scholarly journals Students’ Constructions of a Christian Future: Faith, Class and Aspiration in University Contexts

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 200-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathew Guest ◽  
Kristin Aune

Economic uncertainties have unsettled the status of higher education as an assured means to social mobility, raising questions of how students orient themselves to life after graduation. In this context, how does religion (a neglected aspect of student identity) shape students’ attitudes and plans? This article examines the future aspirations of Christian students, theorising Christian identity as an inter-subjective resource through which ‘alternative’ futures are imagined, a resource variously framed by classed assumptions about propriety. It analyses data from 75 interviews with undergraduates at five English universities, and explores emerging aspirational paradigms structured around hetero-normative domesticity, the formation of Christian counter-narratives to contemporary capitalism and positive submission to God.

Author(s):  
Gerbrand Tholen

This final chapter concludes the book and reflects on the findings described in the previous chapters. The chapter explains how the idealized version of graduate workers (as being a distinct labour market grouping aligned with high-skilled, high-waged employment) has not really wavered. To understand the status of graduate workers as a group we need to understand the symbolic power graduates hold within the labour market (through symbolic categorization and classification). Yet the case studies also show that the meanings of graduate work, skills, and occupations vary, leaving room for interpretation and contention. The chapter reflects on the role of higher education in the labour market, how we can improve our understanding of graduate work, and what this means for debates about skill policy and social mobility.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 216-228
Author(s):  
Rachael Cate ◽  
Darlene Russ-Eft

This review of research suggests a need for service-learning programs that empower Latina/o students. Research on the status of Latina/os in higher education and key challenges to Latina/o student success highlights the demand for innovative programmatic solutions. A review of postcolonialist educational and Latina/o student identity theory along with case studies from critical service-learning programs is presented to provide a framework for program innovation, and recommendations are made for future program development research.


2002 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Tafani ◽  
Lionel Souchet

This research uses the counter-attitudinal essay paradigm ( Janis & King, 1954 ) to test the effects of social actions on social representations. Thus, students wrote either a pro- or a counter-attitudinal essay on Higher Education. Three forms of counter-attitudinal essays were manipulated countering respectively a) students’ attitudes towards higher education; b) peripheral beliefs or c) central beliefs associated with this representation object. After writing the essay, students expressed their attitudes towards higher education and evaluated different beliefs associated with it. The structural status of these beliefs was also assessed by a “calling into question” test ( Flament, 1994a ). Results show that behavior challenging either an attitude or peripheral beliefs induces a rationalization process, giving rise to minor modifications of the representational field. These modifications are only on the social evaluative dimension of the social representation. On the other hand, when the behavior challenges central beliefs, the same rationalization process induces a cognitive restructuring of the representational field, i.e., a structural change in the representation. These results and their implications for the experimental study of representational dynamics are discussed with regard to the two-dimensional model of social representations ( Moliner, 1994 ) and rationalization theory ( Beauvois & Joule, 1996 ).


Author(s):  
Jennifer Morton

Upward mobility through the path of higher education has been an article of faith for generations of working-class, low-income, and immigrant college students. While we know this path usually entails financial sacrifices and hard work, very little attention has been paid to the deep personal compromises such students have to make as they enter worlds vastly different from their own. Measuring the true cost of higher education for those from disadvantaged backgrounds, this book looks at the ethical dilemmas of upward mobility—the broken ties with family and friends, the severed connections with former communities, and the loss of identity—faced by students as they strive to earn a successful place in society. The book reframes the college experience, factoring in not just educational and career opportunities but also essential relationships with family, friends, and community. Finding that student strivers tend to give up the latter for the former, negating their sense of self, the book seeks to reverse this course. It urges educators to empower students with a new narrative of upward mobility—one that honestly situates ethical costs in historical, social, and economic contexts and that allows students to make informed decisions for themselves. The book paves a hopeful road so that students might achieve social mobility while retaining their best selves.


GIS Business ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 341-348
Author(s):  
Dr. Mini Jain ◽  
Dr. Mini Jain

In India, higher education is a need of hour. The excellence of Higher Edification decides the production of skilled manpower to the nation. Indian education system significantly teaching has not been tested too economical to form youths of our country employable in line with the requirement of job market. Despite the rise in range of establishments at primary, secondary and tertiary level our young educated folks don't seem to be capable of being used and recovering job opportunities. Reason being they need not non-heritable such skills essential for demand of the duty market. The present study is aimed at analyzing the status of higher education institutions in terms of Infrastructure, various courses of the institute, quality Initiatives and skill development program offered by the Institutes, in the North-East India region, so as to see whether the Higher Educational Institutes of this region are in the process of gradually developing the skills of the students in attaining excellence. The paper also laid emphasis on the measures adopted by these institutes for quality improvement, and to find out their role in combating the adversity acclaimed in the region, since this region’s development is impeded by certain inherent difficulties However, this paper focuses attention on high quality education with special emphasis on higher education for forward linkages through value addition.


2021 ◽  
pp. 147490412098838
Author(s):  
Nafsika Alexiadou ◽  
Linda Rönnberg

This article examines the national and European policy contexts that shaped the Swedish internationalisation agenda in higher education since 2000, the policy ideas that were mobilised to promote it, and the national priorities that steered higher education debates. The analysis highlights how domestic and European policy priorities, as well as discourses around increasing global economic reach and building solidarity across the world, have produced an internationalisation strategy that is distinctly ‘national’. Drawing on the analysis of the most recent internationalisation strategies we argue that the particular Swedish approach to internationalisation has its ideational foundations in viewing higher education as a political instrument to promote social mobility and justice, as well as a means to develop economic competitiveness and employability capacity. In addition, internationalisation has been used to legitimise national reform goals, but also as a policy objective on its own with the ambition to position Sweden as a competitive knowledge nation in a global context.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 5923
Author(s):  
Liliana Mâță ◽  
Otilia Clipa ◽  
Venera-Mihaela Cojocariu ◽  
Viorel Robu ◽  
Tatiana Dobrescu ◽  
...  

Our study aims to identify students’ attitudes towards the use of mobile technologies (MT) during learning activities in higher education. Data were collected using the Mobile Technologies Questionnaire/MTQ, a ten-item brief questionnaire that was designed to determine attitudes towards the use of mobile technologies in the learning process among university students and academic staff. The MTQ was completed by 575 students from a state university in the northeastern region of Romania. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed two latent factors: MT facilities for study resources and communication and MT facilities for learning. Along with general analysis of the statistical indicators regarding the attitude towards the use of MT, the relationships between the use of MT and five socio-demographic variables (gender, age, place of residence, year of study, academic status and study program) were analyzed. Comparative data showed some statistically significant differences but with small or modest effect sizes, depending on age, year of study, place of residence, academic status and the study program in which the students were enrolled. This study provides additional support for the construct validity of a brief tool that was designed to measure students’ attitudes towards the use of MT during learning activities carried out in higher education.


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