D 7.1
Session: D
Parallel Session: 7.1
Research Domain: Reshaping Student Experiences
Nicola Reimann
Northumbria University, Newcastle Upon tyne, United Kingdom
Socio-cultural contexts and informal learning spaces in Higher Education: ‘where
many paths and errands meet’?
This paper suggests that there are aspects of the way that contemporary Higher Education is
presented and delivered that are sharpening the focus on social and cultural contexts. Firstly, the
financial restructuring of universities has led to a reduction in actual contact time and an increased
focus on group work in teaching, learning and assessment. Students are being asked to carry out
some of their work and discussion outside of the classroom and thus have developed a need to
build their own informal learning networks. Secondly, there are some innovative and important
approaches to teaching, learning and assessment that strongly emphasise the educational
significance of peer feedback, peer assessment and the building of learning communities that
include both students and staff (Sambell, Gibson and Montgomery, 2007).
Students in Higher Education are thus being funnelled into informal social learning spaces; some
of the evidence of students’ success in developing these informal networks is visible, if virtual. The
emergence of the social networking site ‘Facebook’ is an example of students developing
supportive social spaces where personal, social and academic information is being exchanged.
Beard, Clegg and Smith (2007) make a strongly-worded call for a ‘richer conception of students as
affective and embodied selves’ and recommend that we should understand the ‘lifeworld’ of
students (2007: 235). It is perhaps only by researching these new, informal, social and cultural
places that we will understand the way that learning is being constructed by our students in the
contemporary moment.
Using illustrations of data from a recently completed research project carried out at the University
of Northumbria, this paper considers how this apparent embracing of socio-cultural contexts is
occurring. The research project has compiled a series of DVDs that show students from a diverse
range of international backgrounds (including British, Vietnamese, Chinese and Cameroon)
speaking with an open brief about what is uppermost in their learning experiences. Against an
international, national and institutional atmosphere of performativity and measurement in Higher
Education (Ball, 2007; Mann, 2001) it appears from these DVDs that students from a wide
spectrum of cultural and social backgrounds are still constructing their learning experiences in an
emotional way, investing a huge sense of self in their success or failure. The project suggests that
the social and cultural contexts of Higher Education are being re-shaped and that in these new
spaces socio-cultural contexts and learning are inextricably linked.
References
Ball, Stephen (2007). Education plc. London: Routledge
Beard, Colin, Clegg, Sue and Smith, Karen (2007). Acknowledging the affective in Higher
Education. British Educational Research Journal, Vol 33, Issue 2, April, pp 235 -252.
Mann, S. J. (2001). Alternative Perspectives on the Student Experience: alienation and
engagement. Studies in Higher Education, 26(1), pp 7-19.
Sambell, Kay, Gibson, Mel and Montgomery, Catherine (2007). Rethinking feeback: an
assessment for learning perspective. Northumbria University Red Guide, Paper 34.