Exploring ways in which identity shapes postgraduate student learning in an English university classroom

ABSTRACT

This article adopts identity as a theoretical frame through which to explore the reported experiences of a diverse group of postgraduate students studying in one university in England. We examine what they say about their identities and how they make sense of their interactions with their peers in the higher education space, as well as how they experience these interactions within discussion group activities in the postgraduate multicultural classroom. Our data is collected through focus groups and one-to-one interviews, a large proportion of which were conducted with non-UK/EU students. We found that all students interviewed value the social dimension of learning both within the classroom context and outside. We found there can be intercultural misunderstandings that could be addressed directly in a structured and safe environment. The article concludes with some suggestions for pedagogy and practice in postgraduate teaching, with a focus on diversifying practice to make room for greater inclusion of all students.

KEYWORDS:

• Identity
• peer interaction
• group discussion
• postgraduate learning

Introduction

Participation in higher education (HE) has grown exponentially in recent decades with student populations becoming increasingly diverse and frequently more international (Choudaha 2017; Popov et al. 2012). Currently, the majority (approximately 70%) of full-time PGT students in England are registered as international (non-European Union), with approximately a further 11% registered as European Union students (Universities UK 2023). De Leersnyder, Gündemir, and Ağirdağ (2022) argue that as a result of the increasing cultural diversity in UK university classrooms, it is incumbent on university educators to review the way they teach. Richardson, Mittelmeier, and Rienties (2020) have highlighted inequalities in the experiences of university students and, more importantly, attainment gaps between different student groups in relation to their cultural/ethnic identities. Relatedly, a growing body of research highlights the importance of considering student identity in the process of learning in higher education and the part that aspects of identities may play in contributing towards inequalities of experiences as well as outcomes (e.g. Henning et al. 2019; Johnston and Merrill 2009).

This paper draws on an ongoing research project initiated in late 2018 based on our work as teachers on postgraduate taught programmes in a large research-intensive UK university (see Table 1). The aims of the project are to (1) explore postgraduate students’ experiences of teaching and learning in a multicultural classroom and (2) use the findings to reflect on and revise teaching practices on the corresponding master’s programmes. As the project has developed, we have come to recognise the ways in which students’ identities affected, and have been affected by, their learning experiences and their interactions with peers and tutors within the context of a multicultural learning space. Data collection for the project was paused during the Covid-19 pandemic (January 2020–March 2022) which gave us the opportunity to reflect on the data collected thus far, explore theoretical understandings of identity and write up and publish our early findings (see Mili and Towers 2022). Interviews resumed in the summer of 2022 with a revised set of research questions that have guided the second phase of the study:

1. How and in what ways does the identity of postgraduate students shape their learning experiences on their MA programmes?

2. What effects do peer relationships and interactions have on students’ sense of identity and belonging?

Table 1. Research project 2018–present.

Dates	Rationale & aim, research questions and methods
Winter 2018–Winter 2020	Rationale: Project prompted by researchers’ experiences teaching on a range of taught postgraduate programmes in one research intensive university. Aim: To gather a better understanding of what students needed from their learning to develop our own pedagogy and practice. Findings and recommendations were shared with the rest of the department.
	RQ1: What are students’ experiences of teaching and learning on their postgraduate programmes? RQ2: How and in what ways can the teaching and learning on the postgraduate programmes be developed to attend to students’ needs?
Winter 2018–Winter 2020	4 Focus Groups (FG) FG 1 = 8 participants FG 2 = 5 participants FG 3 = 5 participants FG 4 = 4 participants 9 one-to-one interviews Total number of student participants: 31
Spring 2022–Summer 2022	After initial data analysis from first phase, we reviewed the research questions. Revised RQs had a closer focus on student identity and belonging, as well as interactions with other students and staff. We also wanted to explore what happened in the classroom context between peers in discussion groups.
	(1) How and in what ways does the identity of postgraduate students shape their learning experiences on their MA programmes? (2) What effects do peer relationships and interactions have on students’ sense of identity and belonging?
Summer 2022	2 Focus Groups (FG) FG 1 = 7 participants FG 2 = 2 participants 5 one-to-one interviews Total number of student participants: 14

In this paper, we explore the reported experiences of a diverse group of postgraduate students studying in our university. We examine what they say about their identities and how they make sense of their interactions with their peers in the HE space, as well as how they experience these interactions within discussion group activities in the postgraduate multicultural classroom.

