Degree subject and orientations to civic responsibility: a comparative study of Business and Sociology students

Building on existing critiques of contemporary arrangements in higher education, this paper focuses on the claim that the human capital model undermines the civic or public role of universities, restricts student engagement with learning and damages the capacity for critical thinking and empathy. Interviews with students studying either Business or Sociology at universities in Britain and Singapore reveal very different orientations to higher education, personal success and civic responsibility. Those studying Sociology emphasised the importance of developing empathy and critical thinking, and were more able to identify civic and non-economic benefits of their time at university, compared to those studying Business, who focussed on gaining individual competitive advantage and enhancing their job prospects. The paper concludes by considering the significance of these differences to argue that appealing more broadly to a fuller range of student motivations is necessary to counter wider trends of instrumentalism and individualism

Instrumentalism amongst students: a cross-national comparison of the significance of subject choice

Both educational policies and academic literature assume that students take an instrumental approach to their studies at university. However, despite wide-ranging discussions in the academic literature about contemporary arrangements and practices in higher education, empirical examinations of these conditions are notably scarce. This article reports on a comparative qualitative study into undergraduate students’ accounts of studying business or sociology at universities in Britain and Singapore. Drawing on Eric Fromm’s distinction between learning as ‘having’ and ‘being’, the article demonstrates that – regardless of national context – those studying business displayed many elements of passive, instrumentalised, or ‘having’ orientations to learning, whilst those studying sociology showed clear signs of the more active and less instrumental ‘being’ mode of learning. By examining subject allegiance across national borders, this article underscores the importance of recognising subject choice, alongside other important contextual factors, in moving towards a nuanced understanding of student dispositions

The instrumental self: student attitudes towards learning, work and success in Britain and Singapore

The view that an instrumental outlook is prevalent among higher education students is shared by both advocates and critics of human capital theory. It is visible in educational policy initiatives aimed at maximising national productivity, and in the accounts of critics who argue that instrumentalism restricts the broader role of higher education as a social and civic good. Research on the attitudes of university students is limited, however, and we know little about how students actually understand the purpose of higher education, nor how this understanding may be inflected by the social and economic context, or by the particular subject they are studying. What follows is a qualitative investigation of the outlook and experiences of university students in Britain and Singapore. It identifies four types of instrumental motivations amongst students that vary according to national socioeconomic context and subject choice. Looking at how students’ attitudes articulate with graduate employment prospects, it proposes that an instrumentalised approach to learning is more problematic in the flexible labour market context of Britain than it is in the more tightly regulated labour market of Singapore. It also reveals that student motivations and attitudes can be conflictual, and suggests that tensions between the public and private roles of higher education can foster untenable, potentially ‘anomic’, aspirations. This project builds on existing literature on higher education, skill development and student attitudes to learning in order to provide a more nuanced conceptualisation of instrumentalism amongst students, and a better understanding of the link between the economic management of higher education and the hopes, fears, strategies and expectations of university graduates

Greater religious engagement among Millennials may protect against intergenerational inequality and conflict

Numerous studies have linked the decline of religion with falling social capital, as younger generations are deprived of a valuable source of social interaction; others have claimed the link between the two is spurious because young people have developed different ways of interacting. Stuart Fox, Ekaterina Kolpinskaya, Jennifer Hampton, Esther Muddiman, and Ceryn Evans examine how religious capital is related to social capital for Baby Boomers and Millennials Millennials (those born after 1982) in the UK. They show that while lower levels of religious capital are contributing to lower levels of social capital among Millennials, religious activity is also a more effective source of social capital for Millennials than their elders

Enhancing the quality and safety of care through training generalist doctors: a longitudinal, mixed-methods study of a UK broad-based training programme

Objective Changing patient demographics make it ever more challenging to maintain the quality and safety of care. One approach to addressing this is the development of training for generalist doctors who can take a more holistic approach to care. The purpose of the work we report here is to consider whether a broad-based training programme prepares doctors for a changing health service. Setting and participants We adopted a longitudinal, mixed-methods approach, collecting questionnaire data from trainees on the broad-based training (BBT) programme in England (baseline n=62) and comparator trainees in the same regions (baseline n=90). We held 15 focus groups with BBT trainees and one-to-one telephone interviews with trainees post-BBT (n=21) and their Educational Supervisors (n=9). Results From questionnaire data, compared with comparator groups, BBT trainees were significantly more confident that their training would result in: wider perspectives, understanding specialty complementarity, ability to apply learning across specialties, manage complex patients and provide patient-focused care. Data from interviews and focus groups provided evidence of positive consequences for patient care from BBT trainees’ ability to apply knowledge from other specialties. Specifically, insights from BBT enabled trainees to tailor referrals and consider patients’ psychological as well as physical needs, thus adopting a more holistic approach to care. Unintended consequences were revealed in focus groups where BBT trainees expressed feelings of isolation. However, when we explored this sentiment on questionnaire surveys, we found that at least as many in the comparator groups sometimes felt isolated. Conclusions Practitioners with an understanding of care across specialty boundaries can enhance patient care and reduce risks from poor inter-specialty communication. Internationally, there is growing recognition of the place of generalism in medical practice and the need to take a more person-centred approach. Broad-based approaches to training support the development of generalist doctors, which is well-suited to a changing health service

'Black sheep in the herd'? The role, status and identity of generalist doctors in secondary care

Changing patient demographics raise important challenges for healthcare providers around the world. Medical generalists can help to bridge gaps in existing healthcare provision. Various approaches to medical generalism can be identified, for example hospitalists in the US and the restructuring of care away from medical disciplines in the Netherlands, which have different implications for training and service provision. Drawing on international debates around the definition and role of generalism, this paper explores one manifestation of generalism in the UK in order to understand how abstract ideas work in practice and some of the benefits and challenges. Broad-based training (BBT) is a two-year postgraduate training programme for doctors recently piloted in England. The programme provided 6-month placements in four specialties (General Practice, Core Medicine, Psychiatry and Paediatrics) and aimed to develop broad-based practitioners adept at managing complex and specialty integration. Our longitudinal, mixed-methods evaluation of the programme demonstrates that although trainees value becoming more holistic in their medical practice, they also raise concerns about being perceived differently by co-workers, and report feeling isolated. Using identity theory to explore the interplay between generalism and existing boundaries of professionalism in healthcare provision, we argue that professional identity, based on disciplinary structure and maintained by boundary work, troubles identity formation for generalist trainees who transcend normative disciplinary boundaries. We conclude that it is important to address these challenges if generalism in secondary care settings is to realise its potential contribution to meeting increasing health service demands

Pushing back the margins: power, identity and marginalia in survey research with young people

The study of marginalia has not been widely discussed in social sciences research and occupies a marginal space in terms of methodological legitimacy. We highlight the value of paying attention to the ways in which participants speak back to the researcher. This paper draws on marginalia found in surveys written or drawn by young people in classrooms across South Wales, demonstrating how various notes and marks made spontaneously by participants can tell us something important and worthwhile about how young people engage with research. We position marginalia as a manifestation of complex power dynamics in the research process that illuminate participants’ negotiation of complex and multiple subjectivities in the literal margins and between the lines of the survey pages. Whilst the sensitive and rigorous analysis of marginalia is fraught with ethical and methodological challenges, we argue that paying closer attention to marginalia presents an opportunity for deeper engagement with participants when undertaking survey research