126 research outputs found
Constructing a national higher education brand for the UK: positional competition and promised capitals
This article examines national branding of UK higher education, a strategic intent and action to collectively brand UK higher education with the aim to attract prospective international students, using a Bourdieusian approach to understanding promises of capitals. We trace its development between 1999 and 2014 through a sociological study, one of the first of its kind, from the 'Education UK' and subsumed under the broader 'Britain is GREAT' campaign of the Coalition Government. The findings reveal how a national higher education brand is construed by connecting particular representations of the nation with those of prospective international students and the higher education sector, which combine in the brand with promises of capitals to convert into positional advantage in a competitive environment. The conceptual framework proposed here seeks to connect national higher education branding to the concept of the competitive state, branded as a nation and committed to the knowledge economy
Student budgets and widening participation: Comparative experiences of finance in low and higher income undergraduates at a Northern Red Brick University
Drawing on a thematic analysis of longitudinal qualitative data (ntotal = 118), this article takes a âwhole student lifecycleâ approach to examine how lower and higher income students at an English northern red brick university variously attempted to manage their individual budgets. It explores how students reconcile their incomeâin the form of loans, grants, and bursariesâwith the cost of living. Four arenas of interest are described: planning, budgeting, and managing âthe student loanâ; disruptions to financial planning; the role of familial support; and strategies of augmenting the budget. In detailing the microâlevel constraints on the individual budgets of lower and higher income undergraduates, the article highlights the importance of nonârepayable grants and bursaries in helping to sustain meaningful participation in higher tariff, more selective, higher education institutions. It also supports an emerging body of literature that suggests that the continuing amendments to the system of funding higher education in England are unlikely to address inequality of access, participation, and outcome
Furthering alternative cultures of valuation in higher education research
The value of higher education is often implicit or assumed in educational research. The underlying and antecedent premises that shape and influence debates about value remain unchallenged which perpetuates the dominant, but limiting, terms of the debate and fosters reductionism. I proceed on the premise that analyses of value are not selfâsupporting or self-referential but are embedded within prevailing cultures of valuation. I contend that challenging, and providing alternatives to, dominant narratives of higher education requires an appreciation of those cultures. I therefore highlight some of the existing cultures of valuation and their influence. I then propose Sayerâs concept of lay normativity as a culture of valuation and discuss how it translates into the practices of research into higher education, specifically the practice of analysis. I animate the discussion by detecting the presence of lay normativity in the evaluative space of the capability approach
Engaging with childhood: student placements and the employability agenda.
Employability is a particular organising narrative within the global, neoliberal economic discourse, with increasing relevance across different educational contexts. For universities in the UK, student employability, that is the readiness of students to gain and maintain employment and contribute to the economy, is a significant feature of accountability with employability outcomes increasingly used by students in making their decision of which university to attend. Yet little attention is paid to the organizing power of the employability agenda and to university studentsâ participation in that agenda apart from focussing on knowledge and skills relevant to gain employment. This is particularly concerning in university programmes that develop professionals who work with children.
Placement, gaining knowledge, skills and experience in the places where children and young people are found, is a common aspect of employability being embedded within programme curricula. This article explores the organising power of the employability agenda for children and young people in a context of university placements. Focused on student experiences on placement in primary school settings in the north of England analysis considers studentsâ engagement with their own learning and the children who are essential to that learning
Inward investment, employment and government policies in Wales
This empirical paper examines the links between multinational enterprisesâ countries of origin, types of inbound foreign direct investment (IFDI), related capital investment levels and the resultant effects on regional employment in Wales, a peripheral region of the UK. Longitudinal, official data are used to examine the relationships between these variables, making use of statistical techniques. The findings are used to make recommendations for inward investment policy development in Wales, focusing on the targeting of IFDI from those countries of origin whose multinational enterprises appear likely to contribute most to the future creation and safeguarding of regional employment
The geographies of access to enterprise finance: the case of the West Midlands, UK
The geographies of access to enterprise finance: the case of the West Midlands, UK, Regional Studies. Whilst there is a long history of credit rationing to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK, the financial crisis has seen banks retreat further from lending to viable SMEs due to a reassessment of risk and lack of available capital. In so doing, the credit crunch is thought to be creating new geographies of financial exclusion. This paper explores the financial inclusion of enterprise through community development finance institutions (CDFIs) which provide loan finance to firms at the commercial margins in the West Midlands, UK. The paper concludes that CDFIs could partially address the financial exclusion of enterprise as an additional, alternative source of finance to that of mainstream banks
Sticking it on Plastic: Credit Card Finance and Small and Medium Sized Enterprises in the UK
This paper investigates the role of credit card financing in UK small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and how this varies by location and business orientation. Using a large scale dataset of UK SMEs, the results of a regression based analysis suggest that firms located in peripheral geographic areas have greater usage of credit cards relative to counterparts located in âcoreâ locations. Innovative, growth, and export-oriented SMEs are also more inclined to use credit card financing. Moreover, SMEs that use credit cards as a form of improvised financial âbootstrappingâ are more likely to seek additional funding sources in the future
Higher education, graduate skills and the skills of graduates: the case of graduates as residential sales estate agents
The UK labour market is subject to significant graduatisation. Yet in the context of an over-supply of graduates, little is known about the demand for and deployment of graduate skills in previously non-graduate jobs. Moreover, there is little examination of where these skills are developed, save an assumption in higher education. Using interviews and questionnaire data from a study of British residential sales estate agents, this article explores the demand, deployment and development of graduate skills in an occupation that is becoming graduatised. These data provide no evidence to support the view that the skills demanded and deployed are those solely developed within higher education. Instead what employers require is a wide array of predominantly soft skills developed in many different situs. These findings suggest that, in the case of estate agents, what matters are the âskills of graduatesâ rather than putative âgraduate skillsâ
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