Identity and the university student – a conceptual framework

In this study, we have adopted identity as a theoretical frame through which to explore postgraduate students’ experiences of their MA programmes and specifically their interactions with peers in spaces of learning. We do so with the recognition that identity is complex and contested, and universally accepted definitions are difficult to reach, although it is often understood as being dynamic and shifting (Bauman 2013) and fluid and flexible (Tomlinson 2010). Indeed, much of the educational research highlights how identity is relational and a socially negotiated process (e.g. Reeves 2009; Thunborg, Bron, and Edström 2012). Identity is hybrid and multiple as Hall (1996, 4) suggests when he wrote that identities are:

… increasingly fragmented and fractured; never singular but multiply constructed across different, often intersecting and antagonistic discourses, practices and positions. They are subject to a radical historicization, and are constantly in the process of change and transformation.

For the purpose of this study, we draw on Hall’s (1996) interpretation of identity and also view identity as ‘an individual's way of understanding and being in the world’ (Spillane 2000, 308).

The extensive body of research on student identity in higher education contexts highlights the myriad ways that student identity constructions can be understood (Brooks and O’Shea 2021) with the understanding that student identities are complex, diverse and individual (Reynolds 2022). One dominant trope regarding student identity construction in the context of an increasingly marketized higher education system, particularly in universities in England, focuses on how students are influenced by the ‘consumer’ identity where they expect more from their higher education experience (e.g. Nixon, Scullion, and Hearn 2018). Within the wider European context where, despite an increase in the marketisation of HE systems (Wright and Shore 2017), there is some evidence that indicates differences in how marketisation processes are articulated in different national contexts including how students are influenced by a ‘consumer’ identity (Jayadeva et al. 2021). Indeed, the ‘consumer’ identity is contested, with other research suggesting that students primarily identify as learners and not as consumers (Brooks and Abrahams 2021; Reynolds 2022). Indeed, research suggests that these ‘learner’ identities are shaped by a complex interaction of different factors including previous learning experiences, the impact of their families and other social networks as well as their current learning environments (James, Busher, and Suttill 2015; Jensen and Jetten 2018). According to Daniels and Brooker (2014, 69) a university student’s identity can be renegotiated as they journey through ‘new spaces of learning and sharing knowledge, critiquing and reflecting on new and unfamiliar ideas’ as well as through new forms of pedagogy and practice (Henning et al. 2019). Furthermore, a student’s identity can also be constructed and reconstructed by factors including gender, social class and ethnicity which are arguably the most dominant organising ‘markers’ through which individuals are classified (Belkhir and Barnett 2001; Udah and Singh 2019). Moreover, for students living and working in a multicultural space (as our participants do), their national and/or cultural identities may also act as key categories, while bearing in mind that their national and/or cultural identities may also in part be imposed externally by those who, according to Udah and Singh (2019, 4) ‘seek to label individuals as members of a given group’ based on so-called classification-categories.

To this we can add that identity is also socially negotiated, wherein not only do others shape an individual’s identity construction (Reeves 2009; Thunborg, Bron, and Edström 2012), but this assumes added significance in educational environments since learning is a social activity, resulting in a broader recognition of the importance of students’ social identity (Mavor, Platow, and Bizumic 2017; Tajfel and Turner 1979). According to social identity theory, when an individual feels that they belong to a certain social ‘group’, they obtain, in part at least, their sense of identity from that group. This can be seen in the way that people seek to develop and maintain a positive view of their identities by comparing themselves and their group memberships in a more positive light than that of alternative ‘out-groups’ (Tajfel and Turner 1979). Students’ sense of belonging is inextricably bound up with their identity construction, and learning identities are also aligned with a sense of recognition (Jensen and Jetten 2018), belonging and engagement (Bliuc et al. 2011). In her study on higher education students in Scotland, MacFarlane (2018, 1) argues that a positive learning identity is inextricably linked with ‘both the academic and social context of learning as well as with concepts of engagement and a sense of belonging in higher education’. Writing in the context of health and psychology, Haslam (2014, 1) constructed some ‘core lessons’ derived from his social identity research. Three of these could be applied to the postgraduate student in the HE context: (1) groups and social identities matter to the organisation and learning outcomes; (2) self-categorisations matter because it is the individual’s self-understanding that shapes their behaviour; (3) the ‘power’ of groups can be realised by ‘working with social identities, not across or against them’. We are therefore suggesting that exploring student learning experiences through a social identity lens can be useful to understand the ways which in their learning binds to key aspects of their postgraduate university life.

