Student Engagement and Empowerment in Higher Education

Thesis

Student engagement, which emphasises students’ role in shaping their ​higher education experiences, has become embedded as a core aim of national policy and the everyday management of universities. It has ​provoked a reconceptualisation of traditional hierarchies within higher education and offers the potential to be empowering for students. However, it has also been criticised for diminishing student agency by reinforcing ideas of student-as-consumer. Drawing on focus groups with students across three universities in England, this study aims to explore students’ experiences and perspectives of empowerment in the context of student engagement policy. The research finds that students who do not have a representative role face significant barriers to shaping their academic experiences; they are excluded from decision-making processes and rarely get to experience any changes that result from their feedback. Although students’ consumer identities give them confidence to demand more of their institutions, consumer rationales for student engagement may limit students’ sphere of influence. A sense of community, enhanced by the quality and quantity of student-staff contact, can be truly empowering but the effects of massification and marketisation present significant challenges to promoting this. These findings lead to a number of policy recommendations, which can be used by those who wish to create empowering opportunities for students to influence their life at university.

Authors: Spanner, L

• Alternative title: Perspectives of students in England
• Type of award: MSc
• Level of award: Masters
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: Thematic analysis; Student voice; Citizen participation; Power; Engagement; Capability approach; Focus group; Education; Empowerment; Consumer; Higher education; Amartya Sen; Marketisation; Students; Agency; Qualitative; Student repesentation
• Subjects: Education, Higher; Education