even more crucially, some students clearly deserving of financial support are currently misrecognised as insufficiently care experienced or estranged so are under even more significant financial duress. Moreover, deviating from the insights of Harrison (2017), no care experienced participants in this research suggested any financial hardship they experienced was due to having not been taught budgeting skills whilst in care. In fact, all participants had high levels of financial literacy. Accordingly, whilst budgeting support should be offered where needed, students must not be misrecognised as automatically ill-equipped to manage their money which could be read as patronising and distancing.

Thirdly, we must place close attention to normative values and judgements that shape who is recognised as the ‘ideal’ and valued student-subject and thus how spaces and interactions in our institutions may feel hostile to those othered by this trope. In particular, this should involve thinking about how we conceptualise (and communicate) ‘a student’, the (lack of) diversity on various courses, spaces for liberatory pedagogies (hooks, 1994) and opportunities for social connection. Finally, there is a clear case to tackle structural graduate inequalities. However, this should be done in such a way that recognises the capability, potential and passions of students, rather than allowing discourses of deficit to speak alone.

Tying all this together is the overarching motif. Drawing inspiration from Fraser (1997a), there is a need for redistribution of resources for parity of participation in HE but also a need to amplify and value a diverse university population (Burke et al., 2017). This is about allowing our students to move beyond mere survival to engaging in university life as any other student does and be valued for who they are (Hauari et al., 2019). Although there are dilemmas in pursuing both redistribution and recognition to remedy injustice, both are necessary as ‘struggles for recognition occur in a world of exacerbated material inequality’ (Fraser, 1997a, p. 11).

Acknowledgments

Most importantly, we thank the students who shared their time, voices and scholarly expertise throughout the study. We would also like to thank colleagues across the sector who have commented on earlier iterations of this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rosa Marvell

Rosa Marvell is a Lecturer in Sociology specialising in social class and gender inequalities at the University of Portsmouth. Her research focuses on inequalities in higher education and employment, including the experiences and trajectories of students from underrepresented backgrounds.

Samantha Child

Samantha Child is Evaluation Manager at Oxford Brookes University where she leads a small, applied research and evaluation team to understand the barriers and opportunities to accessing and succeeding in Higher Education for under-represented groups. She also evaluates a range of initiatives designed to support the access, success and progression of under-represented groups to Oxford Brookes University.

Notes

1. ‘Care-experience' is used in this article to refer to any student who has experience of care, including foster care, residential care or kinship care at any point and for any duration during childhood. This is a more expansive definition than the legal definition of ‘care leaver’ (see below)

2. Students studying without parental support due to a breakdown in the relationship.

3. In England, ‘care leaver’ is a legal category which Local Authorities or universities may use to determine eligibility for financial and ongoing support. It is defined as a person having been in care for 13 or more weeks after their 14th birthday, spanning their 16th birthday.

4. The landscape is different in other UK home nations.