Brooks and O’Shea (2021) argue that despite the extent of research focused on higher education students, there remains a gap in our knowledge and understanding of how students understand their own identities, how and why they communicate their identities in the ways that they do, and how these are influenced by other social actors. Employing social identity as a theoretical framework in educational contexts is relatively recent (Mavor, Platow, and Bizumic 2017) and has been used to explore the professional lives of teachers (e.g. Rushton and Reiss 2021) as well as in the context of higher education (e.g. Bliuc et al. 2011). However, there is a paucity of literature that takes a social identity approach to postgraduate taught students, who make up a significant proportion of UK HE students (De Leersnyder, Gündemir, and Ağirdağ 2022). Thus there is a gap both in the literature on identity as well as its use as a framework to understand the experiences of (international) postgraduate UK HE students. The current research seeks to address this gap by considering social interactions and learning processes of postgraduate taught students through the framework of (social) identity.

Research design

This paper reports on an ongoing research project which has evolved since its inception in 2018 (see Table 1). The research was conducted in accordance with the ethical guidelines of the British Education Research Association and ethical clearance was obtained from the King’s College London ethics committee (Ethical Clearance Number: LRS-18/19-11168). After gatekeeper permission was obtained, students were informed of the research study via a message posted on the postgraduate online learning platform accessed by students across different MA programmes in the department. We employed volunteer sampling with the only criteria being that the participant had to be enrolled in one of the education-related postgraduate taught programmes in the department. Students who were interested in participating were invited to contact the researchers directly to participate.

The data analysed in this article relates to 14 student participants who were interviewed in the summer term of 2022, comprising two focus groups and five one-to-one interviews. We chose to deploy both these methods of data collection for the following reasons. The purpose of employing focus groups was to provide an opportunity for researchers to observe group dynamics, thereby providing insights into why students may or may not agree with ideas being shared, and with new ideas sometimes being generated in the process (Bourne and Winstone 2021)1996. As a key aspect of our research is to examine how students identify and relate to others on their course, we were keen to observe these dynamics in the focus group. While the focus group setting offers insights into group-dynamics, we also used one-to-one semi-structured interviews to complement this, with the aim of gaining more in-depth understanding through the opportunity to delve in more detail about the student’s learning experiences and provide rich and illuminating data (Kvale, 1996 ). In addition, one-to-one interviews also allowed students to share experiences and reflections which they might not have been comfortable to voice in front of their peers.

Tables 2–4 provide details of the participants and their involvement in focus groups and one-to-one interviews. Two focus groups were conducted, one comprising 7 participants and the other with 2 participants. Originally, four participants were due to attend the second focus group but two of them dropped out due to unforeseen circumstances. Separately, five one-to-one interviews were conducted following the focus group interviews.

Table 2. Participant details: semi-structured interviews.

Pseudonym	Full Time (FT)/Part Time (PT) Home/International (Int)	Nationality (where self-identified)
Priya	FT/Int	American
Sonal	FT/Int	Indian
Kate	PT/Home	British
Maya	FT/Int	Lebanese
Sunita	FT/Int	Indian

Table 3. Participant details: focus group 1.

Pseudonym	Full Time (FT)/Part Time (PT) Home/International (Int)	Nationality (where self-identified)
Serena	PT/Home	Unidentified
Elif	FT/Int	Turkish
Zixin	FT/Int	Chinese
Bo	FT/Int	Chinese
Chyou	FT/Int	Chinese
Daxia	FT/Int	Chinese
Hai	FT/Int	Chinese

Table 4. Participant details: focus group 2.

