Isolated learners: young mature-age students,university culture,and desire for academic sociality

The differentiated experiences of young mature-age students are under-researched and often unacknowledged in higher education literature and university policy. This article contends that, due to their age (early 20s to early 30s), many younger mature-age students feel ‘out of the loop’ and ‘alienated’ from university culture. The sample is drawn from a large first-year subject and analyses students’ written ethnographic reflections on their identities as students within university culture. Using interpretive theory and NVivo coding software to analyse the written assignments, the experience of isolation amongst the young mature-age demographic was a prominent and unanticipated finding. Students in this age range want academic-based sociality but do not identify as either school leaver or ‘mature-age’. They feel like isolated learners. We argue young mature-age students’ experiences of social isolation pose a significant barrier to full participation, negatively impacting their identities as students and their university transition. In Australia and internationally, governments and universities have increased their enrolments of young mature-age students, but their capacity to structure learning environments to suit them are limited without greater knowledge of their diverse experiences. Taking a cultural, socially situated view of learning allows insights into students’ experiences and suggests opportunities for understanding and supporting them.     

Special Educational Needs and Disabilities reforms 2014: SENCos’ perspectives of the first six months

The Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) reforms have been reported as the most significant reforms of their kind for over 30 years. Through the Children and Families Act 2014 the Government is seeking to effect cultural change regarding SEND. The SENCo is responsible for the operational and strategic aspects related to SEND provision within the school and as such could be considered a key implementer of the reforms. This article forms part of a PhD research project which is developing research within the area of SEND policy reform, through exploring and analysing the in‐depth experience of the SENCo as a policy implementer during the first academic year post‐reform. This article discusses the emerging themes from one of the wider data sets which sought to gather the views of SENCos six months after the introduction of SEND reforms and the SEND Code of Practice.     

Marking-out normalcy and disability in higher education

This article advocates for socially just pedagogies in higher education to challenge senses of normalcy that perpetuate elitist academic attitudes towards the inclusion of disabled students. Normalcy is equated here with an everyday eugenics, which heralds a non-disabled person without ‘defects’, or impairments, as the ideal norm. This article attempts to mark the pervasiveness of normalcy in higher education by presenting findings from a systematic experience survey of disabled students and non-disabled students within one higher education institution in the United Kingdom. The findings indicate that disabled students who have institutional disability support express more difficulties in their learning and assessment than students with no known disability. However, it was found that there was no significant difference in academic achievement between the two cohorts of students. In relation to the latter point, the evidence also shows that disabled students who do not receive institutional disability support underperform.     

Critical reading comprehension in an era of accountability

This paper argues for the need for critical reading comprehension in an era of accountability that often promotes reading comprehension as readily assessable through students answering multiple choice questions of unseen texts. Based upon a 1 year study investigating literacy in Years 4–9 the ways strong-performing primary schools develop serious and in-depth reading for learning are explored. School and teacher features which allow for the development of sophisticated pedagogical repertoires and space for critical reading comprehension, without losing the complexity of curriculum offerings, are outlined. How one experienced middle primary teacher operates strategically, ethically and critically in supporting her ESL students to learn to read is illustrated. The teacher’s work is situated within the complex accountability demands faced by classroom teachers. This was accomplished by a teacher whose pedagogical repertoire has been assembled across a career teaching in low-SES high ESL communities in a school with a balanced literacy program and high level of collegial support. Risks for schools and teachers whose circumstances work against their capacities for prioritisation and strategic decision-making are identified and discussed.