University students and emotional bargaining: a comparative study of staff perspectives in Northern Europe

Abstract

This paper examines lecturers’ perspectives on students’ ‘emotional bargaining’ in higher education. Based on a social-functional understanding of emotions, it utilises a small-scale qualitative survey approach to explore and compare the views of 43 teaching staff at three universities in England, the Netherlands and Sweden. Particular consideration is given to staff perceptions of students’ motives for engaging in such behaviour and the factors potentially driving it. Findings suggest broadly similar views are held by the respondents across the three settings, and staff views on potential ‘solutions’ are investigated. The study offers tentative evidence that the neo-liberal logics perceived to guide university policies and practices may be a central factor in engendering student bargaining behaviours, particularly in the English context, where neo-liberal regimes are arguably more pronounced. Finally, an attempt is made to identify a number of recommendations for institutional consideration and potential practice.

Keywords:

• Higher education
• staff-student interactions
• emotional bargaining
• neo-liberalism
• student vulnerability