Pseudonym	Full Time (FT)/Part Time (PT) Home/International (Int)	Nationality (where self-identified)
Junko	FT/Int	Japanese
Hua	FT/Int	Chinese

Focus group questions explored how students settled into their postgraduate studies, their experiences of learning (such as through group discussions), how and in what ways they felt their past educational experiences supported their learning, and how they negotiated peer relationships. We observed students’ interactions with one another and noted any direct conversations between participants. Some of the responses in the focus groups helped inform our questions for the interviews, specifically on the topics around students’ self-identification. Overall, the questions for the one-to-one interviews were more explicitly framed around student identity, whether and if so how this shaped their learning, their experiences with different peers on the course, as well as their overall views on different aspects of learning in the classroom (see Appendices 1 and 2 for a list of interview questions). After verbatim transcription, we analysed the interviews guided by our revised research questions, and coding was carried out using a two-stage process (Saldana 2011). In the first stage of coding, labels were attached to repeated characteristics noted in the interview transcripts. To increase the reliability of our coding, we first coded all transcripts independently, then shared and revised code definitions before recoding and analysing the transcripts (Saldana 2011). To ensure a close focus on students’ views of interactions with peers in group discussion we also used a line-by-line method of analysis (Chenail 2012) and the constant comparative method (Boeije 2002). Our analysis centred on how participants position themselves in the postgraduate learning space and how they speak about themselves and each other and their perceptions and experiences of discussion activities in the classroom.

Using our research questions as a guide, we constructed two distinct, interrelated themes from our data: (1) Identity and peer interactions and (2) Identity, talk and learning in the classroom. The first theme refers to the different ways that student participants positioned themselves in the university space in relation to their peers enrolled on the postgraduate programmes. The second theme more closely examines what the students reported as happening during discussion activities in the classroom space. In reporting the data, we use the pseudonyms for the students and identify them by their student status as ‘Home’ or ‘International’. We use ‘I’ to indicate the data was taken from a one-to-one interview and ‘FG’ to show that the data was taken from a Focus Group interview.

Researcher positionality

Our researcher positionality is defined by our identities ‘in relation to [our] participants and data’ (Lapan, Quartaroli, and Riemer 2011, 380) and the context in which we work. Although we are not in a position to report on how the students perceived us, we can say that we are both female early career researchers, one of us is of Indian heritage and the other is white European. As well as being academic researchers, we both teach extensively on a number of the postgraduate programmes in the department and some of the students who participated in the study were known to us. When interviewing our students, there was a chance that they may have wanted to ‘present themselves in what they believe will be seen as a favourable light’ (Sikes 2000, 264) and may have held back from being completely open with us. Conversely, our participants may have been more honest with us as they participated in the project knowing that our intention was to develop our own pedagogy and practice in response to their views. Given our positions, we were keenly aware of the importance of self-reflection and endeavoured to practice what Mason (2002, 7) refers to as ‘active reflexivity’ throughout every aspect and stage of the research process with the aim of ensuring that as researchers we could be as honest as possible in the circumstances.

Findings

Identity and peer interactions

This first theme relates to the different ways that our participants talked about themselves and how they made sense of themselves in relation to others. A number of empirical studies highlight the importance of social interaction in identity formation (e.g. Bliuc et al. 2011; Lairio, Puukari, and Kouvo 2013; MacKay et al. 2019) and opportunities to experience belonging and interact socially plays an important role in this process. Students interviewed were largely positive about their social interactions and on the whole, and they reported the benefits of forming friendships and relationships with peers.

I would say that before coming to class I was a bit scared that I'm in the minority … from abroad, and that everyone else is UK based. Seeing that nearly everyone has an international background was very revealing. It relaxed my inner self, because we were like helping each other out, and we were learning everything together. I met my [two] best [Chinese and Indian] friends through our programme. (Elif, International, FG)

So people that come into my head right now are from different contexts, like India, Chile, Vietnam, and also China, like some Chinese students I'm close with, that I collaborate and share with, work with. And so it's a lot of international students … . I love international students, … . (Junko, International, FG)

