Is it hard for working-class women to cope in higher education?

The IBSS team would like to offer our congratulations to Katy Higgs, who was amongst the winners of our recent IBSS blog competition.  Her entry, posted below, concerned working-class women and their ability to integrate into the higher education system.  My own investigation into the subject using the IBSS database yielded 189 results from the keywords ‘working-class’, ‘women’ and ‘university’, showing that there is a wide array of information held on this specific issue…

Everyone is being affected by the current economic climate; the recession is raging with no sign of an end. Recently the credit crunch has been having a particular effect on those studying, or planning to study at university. NatWest’s 2008 Student Living Survey showed that 25,000 more undergraduates had taken up a part time job than in 2007. The Guardian recently published figures that show a 20% rise in rent prices during the last 4 years. Even students’ social lives are taking a hit as alcohol sales have fallen by 50% over the last 10 years according to NUS Supplies.

Perhaps most affected are the working class, in particular the women. They not only have to fit into universities that are predominantly middle class in intake, but also have to fight financial hardship. I have used IBSS, in particular a study by Yvette Taylor[1], to find out about the experiences that working-class females have while attending university.

Working-class women are traditionally expected to pursue caring professions and social work. But many go to university in an attempt to better themselves and get rid of their working-class identity. Though universities never name a class barrier there is a hidden expectation that you need to be from a middle class background. In university, middle-class people see working-class girls as outsiders that are ‘spoiling the fun’. In many cases they are perceived as people who ‘just want to get by’ and set up families, not having any real ambition. Even the way the working class present themselves is criticised. The way they speak and dress is not feminine or respectable. The working class are shy and reserved, while the middle class are confident with their opinions. These women feel humiliated and angry. They blame themselves for not being able to change.

As if fitting in with other people were not a big enough challenge for working-class women, they also have to cope with financial pressure that going to university entails. While the middle class assume that they will go to university, the working class have much more to think about and always fear that they have made the wrong decision. The working class feel a sense of unfairness as the middle class’s loans are supplemented by their parents whilst they must do part-time work to make ends meet. This in turn affects the quality of their studies. Many hold the view that university makes finance an issue when it shouldn’t be when it comes to education. Women felt that the middle class took advantage of funding opportunities while the working class were not provided for.

There also seems to be a gender inequality in the working class. Males felt that they could cope with the middle-class climate of higher education and remain untouched. Men also seem to face less pressure to make personal adjustments to fit in with others. There also seems to be a positive view of working-class masculinity, so the working-class men are seen as sex symbols and to be admired while the women are simply seen as ‘slutty’.

In the end, working-class women seem to get the bad end of the deal as even when they have achieved their degree, they are still expected to pursue low-paid, feminised work.

I think that although this evidence seems to suggest that your class is a big issue, it doesn’t have to be. If you do not advertise your class, then there is no reason why you can’t fit in with those of a higher class. I’m sure in many cases middle-class people at university suffer the same financial problems as the working class. And this will surely increase more and more during the recession.

Katy Higgs

 

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[1] ‘Going up without going away? Working-class women in higher education’, Yvette Taylor (2007)

The Economics of University Rankings

How do students choose their place of study? Surely, lots of issues need to be taken into account when it comes to finding the right university – what do friends do, where would you like to live, etc. What matters most for many aspiring new students is the quality of teaching and research, however. Will I get good value for my money? Is my university recognised for its research output, or has nobody ever heard about them at all? Career concerns matter more than ever these days, and competition for the best places to study is fierce indeed. What used to be a fairly straightforward decision to make back in the old days, has become one of the most important strategic steps in one’s early career.

This is particularly true for economics students. City employers place great emphasis on an immaculate CV, are looking for the right blend of academic achievement, working experience and non-curricular commitments. So it’s no surprise that practically every week a national newspaper, TV or radio station, or internet blog, would publish new university league tables and rankings. Needless to say, the results are most contradictory. Whereas a certain overlap among the ‘usual suspects’ in the top five can be expected, the similarities end right there. Regrettably, it seems that these league tables simply add more to the confusion. Glossy university prospectuses need to be read with care – you wouldn’t really expect a university to publish unfavourable results, or would you?

For postgraduate students, matters are even worse. Often, league tables do not indicate how a ranking is calculated exactly: what is being measured, and how? What are the weights? Have teaching and research staff been involved in the assessment? Whereas for undergraduates the quality of teaching is of utmost importance, for a PhD student the availability of resources might matter much more: will my supervisor have enough time for me, or will she or he be too busy teaching? Are there other postgrads around with similar research interests? And how should one empirically assess quality standards in the first place? Economics departments are often the biggest and, in terms of finance, the most important ones at their universities, so making a good choice seems imperative.

Let’s fold away our papers then and have a more serious look at what peer-reviewed academic journals have to say about this matter. I turn to IBSS, and simply search for ‘rankings’ in the title field and ‘universities’ in the general section – otherwise, the number of hits would be just too high to digest. My search yields a good 58 records, more than enough to get a good overview

The most recent article I find of relevance for PhD students is Rabah Amir and Malgorzata Knauff’s ‘Ranking economics departments worldwide on the basis of PhD placements’ (2008). The authors look at 58 economics departments and explain in detail their statistical methodology, something that is clearly amiss in many mainstream league tables. The main point for them is how successful PhD economists are in finding a proper job. The MIT, Harvard and Stanford are the top three places according to this study. This doesn’t come as a surprise – more interestingly, the midfield displays quite a variety of schools inside and outside the US. In ‘Ranking economics journals, economics departments, and economists using teaching-focused research productivity’ Melody Lo, M.C. Sunny Wong, Franklin G. Mixon, Jr., (2008), the focus is a different one. Here, the authors take a closer look at the quantity and quality of research that is being produced. They point out that that many smaller colleges that wouldn’t make their way to the top in traditional rankings, fare surprisingly well using this framework. For postgraduates, or indeed research staff who look for employment elsewhere, this can give really valuable findings. Searches on IBSS retrieve similar studies for other popular countries for postgraduate study, e.g. Australia, New Zealand, and of course the UK.

Finally, a note of caution: are we worrying too much about league tables, rankings, and figures altogether? Is a small number in a table all that matters for such a profound choice as the place of study? Many will agree, and it is important to be critical about rankings: to what extent do they simply contribute to short-lived hype? The reason to go to university should be more than the admittedly understandable wish to impress potential employers. A critical assessment of rankings by those who conduct and sell them is perhaps a bit too much to expect. Again, IBSS proves useful to all those who aim to fundamentally investigate the nature of rankings as such. Do they work at all, and if they don’t, why not? Michael McAleer (2005) ‘The ten commandments for ranking university quality’, writes up what good rankings should measure, and how. ‘Academic quality, league tables, and public policy: a cross-national analysis of university ranking systems’, David D. Dill, Maarja Soo (2005) takes a general look at indicator-based public policy analysis. ‘To rank or to be ranked: the impact of global rankings in higher education’, Simon Marginson, Marijk van der Wende (2007) investigates the effects of rankings on the higher education community. For good and for bad, rankings and indicators will play an increasingly important role for education policy assessments and the distribution of research grants, not just for economics students and researchers. Much more debate on this matter is to be expected – inspired, hopefully, by more serious assessments of what rankings can provide, and where they fail.