These quotes highlight the intersection of their individual sense of identity and group identities, such as Elif who sees herself in the ‘minority’ and is comforted to find her ‘in-group’ (Tajfel and Turner 1979). Meanwhile, Junko who is one of very few students from Japan enrolled in an MA programme, refers to others’ cultural identities as a key signifier of the group she most identifies with – the ‘international students’. As Reeves (2009, 35) suggests, when negotiating identities within interactions and relationships with others, individuals may ‘take up, assert and resist identity positions that define them’. In this case, Junko has quite firmly aligned herself to an ‘international student’ identity. It is important to acknowledge that the term ‘international student’ is itself a contested one, as discussing students in this way ‘runs the risk of failing to recognise the heterogeneity of those who make up this large grouping’ (Jones 2017, 933). However, it is worthwhile to note how the students spoke about their affinity with this group which they clearly set apart from the ‘home’ student group. Indeed, there appeared to be a home-international gulf between students in terms of socialising and establishing bonds. This is reflected in the literature, where empirical studies have documented the relative ease with which international students are able to establish relationships with other international students as opposed to home/local students (Udah and Singh 2019). These views are also highlighted in the following interview quotes:

I found it really, it's really difficult to connect with other local students, and I tried to talk to them, but, you know, the language is a huge barrier for me. (Hua, International, FG)

I feel like when I talked to [a home student] it felt like I was doing a ILETS¹ test [laughing]. The only thing I could do is to reply her questions. And I didn’t know how to really communicate with the student, although I really wanted to talk to her. (Bo, International, FG)

Many of the international students’ comments highlight how their spoken language symbolises a particular individual identity (Byram 2012). However, if social identities are expressions of identification with a social group (Mavor, Platow, and Bizumic 2017), then the excerpts above demonstrate the ways in which English language is perceived as a limitation in relating to a particular social group (in this instance, the group of native English-speaking students). Critically, in examining what the participants are saying we can recognise the process of social comparison wherein ‘out-groups’ and ‘in-groups’ get defined and identified (Tajfel and Turner 1979). It is clear that these groups and social identities matter to them. As Haslam (2014) found, not only do groups and social identities matter, but self-categorisations matter too because students’ self-understandings shape their behaviour and learning in the HE context. In the case of our participants, their observations appeared to be more about their feelings and experiences of belongingness (or not) to the wider student body. As Yuval-Davis (2010) argues, a sense of belonging is constituted through boundary making, in other words through exclusion and inclusion. For example, Maya clearly identified as an international student:

I relate more as an Arab woman, and it did not change me mingling with other international students, did not trouble how I think about my identity, but rather reinforced it more. I am now convinced about about my identity. I'm learning a lot from other international peers, and even UK students. But it's just reinforced how I identify myself as an international student in the programme.

Maya’s self-categorisation does appear to matter, as suggested by Haslam (2014), because her self-understanding shapes her behaviour and her alignment with the international student ‘group’. Other participants openly spoke about their cultural and national identities and how these, in some cases, presented a barrier to forming relationships with some of their peers. For example, as Priya who identified as Indian-American explained:

I identify as an Indian-American woman … I think it’s hard when you're two people because [I am] also trying to make friends with only Indian students but they have also said, ‘But you're not really Indian’. I'm not, but I am. So, I think that's been hard as an international student in the sense of finding belonging but also, I do feel the way I speak or being able to carry myself in an academic environment. I think that is because I come from an American context. That's the privilege in an academic setting but I think, like, personally and friendships-wise, I think it's been that part of the American identity has been hard. (Priya, International, I)

Priya’s arrival in the university space in the UK context highlights the tension between her own definition of self and how others perceive her, which has implications for deciding the social group she may ascribe to. As Barreto and Ellemers (2003, 164) have argued, some individuals may ‘not necessarily endorse identities that are externally ascribed to them’. In the case of Priya, an added layer of what she refers to as her ‘privilege’ stems from her American experience and, perhaps also, her American identity. The process of being ‘categorised’ by others was something that Sonal, a student from India also experienced:

I've had instances when people would question my English and I was informed enough to be offended by it and not think of it as a compliment. And that's the privilege I'm talking about, right? Identifying that I could identify that as something to be annoyed about and not as a compliment, that comes from a place of privilege, and I can't, and I should not deny that, I've had a relatively easy experience compared to a lot of other Indians I know. (Sonal, International, I)

Sonal’s rejection of this imposed categorisation appeared to stem from what she alluded to as her privileged position, as someone who was comfortable in an academic setting. Priya and Sonal, both international students with a shared ethnicity but from different continents, experienced their privilege in different ways, but with both being linked to the previous academic institutions they had attended and the ease at which they were able to adapt to a higher education environment. However, it could be argued that both in different ways experienced a form of ‘Othering’ where the notion of ‘Otherness’ is useful for understanding how social groups categorise and form different identities.

Similarly Bo, an international student from China experienced a form of ‘Othering’ in the classroom space when she introduced herself as a student from Shanghai. She shared that a Home student ‘just asked me about the one child policy [in China]. And, to be honest, at that time, I thought why are you asking me this? And I tried [to explain] that things are different now in China’. All in different ways the examples of Sonal, Priya and Bo highlight the ongoing, often complex, processes involved in negotiating individual and social identities.

Relationships with peers were an important aspect of the students’ sense of belonging in the postgraduate learning space. As we have written about elsewhere (Mili and Towers 2022), some of the postgraduate students faced challenges and struggles as they worked to ‘fit in’ and feel a greater sense of belonging in the learning community.

So far, we have explored students’ reports of how they make sense of themselves to others and position themselves in relation to their peers. National, cultural and ethnic identities were spoken about openly with explanations of how these aspects of the individuals’ identities impacted their sense of belonging and interactions with others.

Identity, talk and learning in the classroom

In recent decades, teaching and learning in HE institutions has focused on increasing student engagement in learning through more collaborative and active learning practices (Rezaei 2022) and moving away from the largely didactic lecture format of teaching (Weaver and Qi 2005). Such collaborative forms of learning have been linked to a range of positive outcomes such as fostering a sense of belonging, encouraging critical thinking, increasing student motivation and even, in some cases, better overall student outcomes (Rezaei 2022). As such, group discussions including group tasks and classroom talk are now common practices in teaching and learning pedagogies in the university classroom (Henning et al. 2019; Rocca 2010). Evidently, the interaction between peers in seminars and small group discussion activities can make more visible social identity differences between students and/or corresponding similarities (Henning et al. 2019).

When we asked students about their experience of discussions with peers in the context of the classroom learning, they spoke about the extent to which discussions supported (or did not support) their learning and contributed to their sense of belonging as postgraduate students. The interviews underscored the challenges that students faced in participation and the role of peers in facilitating good discussion experiences. Our participants described mixed experiences of the group discussion – both as a whole class or in small groups, although it was generally agreed that the discussion component of the seminar experience is an important aspect of learning. For example, international student Junko reported ‘seminar discussion groups create a space … to reflect critically on my own ideas’, while home student Kate spoke about the importance of ‘bouncing off other people’ helps to develop her ideas. Their views centred around the notion of talk, who talks, who does not talk and how this affects the group dynamics of a discussion and how individual students position themselves within the group discussion dynamic. Sunita (International, I) spoke about who tends to do the talking in seminar discussions and said, ‘mostly the discussions are among the UK students’. Much of the way they approached the discussion aspect of learning was shaped by students’ prior educational experiences, cultural expectations of higher education learning and their own position within that learning environment. For example, Chyou from China (International, FG) spoke about the way that students would ‘just sit and listen to the teacher’ in classes in China. Elif from Turkey (International, FG) also shared that she thought ‘the Turkish education system, and the Chinese education system, has a lot in common’. Indeed, Serena (FG) a home student who was raised in Jamaica explained how it took a while to get used to the British system but also reported that in her MA classes ‘people just were all so quiet’. Interestingly, in response to Serena, Bo (International, FG) said ‘I really don’t find the classroom quiet!’ at which point most of the other students from China in the focus group laughed. The exchange in the focus group was good natured, but we have found over the course of the project that a number of our participants have referred to the ‘quietness’ of some of the international students. The so-called silent student is often described in relation to Chinese students (Zhu and O’Sullivan 2022) where it has been argued that staying silent is perceived as being appropriate classroom behaviour in their own educational contexts (Ping 2010). It has also been argued that being silent is a strategy used by students to avoid any awkwardness resulting in disagreement (Brown and O’Brien 2020).

While some students may perceive some students to be ‘silent’, our data showed that there were complex issues, such as lack of confidence and feelings of embarrassment at play for some of the students. For example, Junko, an international student, reported:

It's always difficult to talk in front of so many people’ adding that she ‘felt intimidated […] not being able to share to the whole class, even though in the [small] group discussion I could share.

Similarly, Elif, an international student, spoke about sitting in silence after trying to articulate an idea in front of the whole class and reported that it is because she thought ‘maybe the people in class are thinking now I can’t speak English, because I made this stupid mistake’. Some research (Ping 2010; Wolf and Phung 2019) has found that students who speak English as a second language may be more hesitant to participate in discussions, in part due to the perceived costs of ‘getting it wrong’. As Koehne (2006, 251) found in her study of international students in Australia, ‘translating, negotiating meaning, compromising to create meaniing are all aspects of translation that place a tremendous extra load on international students’. The burden on international students – particularly those who speak English as another language – is also apparent in what Hua, a student from China, said when she spoke about herself as being ‘a really slow thinker’ compared to others. She said:

I need time to process the information … for some time, I feel very guilty for not contributing in the group because, yeah, I wanted to share myself, but sometimes I just don't have that kind of deep thoughts. (Hua, International, FG)

Koehne (2006, 251) suggests that this burden or ‘load’ on international students often means that they are exhausted by the levels of concentration needed and it can also further isolate and ‘‘alienate’’ them’.

Discussion

The aim of this paper, as set out in our two research questions, was to explore how students speak about their identities, how these shape their learning experiences in the postgraduate classroom and how these affect, and are affected by, their interaction with their peers. The student participants in this study highlight the ways that their identities are ‘never singular but multiply constructed across different, often intersecting and antagonistic discourses, practices and positions’ (Hall 1996, 4). In response to RQ1, the data in this paper shows that a key factor in the negotiation and formation of student identities relates to the ways that students adapt to new learning contexts. Among some of the examples of how this is done by the students in our study, is in Elif’s case a student from Turkey. Elif reported that for her it was important to identify others who understood her own educational background (she mentioned how Turkish and Chinese systems are quite similar) and so she built learning relationships with others which helped her in her learning by offering her spaces to discuss topics and learn collaboratively. As Lairio, Puukari, and Kouvo (2013) suggest, this new adaptation is linked to student’s ‘academic self-concept especially the way they perceive their academic competence’.

In response to RQ2, where we wanted to understand the effects on peer relationships and interactions on the students’ sense of identity and belonging, we found that while many of the students reported a sense of belonging with the international student ‘group’, it has also been important to highlight the intersectionality of identities that our participants spoke about (such as ethnic, national and cultural). For example, Priya’s arrival at a UK university revealed some of the complexities and tensions around her own self-identification (her Indian identity) and how others identified her (an American identity). Priya’s example shows how powerful the effects of peer relationships and interactions are on some students, and how these are not necessarily comfortable experiences. As Baretto and Ellemers (2003, 139) argue, some individuals do not always ‘accept external categorisations that are imposed upon them … and this affects their willingness to invest in the group’. By contrast, the data shows that the effects of these relatinoships and interaction on Maya, who also experienced ‘Otherness’ only served to consolidate her strong sense of identity as an Arab woman, whilst making it clear that she aligned herself with other international students.

Staying with how the data responds to RQ2, the cases of students such as Bo, Sonal, Priya and Junko, foregrounded their experiences of how their national, ethnic and cultural identities affected interactions with their peers, including reporting instances of feeling ‘Othered’. However, this was rarely straightforward, as Sonal and Priya also indicated their relative privilege due to secure and well-established academic identities. For example, Sonal explained that she received a scholarship to study in an elite university for her undergraduate studies and said, ‘that experience made a lot of difference, and that is the kind of privilege that I’m talking about’. As we have discussed elsewhere, some of the students are well versed in the practices of higher education and are ‘privileged’ as their practices and ways are recognised within the conventions and norms of the higher education context (Mili and Towers 2022). As Priya acknowledged, ‘my positionality and privilege [makes me] more confident carrying myself in an academic setting’.

Finally, returning to our first research question (RQ1), while we have shown how our student participants’ identity constructions are integral to the ways in which they navigate higher education learning, we have also illustrated how the students talk about the processes through which they find meaning and belonging in their learning with others in the classroom. As Hall (1996, 4) wrote, identities are about:

the processes of becoming rather than being; not ‘who we are’ or ‘where we came from’, so much as what we might become, how we have been represented and how that bears upon how we might represent ourselves.

Conclusion

In this article, we have presented the views of a cross section of postgraduate students studying in one university department and explored some of the ways that aspects of their social identities influenced their learning experiences. We have found that all students interviewed value the social dimension of learning both within the classroom context and outside. We have seen how Spillane’s (2000, 308) framing of identity as ‘an individual’s way of understanding and being in the world’ is significant in understanding how students talk about themselves in their learning space. In endeavouring to respond to our research questions, particularly in how the relationships and interactions with peers influence their identity, we found that taking a social identity approach to understanding the identity processes of our student participants can be useful to understand the group dynamics in the HE classroom. We found there can be instances of ‘othering’ and intercultural misunderstandings, that could be addressed directly in a structured and safe environment. As this article has demonstrated, our students are multi-faceted individuals and so too are their perceptions of the teaching and learning they experience. No one classroom practice will be effective or well received by all students and it is therefore useful to diversify pedagogies in the learning space to make room for greater inclusion of all students.

We believe that there is much more that higher education institutions can do to enhance the postgraduate student learning experience for all students. First, we contend that it is essential that course expectations are clear to all students from the outset of their learning, including making explicit the fact that there may be intercultural misunderstandings and disagreements between students as well as with faculty staff. Throughout the course of the year, intercultural programmes and activities such as workshops and seminars should be available for all students and staff. As Udah and Singh (2019, 14) suggest, having such opportunities where teaching staff, professionals and students can come together and learn from each other can result in more mutual understanding and respect as well as ‘create a great synergy between identities and raise new understandings of the “Other”’. Second, we suggest that as HE educators, we should be supported at faculty level, such as with more structured resources and training, to confront the need to critically evaluate the usefulness of seminar discussions, specifically from the perspective of multiple student identities. This will involve careful planning, preferably within teaching teams on each postgraduate programme, to design bespoke activities, tasks and discussion opportunities for students. Third, educators could benefit from further pedagogical training at an institutional level and clearly defined structures to support collaboration with colleagues. These collaborations can help develop teaching strategies that take a more direct approach in setting up small groups in the seminar space to avoid any anxieties and awkwardness between peers who may otherwise be expected to self-select their discussion groups. Currently, in most institutions, such collaborations tend to be of an ad hoc nature and dependent on the good will of individual tutors who are invested in these activities. Finally, as our study has demonstrated, it would be valuable to provide students at the start of the year with an opportunity to speak about their previous learning experiences and share some of their own lived experiences with others. This would allow for students to share aspects of their identities through dialogue and discussion. It would also take care, in some way at least, of the need to share lived experiences and aspects of social identities. Therefore, when it comes to structured discussion activities, these learning experiences can be critically evaluated by the students through employing theoretical understandings of issues and drawing out the consensus and contradictions in the literature as well as in their own arguments and positions.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the students who have participated in the study and offered their insights on how to make our teaching inclusive. Our special thanks to Professor Meg Maguire and Professor Elizabeth Rushton for their critical comments on our paper and encouragement for the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s). This article has been published under the Journal's transparent peer review policy. Anonymised peer review reports of the submitted manuscript can be accessed under supplemental material online at https://doi.org/10.1080/21568235.2023.2263670.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Emma Towers

Dr Emma Towers is a Lecturer in Education Policy at King’s College London. Before moving into higher education, she worked as a primary school teacher in London. Her research interests include education policy as it relates to teachers’ work and career trajectories, teacher identity and wellbeing, and higher education student learning and identity.

Mili

Dr Mili is a Lecturer in Education at King’s College London. Before starting in her current position Dr Mili worked as a postdoctoral fellow as part of the Transnational Research Group on Poverty and Education in Modern India at the German Historical Institute, London. Her research interests are in philosophical and empirical enquiry into teachers’ professional knowledge and expertise, professionalism in state run schools, and public system reforms, and the teaching and learning of teachers and students in higher education.

Notes

1 The International English Language Testing System (IELTS) is an international standardised test of English language proficiency for non-native English language speakers.